Write better dialogue in 8 minutes.

Summary

Writing dialogue that captivates is a critical skill for screenwriters, and it can indeed be developed through practice. This video explores strategies like avoiding long-windedness, using concise and specific dialogue, and applying subtext to create memorable lines. The creator workshops dialogue from 'The Room' to demonstrate improvements and offers exercises like eavesdropping on real conversations to enhance writing realism. Memorable dialogue often stems from unexpected and specific lines that reveal much through subtext and character contrast, enriching the storytelling experience.

Highlights

• Learn how to transform bad dialogue into captivating exchanges with key principles. 🌟
• Identifying character dynamics helps in crafting dialogues that work well in scenes. 🎬
• Exercises like eavesdropping on conversations can help you write more realistic dialogue. 🎤
• Using subtext enhances the depth of your character's conversations significantly. 🚀
• Memorable dialogue is unexpected and fits the character, making it stick with audiences. 🧲

Key Takeaways

• Writing great dialogue is a skill that can be developed and improved! ✍️
• Good dialogue is concise and layered with meaning, avoiding generic and surface-level exchanges. 🗣️
• Understanding character dynamics can transform dialogue into a tool for storytelling. 🎭
• Exercising dialogue by listening to real conversations can enhance authenticity. 🎧
• Subtext is a powerful tool, making conversations deeper and more engaging. 💬
• Memorable lines often come from unexpected yet character-fitting dialogue. 🔥

Overview

Creating dialogue that stands out is a skill set that filmmakers and scriptwriters can hone over time. With the right approach, what seems like a natural talent can be nurtured into expertise, crafting words that not only inform but also entertain and engage the audience.

In the video, various strategies to enhance writing are discussed, such as the merit of concise dialogue over lengthy monologues. Practical tips include the structure of dialogue within scenes, understanding character opposition, and using specific word choices aligned with persona.

Moreover, the video emphasizes the significance of subtext, where the real conversation happens beneath the surface level talk. Crafting unique lines that echo with the audience can turn scripts into memorable experiences. Through practice and creativity, your dialogue can transform into a vibrant narrative tool.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Good Dialogue The chapter 'Introduction to Good Dialogue' emphasizes the importance of writing compelling dialogue for screenwriters and filmmakers. It suggests that, contrary to some beliefs, writing strong dialogue is a skill that can be developed and enhanced with practice. The chapter introduces guiding principles to help improve dialogue writing, aiming to distinguish what separates good dialogue from bad.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Characteristics of Good and Bad Dialogue The chapter discusses the characteristics that distinguish good dialogue from bad dialogue. Bad dialogue is described as long-winded, generic, surface-level, and disposable, while good dialogue is characterized as concise, specific, layered with meaning or interpretation, and memorable. The chapter implies that audiences generally dislike 'windbag' characters, who might have entertaining dialogue but are typically seen as silly or oblivious, often serving as supporting characters rather than protagonists.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Avoiding Long-Winded Dialogue The chapter discusses how to handle long-winded dialogue in storytelling, particularly with villains who tend to be very talkative. It emphasizes the importance of pairing a verbose villain with a hero who uses short, concise dialogue. This contrast creates a dynamic that highlights the hero's character and provides satisfaction to the audience, especially when the hero's brevity successfully shuts down the villain. The chapter references characters like Hans Landa from 'Inglourious Basterds' to illustrate this point.
• 02:00 - 03:30: Workshopping Dialogue from 'The Room' This chapter discusses how to improve dialogue in screenwriting, using a scene from the film 'The Room' as an example. The focus is on structuring scenes and character interactions to refine and condense dialogue. The scene presented involves a character named Danny expressing his feelings about Lisa to Johnny, showcasing how dialogue can be shortened and made more impactful.
• 03:30 - 04:30: Specificity in Dialogue Writing The chapter delves into the concept of specificity in dialogue writing. It uses a conversation about a character named Lisa to demonstrate how certain phrases can be edited for clarity and impact. Initially, the dialogue includes lines like 'I don't know if we need either of those,' and 'she's mean to me.' The suggestion is to omit redundant phrases such as 'I'm just confused' and imply emotions more subtly by suggesting the character's deep feelings with lines like wanting to express love, enhancing the dialogue's effectiveness and emotional nuance.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Listening to Real Conversations The chapter involves a conversation where one character, Denny, expresses confusion about his feelings towards Lisa, questioning his romantic interest in her despite believing she doesn't like him. Johnny reassures Denny by explaining that Lisa loves him as a friend, and emphasizes that such feelings of love do not always require verbal expression. Johnny philosophically remarks that if more people loved each other, the world would be a better place. The dialogue shows Denny's internal conflict and ends with an echo of reassurances about the nature of love and friendship.
• 05:30 - 08:00: Using Subtext in Dialogue This chapter discusses how to use subtext effectively in dialogue. The example involves re-editing a script to remove unnecessary dialogue, aiming to make a character, Johnny, appear more insightful and wise. It highlights the power of concise dialogue and how reducing excess can enhance the character's perceived wisdom, aligning with the original intention of the scriptwriter, Tommy Wiseau. The speaker mentions having re-edited an entire scene to demonstrate this technique but refrains from including it due to potential copyright issues with Tommy Wiseau's material.
• 08:00 - 10:00: Creating Memorable Lines The chapter 'Creating Memorable Lines' emphasizes the importance of crafting distinct and unique dialogue for characters in scripts. It suggests a technique to improve dialogue by covering character names in a scene to see if their speech is identifiable. If characters speak in the same way, it indicates a lack of distinctiveness, which is crucial for engaging and believable dialogue. This approach helps ensure that dialogue is not generic and that each character's voice is specific to them and their world.
• 10:00 - 10:30: Conclusion The conclusion chapter advises writers to enhance their dialogue writing skills by practicing a classic screenwriting exercise: eavesdropping on real-life conversations. Writers should observe and listen to how people naturally speak, capturing the uniqueness and specifics in their words. The chapter humorously suggests recording these conversations, even if it feels 'creepy,' and then transcribing them into script format verbatim, including pauses, interruptions, and filler words like 'uh.' This exercise aims to train writers to develop dialogue that is distinctive and true to each character.

