Stating the obvious...

[khiemtran]

I've been working lately on improving my background dialogue. I've gone away from the idea that the dialogue should be completely realistic and I've been thinking of it more as though I was writing a stageplay, where every line spoken is significant. Looking at it from that end, it's not so much a case of making what I want to convey clear, but at starting with what I want to convey and then angling it so it's just non-obvious enough, depending on the situation.