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WRITING GREAT DIALOGUE (OR AVOIDING THE WORST OF IT)
My Fellow Writers,
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." As I understand it, the producers of GONE WITH THE WIND paid a $100,000 fine to the Hayes Board (a proto-ratings and censorship board) to keep the word "damn" in the movie - a considerable sum when the budget of the film was about $5 million (comparable to a $100 million movie paying $2 million nowadays).
It was an expensive word. And it speaks to what I want to discuss this week - dialogue. Sometimes I think there's an alchemy to this aspect of scriptwriting. For some scripts and characters, it just pours out, while other scenes need to be turned over dozens of times before it's acceptable. It is also a paradox - the element of scriptwriting that gets the most attention from readers, yet which is the easiest to adjust.
For a few years, the process underneath writing dialogue was a complete mystery to me. I knew good dialogue when I saw it, but I had no idea from whence it came. So I'd end up using trial-and-error until my inner critic was satisfied with the dialogue. Not the most efficient way to get to a final draft. I'm still learning, of course, but at least I know where to start looking.
So, here's what I learned. (To those of you who have followed the last couple of weeks, this refrain will be very familiar. ) Here is the primary key to great dialogue: Emotion. The starting point of writing great dialogue is making sure that clearly conveys the emotion that you're trying to get across. Sure, some writers go too far and their dialogue becomes on-the-nose. But if you start with the honest underlying emotions, at least you'll know what the scene's about. Sometimes, if I'm really stuck, I'll do just that - write out, in the plainest terms, exactly what each character is trying to get across to others in the scene (the subtext, if you will). Then I'll go back and clean things up.
In retrospect, people told me about emotion in dialogue at least a hundred times before I got it. I'd write scenes based on instinct. But I'm guessing that once you start writing dialogue with a clear map of the emotion underneath it, you'll find your characters speaking with more punch, and you might just find your script more focused and resonant. You'll also avoid having characters that are too "television-y." Because emotion is what brings dialogue to life.
Good luck finding voices. Keep writing! Any streaks still alive? E-mail me at EmailGrady@aol.com if you've managed to keep your writing streak (at least one hour per day on your current project) alive since the beginning of the year. If not, start a new streak!
Streaking away,
Grady
P.S. One more thing, the next time you think of a great line in a movie, try to remember - and gently remind others around you - that a writer wrote it first. You know, lots of people still imagine that actors make up their lines. Some of them work at studios. Okay, perhaps not - but giving this little bit of silent credit to other writers seems a painless, yet worthy tribute.
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