Threats & Dialogue [WRITER’S REFERENCE/COMPILATION]

Let’s face it, threats make for POWERFUL dialogue. As with any literary tool, try not to overuse them. But when you DO employ them, make sure to pack a punch. Hopefully these examples will give you some ideas.

DISCLAIMER: None of these excerpts belong to me. They’re drawn from my reading and are meant to jog your imagination, so please do not copy them.

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“She gave my sons to the fire. I will cut the living heart from her breast and see how it burns.”

They’re dead meat (threat)

Cracking skulls

“Make up your stupid mind, Congden. My finger’s getting tired.” (gun)

Give me a cleaver and I’ll chop his privates for him, I’ll use them for fish bait

To rip Taylor a new asshole

Any shit from you, and (threat)

“You’ll talk, Touissant – believe me, you’ll talk. It’s just a question of whether I’ll need to show you your insides before you do.”

Thinking about afterlife can be a segue from threat

“Give me something else, then.” / “I’ll give you a beating if you don’t scramble.”

“Tell me now… process of cutting it out of you.”

Slice your heart out and shit in the hole!

Stringing up rebels

Anyone hears about this visit and you’ll need to find someone better with that scalpel than you are. (to doctor)

Kisser (phys)

In danger of his life

“It was nice knowing you.”

A threat without any teeth

“You’re pretty feisty for a man about to get a long look at his insides

I’d learn how difficult breathing becomes with a foot of steel in your innards

The fires of hell are not hot enough for such people

It’ll knock you into next Wednesday!

Come on, Ig. Step up to the metal detector so I can have an excuse to blow your mentally deficient ass away.

“You’ll have no future in office if you don’t get a few successful campaigns behind you.” / “I’ll have no future at all if I march off with Caesar!”

“There is worse I can do to you than kill.” To emphasize the point, Crispin crouched beside Mahmoud, picked up a cucumber from the floor, and beheaded the tip with a sharp knife.

Anybody who had problems with that could discuss the matter with his axe

If I don’t manage to open my veins quickly enough, I’ll be impaled on a hook and dragged through the streets

He who breathes its flame for an hour never sees another unless it be the flames of Hell

The only way to leave the service of the crown is at the end of a rope

“In ten days,” she said, “we begin rehearsing for the Cerialia. If the wood is not gone by that time, it will make you an excellent funeral pyre.”

Whupped your ass

I’ll see that he swings for it

“You can dole out the proposal for them in your best silks. They’ll be your funeral robes, too.”

He’d have an appointment with the executioner

Ordered Crupo’s heart cut out of his chest and brought to him so he could see whether it was red with loyalty or black with betrayal.

End our days at the end of a noose

I’ll take the lot of you down seven hells with me

I can take out all five of you before the first one’s blood begins to seep through his clothing

There is only way out for you, Trattari. It leads through a river of your own blood.

“I’ll pay you your extra black pennies but you’ll have to shit them out in the morning, along with your front teeth, to count them.”

Tempted to kick the old bastard into immediate martyrdom

“I shall slit that bastard from the crotch to the gullet and dance on his offal”

I’d have smashed his teeth down his neck, even though I’d have had to stand on something to reach

Bled their loyalty upon the floor

Stretch their necks (hanging)

Smashed his brains into pudding

But I had warned him that one more such comment would earn him a new and larger belly button

Told them I would break their tonsured heads if the horses were lost

I’ll hang him with his son’s intestines

I’d have ripped his lungs out with a soupspoon (better with blunt in some cases)

They could duck him in one of his own tanning vats and cut him up for sandals

Reinforce their reproofs with the backs of their hands

Kick your arse from there to Praeneste for that

“Are we getting paid for this?” / “You’ll get the back of my hand if you don’t shut up.”

Cleon was not the sort of man you took to law for any reason whatsoever, unless you wanted an excuse for travelling the world for the next ten years.

Earned her a noose

So Ezze hit all the stupid out of you

“You always hit me. It’s not fair!” / “Be grateful you have ears left to hit.”

Beat him bloody

“Or maybe you could entertain us a little first, then we let you go.” / “How about I entertain a hole through your head?”

“Perhaps she has something to tell me.” / “Or perhaps she has a dagger, and means to introduce it to your back.” (threat seg)

Signed her own death warrant

I shall be arranging your intestines so that they shall be reading, “I claimed the rightful kill of Balur, mightiest of the Analesians”

“You come back with anything besides a guitar and my pistol plays a tune.”

If they knew what’s good for them

“Fall again and I’ll make sure you never get up”

“And the next one who calls me mayor goes home in a wheelbarrow.”

Rearrange Conn’s nose

Gut you stern to crotch

I’ll personally paint your balls with fig jelly and toss you stark naked into a hog pit!

Not certain he’d live to find out

Relieved Opimius of his head

Break me in two

“I’ll skin everyone in the city alive if that’s what it takes to make the streets safe.” (threat)

Put my ass on the line

“You’re in a terrible hurry, then!’/ “I shall be in a terrible hurry to toss you over the side if you continue to draw such inferences.”

You’re finished/we’re finished (“keep your ships heading westwards or we’re finished!”)

“Is it the hurting of weak things that fills the hole in you?” / “I ain’t got no hole in me.” / “The old man took a last bite from his apple. “No?”…The old man had covered the ground between them in two lightning steps and struck him in the chest with the end of his staff.”

“Steel shall be my answer.”

“You know, this is the third time I’ve had a blade at my throat in the past week,” I complained mildly. “It must be the beard. Ever since I grew it, people seem compelled to try and remove it.”

_ and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.

