Skip to main content

The Story Behind Bad Dialogue



Dialogue deserves to be good. What it doesn't deserve is a fate of false reality where the conversation is robotic, stiff and uneasy. It needs to flow when reading aloud. Not once should you question if "that sounds real." Your dialogue needs to be 100% realistic for the universe and characters you are creating. 
But what litmus test can be used as a reliable filter for believable dialogue? Let alone good dialogue. Well…
PRINT OUT YOUR PAGES AND READ THEM WITH SOMEONE WHO IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH SCREENWRTING.
Got parents? Give them a try. A brother? Sister? They'll work too. Cousins work well here also. This will help trim your dialogue and it will help eliminate clunky sentences and excessive exposition. 
As a screenwriter, you understand formatting and [hopefully] where to carve out good scenes of back and forth. Be confident with this notion. If you feel a scene is in desperate need of an exchange, go for it. But editing (as it always should be) is what makes the screenplay in the end. You will go back and cut 75% of what you wrote because 1.) it just does not belong period or 2.) it does not fit in line with the character and/or the scene. What you think might be too concise is probably going to be the perfect amount of what is actually needed. 
{source}<div class="avPlayerWrapper avVideo"><div class="avPlayerContainer"><div class="avPlayerBlock"><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W5-CyWvTY-A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div ></div>{/source}

True Romance is a good example of dialogue done right. Each exchange is concise, to the point and gives us a deeper look into each character's quirks. There's not much fat in this movie. 

From <https://thescriptlab.com/screenwriting/script-tips/3208-the-story-behind-bad-dialogue/> 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Breaking up Your Story into Beats

  What scenes or story beats do you need to tell this story? You’ll add what you need to the basic framework you already have in your premises. Let’s work from the Jackie Chan Adventures premises we have so you can see how it’s done.   Basic structure of Jackie Chan Adventures: “Queen of the Shadowkhan”  Premise: •Jade, as one of the main characters, is the star of this episode. Her character fl aw is her need for peer acceptance/respect. This fl aw motivates a whole chain of problems for everyone around her. •We go to the end to see what, if anything, she learned. She learns not to succumb to peer pressure, and she realizes that indeed she did not succumb to Shendu’s pressure. (Theme: Respect earned from someone you admire is better than respect from all others!) •Jade’s initial goal is to be cool (have a tattoo) and gain respect. That snowballs as she begins to abuse the respect she gets from the ninjas. •Shendu is the villain who uses Jade in an attempt to destroy Ja...
Post a Comment
Read more

Three Acts

  “Leaves of three, let them be.” A helpful little phrase when it comes to avoiding poison oak in the woods, but when it comes to your  screenplay , three absolutely is company. This is the core of screenwriting.  Three Act Structure is your framework and the almighty epoxy of  the screenplay . These three parts, often literally taking place in different worlds – physically and/or figuratively – can work independently of each other, yet when connected, they build a solid whole. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Q&A – Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (Bob Stookey)

  Actor Lawrence Gilliard Jr., who plays Bob Stookey on AMC’s  The Walking Dead,  talks about his apocalypse-ready clarinet skills and how his character from  The Wire would react to zombies. Q: You’ve been in a lot of crime-centric shows. Were you excited to do something different on The Walking Dead ? A: Yeah absolutely. You get to play and have more fun and be more creative when you’re doing a show like this. Killing zombies — that’s what you do as a kid! Now I get to do it as a grownup. I definitely looked forward to the change and I’m having fun. Q: Your character is a medic. Do you have any skills that would be useful in the apocalypse? A: I play clarinet. I also play the drums, so I could keep the spirits lively and entertain everyone. That’s all I could do. Q: Bob is a pretty good shot. Did you do any weapons training for the role? A: None so far. When I was young, I learned to shoot, so I don’t really need any training for that. Q: You’ve...
Post a Comment
Read more