Writing Real-Life Dialogue

Scene from Inglorious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino

with…

Karl Iglesias, Instructor, UCLA Writer’s Program
Steve Faber, Screenwriter (Wedding Crashers)
William Martell, Screenwriter (HBO, Showtime, USA Net, CineMax Originals), First Strike Productions
William Massa, Screenwriter (Silver Pictures, Dark Castle, Warner Brothers, Sony, Maverick, MGM, USA and Mandalay)
Anthony Grieco, Screenwriter, Story Specialist at The Writers Store

How important is dialogue in script?

Anthony:  Dialogue can be wonderful and funny, when you go through a script… and yet you’ll have scenes where actors say nothing in the scene. Unless you’re surrounded by a roomful of talented actors… whenever you can take words out of an actor’s mouth, do it. If you can show the character’s behavior instead, do it. Show, don’t tell. Most productions have no access to A-list actors. Have your character react a certain way, by default.

Steve:  No one speaks in real-life like they do in dialogue. Set-up, punch. Set-up, punch. Except for historical biography, there is no “real life dialogue”. There is a “hyper” or “meta” dialogue.

Karl:  Real-life dialogue.

How do you make hyper dialogue and make it sound natural?

Steve:  Depending on the genre, e.g. with horror, characters will scream.

Bill Massa:  The only thing when you’re reading is dialogue (script) telling the story therefore concept, story, characters, can be more important on a macro-level but dialogue jumps out at the reader.

Karl:  Least important – this doesn’t drive the story. What’s important is that readers read dialogue – trying to grasp the story through dialogue (vertically), and therefore, it’s not a conversation. It’s action. In a scene, there are only 2 ways a character can get something: either physically or verbally. Real dialogue is action.

Anthony:  Attitude towards the world. Flesh out character. Propels them to say things that are true to them.

How do you give dialogue distinctive character voices?

Bill:  Attitude of broad strokes: create conflict.

Steve:  Pick an actor at a given point in their career, and write in their voice. I pitched Wedding Crashers to 9 studios before I realized that Owen was not talking as fast as Vince… so I had to rewrite all of his lines.

Karl:  Contrast in scenes (emotional tempo: way characters feel in a scene). Favorite expressions, pet words.  In Lost: Jack Sawyer’s character nicknames every character.

Steve:  Moral lines in the sand. One character offending another character. That can manifest in great dialogue.

Bill:  Rhythmn. Cadence. The Coen brothers are masters at this.

Anthony:  Look at archetypes. Choose attitudes. Writer as an actor in the room. Drop into a place in your stomach that emotionally resonates with how a person is feeling in the scene. With each draft, find out all the characters’ ticks. Not all is lost if the components are not all working in the first draft.

Karl:  Every line has to have a reason. Not exposition (interrogation scene). Use dialogue to get something from someone.

Bill M:  In the Matrix, big chunks of the movie is exposition. Because we’re so intrigued, we don’t feel that this is just dumped on us. Very strong visuals. Exposition on the run. (Elements of danger). 

How do you make dialogue sound natural, again?

Karl:  Stilted dialogue is something that is grammatically correct, with full sentences, like an encyclopedia. Use contractions. If you want to say, “I want to go to the theatre tomorrow”, the trick is to contract it “I’m…” “I’ll”…. Have fragmented sentences. Cut words out.

Anthony:  Go through your script, and take out “well” and ‘look” from all the first words.

Karl:  It’s about trimming to the bone.

Steve:  I like characters who F*** up what they’re saying and then correct themselves. It’s a trick, it’s also part of human nature.

Anthony:  Have your character spit a question out in their mind, and then state the answer before asking the question out loud.

Bill M:  In real life, people interject. Running paragraphs don’t work in Casablanca – it’s all one line.

Karl:  Finger rule: it should be no thicker than a finger horizontally. Write tightly. (Subtext) Imply vs stating on the nose. E.g. first date questions – Quentin Tarantino, Ron Bass write good dialogue.

Cast of Characters

Cast of Characters

Does character drive story, or does story leave place for characters?

In other words, how do you go about figuring out plot? What comes first? Character, or story? I took notes recently on a conversation between screenwriting experts on the matter:

Dwayne Alexander Smith, Screenwriter, Damn Good Ideas Productions
Steve Faber, Screenwriter
Pamela Jaye Smith, Consultant, Teacher, MYTHWORKS
Anthony Grieco, Screenwriter, Story Specialist at The Writers Store and a mentor for the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest
Michael Hauge, Story Consultant/Author/Lecturer
Lee Jessup, Career Coach for Screenwriters

Pamela: “Character-driven story” vs “Action adventure” – both are valid instances of screenplays that start with character

Anthony: Various inspirations lead to story. The big question, “what if”… and start to play with a ball…How would the ending sentence go and what is the moral of the story? I will create a character with a flaw in opposition to the moral…If you’re not interested in figuring this flaw out, the reader won’t be. I would find the story and then find the character that helps me find that story.

