For new screenwriters, crafting credible conversation is a major challenge. Too often, someone who would probably be better suited to writing novels or short stories tries to put words in the mouths of live actors. It’s a dead giveaway when they don’t know what they’re doing. Why? Because (1) the characters all talk exactly the same way, (2) they talk more eloquently than normal people ever do, or (3) they talk way too much.
THE CRITICAL DO'S AND DON'TS OF DIALOGUE
Don't have your characters waste time exchanging pleasantries and talking about Nothing. You only have 90-130 pages to tell this story and tie up all the loose ends, remember? Make every bit of your dialogue count. If a conversation or reminiscence does not work to advance the plot, leave it out!
Try to avoid long monologues unless it's pertinent to the character or storyline. If a character has something particularly lengthy to say, break it up with interruptions from his/her listeners or bits of business/action for variety.
A pet peeve of mine is when characters proceed to explain things in explicit detail to each other that, presumably, they already know. For example:
Well! If it isn't my cousin Bob from Dubuque! How have you been, Bob? And are you still involved in that telemarketing campaign to sell crawdads to the Asian market which my ex-wife, Maris, told you would be a good investment?
Such a contrived device attempts to fill in the blanks for the audience but in no way represents realistic banter.
Speaking of realism, enlist your friends to read your scenes out loud for you after you have written them. Are your sentences so long that the actors could not conceivably take a big enough breath to deliver them? Have you used too many "s's" or combinations that make for outrageous tongue-twisters? Have you accounted for the fact that people speak in fragments, use slang, repeat themselves, and get interrupted?
A word about dialects: please don’t try to write them unless you know what you’re doing. Trust me on this.
Are your characters doing something visually compelling while they are talking/not talking? Do not, and I repeat, do not just put your characters at a table and have them yak back and forth. Make them move!
FIRST APPEARANCES
When it comes to introducing characters in a scene for the first time, my beginning screenwriting students usually fall into one of two categories:
1. Those who explain too much;
2. Those who leave us clueless.
Contrivance is the biggest sin among those who strive to impart the entire backstory through doofy dialogue. Example:
JACK
Why, if it isn’t my older brother Cecil who just returned from Monaco with his second wife Sophie and stepson Arnold! And this must be your longtime mistress, Melanie, from Michigan.
CECIL
Yes, it is, Jack. And are you still working at the same job as a piano tuner here in Poughkeepsie with your best friend Al?
JACK
Yes, I am, Cecil.
CECIL
That’s great, Jack. And how is your wife, Ann?
Arghghgh! Real people don’t talk this way. Nor do they feel compelled to keep repeating each other’s names.
On the flip side are those writers who imbed reams of background in the narrative. Example:
FIONA enters. She is Larry’s thrice-divorced cousin and is currently getting over her affair with Martin, whose wife Alice has cancer and has gone to Cleveland to care for her daughter from a previous marriage to Larry’s boss, Sam.
You need to remember that the audience doesn’t have a printed program to follow all this scintillating intrigue. Cardinal rule: if the camera can’t film it and the dialogue doesn’t reveal it, leave it out!
How then, do you introduce your players and their histories without making it sound like a Weight Watchers meeting?
Try these for some variety:
1. Office phone calls (either outgoing or incoming)
2. Name tags (for those in service professions)
3. Office titles on doors
4. Parties/business scenarios whereby introductions are natural
5. Third-party references prior to appearance
6. CU’s of correspondence opened by addressee
7. Soliloquies where characters talk to themselves
8. VO’s which book-end the film or run continuously throughout
9. Paging (effective in hospital scenes)
10. Newspaper/magazine matchcuts.
Finally, don’t forget the power of body language and facial expressions to convey relationship hints and stir viewer interest before your characters ever utter a single word.
___________________________
Special 5-for-5 Offer for the Month of December
Are you a savvy wordsmith when it comes to crafting fictional conversations? Between now and year's end, Bookspoke subscribers are invited to submit the first 5 pages of their screenplay or stageplay for a mini critique. Cost: $5. For information on how to submit material for review, send an email (no attachments, please) to authorhamlett@cs.com with the subject line "December 5-for-5".