Writing Great Dialogue Isn't Easy by Gary Goldstein

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#writing #screenwriting #screenplay

[JorgePrietoNYC]

For me once I know where the characters are emotionally/psychology/spiritually, helps me a great deal. Example: if my character is shy, or has a big secret, or going through an inner turmoil, these decide the rhythm pattern of that character. Most of the time one just has to go inside oneself and there it is, the rest the characters start to give me their dialogue based on what they're dealing with in a particular scene/scenes. So it's a combination of both. 1. Once my story gets rolling, many times the characters tell me what to say. They overpowered me. 2. But at the beginning as I introduced them, I'm in total control. Being surprised is the most fun part of writing a screenplay. It's like watching a movie and not knowing anything about it.
Great interview. Thanks Mr. Goldstein for your time with my favorite YouTube people, Film Courage. Always a fan F.C.

[ccwoodlands]

Saying the most ideas in the least amount of letters. Perfect.

[gnarthdarkanen]

In the verbal sense of storytelling, even for a GM, there are really two parts to the overall... There's the Descriptive, and then the Narrative. Dialogue is more a part of the Narrative, because people are talkING... They are doing something to progress the story.
Sometimes that means you have to address the whole purpose of the dialogue the same as you'd build anything... You start with the direction you need that dialogue to go. Conversations generally don't just linger around something. They start at one point and move toward a conclusion... SO it starts with a rough sketchy sort of premise about where you're going with the narrative. AND that's where you really figure out WHAT needs to be said.
This (I think) is what they mean about starting with "on the nose" dialogue. It's getting out the feelings, or questions, or flat out whatever's on a character's mind or heart that MATTERS in THAT scene.
Once this stuff is down in a "more or less" sense of functional, you can work out the notes that you want included in this scene. These range from emotional states of the characters, to sub-texts in their particular lines and where the innuendo might indicate something foreboding or salacious in later parts of the story.
Only once you've got all those notes down and the original intent in the dialogue, should you really focus on a refining rewrite. It's still not going to be great dialogue, of course, because we haven't necessarily decided in the fullest sense what the character's most detailed voice is going to be... At least not in the first couple scenes anyway. It should produce some "good" dialogue, in the functional point(s) that it works for saying everything that needs to be said in that scene to support the rest of the story as written so far.
Most of the time (in my experience anyway) only once you've managed some character development and growth do you really understand where that character (any of them really) is actually coming from, and only once that development is created do you have any great sense of what voice the character is going to use, the particular idiosyncrasies, accents, weird BS jargon, or peculiar personal flavors he or she should put into the dialogue as part of the "voice".
So the truest development advice for dialogue should be along the lines of avoiding the tendency to "invent work for yourself". Don't stop halfway through the work (whatever it is) and go back to start refining dialogues from the first scene or two. Take notes along the way with reference to page number, or particular points in the Story about where you made that choice... BUT finish the damn story. Each dialogue is already going to be constructed in the loose sense and refined to a complete thing already, just to get words on paper and make progress. ONLY when the complete arc and developments have been made and the total plan is complete should you go back and start polishing steps to give the truest voice to each and every character in their own rights.
There will be subsequent rewrites and refinements as you find parts that work better or best, and parts that... well... become either unnecessary or down right burdensome. AND that's okay too. Sometimes from get-go to finish a piece just falls together in order and feels entirely instinctive... AND most of the time, it's a lot more involved with stumbling about and fiddling with crap until you figure out how to make it work...
Finally, this isn't THE ONE AND ONLY way to do it. It's certainly not the only way it works. Sometimes, particularly in my creative outlet (GM'ing Role Play adventures) I've just worked with the same characters so often and for long enough, I know exactly how they act, walk, talk, what they like to eat or drink, down to the very reason one might limp a little on his left leg, or why she can have a lisp that sounds cute when anyone else would be annoying or atrocious. Some characters are easily designed because we already know someone kind of like that, and some concepts are a little too strange, or we only want to try so we have a chance to explore it... That's fine, but do the exploring before you try to polish it.
The mythbusters once proved you really could polish a turd... BUT why would you rush right into that sort of duty, when you could take the patience to refine it into something worth polishing first? :o)

[thereccher]

Don't give a shit about dialogue until you know your characters and world. Focus on ideas, characters, and structure and than get to dialogue when you finally know your character's voice.

[dariushcreates]

I'm great with dialogue. I actually just jump straight to that and try to make it compelling. I can't be arsed with describing things though 😂

[mikkel]

Waow he's voice sounds exactly like Toby's from the Office

[futurestoryteller]

The characters definitely tell me what to say, but I can pull them in another direction. That never feels unnatural to me.

[MS-vjzt]

My problem with dialogue is knowing how a character will say a line differently than another. I hear the voices in my head and I know character A will say "Well, this is gonna suck" very differently than character B saying the same line "well (huge sigh) THIS is gonna but obviously I can't write it like that in a script.

[louishugh-jones]

what should the characters talk about when at the beginning to reveal character and set up their normal world when there is no clear plot point to react to, just a casual chat?

[IkePhillipRuffin]

How do you write cadence? Wouldn't the actor provide that?

[Zorato]

I really hate writing dialogue (im not good at it). My first draft is just full of weird cursing that the character could say.
Then i add "real" dialogue (if its better then the cursing).

[liannajohnson]

He looks like Matt Meese from studio c a little.