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advice, character, dialogue, humanistic, ideas, inspire, language, movie, necessity, process, screenwriting, script, speech, writer
Welcome once again readers! It’s late and the internet is being difficult for me, so I’ll make this quick. Our next area of film study is something that, quite honestly, I have the most difficulty with. I’ll explain why in a moment. But let’s talk about something incredibly important – dialogue.
Dialogue, as you pretty much know, is the spoken word. It’s all that stuff we hear the actors say on screen. And let’s be honest, dialogue has to be memorable. Maybe not all of it (though there are those people who can quote certain movies flawlessly), but a good portion. Haven’t you watched a movie and thought “Wow, that’s a great line!” That’s what we’re going for. So perhaps watch your favorite movie and study how the characters speak to each other and to themselves. It’s not just spoken word, but body language. It’s very humanistic.
Now why would I have trouble with this? Two main reasons. The first: I’m very old school in my mentality. I speak a bit more formally and use more educated words than the usual mid-twenties American would. Second: I tend to have my characters speak more like I would. I don’t imagine how they would speak. Remember: we’re just writing down the character’s stories. We are translating it for everyone else. That’s a bad habit to get into.
What’s so important about dialogue? Well, if you have ever spoken to anyone in real life, you know how many layers there are to dialogue. The situation demands a certain finesse when it comes to speaking. If you don’t believe me, just watch one of your favorites and see how the delivery of a line implies not only what they are saying but also the mood and mentality of the character.
I wish I had more on dialogue, but it is late here and I have a million things to do. Next week, I wouldn’t expect a post simply because of the whole move I’m going through and I don’t think my new place has internet yet. So keep an eye out for the next one.