Improving Dialogue

[Dragonslayer02]

How do you work on improving your dialogue?

What are some of the great films for dialogue? Specifically, characters with very distinct and different methods of speech.

What scripts would you recommend reading to improve dialogue?

What do you do if your characters are speaking with the same grammar that you use?

I've heard a lot of suggestions before, but I'm looking for a gem that penetrates my skull and sticks.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Tom

[Bill Marquardt]

Tom,

I don't have a good reference for you, but I improved one of my scripts quite a bit by just reading aloud the dialogue in the tone of voice I expected each character to use. I caught several "mistakes".

It would probably be better to have other persons read the dialogue aloud as you listen.

[Baby Niblet]

Sit in a cafe and eavesdrop on conversations.

[Pessoa]

Not exactly Hollywood style, but writer/director Ingmar Bergman writes great dialogue, soul-wrenching, try Scenes from a Marriage. Somethiing more Hollywood, I started reading Dead Poets Society, very smooth, pulls you along.

[AndyWarholsGhost]

I would have to say Mr. Quickdraw McFrog's suggestion is right on the money. Read your dialogue outloud, or get with a couple of friends and do it. It's amazing how something sounds good in your head, then sucks when spoken.
Best to you,
AGhost

p.s. Babe's suggestion about cafes is also very good, and I would even take it a step further to include your city transportation system. Amazing what people talk about on the underground.

[nickj]

Try to trim the lines as much as possible. Dialogue almost always reads better when the lines are short and indirect. Brevity and wit. Good script example (from my limited exposure) is "Shakespeare In Love." "American Beauty" is also decent. And I'm always impressed by the dialogue on "West Wing."

Nick

[seinfeldjunkie]

why not listen to talk radio. you never know, it may help you.....

[wcmartell]

I think it was John Steinbeck who said every writer should take the bus - you mix with real peopleand find out what's important to them. You also hear people talking...

But don't think that film dialogue is realistic! If you were to record a conversation and play it back, you've find it full of false starts and "well, you knows" and people getting way off track or babbling and lots of stuff that doesn't make any sense at all.

Every once in a while I do an interview and have to transcribe it, and even though I ask direct questions, it's common for the answers to meander around... sometimes with the answer to question #1 hidden in the reply to question #25. As a journalist my job is to match the answers to the questions when I write the article.

Our job as screenwriters is to write dialogue that is BETTER than real. It not only sounds real, it also makes sense.

I have a 11,000 word booklet on dialogue, but here's one of the most important things in it:

Bad dialogue says exactly what the character means. It's obvious.

Good dialogue says one thing but hints at another. You'd never go up to a beautiful woman and say "Hey, wanna screw?" (okay, StrangeMind might) - that's too obvious! You might say "Do you like Weezer? I've got their new CD in my RangeRover - want to take a drive up Mulholland and listen to it?" The audience still knows this guy is making a move on the woman, but he's not being blunt and boring about it.

Good dialogue does the same thing. One trick is to find a specific instead of being vague. Weezer, RangeRover, Mulholland make this line different (and also tell us about the character). Some other character might ask if she likes Mozart - there's this field near the Hollywood Bowl were you can hear the concerts for free, he's got a chilled bottle of Montrachet and a couple of glasses in the saddle bag of his Harley... That's a different guy and a different date, but after the same thing. He's just not being OBVIOUS about it.

Dialogue also reflects character and attitude and millions of other things. It takes WORK (rewriting) and it takes KNOWING YOUR CHARACTERS (I hear voices in my head - lots of voices - all of them speak differently!). I think too many new writers don't THINK about their writing, they just do it... and it comes out messy. You can clean up the mess (rewrite) or you can not make a mess in the first place... but don't show anyone your messy scripts!

- Bill

[Strange Mind]

bill, i'm appalled. these days, women don't favour subtext, and in fact, asking a girl if she wants to go somewhere in your range rover and listen to your weezer cd is downright geeky! i highly recommend you use the direct approach as outlined by great know-alls of the subject matter, like ross jeffries and tom leykis.

i wouldn't, however, say "hey, wanna screw". "screw" is very crude but yet coy. i say go for broke. say the eff word.

[Steve]

This is going to sound really crazy, but since you have the signature quote:'I do but sing because I must, and pipe but as the linnets sing.' Tennyson I'm going to go ahead and suggest this...

Sing your dialogue. Just improv a tune and sing it out loud. It will force you to pay attention to your breathing, which is one of the most imporant things in dialouge and you'll also get a sense of whether there is any kind of rhythm to the scenes.

As far as voices, it sometimes helps to pattern dialogue after the vocal qualities of someone you know. You don't have to make the character like them, just capture their cadences.

The difference between real world speech and dialouge is simple. Dialogue sounds like what someone says in the real world when they say just the right thing. The perfect snappy comeback, the properly nuanced veiled threat, the revealing Freudian slip. It's like when you overhear a conversation in the real world and it sticks with you because someone said something memorable. That's how you want your dialogue to be.

As for examples, for comedy I still go with Woody Allen. Lonergan did some great stuff in "You can count on me." Overall, I still think the best dialogue is from Playwrights: Tennessee Williams, Pinter, Beckett can't be beat.

