Using Contradictions to Create Masterful Microtension – Part 3

We’re continuing our look at how to use contradictions to create masterful microtension in our fiction. In this post, we’ll explore how to heighten and alter dialogue to bring in that needed element. (If you missed the first post, check it out!)

Dialogue crackles when characters enter a conversation from fundamentally different perspectives. Not simply with opposing goals but with incompatible assumptions, mismatched status, and emotional temperaments that do not align. Microtension can be infused when two characters are not, in any meaningful sense, experiencing the same events in the same way.

When we generate tension by putting characters together whose moods, mindsets, motivations, and perspectives clash, each line of dialogue then carries friction and surprises readers. It feels as if every response slightly misses the mark.

Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry offers a masterful example of this dynamic. In the passage below, Elizabeth Zott—a brilliant chemist navigating a 1960s professional world that routinely dismisses women—confronts Walter Pine, a television producer accustomed to status, deference, and control. She wants one simple thing: for his daughter to stop eating her child’s lunch. He expects prestige, flattery, and a familiar script. What unfolds is a conversation where neither is speaking the same language. They are absolutely not on the same page.

Elizabeth Zott is direct to the point of abrasiveness and unimpressed by institutional power. Walter Pine is a successful television producer, socially confident within his own hierarchy, and clearly unaccustomed to being challenged—especially by a woman who refuses to defer.

“Mr. Pine,” Elizabeth said, sweeping into the local television studio and past a secretary on a Wednesday afternoon, “I’ve been calling you for three days, and not once have you managed the courtesy of a return call. My name is Elizabeth Zott. I am Madeline Zott’s mother—our children attend Woody Elementary together—and I’m here to tell you that your daughter is offering my daughter friendship under false pretenses.” And because he looked confused, she added, “Your daughter is eating my daughter’s lunch.”

“L-lunch?” Walter Pine managed, as he took in the woman who stood resplendent before him, her white lab coat casting an aura of holy light save for one detail: the initials “E.Z.” emblazoned in red just above the pocket.

“Your daughter, Amanda,” Elizabeth charged again, “eats my daughter’s lunch. Apparently, it’s been going on for months.”

Walter could only stare. Tall and angular, with hair the color of burnt buttered toast pulled back and secured with a pencil, she stood, hands on hips, her lips unapologetically red, her skin luminous, her nose straight. She looked down at him like a battlefield medic assessing whether or not he was worth saving.

“And the fact that she pretends to be Madeline’s friend to get her lunch,” she continued, “is absolutely reprehensible.”

“Wh-who are you again?” stammered Walter.

“Elizabeth Zott!” she barked back. “Madeline Zott’s mother!”

Walter nodded, trying to understand. As a longtime producer of afternoon television, he knew drama. But this? He continued to stare. She was stunning. He was literally stunned by her. Was she auditioning for something?

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “But all the nurse roles have been cast.”

“I beg your pardon?” she snapped.

There was a long pause.

“Amanda Pine,” she repeated.

He blinked. “My daughter? Oh,” he said, suddenly nervous. “What about her? Are you a doctor? Are you from the school?” He leapt to his feet.

“Good god, no,” Elizabeth replied. “I’m a chemist. I’ve come all the way over here from Hastings on my lunch hour because you’ve failed to return my calls.” And when he continued to look baffled, she clarified. “Hastings Research Institute? Where Groundbreaking Research Breaks Ground?” She exhaled at the vacuous tagline.

“The point is, I put a great amount of effort into making a nutritious lunch for Madeline—something that I’m sure you also strive to do for your child.” And when he continued to stare at her blankly, she added, “Because you care about Amanda’s cognitive and physical development. Because you know such development is reliant on offering the correct balance of vitamins and minerals.”

“The thing is, Mrs. Pine is—”

“Yes, I know. Missing in action. I tried to contact her but was told she lives in New York.”

“We’re divorced.”

“Sorry to hear, but divorce has little to do with lunch.”

“It might seem that way, but—”

“A man can make lunch, Mr. Pine. It is not biologically impossible.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed, fumbling with a chair. “Please, Mrs. Zott, please sit.”

“I have something in the cyclotron,” she said irritably, glancing at her watch. “Do we have an understanding or not?”

“Cyclo—”

“Subatomic particle accelerator.”

Elizabeth glanced at the walls. They were filled with framed posters advertising melodramatic soap operas and gimmicky game shows.

“My work,” Walter said, suddenly embarrassed by their crassness. “Maybe you’ve seen one?”

She turned back to face him. “Mr. Pine,” she said in a more conciliatory manner, “I’m sorry I don’t have the time or resources to make your daughter lunch. We both know food is the catalyst that unlocks our brains, binds our families, and determines our futures. And yet …” She trailed off, her eyes growing narrow as she took in a soap opera poster featuring a nurse giving a patient some unusual care. “Does anyone have the time to teach the entire nation to make food that matters? I wish I did, but I don’t. Do you?”

