How much detail?

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  • How much detail?

    This is a spec script and I'm doing a scene where two horse-drawn carts have collided on a narrow street. There is a row between the drivers. So far, it looks like this:

    DRIVER A
    What in hell are you doing?
    DRIVER B
    Back up, you blockhead!
    DRIVER A
    Can't you see the street is too narrow?
    DRIVER B
    It's your ****ing cart that's too wide! There are rules about carts, you know.
    And so on.


    So I've only written the first dialogue lines. The row is continuing while other things happen. The main character is knocking on the door of a house right next to the street incident. The door is suddenly thrown open by the house owner who doesn't even notice the main character. He is angry at the ruckus in the street. Where a crowd is gathering to watch, contributing to the noise.

    In the doorway stands HOUSEOWNER, an enormously fat man, red-faced and angry. He shouts at the two drivers, shakes his fist, cursing them for disturbing the peace and threatening to have them hanged, drawn and quartered.

    The drivers go silent, look at him for a moment, then resume their shouting match.


    So here is my question: How much of the actual dialogue do I need to write? Quarrels like this are mostly tedious and predictable. What Houseowner says could be more interesting but his exact words are not really relevant, since we know what he's about. Also, drivers and Houseowner are not having a conversation, they are interrupting each other and relying on volume. All shouting at the same time.

    The words might be better left to the shooting script? Right or wrong? How do I convey the fact that they are all just shouting over each other?
    Last edited by Done Deal Pro; 10-09-2020, 04:36 PM. Reason: Added tags

  • #2
    Re: How much detail?

    Yes, you write dialogue.

    And in an Action paragraph you can say that the characters are shouting over one another in the following exchange of words.

    You can show some of this with dual dialogue if you want to.

    But, yes, you need dialogue.

    A fundamental principle of screenwriting is that you write what you see and hear.

    "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: How much detail?

      By the way, if I remember correctly, you are using Scrivener.


      I googled "dual dialogue in scrivener" just now. Some good links popped up, including a YouTube tutorial that presumably leads you through the steps to create dual dialogue.

      "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: How much detail?

        I took a look at the tutorial just now. It is very easy to do in Scrivener, but you may not be able to print the dual dialogue out from Scrivener. The tutorial said that you could not send it to a PDF that way (from Scrivener) but that you could export it to Final Draft and Fountain.


        I know that you can print the dual dialogue from Final Draft and also from Fade In. You can also use these programs to print to PDF.


        Fade In, which is an excellent screenwriting program, imports Final Draft (.fdr and .fdx) files. I know that it will import the dual dialogue of a Final Draft file. I have done it.


        Fade In also lets you create dual dialogue very easily. You just use the cursor to select the two Dialogue items that you want to be side by side, and then you use Format > Make Dual Dialogue. To undo the dual dialogue, do the same thing that you did to make the dual dialogue.


        Fade In is currently $70, unless the price has changed. Free upgrades. May use it on more than one computer that you own.

        "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: How much detail?

          Originally posted by ComicBent View Post
          Fade In is currently $70, unless the price has changed. Free upgrades. May use it on more than one computer that you own.
          $79.95 now. (Or $80 in realityspeak.)

          $50 if you can prove your a student.
          "I just couldn't live in a world without me."

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: How much detail?

            Originally posted by StoryWriter View Post
            $79.95 now. (Or $80 in realityspeak.)

            $50 if you can prove your a student.
            Still cheap compared to what I paid for formatting software (used) 20 years ago.
            "I just couldn't live in a world without me."

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: How much detail?

              DRIVER A
              What in hell are you doing?
              DRIVER B
              Back up, you blockhead!
              DRIVER A
              Can't you see the street is too narrow?
              DRIVER B
              It's your ****ing cart that's too wide! There are rules about carts, you know.
              Please give the drivers some kind of descriptive names.

              Saying "DRIVER A", "DRIVER B" requires my imagination to do ALL the work and you might not like the results.
              "I just couldn't live in a world without me."

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: How much detail?

                Originally posted by Merlin View Post
                This is a spec script and I'm doing a scene where two horse-drawn carts have collided on a narrow street. There is a row between the drivers. So far, it looks like this:

                DRIVER A
                What in hell are you doing?
                DRIVER B
                Back up, you blockhead!
                DRIVER A
                Can't you see the street is too narrow?
                DRIVER B
                It's your ****ing cart that's too wide! There are rules about carts, you know.
                And so on.


                So I've only written the first dialogue lines. The row is continuing while other things happen. The main character is knocking on the door of a house right next to the street incident. The door is suddenly thrown open by the house owner who doesn't even notice the main character. He is angry at the ruckus in the street. Where a crowd is gathering to watch, contributing to the noise.

                In the doorway stands HOUSEOWNER, an enormously fat man, red-faced and angry. He shouts at the two drivers, shakes his fist, cursing them for disturbing the peace and threatening to have them hanged, drawn and quartered.

