Writing natural dialogue is a challenge for any screenwriter, but especially when the story is set in a specific time period. How do you capture the nuances of language, culture, and history without sounding stiff, anachronistic, or clichéd? Here are some techniques to help you craft authentic and engaging dialogue that suits your genre, tone, and characters.
Before you write a single line of dialogue, you need to immerse yourself in the time period of your story. Read books, articles, diaries, letters, newspapers, and transcripts from that era. Watch films, documentaries, and interviews that portray or discuss it. Listen to music, podcasts, and speeches that capture its mood and style. Pay attention to the vocabulary, grammar, slang, idioms, and expressions that people used. Notice how they addressed each other, what topics they avoided or embraced, and what emotions they conveyed. Take notes of the words and phrases that stand out to you and reflect your theme, plot, and genre.
For authentic period dialogue, strictly avoid anachronisms and words from irrelevant languages. Every term should reflect the era, ensuring immersion without modern interference. Precision in language choice is key to transporting readers convincingly back in time.
Consulting a language expert of that period would, in addition, be helpful. Research done, and writing done one would need a knowledgeable person or expert to read through and advise.
The funny thing about writing dialogue for almost any historic period (and the further away in time the period is, even more so) is that approximately 99.2% of the eventual readers of your book will know no better. So even if it is totally made up, it might work very well. The key thing to me is remembering that we all suffer heavily from cognitive biases, and will most likely interpret and judge any dialogue based only on what we know from our existing time period.
If you ever experienced a real life dialogue and then thought of a much better answer later. This is your best chance to imply that in your writing. When you focus on the right response it should resonate with people in terms of context and story progression. When In real life you had to give up on a conversation due to lack of response, but then thought of something after. Write that down, think of the circumstances and adapt it in your writing. You already know, what’s the best kind of dialogue and response your characters should have. Just remember what kind of dialogue resonated with you the most in your day to day life.
Once you have a general sense of the language of the period, you need to make your characters sound unique and consistent. Think about their backgrounds, personalities, motivations, and relationships. How would they speak differently based on their age, gender, class, education, occupation, region, ethnicity, religion, or ideology? How would they adapt their speech to different situations, audiences, or moods? How would they express their subtext, goals, and conflicts? Give each character a distinctive voice that reflects their traits and arc, and avoid using modern or generic dialogue that could belong to anyone.
You can layer their personality. Create a chart for each character and describe what kind of traits are at the surface and at the bottom. Attach their personal backgrounds to each trait and when you have such information in front of you, their unique voice would come out naturally.
While you want your dialogue to be faithful to the time period, you also want it to be clear and engaging for your audience. Avoid using too much jargon, archaic words, or obscure references that might confuse or alienate your viewers. Simplify or explain any terms or concepts that are essential to your story, but not widely known or understood. Use contractions, abbreviations, and colloquialisms sparingly and strategically, depending on the formality and tone of your dialogue. Don't sacrifice naturalism or realism for accuracy, but don't compromise accuracy for convenience or comedy either.
Clarity is hidden in truth. Define beliefs of each character and use them to craft dialogue that would be believable, which then translates into clarity and overall contributes to the balance.
One of the best ways to test the quality and authenticity of your dialogue is to read it aloud, either by yourself or with others. Listen to how it sounds, how it flows, and how it conveys your intended meaning and emotion. Notice any awkward, stiff, or unnatural phrases, words, or pauses. Check for any inconsistencies, contradictions, or anachronisms in your characters' speech. Ask for feedback from people who are familiar with the time period or the genre of your story. Revise your dialogue until it sounds natural, believable, and compelling.
This is indeed a great way to test a text's quality. Especially if the text is read back to you, the author. I have tried this, and if the dialogue is faulty, it will come through immediately. The trouble comes when the dialogue is "good enough" and then the form the text is read makes much more difference than the actual quality of the writing. Don't fall into this trap, when listening to a beautiful sultry voice. I have.
Finally, you can learn a lot from watching and analyzing films that feature dialogue in a specific time period. Observe how the writers, actors, and directors use dialogue to create atmosphere, character, and conflict. Notice how they balance realism and stylization, accuracy and clarity, subtlety and impact. Study the techniques and tricks they use to make their dialogue sound natural and engaging. Some examples of films with excellent dialogue in a specific time period are The Favourite, The Social Network, Deadwood, 12 Years a Slave, and The King's Speech.
Once again, steal like an artist, yes. Getting inspired by and downright copying the best ideas from existing dialogues is something that you should do. And don't feel bad about doing it, everybody else does it too. (This text is not copied from anywhere, me swears!)