This study uses systemic functional linguistics and the related critical discourse analysis to examine intertextual links between four eighth-grade students' talk in informal conversations as they generated ideas for the characters of their narrative writing. Data sources included classroom observations, students' drafts and polished writing, student and teacher interviews, and the informal conversations among the two girls and two boys as they generated character descriptions. Our analysis of the interpersonal relationships showed that all the students participated in advancing topics for discussion and supported each other relatively evenly. In terms of the ideological content of the talk, we found that students negotiated gender ideologies along with ideologies of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and age. Our use of critical discourse analysis opened up space for identifying gender fairness and equity in classrooms through complicating gender relationships within students' interactions around writing.