George R. R. Martin on Writing Dialogue

[williammccormick]

He's right. I've always found writing dialogue in the screenplay form to be very useful. You write the full conversation, argument, or whatever and then write out the rest of the scene. That's sound advice.

[thereccher]

He's generally right, but when it comes to story-telling that's all you can really be. There are exceptions, the obvious being the opening to the Godfather. I think if a writer can pull off something different he ought to.

[Akaki]

I guess he meant for majority of times, even in ASOIAF when Frey or Pycell talks you will end up with 1-2 page long dialogue line but yeah vast majority of time dialogue lines are filled with world building, setting description, character description and such stuff.

[happymaskedguy]

Great advice. Right to the point.

I’m a fiction writer who really struggles with characterisation and dialogue. But I have a couple of books on screenwriting, so hopefully that will help ease things along.

[newq]

Man this is the advice I needed at exactly the time I needed it. Thanks, YouTube algorithm!

[shadewilliams]

If only bad poosi brothers had listened to this advice

[junespoesy]

please mention the link for the whole interview too.

[joncarroll]

Rule of thumb: no line of dialog should be longer than a tweet.

[ILLFilms]

"Make sure to put the sandwich down."