WAGSTAFF

Writing Dialog
by Cat Stewart

It’s one of the trickiest parts of writing screenplays. You might soar at novel dialog, sing at short story dialog, or thrill friends and family with dialog you roll off at the dinner table but when it comes to a screenplay, you choke.

You don’t think you choke, but when you read your dialog and then read dialog written by say, William Goldman, it’s almost painful. Screenwriting gurus carp all the time about how you can’t teach anyone to write good dialog. Is that because they lack the ability to do it themselves?

To start with, you really have to study the way people talk. Eavesdrop like crazy. I keep a journal of turns of phrase or subject matter that I think would make for good dialog. Take it one step further. Go to a coffee shop with a notepad. Sit next to a table of people that are talking. Jot down everything you assume about them based on what they say.

Dialog is not conversation. If you were to tape record two people talking and put it down word for word on a paper it would fair poorly. Dialog is simulation of conversation that passes on information we need for the story.

So without a primer, I set out to figure out the trick on my own. Here are my discoveries:

Step one – Read it out loud. If you tongue trip and gasp for breath midway through the two inch stack of words you put on the page, so will Brad Pitt.

Step two – When you have made it something you can read without turning blue, record it. Then put your favorite movie on you MP3 player. Alternate back and forth listening to the two when you are driving to the market.

Step three – Now that you’ve revised your dialog to sound more like something that is actually spoken in a produced screenplay, figure out what it says. What it probably says is:

ROBERT

Hi, Jana. How are you today?

JANA

I’m fine Robert and you?

ROBERT

I’m going to go get something to eat.

JANA

Robert, that sounds lovely.

ROBERT

Well Jana, you could come along.

JANA

I need to wash my hair, Robert.

ROBERT

I see. Well have a nice night, Jana.

Okay, wake up. The dialog is short, direct, all the things they say it should be with one cardinal sin that most new writers make….using names excessively. Even if you do it in real life, don’t do it in your screenplay. What the dialog isn’t is interesting. This is the type of dialog that readers would term “on the nose.” I know what you’re thinking, there’s no way to make that interesting.. Oh yeah? Well watch me.

The only two ways you have to create a picture in the mind of your reader is to write scene description and your dialog. If you write long, flowing scene description with asides that tell the reader what your character is thinking, your script will be 300 pages and in the bottom of the script dumpster. So guess what. That leaves us with dialog.

What does the dialog above say? Only that Robert wants to take Jana to dinner. We can assume this is a date, but could be Robert’s a serial killer looking for his next victim, (that’s not going in the action line or set description) a lawyer trying to woo the prosecutor into a light sentence, a dorky teenaged kid talking to the prom queen on a dare.

If the dialog was well written you wouldn’t need a slug, an action line or description of the characters to determine which of those it is. The dialog would tell you everything you need to know. So step three is simple, yet hard to do. Step three is that the dialog should tell us so much more than Robert and Jana won’t be eating together.

The things it should tell? Something about our character’s personality, age, status, a window to who that character is. Is he shy? Is he bold? Slick or sincere? The dialog should tell us something about what’s to come, why this scene is happening. The dialog should tell us something about the relationship of these two people. Nasty tall order for a few words on dinner.

So let’s try again.

ROBERT

Hi Jana.. How are you today?

JANA

I’m fine Robert and you?

ROBERT

I hear you are a big fan of blackened shrimp.

JANA

Haven’t had a decent one since I left New Orleans.

ROBERT

Then you should join me at Sousa’s.

JANA

I need to wash my hair, Robert.

ROBERT

Well if that’s what it looks like dirty, I can’t wait to see it clean.

What do we see now? One, it is more likely that Robert is looking for a date. Glad we got that cleared up. How do we know? Well he wasn’t likely to make a comment about here appearance if he was looking for a business favor. Yet if that’s what this turns out to be, a business proposition, we just learned something about the character that isn’t written in action. That would make him slick, maybe inappropriate, definitely bold. We know that he’s asked around about her, we know she’s from out of town.

Let’s try harder.

ROBERT

Hey, Jana isn’t it?

JANA

Yes and you’re….Robert.

ROBERT

I’m starving after that six hour deposition.

JANA

Feuding spouses can have that effect.

ROBERT

You should join me at Sousa’s; great blackened shrimp.

JANA

You’ve done your research, but I don’t think we should.

ROBERT

Maybe not in the Big Easy, but here the opposing part stops at the door.

Okay, loads more information. Admit it. You want to know who these people are now, don’t you? You want to know if they are going to go to dinner, wind up in love, or if he’s going to screw her over to win her case. Because in a similar amount of words on the same subject as the first try you just found out:

1. They are divorce lawyers on opposite sides of the same case.
2. They’ve noticed each other
3. Robert is the home town favorite and Jana is an outsider from New Orleans
4. He’s checked her out and she’s interested in him, but has strong business ethics.
5. Robert has a lot of confidence, he’s hitting on the opposing attorney.

Can we do more? It will take a few more words, but lets try. Short snappy dialog that really moves the story forward.

ROBERT

Well Jana, that was one hell of a opening question.

JANA

You countered it well….Robert, right?

ROBERT

At your service. Six hour depositions leave me dehydrated and starving. I hear you’ve been looking for a decent blackened shrimp.

JANA

I haven’t had a decent one since I left New Orleans. Although it looks like the specialty around here is shark.

ROBERT

Spending your time with spurned women sharpens your teeth. Did I mention Sousa’s has the authentic hurricane recipe?

JANA

Is that your strategy? Ply opposing counsel with booze and blackened shrimp?

ROBERT

Around here the word opposing ends at the courtroom door. It has to. With the hours we work, the lawyer would becomeextinct if it didn’t.

What more does this tell us about the characters. Well you figure that out for yourself. It’s how you learn to write great dialog after all. Check out the dialog in your writing buddy’s script. Don’t read anything but the dialog. Write down everything you know about the character based only on that for the first ten pages. Now apply what you just learned to your own work.

"(Cat Stewart is a freelance writer currently living in Nashville, Tennessee. Cat completed the certificate program in Feature Film and Television writing at UCLA extension and is currently a Writer’s Bootcamp Fellow.)"