How to make good dialogue for a movie?

[gdot079]

Hey Everyone,
I wrote my treatment for my movie idea and got it copyrighted. Everything was going well until I had some dialogue problems. Or at least I think I do. I don't know whether or not my dialogue sounds real and thought provoking. Does anyone have suggestions on making sure your dialogue sounds authentic?
Thanks Gdot

 

[temerson]

Say it to yourself. If it sounds weird in your head, it definitely sounds weird coming from your mouth. Get some actor friends and ask them to do a read through. Ask co-workers and fellow students for comments, and beg them for criticism.

 

[kickmagnet]

It all depends

It all depends

Dialogue depends not only on the characters, but the overall feel of the film. For instance, dialogue in a Kevin Smith film is overly vulgar and simultaneously verbose.

Randal from Clerks:
"You sound like an asshole! Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here. You're here of your own volition. You like to think the weight of the world rests on your shoulder. Like this place would fall apart if Dante wasn't here. Jesus, you overcompensate for having what's basically a monkey's job. You push fucking buttons. Anybody can just waltz in here and do our jobs. You-You're so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is. Christ, you work in a convenience store, Dante! And badly, I might add! I work in a shitty video store, badly as well. You know, that guy Jay's got it right, man. He has no delusions about what he does. Us, we like to make ourselves seem so much more important than the people that come in here to buy a paper, or, god forbid, cigarettes. We look down on them as if we're so advanced. Well, if we're so fucking advanced, what are we doing working here?"

Another example would be the recent Rocky Balboa film. Dialogue that wasn't exactly intelligent, but somewhat profound. None of that dialogue sounded natural to me. It sounded like it was coming out of charicatures instead of characters. However, it really suited the film.

Rocky:
"I appreciate that, but maybe you're looking out for your interests just a little bit more. I mean you shouldn't be asking people to come down here and pay the freight on something they paid, it still ain't good enough, I mean you think that's right? I mean maybe you're doing your job but why you gotta stop me from doing mine? Cause if you're willing to go through all the battling you got to go through to get where you want to get, who's got the right to stop you? I mean maybe some of you guys got something you never finished, something you really want to do, something you never said to someone, something... and you're told no, even after you paid your dues? Who's got the right to tell you that, who? Nobody! It's your right to listen to your gut, it ain't nobody's right to say no after you earned the right to be where you want to be and do what you want to do!... You know, the older I get the more things I gotta leave behind, that's life. The only thing I'm asking you guys to leave on the table... is what's right."

So, even though excessive swearing or excessive use of "I mean" doesn't sound right coming out of your mouth, it doesn't mean it won't be good dialogue. I hope this helps; it's not a straight-forward answer.

 

[rogermarsh]

dialogue check up

dialogue check up

Just a few points on dialogue.

Remember that people talking in real situations typically don't talk in complete sentences. Listen to people talking without them realizing what you are doing. Read through your dialogue and see where you can chop.

First draft - character reacting to an accident.
CHAR 1: Oh, this accident really looks bad.
CHAR 2: This is really going to cost me a fortune.

Second draft
CHAR 1: Really looks bad, man.
CHAR 2: Going to cost me a fortune.

Another typical mistake - it's a red flag if you have lengthy pieces of dialougue. Not completely true, but many times if you see a real long piece of dialogue, it's not natural, and in real life is generally broken up by someone else in the room/area making a comment along the way. Unless it's a designated speech or something.

And every word in the dialogue has to count for something. If you can read through your dialogue and find anything that goes no where - that is not helping to define character or move the plot - get rid of it.

In my early writing, I used to tape whole scenes to the wall of my office at eye level, and move around the room drawing lines every time I felt there was a "beat" in the writing - like two characters going back and forth that creates a single beat - usually a line drawn once or twice or three times on a single page. This helped me to focus on small pieces of the script to examine rhythm. This worked very well for me, and now I don't have to tape on the wall anymore and can do it just holding the scirpt in rewrite.

The best gauge is a cold reading though. Gather people to read, and having a small audience is good too. Sit back and listen to your dialogue and later ask guests and readers if it felt natural.

Small details - the Internet is a great source for small details in your writing. Example, in one script I make reference to an isolated vacation spot in Columbia in a comedy. Later, when a piece of the script was posted on the Web, a scientist who built this place wrote me an e-mail wondering how in the world I stumbled upon his little-known bird santuary. And in another scirpt, a character states a small town's exact point in the earth's longitude and lattitude lines. Had to look that up to be exact as you know someone in the audience some day will look up those numbers. My point - you may end up making up facts if you are writing quickly, but be sure to do a little bit of research and go back and fill in those gray areas. Otherwise, it's lazy dialogue - funny maybe, but inaccurate.

Another exercise: try reading a script reading only one character's lines. Like pretend you were just assigned that role - and review your lines. This will often point out holes - like you have four characters in a room - and whoops - you left one character dangling for a long time without a comment. Makes you either remove the character all together, or go back and let that character react naturally within the conversaton. Happened a lot to me in early writing.

This last exercise also points out shallow characters - like you could read dialogue from three different characters and not be able to recognize who is talking without looking at the script designation. One simple exercise: use a single sheet of paper to sit and describe each character's backround - their history - from birth to the present day where the script takes place. This will often force you as the screenwriter to inject pieces of this person's background into their dialogue that makes them unqiue to everyone else in the universe. Like one character of mine is obsessed with writing romance novels and that comes out in her diaolgue. One guy is uptight and a clock watcher. One is more of a peter pan free-style character. Your characters have to be three-dimentional or your dialogue can be traded among your characters - which is unacceptable in a great script.