Dialog

Dialog serves to communicate information and to express opinions, to give orders, ask for favors and to express feelings. Before writing dialog, you have to know why your character is talking and what exactly he/she wants or expects from this conversation at this moment. Is he/she is asking for something? Must he/she be polite? Dialog is yet more interesting if it reveals your character’s personality, point of view and attitude.

Example EXT. STREET - DAY

In the street, a father talks to his eight-year-old daughter. She doesn’t want to go to school.

        FATHER 

School is great. You learn to read and to write and to understand things. I loved school.

The girl doesn’t answer. They silently walk to the school gate. The father is bothered.

        FATHER 

Come on, you’ll have fun.

        DAUGHTER  

(turning to her father, seriously) Do you know why you’re saying that?

The father gives his daughter a surprised look.

        DAUGHTER

Because you don’t have to go to school anymore.

The father can’t answer. The daughter enters the school gates and runs away from him.

        FATHER

OK… well have a good day…

See how the father tries to cheer his daughter up. And how obviously he fails. The girl’s silence shows she is thinking about what he said and doesn’t agree. This little girl thinks a lot and isn’t fooled by her father’s little speech. The father is troubled and doesn’t know what is really wrong. Nor does his daughter tell him. They have unsolved issues.

EXERCISE 13 Choose how your character talks.

Does he/she speak correctly, or with mistakes? With an accent? If so, where does the accent come from? Don’t forget language refers to a cultural and social environment.

HELP Listen to people talk.

Write down expressions that strike you and language tics. Listen carefully to people’s sentences: are they long or short? Pay attention to the difference between what people say and what they mean.

Film dialog is close to real-life dialog, but not too close: it has the same style, but without the hesitations and repetitions. Good dialog is real life dialog improved: briefer and stronger, and always adapted to the characters’ personality.