[VegasWriter]

Bill that was great advise. Just one question though? Do you know where I can find some of these girls that like to screw to Weezer at? Just asking cause I just picked up the CD yesterday....Okay....back to your regularly scheduled program.

Great dialog is hard to capture. We've all heard it a million times. We don't talk like they do in movies. I think Bill hit the nail on the head when he said don't write a character saying what he means. It's so much more interesting to sit through a movie and play along in your mind.

Before I wrote my first script I read a ton of books. My first of course was "Story" by Robert McKee. He's right, you have to learn this craft before you attempt to try it.

But here's what worked for me. Sit back, read, reread, and then read aloud your dialog. Then call a couple of good friends and have them read it out loud to you. Make notes on what doesn't sound right. Make even more notes on the dialog your friends have trouble with. Then sit back and use the creativity that you know you have and reword it. Dialog in my opinion only becomes a problem when it makes no sense. My agent says, and is right, that most actors, producers, and directors are going to change the wording. Unless it has something major to do with the character and the story, most dialog gets reworded by the actor so he/she feels comfortable in the role.

If you want a cool exercise. Download a script, print it and go rent the movie and watch just how some words here and there get changed around.

VW

[Dragonslayer02]

"As far as voices, it sometimes helps to pattern dialogue after the vocal qualities of someone you know. You don't have to make the character like them, just capture their cadences."

How do you capture their cadences? I think of it like learning a foreign language and trying to understand the rythems. Problems is, I'm horrible at learning languages.

How would you write a fast cadence? A slow one? An elegant one? A crass one?

Bill,
Thank you for the suggestion on reading it out loud. I'll do that.

Steve,
Thank you for hitting on the cadence point. I think that was where I was trying to go with my question. As far as the singing goes, well... just be glad you wouldn't be around to hear it. Good suggestion, though.

WCM,
The problem of saying exactly what a character means I think I have beat. It rears its ugly head every now and then, though. Thank you for the reminder.

Thank you for the suggestions on going to a coffee shop. I already do that. You're right. You can overhear some great lines. Talk radio. Hmm. That's a great suggestion. You can get some off the wall stuff on there and I like off the wall.

I appreciate everyone's help. Take care and have a good evening or morning or afternoon or night or year or... or... or

Tom

[wcmartell]

Listen to people talk - really listen.

Think about stand up comics - each has a different way of setting up a joke. I love Wendy Liebman - she takes a perfectly innocent sentence and puts a stinger at the end. Steve Wright has a much different way of setting up a joke. Rodney talks like Foghorn Leghorn - kind of starts and stops. "My son! My son was arrested for lewd behavior. He was taking too many 'ludes."

I have a character in one script who talks like my friend John - his sentences start out so vague you have no idea what the hell he's talking about, then he manages to end with a couple of words that tie it all up.

Also think about vocabulary - there are a dozen ways to say "yes" and "no" and each of your characters should use a different way... plus use different words.

After that, think about ATTITUDE. Does one character always find the cloud in every silver lining? Is another too darned perky? Is a third very methodical. A fourth belittles everyone. Maybe a fifth tries to agree with everyone. Every character will have a different attitude - and that will be reflected in the words they use and they way they use them.

I really think it all comes down to knowing your characters - knowing what makes them different than the other characters. Then you can find ways to show that through dialogue.

I really hear the voices in my head. By the time I get ready to write the script, I can do all of their voices.

When all else fails - tack on a verbal mannerism, you know? Sure, it's kind of fake. But it's a good band aid, you know?

- Bill

PS: Strange is scoring with the direct method? Okay, I'm gonna try that tonight...

[nshumate]

Here's one thing I've done that helps me implement many of these other suggestions.

Pre-cast the movie in your head, choosing actors you know well. (Nobody needs to know that your lead is Rutger Hauer, and the love interest is Susan Sarandon.) Then run through that character's dialogue, imagining that specific actor saying it. Now only will you catch the same awkward structures and overlong sentences that reading out loud will show up, but you can also get a better sense of whether the dialogue for that character all reflects that character's voice. You can better detect scenes in which the character sounds like you, not like him.

Nathan

[KitchonaSteve]

Hi Tom,

You've gotten some great suggestions here. I would add that you might look into an acting class or an introductory improv class. The benefits are twofold: 1) you're exposed to techniques that deal directly with performing dialogue; and 2) even if that doesn't help your ear for dialogue, you'll meet a bunch of actors who might be willing to get together and do a reading of your script (providing that you supply ample amounts of pizza and beer).

HTH

[KitchonaSteve]

10 Dialogue Tips (http://exclusiview.com/writeplace/html/10tips.html)

HTH

[Dragonslayer02]

WCM,
Thank you once again for your help, you know? I think I learned something, but I'm thick headed, you know?

BTW Strange's direct approach to dating works. Try it. Expect a few slaps, but a unrespected survey says it works one out of ten times with fewer than an average two slaps.

Nathan,
Thanks for your suggestions.

Steve,
Great to hear from you! I hope your writing goes well. Thanks for the tips.

I hope that the results start to show in my dialogue over the next few months.

Tom