French plays and stories use different ways of talking to share important ideas. This shows how each type of writing has its own style and purpose.

1. How Dialogue is Used:

   • In plays, characters mostly talk to express their feelings and ideas. About 85% of a typical French play is made up of spoken lines. This helps the audience connect quickly with the big ideas.
   • In stories, authors often use a mix of characters' thoughts and descriptions. Only around 40% of a narrative is dialogue, giving time to explore what characters are thinking along with the story’s events.

2. Relationships Between Characters:

   • In plays, dialogue helps show how characters feel about each other, sometimes using hidden meanings. For example, in Molière's play "Tartuffe," the unspoken messages help show themes like lying and deceit, letting actors show deep feelings.
   • Meanwhile, writers of novels might spend whole chapters developing characters. In Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables," the dialogue helps highlight social issues, often with a lot of detail.

3. Speed and Timing:

   • Plays happen in real-time, which makes the themes appear quickly. This is especially important in serious plays, such as those by Racine, where urgent problems arise very fast.
   • On the other hand, stories can take their time to build up ideas. They often have many pages to develop themes through different smaller plots, like in Proust's "In Search of Lost Time."

In short, while both French plays and stories want to share deep ideas, they do it in different ways. These differences change how readers and audiences understand what they are watching or reading.