Saying what you mean

[spinningdoc]

MAN
You are not going that party! You're seventeen!
And whilst you live under my roof--

GIRL
I'm sick of you telling me what to do all the time!
I'm not a kid anymore! No wonder mum left you!

'Never ever' is becoming like 'never use "we"', and 'never use VO' - a common beginner trope which is generally not the best way of writing something, but can be a good choice if it's done consciously. At times of stress everybody says what they mean: 'Don't shoot me' etc.

That exchange above would be painfully OTN if it was *just* about going to a party. If it's set up so that it's clearly really about the father struggling to bring up his daughter after a divorce and failing to deal with her burgeoning adulthood, and her reaction to it, it works fine, because while they're saying what they're thinking, it's motivated and there's a subtext.

[sc111]

Originally Posted by one seven spectrum

"Look at the note behind the note."

I think this is an important point that bears repeating. Sometimes the notes we get have subtext, in a way, because the reader senses something is off but may not know exactly what's off.

One of my readers is my brother and he's never hesitant to rip into my scripts. Recently, he gave me a note on the dialogue of one of my characters, the male co-lead. He said something was off but he couldn't put his finger on it. Then he said, "Maybe it feels a little corny."

I go over that character's lines and I don't see "corny" but it does hit me that there's a deeper reason why the female lead's dialogue is so much better (and by comparison it makes the male characters lines seem off)-- I spent a lot more time developing her, her back story, her POV, than I did with his. And it shows in his dialogue.

So, the problem my brother was talking about was not exactly dialogue. It was a character development problem.

[NikeeGoddess]

sc - you gotta just take her shoes off and put his shoes on and then go through the entire script saying what and how he would say it*. otherwise, you just have what she wants him to say from her POV.

*maybe put a potato in your pants and walk around like a dick.tator too. guys are like that sometimes.

[Rantanplan]

Originally Posted by
Yet time and time again, I see perfectly valid exchanges pulled apart because of this. It's not even a case that I'm alone in being forthright (which people on this forum tend to take the wrong way, BTW) because I can point to scenes in every film where people say what's on their mind - in exactly the same manner as the writing that's being criticised for OTN. It just seems to be a knee-jerk reaction of [I

"a character is telling it like it is - it must be OTN".[/i]

Yes I get the same reaction sometimes too. And I think what's right for a scene also depends on who the characters are. In real life and in scripts, there are characters who hold things in, others who blurt them out, others still who like to speak in a literary manner because they get a kick out of it, etc.

Again, just don't be boring. If characters are going to exchange boring greetings for half a page, then in that case, there sure as hell better be a lot of subtext going on... like two of them got drunk and slept together the night before and one of those two is married to the third person in the scene.

[SundownInRetreat]

Originally Posted by spinningdoc

That exchange above would be painfully OTN if it was *just* about going to a party. If it's set up so that it's clearly really about the father struggling to bring up his daughter after a divorce and failing to deal with her burgeoning adulthood, and her reaction to it, it works fine, because while they're saying what they're thinking, it's motivated and there's a subtext.

This is exactly the attitude I am talking about (no offence spinningdoc). It's painfully OTN if it's just a typical teen strop but okay if linked to other issues.

Whether it is or not is not the case (and this was just for illustration - no plot at hand) the point is about keeping it real and this is an exchange heard up and down the country even amongst *well adjusted families* with no emotional drama and tribulations. Just simply where a teen is throwing a wobbler because all her friends will be there and she'll be embarrassed, and annoyed, if she doesn't get to go. And the line about mum may be genuine or it may just be anger because she's not being allowed to go (I've seen both instances). I've not only seen it in TV shows, seen it in real life, but also engaged in it myself.

So if you're saying it's OTN and 'not how people really talk' then you're missing by a country mile. And, as said before, this is what frustrates me when I hear such criticism. And if the criticism is right, I can't learn from it because it makes no f**king sense, doesn't tally with reality and doesn't tally with other films.

How are we supposed to get better when the realism we're supposed to strive for, the real life experiences we're meant to draw on, the observations we've made of people and behaviours - as well as all those other cinatic examples we know so well - are dismissed as being exactly what we're (supposedly) meant to be avoiding?



*I say 'supposedly' as most criticism I've read comes from amatuers.

[spinningdoc]

It's painfully OTN if it's just a typical teen strop but okay if linked to other issues.

That's not quite what I meant. Teen strops are always linked to other issues - dads arguing about skirt lengths aren't making fashion statements, they're figuring out how to be a parent best. And the teenagers are figuring out who they are and how to express that... all that kind of stuff. Even if characters are saying exactly what they mean, there's stuff going on under the surface which is motivating what they're saying, and that affects how they say it, which is why it's part of writing the scene.

I'm not saying people never say exactly what they mean, or even they don't mean what they say. They generally mean more than than what they're saying explicitly, and good drama should capture that, not just the surface meaning, because it's how life is, and how people talk and act. (Or at least, if a scene's worth putting in a script, it should have more going for it than people telling each other what they think).

[SundownInRetreat]

Originally Posted by Rantanplan

Yes I get the same reaction sometimes too. And I think what's right for a scene also depends on who the characters are.

