Crafting and Revising Dialogue

Crafting and Revising Dialogue

A guide For playwrights, Screenwriters, and novelists

By Allen Gorney

Published 2021 by Beating Windward Press

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www.BeatingWindward.com

Text Copyright © Allen Gorney, 2021

All Rights Reserved.

Author Photo Credit: Beverly Brosius

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First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-940761-43-5

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For my Kevin

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Information

Dedication

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART I

Chapter 1: What Does Dialogue Do?

Chapter 2: Character Profiles

Chapter 3: Writing Dramatic Dialogue

Chapter 4: Drafting the First Draft

PART II

Chapter 1: A New Direction

Chapter 2: The Character’s External Superobjective

Chapter 3: The Character’s Internal Superobjective

Chapter 4: Chekhov’s Gun

Chapter 5: On the Nose Dialogue

Chapter 6: Speech Patterns

APPENDIX

Overview

The Ambassador Screenplay - 1st Draft

Screenplay Revisions Commentary

The Ambassador Screenplay - 2nd Draft

Superfan Stage Play

Verb List

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Introduction

What is ‘good’ dialogue? Ask the question of a writer, reader, movie-goer or television binge-watcher, and you’ll get a bunch of different responses. They’ll say good dialogue is quotable. Rapid-fire. Character-defining. Or even as one of my friends says: Good dialogue crackles. The best answer to this question is D) all of the above. Good dialogue will do all these things. You’ll remember the lines, and they’ll make you quote the whole darn movie.

If you’re in the film industry, you’ve surely heard the line, you can make a bad film from a good script, but you can’t make a good film from a bad script. In sitting through many acting classes over the years, I’ve seen wonderfully talented actors breathe life into scripts so effortlessly one week only to flounder the next week with a completely different script. Certainly, they’re connecting to one better than the other, which might be because the former exhibits characteristics they see in themselves. But what I often see is that the dialogue in some scripts is weaker, more pedestrian, more inauthentic.

Why is this?

Actors’ having trouble bringing a character to life points to a serious problem about which the screenwriter or playwright must be aware. In fact, it’s a serious problem about which even a novelist must be aware. These characters will become living, breathing people. They will have backstories, hopes, dreams, dilemmas, and passions. They most certainly already have them as they traverse the writers’ mind, nagging and begging for their stories to be told and dramatized. But if they have such strong voices in our heads—how can that possibly translate to an inauthentic representation of the character on the page? And why would an actor—even the best actor—have trouble breathing life into those words? Where’s the disconnect?

I’ve written this book for that reason: discovering that disconnect and how to work past it. Sure, there have been many craft books written about crafting dialogue. Writing workshops and conferences are certainly helpful. There you’ll find discussion of the purpose of dialogue, its categorization as an element of storytelling, and rather arcane discussions of dialogue as an extension or expression of character. To be fair, all of that is important when talking about dialogue. But what I haven’t seen yet—perhaps shockingly—is the realization that words of dialogue are meant to be spoken. In a play, the actor will say these words aloud for the audience to hear. In a film, we’ll see the actors articulating memorable phrases in a close up and cut to a hilarious reaction shot. In a novel, we’ll imagine these well-described, fully-formed characters saying these words for real. We’ll even imagine what their voices sound like.

This book is for writers of plays, screenplays, teleplays, novels, heck—even commercials. Anything that includes dialogue. And because the method I’ll be taking to teaching you how to write and revise dialogue inextricably comes from an actor’s approach to the material, I’d even say this book is also a tool for actors. Everyone who writes or speaks dialogue will get something from this book.

Playwrights—whose main task is to tell a story almost wholly dependent on dialogue as the vessel—will value the emphasis I’ll be placing on the actor’s role in bringing the lines to life. Screenwriters and television writers will appreciate the nuances and subtleties required for that medium. Novelists will better understand the internal approaches to character—and how dialogue’s sometimes spare use is a representation of a character’s being compelled to speak.

I will begin this book with the basics, the essentials of writing dialogue. I will cover techniques and exercises that will allow writers to develop their characters. This will also allow actors to understand the mindset of the writer, as well as the mindset of the character they’re working on. Then, I will explore how dialogue functions in various media: Theatre, film, television, and prose. Finally, I will end the book with a few case studies: explorations of dialogue in various media, complete with various drafts and commentary on the writer’s process of revision. This part is perhaps the most crucial, for it’s one thing to know the fundamentals of dialogue and to write it down on the page. It’s another to apply the process and understand why one line is being altered. These case studies will be invaluable to demonstrating the application of the various techniques in the book.

Many writers disagree with me on this next point—some even consider me masochistic for saying it, but here it is. I love writing dialogue. I love a memorable line, a well-timed quip, a layered turn-of-phrase. I love when dialogue has melody. I love when it shows us depth and heart. I love every moment of making a line the best possible representation of a moment.

If you come along with me on this journey, by the end, you may find you’ll love it too.

Part I

Chapter 1

What Does Dialogue Do?

A big feature of this book will be the analysis of dialogue: How to do it and how it functions in the drafting process of your Work-in-Progress. I’m going to give you a taste of how it will work in this book here in this chapter so you have an idea of what we’re working toward. We’ll be applying these techniques as a form of close reading, deeply examining lines of dialogue to ensure they say what we want them to say and they convey the elements of dialogue we’ll be discussing in this chapter.

