Screenwriting Tip of the Month: March
Posted on | March 27, 2009 | No Comments
A friend of mine who is just getting into screenwriting admitted to being horrible at writing dialogue.
“I read too many comic books,” he said.
Nothing wrong with that, as there are many fantastic writers working in the comics field: Jeph Loeb (TV’s Heroes, Smallville), Brian K. Vaughn (who recently got lured in to write for TV’s Lost), and probably my all-time favorite writer J. Michael Straczynski (who also wrote the award-winning Changeling starring Angelina Jolie).
The problem was, my friend was too busy channeling other people’s dialogue (from comics, TV and movies) to realize that the key to writing realistic, good dialogue is simply being real. Here are the three tips I gave him:
- Put yourself in each character’s shoes: When I’m writing dialogue for a particular character, I put myself in his or her shoes. It doesn’t matter if it’s the hero, the villain, a man, a woman, the innocent bystander, or the 80-year-old mother of the villain; I pretend I’m her and then ask myself, “What would I say if I were her?”
- Open Your Ears: A lot of times, writing good dialogue is a matter of copying what someone says in real life. Not word for word, obviously, but I’m talking more in the sense of how they say something. When I hear a friend say a cool phrase or a stranger speak in a different accent, I take note. I go home and write it down. After years of doing that for a while, you eventually learn the different ways people talk. It could help to base a character on a friend and then write that character’s dialogue based on how your friend speaks.
- Talk Around the Subject: After doing tip #2, you’ll realize that people don’t talk directly about something. They talk around the subject. For example:
- “I’m sorry she passed away” is a euphemism for “Dude, that sucks she died.”
- “I’d like to get to know you better” is really code for “You’re hot. Please go on a date with me.”
So, don’t have your characters spill the beans right away. Have them talk around the subject. This will help avoid the dreaded exposition-filled speech, such as when a villain tells the hero everything right before he kills him to cue the audience as to what just happened (and give the hero time to escape).
Use your imagination, listen to the people around you, and don’t get to the point. You do that, and your characters will sound much more realistic and a lot less like a comic book villain.