Writng Dialogue & Advice from the Pros

Writng great dialogue is considered an art form. Listening to real-life conversatons, watching award-
winning flms, and learning from the masters will help you craf dialogue that shines on the page.
The following writng thoughts and advice are excerpts from Karl Iglesias’ book, The 101 Habits of
Highly Successful Screenwriters. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Writng Unrealistc and Boring Dialogue

In real life, dialogue is mostly polite conversaton. In flm, polite conversaton is considered bad
dialogue, unless it’s wity, sarcastc, or has a unique voice. The reason is that polite chat lacks tension,
and tension is the key to dramatc storytelling. As Alfred Hitchcock once said, “Drama is real life with
all the boring parts cut out of it.”
The key to good dialogue is to understand that it’s not conversaton, it’s acton. What characters say
in a scene should be said to get what they want in the scene. And to determine whether or not your
dialogue sounds realistc, read it out loud. Garrison Keillor once advised, “If you read your work out
loud, it helps to know what’s bad.” Try it. It works. Dialogue always sounds beter in your head. Beter
to be embarrassed in your room than on the set.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read Your Dialogue Out Loud

Writng authentc, well-crafed dialogue that sparkles, individualizes characters, and entertains the
reader is the ultmate challenge for screenwriters, who otherwise may have solid script elements. It’s
crucial to atractng talent, which can green-light your script. Writng great dialogue can also sell the
writer, for those who excel in this area are highly sought afer to the tune of six fgures per week for
dialogue rewrites.
That said, dialogue is not as important as character development or structure because you’re not
writng a play. Screenwritng is mostly about what you see, not hear. Remember that you’re writng
moton pictures, not visual radio, and all the wity dialogue in the world won’t sell your script if it fails
on everything else.
Botom line, you want as litle dialogue as possible, but what- ever dialogue is on the page, it must be
great. Reading your dialogue out loud is a useful habit to test it. You’ll be amazed at the diference
between reading it and hearing it. You’ll not only hear what your lines sound like to other people but
also see if the character’s uniqueness comes through in that person’s speech.
Derek Haas (The Courier, The Double, 3:10 to Yuma, Wanted, 2 Fast 2 Furious): You should be able to
look at some page in the middle of the script and know which character is speaking just by reading a
dialogue block. Each character should have his or her own voice. Keep an ear out for the way people
speak when you’re in a cofee shop, having dinner, or out in the street.
Michael Brandt (The Courier, The Double, 3:10 to Yuma, Wanted, 2 Fast 2 Furious): The best dialogue
sounds natural. You should be able to read it aloud and then transcribe that cadence to your
characters. We use contractons when we speak, we stop in mid-sentence, and we change what we
were going to say halfway through speaking. Not everyone can speak like a poet or a professor.
Akiva Goldsman (Angels & Demons, I Am Legend, The Da Vinci Code, Cinderella Man, I Robot, A
Beautful Mind, Practcal Magic, Lost in Space, Batman & Robin, A Time to Kill, Batman Forever, Silent
Fall, The Client): Sometmes, I do read my dialogue out loud, especially when I’m brain-fried, though
I’m glad no one’s around to see this. Ultmately, I’ve been really lucky to be on sets, so I ofen get to
hear my dialogue spoken by professional actors. This never stops being a thrill.
Ed Solomon (Imagine That, The In-Laws, Levity, Charlie’s Angels, What Planet Are You From?, Men in
Black, Leaving Normal, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure): Most people
feel a great joy when they write something quickly, because they’re unable to distnguish between
the elaton of transcribing their thoughts onto the page and the joy that comes from actually
organizing thoughts in a way that will have some meaning for someone else. Sometmes, we feel
something is great because it felt great to write it. So it’s valuable to have a reading of your script, and
listen to it with other people in the room. Further, if you’re really serious about it, stage a few scenes
from it, and direct them. Put yourself through what would seem like a ridiculous exercise. It’s a good
way to get a feeling for how a scene really works. Those of us who’ve had movies made have had the
beneft of seeing how some things work and others don’t. Sometmes it’s really painful to hear your
words read.
Robin Swicord (The Jane Austen Book Club, Memoirs of a Geisha, Practcal Magic, Matlda, The Perez
Family, Litle Women, The Red Coat, Shag: The Movie): I read my dialogue out loud all the tme. That’s
how you know if someone would really say something. If you can’t say it, cut it.
Steven de Souza (Blast, Knock Of, Judge Dredd, Beverly Hills Cop III, The Flintstones, Ricochet, Hudson
Hawk, Die Hard 2, Die Hard, The Running Man, 48 Hrs.): I’m guilty of what many executves do, which
is to give scripts ten pages to hold my interest. I can be enthralled by a historical drama—or even
(gasp!) a chick fick—if it’s well writen. Sometmes, I’ll just read the dialogue, then alternatvely only
the stage directons. Ideally, one without the other should not be able to get the story across. So a
good test of dialogue is to just read the dialogue for a secton of the script. If that leaves you hungry
for more, that’s good. But if I get the entre story with just the dialogue, then all that stage directon is
just dead weight and useless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Random Thoughts and Advice on Dialogue and Writng