                The drivers go silent, look at him for a moment, then resume their shouting match.


                So here is my question: How much of the actual dialogue do I need to write? Quarrels like this are mostly tedious and predictable. What Houseowner says could be more interesting but his exact words are not really relevant, since we know what he's about. Also, drivers and Houseowner are not having a conversation, they are interrupting each other and relying on volume. All shouting at the same time.

                The words might be better left to the shooting script? Right or wrong? How do I convey the fact that they are all just shouting over each other?
                Are any of these characters important to the story? If they're just all background players, my answer would be it does not matter much if you give them dialogue if you just want them shouting crap in background.

                Houseowner screams out things at them -- "you dumb idiots" "get off my lawn" -- at the 2 drivers....

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: How much detail?

                  Originally posted by Bono View Post
                  Are any of these characters important to the story? If they're just all background players, my answer would be it does not matter much if you give them dialogue if you just want them shouting crap in background.

                  Houseowner screams out things at them -- "you dumb idiots" "get off my lawn" -- at the 2 drivers....
                  Same...

                  I'd go this way unless the dialogue REALLY informs us of something along the way and is DYNAMIC. As is, this dialogue doesn't feel like we need a back and forth unless the end of the sequence is big payoff worth waiting for. Feels, to me, like something you'd cut on a rewrite as "don't NEED it."

                  I put dialogue in narrative all the time. No one says sh!t.
                  Bruh, fukkin *smooches*! Feel me? Ha!

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: How much detail?

                    They're called ACTION lines for exactly that reason. Things happen. Description, with few exceptions, should be limited to lines describing what's happening. Avoid static description as much as possible.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: How much detail?

                      Thanks ComicBent for the tips about dual dialogue.

                      The "drivers" here are not part of the story in any other way and only appear in this scene to set off Houseowner's fury, which in its turn only happens as a way to introduce him into the story and give us an impression of what kind of person he is. It felt unnecessary to give the drivers names.

                      I was thinking also that the row could look something like this:

                      The drivers start shouting at each other:

                      What are you doing? -- Back up, blockhead! -- Can't you see the street is too narrow? -- It's your f***ing cart that's too wide! -- Your mother was a hamster!


                      That would work just as well as side-by-side dual dialogue, wouldn't it?

                      A problem with writing actual dialogue for them is that it's hard to know how many lines they should get. I just want enough to let us know it's a row. Hmmm... I'll rewrite the scene with complete dialogue just to see what it looks like.

                      C U later.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: How much detail?

                        Sorry about giving the wrong price for Fade In. I simply remembered it wrong.

                        As for the dialogue question, I would still write some dialogue. Do not worry about writing too many lines. What needs to be cut can be cut. I am just not one of those writers who want to leave the dialogue up to someone else to finish.

                        Naming characters ... No, you do not need to provide personal names for people who appear and leave quickly, like the cart drivers. You can give them something generic, like CART DRIVER 1, CART DRIVER 2. Of course, you do not need any generic names, either, if you are just going to say that two cart drivers in the road shout insults back and forth. But that is not my way of writing.

                        "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: How much detail?

                          Originally posted by ComicBent View Post
                          ...But that is not my way of writing.
                          Generally... same.

                          Although, I think it depends on what this scene is telling us. In a scene where there was a barbaric car crash I say something in narrative like:

                          "Bystanders murmuring in the b.g. "Oh my god, did anyone see what
                          happened?- - "Call 911-. Etc."

                          I'm not convinced we need to see that in dialogue because we never actually SEE these people on screen, it's ADR. If we were to shoot it, that's a cue to myself "Oh yeah, no actors necessary here, it's ADR."

                          But, here's my issue with this scene: Nothing really changes, does it? What do they work out about passing each other? So why not just use narrative to tell it. Maybe it's so LOUD they can't hear each other, but we see their body language which speaks as if dialogue. I'd find that more entertaining than actually hearing them, unless their dialogue fukking RIPS!

                          That, or we only hear ever other word because it's a loud street... or something. Suddenly the dialogue POPS and feels fresh.

                          Something to consider... or not. But I feel like you could play with this scene to hit harder.
                          Bruh, fukkin *smooches*! Feel me? Ha!

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: How much detail?

                            I'm just trying to figure out what the hell is going on in your movie. It reads like a Monty Python sketch so far. That's all I care about.

                            I think you're trying to set up the homeowner as a Scrooged type? Or am I just guessing that? Either way -- who the hell wouldn't be annoyed be 2 drivers making a ton of noise outside their home? I'm saying wouldn't it be much better for him to yell at someone being nice to him? Like offering him food or water? "Hey sir would you like to buy --" And he yells at them...

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: How much detail?

                              Originally posted by Bono View Post
                              I'm just trying to figure out what the hell is going on in your movie. It reads like a Monty Python sketch so far. That's all I care about.
                              Same...
                              Bruh, fukkin *smooches*! Feel me? Ha!

                              Comment

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