Characters aren’t who they say they are—they’re what they do. In Hills Like White Elephants, Hemingway builds two people whose wants and needs grind together until one breaks and the other is revealed. This is how to design a character arc that ends in rupture, exposure, or both.

Dialogue in this story is a pressure system: characters want things, and they want them from each other. Every line spoken is an attempt. Every response is either resistance or retreat. There’s no idle talk. Just two people trying to win a scene neither can.