Steven de Souza: [When I frst started out] I got a couple of books that I stll read to this day and
highly recommend. One is Vale’s Technique of Screen and Television Writng, which is stll the best
book on the craf I’ve ever read. The other is The Art of Dramatc Writng by Lajos Egri. The two
complement each other because Egri’s book is mainly about character while Vale’s is more about
structure and plot.
Most of all, you need to see classic movies. The problem with most movies made today is that they’re
imitatons of last year’s movies, which are imitatons of the previous year’s. Sometmes I menton a
classic movie at a conference and no one in the room has ever heard of it. That’s scary. It’s like writng
plays and never having read Shakespeare. You need to see all kinds of movies. Look at the silent ones,
especially, because they had movies before they had dialogue. See how much they get across without
dialogue. If you’re depending only on dialogue to make your screenplays work, you’re only working
with half the ammuniton that makes you a good writer. See a movie, then read its screenplay to see
what was brought to the table by the actors and the director. Even a blockbuster can be a beter
learning tool than spending a weekend at a seminar.
Akiva Goldsman: I try to build the story as cleanly as I can, make sure the structure works, then I write
it really badly, as fast as I can, ten pages a day of shit, sometmes actual dialogue, sometmes notes to
myself about what people will say in the scene, just to get some feeling of the shape of the piece,
trying not to rewrite it, unless I’m feeling I’m so cheatng myself. Then I go back and start rewritng.
And I go over and over and over it, scene by scene, then act by act, then sequence by sequence, untl
it’s as tght and clean as I can possibly make it.
Michael Schifer (The Four Feathers, The Peacemaker, Crimson Tide, Lean on Me, Colors): One thing I
found helpful was taking some UCLA Extension classes in actng and directng. They gave you a sense
of what a good scene is, what dialogue is all about, by seeing what actors do. It showed you how
you’re writng for people to say these words, and it gave you some experience in drama making. I
highly recommend that beginning writers take an actng class. Be actve in it, direct a scene with
actors and see what animates the scene and what you can leave of the page. You can build muscles
for writng good dialogue. I’ve never taken a screenwritng course so I can’t really say any- thing about
them. If you take the occasional seminar and come away with one great tp you didn’t know before,
that’s a good thing. But I’ve come to believe you only learn on your own by doing it, by trying to tell
stories that work. When you write twenty screenplays, you begin to internalize a sense of tming and
movement of the story, structure, and dialogue. It’s not somebody else’s rules that mater, it’s your
own. If you do it by trial and error from the inside out, your work will fnd its own unique storytelling
voice.
Jim Kouf: You know bad writng when you read it. The dialogue is not sharp, the characters are not as
interestng or as funny or as charming as they should be, the story is not as clever as it can be.
Ultmately, good writng can’t be boring. You’ve got to be clever. Why are we going to sit through it
for two hours?
Scot Rosenberg (Kangaroo Jack, Highway, Gone in 60 Seconds, High Fidelity, Disturbing Behavior,
Con Air, Beautful Girls, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, Air Time): It’s very difcult to teach
someone how to write characters and dialogue. I believe that with the best screenwriters, it’s a God-
given talent. What you can learn, however, is structure. And you don’t even have to go to flm school
to learn. You can prety much get that out of a couple of books. The best course I ever took was
taught by Frank Daniel, who used to be a dean at USC. He’d show you a flm, then the next class, he’d
show it again but with the volume on low and he’d talk over the movie, basically explaining how the
whole thing worked structurally, what was planted here and how it was paying of there. He would do
this on all kinds of movies, and it taught you everything you need to know about structure. Once you
have structure, and if you can write character and dialogue, it’s only a mater of coming up with good
ideas. Another good thing about flm school is that you have this shared experience with other writers
and you don’t feel so alone. You’re also constantly getng feedback from other writers. Every week
you have to turn in ten pages to your classmates to read and comment on. What was also great about
UCLA is that you had to write six screenplays before they let you graduate. When you lef school,
you’d already be armed with a lot of material.
Jim Kouf (Money for Nothing, Natonal Treasure, Taxi, Snow Dogs, Rush Hour, Gang Related,
Operaton Dumbo Drop, Another Stakeout, Disorganized Crime, Stakeout, Miracles, Secret Admirer,
Shaker Run, American Dreamer, Class, Up the Creek): Your characters have to be so interestng and
compelling you can’t wait to get an actor atached. Afer all, why do people sit through certain
movies? Because the dialogue is great, and something about the characters makes you love them or
hate them. It’s just like life. Why do you sit with a few people and have a conversaton, and other
people, you decline when they invite you to dinner?
Steven de Souza: I believe in free associaton. I always carry a bunch of three-by-fve cards where I
write ideas that come to me—bits of dialogue or odd observatons. Eventually, a couple of them will
collide to form a whole new idea, or they’ll achieve a critcal mass, and a light bulb will fash in my
head and I’ll say, that’s a story.
Michael Schifer: It’s really cool if your characters are among the most vivid people you’ve ever
known. We’re not that vivid and colorful every minute of our lives. So what I try to do in successive
drafs, once the story is sketched in, is wonder with each line of dialogue, “Is this the most interestng,
vivid, and colorful way to say this? How can I boost this up so that the people I’m watching are people
I wish I encountered every day in my life?”
To do that you have to constantly queston every line and every character and intensify every single,
boring moment in your script. Ask yourself, “Would I want to be at a dinner party with this person?
Good guys or bad guys, are they interestng enough to be in my life?” If they’re not, make them more
interestng. You owe your audience the gif of good company.

Elevate your dialogue with subtext!

REGISTER NOW
Screenwriters University Online Course:
Creatng Subtext in Your Dialogue