There Is No Such Thing as a Dialog Problem! The Way to Create Good Dialog
Scott McConnell
Story consultant and former producer helping screenwriters and producers to develop resonant scripts. Book a Story Consult now. Screenwriter.
When you create a script are you sometimes satisfied with its characters, plot, and the ideas that the story is dramatizing, but feel that the dialog just doesn’t cut it? That your dialog doesn’t convey a unique and intriguing person in a believable and dramatic way? Since dialog in script can easily be fifty percent of the story content that’s a big problem that can really hurt your story and writing career. The solution?
Let me state bluntly:
Most if not all dialog problems are not fundamentally problems with the actual dialog. What are most often called dialog problems are really the logical expressions of a deeper problem. These could be theme or lack-of-research related issues, for example. But the major cause of flat, cliched, functional – that is boring – dialog is that the writer has not developed three dimensional characters. It is characters who speak! When your characters are properly created, they will sing. And in the words and attitudes of dramatic individuals who just won’t shut up. And they will be palpably believable.
But how do you create characters who speak layered and compelling dialog?
Actionable Creative Takeaway
There are many ways to create three dimensional, realistic, and motivated characters who speak engaging dialog. In this article, I will briefly mention two of them:
Attitudes
Human don’t speak tonelessly like a computer. We have attitudes. We speak in ways that express our personality, our own individual traits and value reactions. For example, Hans Gruber speaks with an urbane superior attitude. James Bond with a cool wit. Hercule Poirot with a French accent often indicating his own genius. So, when you are building your characters you must develop their traits and attitudes. Doing this will help make your characters talk as real and layered individuals.
Expressions
As noted in this post by novelist Ayn Rand, good characters have their own little expressions and ways of saying things that reveal their personalities. In the example Rand discusses, the female character uses the expression, “Well, I never.” Rand then notes that these three words reveal, “surprise, and rudeness, and a woman who talks in bromides.”?
Also consider that Hercule Poirot uses French expressions such as mon ami, pouf!, voilà, and voyons! He also uses the catchphrase, “these little grey cells.” John McClane has his own particular expression “Yippee-ki-yay”, James Bond likes his vodka martinis “Shaken, not stirred.” Sherlock Holmes enjoys stating, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” All these expressions help reveal these characters. Of course, a character’s expressions don’t have to be trademark ones like those from famous characters such as Bond and Poirot. They can be small "incidental" ones that equally reveal what these characters are.
When you are therefore creating your characters give them attitudes and peculiar individual expressions to speak. These will help make your characters more individualized real people who speak layered and revealing dialog. And that will help make your story more dramatic and memorable.
In short, when creating or fixing your dialog don’t focus concretely on the dialog, but on its cause. Dialog begins with character. And dialog reveals character. Characters speak, not writers.
Also read: ?
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Scott McConnell is script consultant and story coach.
“Scott McConnell is an excellent Script Editor.”
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About Scott McConnell & His Story Services
Scott McConnell started in the film and television business in Los Angeles performing script analysis for Samuel Goldwyn, Sundance, Hallmark, Nu Image, Roger Corman, and others. He ended his producing work in Los Angeles as a showrunner. Scott is now a story consultant, writer, teacher, and mentor.?He supports producers, writers, and directors, as well as production and publishing companies, to develop and improve all forms of stories, but especially scripts and novels. Besides developing and editing individual stories, Scott offers a Mentorship Program, where he supports creatives to write a story from concept to first draft, while teaching them a writing process of all the key stages of crafting a story. He is also a lecturer/teacher of screenwriting. To discuss your story, class or business needs write to Scott here.?
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Gate Gourmet - Author - Screenwriter
1 年Thank you for posting. Using the Hercule Poirot example; a character who speaks fluent English, albeit with an accent, then reverts to native tongue to use a simple word or phrase is not what real foreigners normally do. Is that cliche still acceptable in modern scripts?
The Story Doctor - Speaker & Author
1 年Excellent, Scott. An individual's language is called an idiolect. Amateurs write all dialogue using the same idiolect, usually their own.
Author & Screenwriter
1 年Excellent post. Also helpful would be to draw from your own life, memorable characters and dissect them to see what made them memorable to you. That would give ample clues to make well rounded characters.
Author, newspaper columnist, and all around writer of this and that.
1 年Excellent advice, Scott. Sweet, simple, and you cut right to the chase.