If Tony Kushner takes home the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Lincoln, he will do it largely on strength of the superior dialogue that he wrote for that script. From the plain-spoken dialect he gave to Abraham Lincoln to the sophisticated euphemisms he gave to William Seward to finally the absolute poetry of pontification he gave to Thaddeus Stevens, each character was given a unique voice that was appropriate for the time period, and yet still accessible to a contemporary audience.

It certainly is not hyperbole to categorize much of the lines Tommy Lee Jones so expertly delivered as Thaddeus Stevens on the floor of the House of Representatives, and indeed throughout the film, as poetry. Consider this line as he argues over the premise that all men are created equal, as he tries to convince other members of the House that freed slaves should be equal under the law:

How can I hold that all men are created equal when here before me stands stinking the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio? Proof that some men are inferior. Endowed by their maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood. You are more reptile than man, George. So low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you.

Or this line as he tries to get another congressman to conclude making his point:

Would Mr. Wood conclude his interminable gabble? Some of us breathe oxygen and we find the mephitic fumes of his oratory a lethal challenge to our pulmonary capabilities.

Certainly dialogue such as this doesn’t fit in every screenplay. Not every character will have such command of the English language. What is instructive about this dialogue is the sophistication in the delivery of the message.

Just like there’s more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one way to make a point. Look at the dialogue that you’ve written for your characters. Certainly there must be lines in there in which a character can say the same thing but say it in a way that speaks to what kind of a person they are. The way a character recites a line of dialogue should be a window into her personality.

The voices of our characters don’t merely come from their vocal chords. They come from the souls and personalities which we as writers have given them.

If you’ve seen Lincoln, go and see it again, but really listen to the characters and hear how their personalities come out in their speech. Listen to Mary Todd Lincoln’s vindictive ire towards her husband as she warns him how horrible his life will become if their son is killed in the Civil War. Listen to the salesmanship of W.N. Bilbo and Robert Latham as they lobby congressmen to vote for the 13th Amendment. Listen to the desperation in the voice of Robert Lincoln as he tries to emerge from the immense shadow of his father and forge his own identity.

The primary goal of the dialogue in any screenplay is to move the story forward. But an equally important function is to open a window to the soul of the character. Dialogue is much more than merely words. Dialogue is a reflection of each character’s personality and the words that the writer uses to show that personality are equally important to how the actor delivers them. As a writer, you owe it to your story and to your characters to give them dialogue that brings out the most in them.

Once you’ve done that, even if your dialogue isn’t poetic, it will still be poetry.