Speak to me: Dialogue

Ten years ago, I was part of a gaggle of excited undergraduates spending the last semester of our degrees in Tampere, Finland. Armed with (what we thought was) a magnificently flawless short film script, ready to shoot, we were lucky enough to take a class with an award winning screenwriter. He began by asking us to read the script. Halfway through the very first lined he barked:
                                “STOP! What does this mean?”

Sensing the issue to be based on the language barrier, we explained what those two words meant, literally.
           “Yes! I know English! But what does this character mean when he says it?”

He continued to do the same for each and every word that each and every character said whilst each and every one of us wanted to knock his educated, pragmatic and successful Finnish head off of his shoulders. But he was right; dialogue is that important.

When the week of the script-writing genre recently dawned on our creative writing class, a collective hum of dread caused the classroom to throb. I eavesdropped on some of these fears being verbalized.

                 “I HATE trying to write dialogue!” one young lady spat.
                 “Urgh! I’m dreadin writing this script,” cried another.

I have always been intrigued how writers will willingly spill their emotional, secretive guts onto a page for forensic dissection, yet wilt into their shells when their characters are forced to partake in that thing we all do with each other every day.

First of all, I would advise writers who loathe this part of the process to avoid formatting until after they have gotten their ideas down on the page. Procrastination is always on hand when we feel lost and there is little else as tedious as grammar. Just spill. I have spent hours, days, weeks reading about script formatting whilst my pretty little ideas ran off, never to be seen again. Plus, a blank piece of paper doesn't have any inverted commas to play with.

Second, ensure that your characters can be differentiated from each other on the basis of what they say and more importantly, how they say it. If a scene has been workshopped and your colleagues know the characters, follow up the scene with nothing more than lines of dialogue. See if they can tell who said what. If they can’t, then they aren't fully formed (the characters that is, not your classmates.)

Third, let the dialogue reflect the story and not simply act to move the narrative along; let your dialogue entertain and intrigue. Don’t feel the need to explain everything that the character is feeling in a short line of dialogue, let silence, beats or fragments express an entire universe. Less is more. Take this exchange:

                                                           LISA
      Hey Dan! Can I… About the other night? I…

                               ANDREW
                                  Oh God! Yeah, no. Seriously forget about it.
                                                       
                                                         LISA
                  Really! Oh thank God!

I actually heard that recently. Which is my final point. Never stop listening to how people talk to each other.

"She doesn't sound very natural does she?"
"She don't look it, either,"