As she turned to leave, Pine, not wanting her to go or fully understanding what he was about to hatch, said quickly, “Wait, please just stop—please. What—what was that thing you just said? About teaching the whole nation how to make food that—that matters?”

Supper at Six debuted four weeks later. And while Elizabeth wasn’t entirely keen on the idea—she was a research chemist—she took the job for the usual reasons: it paid more and she had a child to support.

What makes this exchange so effective is not simply that Elizabeth dominates the conversation. It’s that she and Walter are operating under entirely different narrative assumptions. Elizabeth treats the encounter as a practical, urgent problem requiring an efficient solution. Walter interprets it through the lens of performance, power, and spectacle. Every time he tries to place her into a familiar category—nurse, doctor, auditioning actress—she rejects the designation entirely.

Misalignment

This is microtension born from misalignment. Walter keeps reaching for the social scripts that usually work for him, and they keep failing. Elizabeth, meanwhile, refuses to soften her language, slow her pace, or reassure his ego. Her bluntness isn’t just a personality trait; it’s a deliberate refusal to enter his hierarchy.

Notice how often Walter’s responses lag behind Elizabeth’s intent. He is confused where she is precise, flustered where she is focused, reactive where she is mission-driven. Even moments that might relieve tension—offering her a seat, attempting politeness—arrive too late or miss the point entirely. The reader feels the friction because the conversation never stabilizes. Pay attention to this brilliant technique.

Power and Status

Equally important is how power shifts mid-scene. Walter begins with institutional authority: the setting, the status, the expectation of control. Elizabeth dismantles this without raising her voice by refusing to recognize his prestige as relevant. By the time he notices the cheapness of his own posters, the hierarchy has already inverted.

Dialogue like this works because it isn’t about winning an argument; it’s about revealing incompatible worldviews in motion. The topic of lunch is merely the pretext. The real conflict lies in who gets to define reality in that room—and whose values will shape what comes next.

The final lines demonstrate how microtension can advance the plot. What begins as an uncomfortable conversation generates curiosity, then opportunity, then irreversible change. Walter’s last question isn’t just interest; it’s the first crack in his certainty. Elizabeth’s offhand remark, delivered without persuasion, alters the trajectory of both their lives.

When dialogue places two characters with conflicting moods, mindsets, motivations, and perspectives into direct contact—and refuses to reconcile them quickly—the result is a scene that vibrates with possibility. Readers stay engaged not because they know what will happen, but because they sense that something already has.

Consider Resistance

At its core, microtension in dialogue arises from resistance. One character resists being seen a certain way. Another resists relinquishing control. Even allies resist accepting what the other is saying because it threatens their self-image, priorities, or sense of safety. These forms of resistance don’t need to be announced. They surface through deflection, misinterpretation, over-politeness, sudden defensiveness, or lines of dialogue that contradict a character’s body language or true goals.

The most effective dialogue often features characters who are emotionally out of sync. One may be calm while the other is agitated, conciliatory while the other is aggressive, logical while the other is reactive. This imbalance creates uncertainty. The reader senses that the conversation could tilt in multiple directions, and that any small shift—a poorly chosen word, a pressed button, a moment of silence—might escalate the conflict. Silence itself becomes charged when one character is waiting for reassurance and the other is withholding it.

Avoiding Direct Answers (and On-the-Nose Dialogue)

Dialogue-driven microtension also deepens when characters talk past each other rather than directly to each other. Each line answers a different question. Each response reveals a private agenda. In these moments, what is not said carries as much weight as what is spoken. A character may avoid a topic entirely, shut down an avenue of discussion, or fixate on a detail that allows them to dodge the issue at hand. The reader feels the strain because resolution is repeatedly deferred.

Put One Character on the Defensive

Finally, strong dialogue scenes often place one character subtly on the defensive—even when no attack has occurred. Another may push too hard, too fast, or with disproportionate intensity, exposing a vulnerability or backstory the reader doesn’t yet fully understand. These disproportionate reactions function like fault lines: hints of deeper conflict waiting to surface later. When dialogue does this work, it not only sustains tension within the scene but also seeds anticipation beyond the immediate exchange.

In Lessons in Chemistry, the brilliance of the scene lies in the fact that Elizabeth and Walter never fully align—not emotionally, not intellectually, not socially. Elizabeth refuses to enter Walter’s performance-driven world, and Walter cannot stop trying to frame her within it. Their dialogue works because it exposes incompatible realities colliding in real time.

The lunch is trivial, a device to reveal much about Elizabeth’s character, which the dialogue and the writer’s choice of words—not just what she says but what we see in the narrative—masterfully accomplishes.

Use these tips to examine all your dialogue sections in your story and think of ways to ramp up the disconnect between the characters. You’ll find that by adding microtension, the interactions will become snappier, tighter, and much more engaging.

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