Avoiding Maid and Butler Dialogue - Brandon Sanderson's Writing Lecture #4 (2025) #writingadvice

be careful about Maiden Butler dialogue this is kind of a a term we borrow from uh from the stage world where you know you would have the maiden Butler come on the the the start of a play and be like as you know the lady is away for the weekend and the other's like yes and as

you know the you know the master now will go golfing because she hates his golfing habit you know well and as you know he's been getting you want to avoid they also call you it as you know Bob uh dialogue so how do you do this right how do you write it um so moving it to

dialogue will naturally make the learning curve a little easier making it part of something important to the characters that you get across briefly uh will make it will make your learning curve a little shallower it's easier to read if it's important to the characters if it's in dialogue or uh these sorts of

things I often say the grand skill of writing sci-fi fantasy is to be able to get your exposition to readers without them realizing that you're expositing