The Dos and Don’ts of Dialogue

For as many conversations as we engage in and eavesdrop on every day, it's still not easy to duplicate that natural energy, flow and realism in a screenplay. In this craft of "art imitating life" we forget that life is played out in real time, whereas a feature length film is restricted to a scant two hours. Conversations with our friends, lovers and children which can meander endlessly until they finally get to a point are the kiss of death when translated verbatim to the screen.

Too often someone who would be better suited to writing novels or short stories tries to put words into the mouths of live actors. It’s a dead giveaway that a writer doesn’t know what s/he is doing when (1) the characters all talk exactly the same way, (2) they talk more eloquently than normal people or (3) they just talk way too much.By simply learning to be a better listener, you can make your characters better conversationalists. Here’s how:

The Seduction of Sound

Stand-up comics have long known that words containing ‘g’s, ‘k’s, ‘p’s and ‘q’s are funnier than other words, especially if they’re also coupled with repetition and shuffled letters (i.e., bass ackwards). Romance novelists rely heavily on words that begin with ‘sl’s, ‘sm’s, ‘wh’s and plenty of ‘oo’s (literally and figuratively) in the middle. One needs only to observe the lip/tongue action intrinsic to these combinations to see why they’re so often used. Technical writers, on the other hand, prefer multisyllabic words that favor ‘b’s, ‘d’s, ‘r’s and Latin suffixes. There’s an off-putting hardness and complexity to scientific dissertations because, well, quite frankly, they’re not supposed to be easily understood by regular, workaday people.

In concert with these common patterns is the power of short-vowel versus long-vowel sounds. Consider the difference, for example, between Indiana Jones retorting, "Now you’re just getting nasty" and "Now you’re just getting mean." Though both of them ascribe inappropriate behavior to the enemy, the "á" tone in the first one is harsher than the more soothing "ee" sound in the second. Accordingly, which one packs more punch?

Never use a limp word when a stronger/sexier/funnier one would be more potent. And don’t forget that the physical order of lines not only impacts cadence, but weight. Compare: "My mother was a hooker. You go with what you’ve got." to "You go with what you’ve got. My mother was a hooker."

Timing is Everything

Have you ever noticed that villians communicate more slowly and seductively than those who are trying to thwart them? Their time clocks, after all, are completely different from those of the protagonists; they have the luxury of maintaing an adagio pace because, presumably, they are entirely too smart to be caught and, thus, have an ample head start. Meanwhile, the good guys are operating at a prestissimo speed because their lives and western civilization depend on it. This is reflected in shorter words, shorter lines and a lower level of abstraction. Villains often embroider their speech with allusions to classic literature and philosophy. Again, it’s because they’ve had the free time to read up on all of this while the hero was busy just trying to round up a posse.

Vocal variation and tempo can best be illustrated with a home stereo system. If you happen to have one with a bass and treble digital display, compare an evening "mellow sounds" DJ to a caffeine turbo-charged one who hosts the morning commute. Enlist friends to tape record one of your own scenes and watch it being played back. Not only are you striving for definitive pacing in the speech patterns of the characters, but a melange of energy flow within the scenes themselves.

The Art of Crosstalk Chitchat

Dialogue is a dance in which both characters are simultaneously trying to lead. What keeps the audience fixated and alert is the fact that even what seems like casual chitchat is an artful crosstalk in which (1) questions are answered with other questions and (2) answers contain subtext that fuel the fires of controversy. Skillful dialogue can also be likened to a vigorous tennis game where the objective is to keep the opponent off-balance by returning the ball as quickly as one receives it.

As much as you want to keep your audience on its toes, however, you don’t want to confuse them by incorporating multiple ideas within one speech or scene. Let them absorb whatever it is they’re supposed to learn in Conversation #1, then move on to Conversation #2, much like a progressive dinner allows the guests to savor and understand everything about the appetizers before they move onto the next course. Just as the sum of the entire meal addresses the central theme of hunger, the sum of interaction among characters revolves around the resolution of the story’s central question.

Not Without Purpose

Film dialogue serves four main functions: to reveal character, to advance the plot, to explain the past and to articulate feelings that can’t be conveyed visually.

If your characters’ conversations aren’t accomplishing one or more of the above, cut them out! Unlike the rambling chatter we engage in every day with family and friends, "screen talk" needs to have a good reason to be there. Ideally, it should also serve more than just one purpose at a time.

For instance, let’s say you have a protagonist who admits, "I’ve been terrified of the water—even wading pools—ever since I saw my cousin drown in the Hudson when I was a kid." This line: reveals that s/he is vulnerable; suggests that water will make an unbidden appearance somewhere in this story and force the protagonist to confront his/her fears; explains the source of the fear, in addition to establishing familial and geographical connections; and expresses what could otherwise only be shown in a flashback.

Again, if a line does none of the above, delete it!

Poetry in Motion

One of the things I’ve noticed in my work as a coverage consultant is that younger writers have a harder time mastering the art of cadence than writers of my own generation. Why? Because the study of poetry in public schools has significantly waned over the past 25 years. Anyone who has ever struggled to rhyme just the right word to fit a specific meter is head and shoulders above the "lyrically challenged" who are averse to massaging their prose for flow and economy.

If a character’s monologue doesn’t trip smoothly off the tongue, try to approach it as if it were a poem or a song. Once you’ve crafted the syncopated version of what you want to say, substitute selected words or phrases with others that contain the same number of syllables. For example:

The Critical Dos and Don’ts of Dialogue

Be wary of the Party Syndrome. This is the phenomenon whereby writers feel compelled to painstakingly have their characters come into a room for the first time and get introduced to everyone else who is already there. Unless it actually is a party, or a meeting where such introductions would be natural, find other ways to convey their identities to your audience.

Avoid long monologues unless it’s pertinent to the character or plot. If a character has something lengthy to say, break it up with interruptions from his/her listeners or bits of business/action. One of the analogies I like to use in workshops relates to the selection process by which people read magazine and newspaper articles. Are you more likely to be attracted to one which is a series of short paragraphs, or one which goes on and on without any discernible breaks? Prospective producers read things the same way, preferring the readability of bite-size dialogue chunks and lots of white space.

Are your characters talking more to each other or to the audience as a contrivance to "fill them in"? Never let your characters explain things in explicit detail to each other that, presumably, they each already know.

Speaking of realism, try to enlist an impromptu cast to read your scenes out loud after you have written them. This will reveal:

And finally, a word about dialects

Voracious reader that I am, there were quite a few pages of Gone with the Wind that I opted to skip when it first fell into my hands in high school. No, it wasn’t because I wanted to see what Scarlett and Rhett would do next (oh, alright, maybe it was partly because of that). Nor was it because I already knew how the Civil War turned out and thought all of the expositional battle scenes were tedious.

The real reason is that I got vexed with the phonetically illustrative Southern dialect because it slowed the momentum, forcing me to concentrate on the pronunciation of individual words instead of the flow of emotions being evoked. That same vexation surfaced years later when I encountered Diana Gabaldon’s Scottish time travel novels about the star-crossed lovers, Jamie and Claire. Passionate as I am about Highland history (I got married in a Scottish castle), the author’s good intentions to capture the texture of a good brogue became cumbersome when spread over too many pages.

Rather than slog down the pace by trying to phonetically capture the pronunciation of foreign or regional characters in your script, concentrate on their colloquial expressions and speech patterns instead. Above all, be consistent if you’re attempting a style of lingo that differs from the one you were born with. Nothing looks worse than going from, "Yo, Theo, whassup, bro?" on the first page to the same character remarking three pages later, "I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced." MM

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