Michael: Don’t think stories are plot or character-driven. They are DESIRE driven, but character in pursuit of goal drives the plot. What is the big desire?

Steve: Obsessed with story. Best when focused on, outline story like crazy. It’s about an outline. Tell the story in a few sentences. No more high-concept stories. They are anomalies. Done. When budgets were high. A good story can be described to someone in a few words.

Dwayne: It starts with story. Outline like crazy: Always be writing for a star. Then create a protagonist or lead that a star wants to play.

What are the must-have ingredients for a great lead character for a star?

Dwayne: Changes by genre/movie. Likeable. Focus on Point-of-view. A strong character is in almost every scene in the movie. Rocky, Raiders, Indiana Jones. And looking over their shoulder and follows the movie (pulls you in).

Michael: Elevating character from OK to great: What terrifies this character emotionally? What is the deep, hidden emotion, fear they don’t want to face? Where does it come from? What armor do they wear? Unite this with plot: find the fear they must face. In Wedding Crashers, it’s the fear of commitment.

Steve: Level of ambiguity. This is one important aspect that propels them along the journey. It makes them stop to question, are they doing this for the right reasons? They must have some level of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Pamela: Aligned with one of the archetypes. This works. Because it’s about who we are. The closer they are aligned, the easier it is for us to sympathize (subconscious patterns that live in the psyche of humanity). Get recognition. A great character’s job: is to use Point-of-View as a lens to view humanity.

Anthony: Make sure your character has an attitude towards the world (what Michael calls “armor”). Whether they’re introverted or extroverted, how they approach the world matters. Throw people who don’t have that attitude with them. A curmudgeon with a Sunshiny. Other characters must be affected by or impacted by the lead character. Don’t buy into your character must be likeable.  Dude in Big Lebowski – identify with strong, laissez faire. We like watching people get tortured.

 

How much does the development of character dictate their ultimate fate?

Anthony: With one of my heroes, the outline falls apart at the midpoint because character becomes…uncontrollable? Interesting. By the time I get to that part of the script, I let them take control… it’s very organic. You should outline and structure, but once you get good at it, throw it all away… Most sell-able screenplays have happy endings. Cautionary tales and heroic tales.

Pamela: Inner drives – putting a different backstory to characters to same lines of dialogue is a good way to flesh out characters’ inner drives…

Michael: Don’t use biographies. I often get bombarded with questions about stories and characters. Oftentimes, writers don’t know their character… yet they more likely to say, they know the answer to these questions. The end goal is to know the character as well as your siblings, or spouse.

Steve: The Graduates. Did they stay together at the end? You need to know every aspect of character. Question: do your scenes compromise the character? Be stubborn. Throwing a cake away, in the script, that you don’t necessarily need. Always give them a cut if the budget doesn’t work out. If you really know your character well, they not to compromise (on throwaway scenes).

Dwayne: Rarely gets a note about character. More about changing the story.

 

How would you pitch a character-driven story?

Steve: Would spec Napoleon Dynamite. Not pitch it. Very difficult to pitch them. Well done, but not easy to pitch. e.g. Juno is never going to come out to people even if it looks good in your head. “Pitching to an oil painting” – you get nothing.

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If you had 10 aspects to a character, how many would you bring in as subplot?

Anthony: Never approach a story that way. The big question is what bomb went off in their lives before this movie started? How do we break this spell? The other stuff fills in with re-writes. “I don’t need to know what my character had for breakfast.”

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In an age of Transformers, is film the place for character development, or more TV?

Pamela: New fertile ground: short-mini series. Storylines over six to twenty episodes produced by people like you. Not done with majors. Freedom of expression without the restrictions of studio executives, development people, and investors. Check out the Web Series (Marseilles Webfest/ LA Webfest). A lot of creative projects ** All into TRANSMEDIA. Transformers is about toys. The movie platforms put a story that is more attractive to investors.

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What do you never want to see in a character?

Steve: Pedophelia. Unnecessary side journeys to go make sandwiches. Romcom’s bother me. Because I know what’s going to happen.

Michael: Static, inaction, indecisive characters. Whether it’s a right or wrong decision, force them to take action.

Anthony: If a character can just stop what they’re doing and say “I don’t need to be here” then you have a problem. Because there are NO STAKES. It must be about life and death.

Michael: Whatever they pursue, if they fail, what are the consequences? Don’t have a millionaire who falls in love. It has got to be life and death.

Dwayne: I don’t like protagonists who don’t believe in their course. They must be totally gung-ho about their goal.