My novels tend to have a lot of dialogue. Part of the reason for this is that I like character-driven stories, and without lodging the narration firmly in the first person it can be hard to get a sense of the emotional and psychological state of people unless you talk to and with them.
Sure, you can “show don’t tell” until you’re blue in the face, but good writers are often those that write good dialogue, and bad writers are often defined by an inability to do so. Not always… Asimov’s dialogue tended to be very wooden, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say he wasn’t a good writer. But as a general rule, good dialogue means enjoyable books.
So today I’m thinking about the dialogue in my current novel. A lot of it is going to be cut for the 2nd draft, but as it stands most if it I am very happy with. Some of it is too on the nose, just telling the characters things they should already know (but that I didn’t know about them until I wrote it), and that’s the first to go. Other dialogues are going to need to have elements added in, so that the “sudden but inevitable” feels satisfying when it occurs. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy sitting down and listening in as my characters talk to each other in my head.
Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!