How To Master Dialogue with Aaron Sorkin

Nothing says screenwriting 101 than a Masterclass from a highly decorated screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin. He's known for his signature way of writing dialogue, but his screenwriting course is packed with many tips that range from structure to writers rooms.

A year ago, a read a screenplay every day for a month- and it was here that I came across an exceptional script- Being the Ricardo's.

It was the first Aaron Sorkin screenplay I had read, after having completed his Masterclass a few years prior and boy, oh, boy was it a refreshing read. A real page turner some may say.

I highly recommend reading it if you can find it.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:17 Intention and Obstacle
02:02 Miss Congeniality case study
02:30 Character Development
03:14 Dialogue
03:53 Notes
04:29 Writers Room

But to circle back to his MasterClass, I completed it this year again as I’m in a bit of a funk with one of my screenplays. There were a few notes that inspired me to not quit on the screenplay, and my hope it that by sharing these points that it will reinforce them in my mind, but also act as inspiration for anyone else who needs some wise words from a legend in screenwriting.

What I use in my video:

In the Masterclass He recreates a writers room:

In the last video, where I profiled Shonda Rhime’s Masterclass, well, lays the foundation, and get’s you mentally prepared for a writers room. I highly recommend you taking some notes from her on the subject.

However, Aaron tries to recreate one.

He encourages bad ideas, and paints a picture of how slow things actually go in a writers room.

He gave the writers space to share ideas, and he lead the room really well, by communicating how his show works best, and where you could lose the pulse of the show as well.

The big takeaway for me from the writers room was that knowing where the show is at it’s best, and forming ideas that feed into that, as opposed to steering too far away from that, forms a great set of boundaries that you can play within.

I’ve often heard people refer to his dialogue as Sorkanese. That’s when you know you’ve made it as a writer.

Here are notes that I took from what he had to say about dialogue.

- Imitating the way people really talk is not a goal of his.
- He’s physical when he’s writing, he’s talking out loud
- He Perform dialogue to test whether the words are speakable
- Then, the rules of music apply, so think about cadence, tone, volume and rhythm.

Dialogue doesn’t always need to be catching and crisp. Theres a dialogue case study in his Masterclass which taught me that sometimes dialogue is stilted and awkward and this brings a formality to a conversation.

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[MargueriteFaure]

What is your favorite Aaron Sorkin film?

[zaiah]

For me, I like to listen to dialogue from a playlist I made. Dialogue is like music to me. It doesn't need to be catchy, but it's nice to see it have a rhythm. And listening to dialogue that inspires what you want to write can help.