Before we move on, let me give you a brief breakdown of terminology. In prose (novel, short story, memoir), dialogue spoken by a character often appears in quotations. The phrase after it, often marked by something like she said is known as a dialogue tag.

Let’s start by examining a famous line from a classic of the English canon.

What does Bessie say I have done? I asked.

This line of dialogue is the first we hear the titular Jane Eyre say in Charlotte Brönte’s novel. It’s a fascinating line—one that tells us a lot of information about our protagonist. For one, we’re told in the three preceding paragraphs that Mrs. Reed, her resentful aunt and guardian, has kept her at a distance because she doesn’t appear to have as child-like a demeanor as her own biological children. In fact, Mrs. Reed has tasked their maid Bessie of letting her know if Jane misbehaves again, though Mrs. Reed’s response to Jane’s question implies to the reader she has no intention of ever treating Jane fairly, as we see here:

Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.

These two lines of dialogue are consecutive, with no description between. What they do—so early in the novel—is establish an understanding of who Jane is, what her environment is like, and how people in her life view her. Jane’s first line suggests she often finds herself in trouble in this household. It isn’t enough that Mrs. Reed sees a problem with Jane, but that the blame would extend to the maid connotes the whole house is against her. Mrs. Reed’s line makes plausible how she rules the house and stacks it against Jane. All this information is implied between two lines of dialogue. The tone of both lines is so vivid, adverbs and adjectives aren’t even necessary in the dialogue tags, and including them might rob these lines of their effectiveness. We, the modern readers, feel sympathy for Jane, while readers of Brönte’s time might have understood and empathized with her.

The opening sentence of Jane Eyre is one of the most famous in English literature: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. Leading up to Jane’s first utterance in the novel, we get a sense that her life is miserable. Her first line of dialogue confirms it. It’s an earned moment for Jane. It tells us who she is: Intelligent, bold, even insolent in the best possible way. It suggests we’re going to see this personality heightened later, in even more tense scenarios. In fact, it even gives us a sense that this young girl is going to be fighting against and for something her entire life.

That’s what a good line of dialogue does. The more you can imply, the more you can cram into that line, the better. But what are those elements? What can we pack into our lines to make them the most effective? I have four key components of dialogue—which—the closer you can get to including all four of these in each line, the better.

1. Good Dialogue Reveals Character

We know Jane Eyre is young, under the care of her surly, cold aunt, but we get a sense from Jane’s first line of dialogue and Mrs. Reed’s response that Jane resents her. We also know how Jane reacts to the limited people in her life. The ensuing lines of dialogue reveal her character—who she is. Her aspirations. Her financial situation. Her family life. Her home life. How she views the world. Her whole entire lived history.

You’ll read that sentence repeatedly in this book. I repeat it often in my workshops and in my lectures. Everything each character says should reveal some aspect of their lived history. If you think about it, everything you say in your life at any given moment reflects some aspect of your entire lived history. Your utterances reflect your values, your needs, your dreams, your social life, your education, your sense of humor—everything. It never ceases to amaze me how we can size people up as individuals, form opinions and perceive people in certain ways based on what they say, even if it’s polite conversation at the grocery story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten into discussions about some item on that conveyor belt that the clerk found interesting. Even small talk reflects some aspect of a person’s lived history. That swear word you uttered at someone while driving? Again, totally reflective of who you are as a person in that moment. Maybe you despise people who don’t turn on their blinkers when they intend to change lanes. That can say a lot about you. Does that set you off? Is it the little things that set you off?

Maybe that’s an aspect of a character’s personality. If a guy named Philip gets cut off and has to slam on the breaks, shouting, Jeepers Creepers! Chances are, you’ve formed a judgement of him. If a character says Jeepers Creepers in a book as some form of expletive, we know this character doesn’t swear. Perhaps this character is religious. Maybe he’s devout but still quick-tempered. That’s a great pairing of characteristics. Imagine that dialogue—constant restraint when the guy really just wants to let it all out at the most trivial of problems.

Because dialogue reveals character, it’s wholly dependent on the biography you give the character. Thus, dialogue and character are inextricably intertwined. You can’t have one without the other. Think about how each line of dialogue you’ve written reflects the person you’re depicting.

2. Good Dialogue Carries Conflict

It’s simple. Characters have goals. One character has one objective. Another character has a conflicting objective. What they say tends to be in opposition to each other. That’s conflict. It’s going to give your dialogue that crackling sensation. The tit-for-tat. The one-upmanship. Dialogue is the vessel to carry the conflict—for characters to say what’s on their minds, or their decision to stay mum on something, to bury their true feelings. In a medium like a play, where dialogue is the only real tool for expression, this characteristic is essential. It’s different in film and prose. Characters don’t have to speak as much. In a film, we can read facial expressions better, so characters don’t necessarily have to talk. In a novel, we read the internal thoughts of the characters. Its dialogue is similar to film in that the character has to have a good reason to speak. When he or she does say something—it’s crucial.

Recognizing the essence of conflict is crucial to crafting effective dialogue, so naturally it’s important to identify what the conflict is from the outset. What does your character want in the long term? What is their superobjective? A superobjective is a goal the character wants to achieve by the end of the story. Many in the publishing and entertainment industry refer to