The fact that Gorm was even thinking about the Gobling, instead of cleaning it off his axe

Trying to keep my head attached to my shoulders

Man drowned in a puddle of his own blood

“One scream and we’re wormfood”

Teach them some manners

Your head is all swollen, Gordianus – maybe someone should pop it open for you!

“Show those bastards they picked a fight with the wrong bloody pirates!”

Sense knocked into her

If Nobul ever got out of here he’d make sure Anton regretted the day he’d ever heard of the Guild”

A red welcome

Carry out a threat

Was one wrong away from becoming a pincushion

“Don’t start any fires. Or else.”

Inch of his life (“You were hanged to within half an inch of your life…”

It’s open season on your ass.

Keelhaul (punish someone by dragging them through the water under the keel of the ship)

Getting splatted

Just having the stuff’ll get your neck stretched (threat)

“That’s because I split that prick;s head open when he was still a prince. Now drop that sword or I’ll show you how I did it.”

Pull your tongue out through your arse

“When the boys scrape you up off the pti floor”

Ripped her open like a letter

We’re done for

Had anyone else in the world spoken to Rose that way, they’d be collecting their teeth off the floor right about now.

Smashed their teeth in

Having the shit kicked out of him

If I’d lost my temper, I’d have left there in a sack (threat)

“Stunts your growth, listening to that king of talk.” He drew his hand across his throat.

They’d string me up from a lemon-tree and use me for javelin practice

“Such a sharp tongue.” He smiled a wicked smile. “Take care it doesn’t cut your throat.”

Took a switch to her backside

Lived out the day(“I’ll settle for living out the day”)

These youngsters won’t know what hit them

Made fast work of it/short work of it

Limb from limb

Split his skull like a pine log

Noggin

Greet them with arrows

To snap Celestaine in half

Reach for this cup and I’ll break your fucking arm

“Beat the snot out of”

“Cut Shulamak a new eyesocket”

Breaking heads

“Stalton’ll stomp me into a Caine-shaped grease stain”

“If I have to tell you again, it’ll be after Rugo’s morningstar makes porridge out of one of your ankles.”

Show your face (threat)

“Open your skull to adjust your attitude from the inside”

“Spilled her guts all over Knights’ Bridge”

“One o’ them will plant his axe right between those little pig eyes.”

“You know, this is the third time I’ve had a blade at my throat in the past week,” I complained mildly. “It must be the beard. Ever since I grew it, people seem compelled to try and remove it.”

“And I’ll still be a dwarf beneath his feet. And one day he’s like to make me even shorter.”

Gutful of Kurtic iron

“Lay a finger on”

Feeding worms (euphemism for death)

“Smash Merrick’s teeth out.”

“Gave the boy a beating” (threat)

“Careful, now. We wouldn’t want to get blood all over your pretty white cloak”

“We’ll feed them their own entrails”

“The point needed to be made in blood”

Opened his throat

“mince my nuts for offal gravy!”

“Service? What can you offer me, that I should not cut you down here and now…”

“sounding rather petulant for someone who was about to be cut into small pieces”

Faceful of scars

Gutted

“Knocked the belligerence out of him”

“If Nobul ever got out of here he’d make sure Anton regretted the day he’d ever heard of the Guild”

“A word from her would probably get the place torched.”

I’ll whip your hide/I’ll get my hide whipped

“If she didn’t do it, Walder wasn’t the only one who’d be losing bits of himself.”

“Snaps the tough’s collar bone like an old broomstick.”

“Otherwise you’re a rug on someone’s floor tomorrow. Your choice. O’course, there might not be enough of you left to make a rug.”

Lifespan

“next time you’ll think twice about sheltering traitors under your roof”

Dead man walking

Grind you to a pulp

“rip your hide off and nail it to a tree”

“say a word against Rhisiart in Engelard’s hearing, and he’ll get it back down his throat with a fist behind it”

“You’ll die as surely as the ____.”

“he wouldn’t last five minutes”

Won’t live to see

Last chance (“this is your last chance”)

“make good on his threat”

“I’ll spin words around you until you’re cocooned in them.”

“slap you silly”

“have the rest of our skins for a drum head”

“break a few heads”

“be it tomorrow or twenty years from tomorrow.”

“A hungry Lutheran would have had them split on his bayonet before they might say Dominus vobiscum.”

Cut down

“Lay one hand on me, Gaius Mamilius, and you will revert to the soprano voice of your boyhood!”

Before you know it

“I should box your ears!”

“You will never live to see the morning”

“bullet with their name on it”

Give me one reason why I

One more move and _

“Take a step near me, and I’ll smash your mouth.”

Pay a visit

“I could have thrashed Uther like a wet rag”

“grind you to paste”

Made a hill of their dead

Believe me (“And if you try to lay a finger on me I’ll turn you into a sandroach, believe me.”)

“put a bullet in your brain”

Ripped his/her throat out

One word from _ (“One word from him and I could be brought down.”)

“smashed his skull to porridge”

“gut me where I stood.”

Days are numbered (“your father’s days in the sun are numbered in small digits.”)

Gullet

“Address me only once again without the proper respect and I will crush you and your husband like the pretty, irrelevant ambitious lice that you are.”

gouge

And if you ever forget that again, I’ll carve your fucking bones into toys for them.”)

“Or kiss your kidneys goodbye.”

“I ought to give you a red smile from ear to ear.”)

“One step more and you’ll leave here with fewer eyeballs than you came with.”

“carry their ears home in their hats.”

Swallow steel “swallow a blade or crossbow bolt for it?”

Cut to ribbons (Fatima would cut his fingers into ribbons and tie a bow out of it)

_ at your peril ([after kicking someone out of house] “Come back at your peril!”)

Head relieved from shoulders