Yeah. That's another bug bear. Someone reads a couple of pages and then starts telling you about your own characters and how they'd react. That really grates too. Not that anything I've said is in anyway linked to personal experience (I've felt this way for a while) but I got the same treatment when I posted a page and a half asking for advice on whether the scene loses impact if I removed a piece of dialogue.

Instead of focussing on my request, most focussed on the exchange itself and started mentioning ludicrous things about how the character would act. I say 'ludicrous' not out of hurt ego but because it's mid scene and the people reading haven't had time to get to know the characters, because they were telling to use objects that weren't in the scene (thus showig they didn't have a handle on what was going on), because they weren't aware of the subtext at play because they hadn't read more than the page and a half and because they were dismissing how real people talk.

And like I sad above - it made no f**king sense.

One of the suggestions was for the girl to 'clang' discordant notes the piano (that wasn't there) to voice her frustration with her father instead of the far more realistic (been there & done it), and dramatic, challenging her father and trying to justify doing what she wants to do.

[ATB]

Originally Posted by SundownInRetreat

Yeah. That's another bug bear. Someone reads a couple of pages and then starts telling you about your own characters and how they'd react. That really grates too. Not that anything I've said is in anyway linked to personal experience (I've felt this way for a while) but I got the same treatment when I posted a page and a half asking for advice on whether the scene loses impact if I removed a piece of dialogue.

Instead of focussing on my request, most focussed on the exchange itself and started mentioning ludicrous things about how the character would act. I say 'ludicrous' not out of hurt ego but because it's mid scene and the people reading haven't had time to get to know the characters, because they were telling to use objects that weren't in the scene (thus showig they didn't have a handle on what was going on), because they weren't aware of the subtext at play because they hadn't read more than the page and a half and because they were dismissing how real people talk.

And like I sad above - it made no f**king sense.

One of the suggestions was for the girl to 'clang' discordant notes the piano (that wasn't there) to voice her frustration with her father instead of the far more realistic (been there & done it), and dramatic, challenging her father and trying to justify doing what she wants to do.

The problem, here, is that "the way real people talk" is boring.

Don't be boring.

People talk around subjects in movies and lace their words with subtext because it's more interesting.

Look at the example from Minority Report I posted on the previous page. Would it have been more interesting for Anderton to simply say, "Yes, it will happen. If we don't get there first, a person will be murdered"?

No.

Say it without saying it. That should be the motto.

ETA: That was me that gave you the piano suggestion. And that's all it was. A suggestion. I believe I even said, "Something like that but not that." And that I didn't know your characters or the specific setting. But that the point of the suggested scene was to show you how subtext can be more effective at conveying a character's emotions than OTN dialogue.

But I guess you only saw the surface level of the suggestion.

Go figure.

[SundownInRetreat]

Originally Posted by spinningdoc

That's not quite what I meant. Teen strops are always linked to other issues - dads arguing about skirt lengths aren't making fashion statements, they're figuring out how to be a parent best. And the teenagers are figuring out who they are and how to express that... all that kind of stuff. Even if characters are saying exactly what they mean, there's stuff going on under the surface which is motivating what they're saying, and that affects how they say it, which is why it's part of writing the scene.

Fair enough but the counterpoint would then be how could any parent/teenager argument about what they can/cannot do ever be *just* surface level (which is what you said would be OTN) It's always going to have subtext about the dynamics of being a parent and becoming an adult, no?

I'm not saying people never say exactly what they mean, or even they don't mean what they say. They generally mean more than than what they're saying explicitly, and good drama should capture that, not just the surface meaning, because it's how life is, and how people talk and act. (Or at least, if a scene's worth putting in a script, it should have more going for it than people telling each other what they think).

But there's many a time, in real life and in film, where people are just meaning what they're saying. Eg:

MAN 1
The hungry dinosaur is running right at us
what do we do?

MAN 2
Kill it with this big f**king gun!

But the standard response is for critics to go on about OTN as if real people, and good characters, talk in riddles.

[Ronaldinho]

Originally Posted by Rantanplan

Because sometimes speaking your mind is exactly what adds tension to a scene, whereas in other cases it’s just weak exposition and terribly unrealistic dialogue.

Emphasis added.

I think there are a couple of different issues that get caught up in this catch-all.

First, there are the scripts where it feels like the characters are constantly explaining themselves and talking at each other. It's really really flat on the page.

Second, there are scripts where everything is so on-the-nose that it feels unnatural. It's not that an occasional "f u" isn't appropriate - it's that those moments should be built to.

One thing you realize if you practice getting scenes up on their feet is that the potential escalation is often more captivating than the escalation itself. Take the dad/teenaged daughter example. There's really nowhere for that scene to go if those people keep talking to each other. It can't go up - a directing teacher of mine used to talk about that as "banging on the ceiling" and it's the same principle that tells us that showing someone trying not to cry is usually more compelling that showing someone cry. Once the intensity if already at 10, you're stuck - the only way for it to go is down.

When you see actors try to act those scenes, the problem is usually obvious right away. There's nowhere for them to go, and the scene gets repetitive remarkably quickly.

Films are about "what's next" - and once the people are screaming exactly what they feel at each other, where can they go? Well, in some scripts, sure, they can whip out guns and start shooting. But in some scripts, that's it, they can't.

Knowing the bomb has the potential to go off any moment is much more engaging that watching it explode.