Write better dialogue in 8 minutes. Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 so obviously writing dialogue that pops is a crucial skill for screenwriters and filmmakers but some people believe that they're just not cut out for writing strong dialogue but my belief is that dialogue is a skill that can be developed and improved just like most other skills and there's some guiding principles in this video that might immediately step up your dialogue game so you're telling me there's a chance so first we need to figure out what separates good dialogue from bad dialogue bad dialogue is generally
• 00:30 - 01:00 long-winded generic surface level and disposable whereas good dialogue is usually concise specific with layers of meaning or interpretation and memorable easy now all we got to do is avoid the one column and get to the other column so let's drill down into each of these figure out how so in general nobody likes a wind bag this type of character can have great dialogue but they're usually silly or oblivious supporting characters and rarely is our protagonist a wind bag do you expect me to talk no
• 01:00 - 01:30 mr bond i expect you to die but one type of main character is often very talkative and that is the villain but in those cases you need a hero that has short terse dialogue to contrast with that over talkative villain and give the audience the joy of the hero shutting them up i am a god you dull creature and i will not be bullied by that that's why hans landa and glorious bastards is always paired with a quiet reserved character so as you can see
• 01:30 - 02:00 writing great dialogue is not always about the specific lines in the script it's often just about how you're structuring your scenes and matching up your characters so let's quickly workshop how to take a long-winded piece of dialogue and improve it by cutting it down shoot danny it's about lisa okay let's take this scene from one of the worst films ever made the room denny it's about lisa johnny go on denny she's beautiful she looks great in a red dress i think i'm in love with her johnny go on well i
• 02:00 - 02:30 don't know if we need either of those it's about lisa beet from johnny what if we just suggest all this stuff especially the red dress we don't need so she's beautiful beat i know she doesn't like me because sometimes she's mean to me but sometimes when i'm around her i feel like i want to kiss her and tell her i love her i don't know i'm just confused well right off the bat i don't think we need i'm just confused i don't know sets that up i don't think we need because sometimes she's mean to me what if we just suggest that he wants to tell her that he loves
• 02:30 - 03:00 her and just get rid of that i know she doesn't like me but sometimes when i'm around her i feel like i want to kiss her i don't know johnny denny don't worry about that lisa loves you too as a person as a human being as a friend you know people don't have to say it they can feel it danny don't worry about that's gone as a person as a human being how about just lisa loves you too as a friend and get rid of all that too what do you mean you can love someone deep inside your heart and there is nothing wrong with it if a lot of people loved each other the world would be a better place to live okay so what if we just get rid
• 03:00 - 03:30 of all that that's how you write a script tommy still not great but less of a bad thing is always a good thing that's the power of concise dialogue and by removing the excess it also makes johnny's character seem more insightful and wise which i think was tommy wiseau's intention go on and i actually re-edited this entire scene to cut out all that bloated dialogue like i did in the script and i was going to include it here but apparently tommy wiseau is pretty trigger-happy on copyright striking the room footage on youtube so i'm just
• 03:30 - 04:00 gonna throw that up on my patreon along with the other great weekly videos i put there great dialogue has to be specific to your character and the character's world and if your character speaks exactly the way that you speak they might be too generic here's a really quick exercise you should always do for your scripts take a dialogue scene and cover up all the character names you should still easily be able to tell which character is talking and if you can't tell it's because they talk exactly the same and that's a big problem we love listening to characters talk that feel unique and real so one
• 04:00 - 04:30 way to train yourself to write dialogue that's more specific to each of your characters is to do this classic screenwriting 101 exercise you gotta listen the way people talk if you're out at a cafe or hanging out with some friends eavesdrop on the people around you and if you want to be a creep about it which i know you do use your phone and get a recording of their whole conversation then take that recording take it home transcribe every single word into script format include them cutting themselves off their uhs their
• 04:30 - 05:00 dot dots everything you'll be really surprised by how different this turns out than your own dialogue because the way different people talk in real life their vocabularies their turns of phrase how they cut each other off have different conversations at the same time change the subject or laugh at inappropriate times these quirks are what make dialogue specific and real this exercise trains your brain to listen for these unique traits of speech in your day to day life so writing specific dialogue you don't always need to reinvent the wheel but you need to at
• 05:00 - 05:30 least learn how to spot a good wheel and remember it for later now one of the most powerful tools in the screenwriters toolkit is subtext subtext is the meaning beneath the dialogue it's what the speaker really means even though they're not saying it directly so when dialogue exists purely on the literal surface level of whatever the characters are talking about it's really easy to get bored just by the simplicity of their conversation but when characters are saying just as much between their
• 05:30 - 06:00 words as they are with them it makes for much more engaging dialogue so i covered this a little bit in my screenwriting video why your scene sucks gave an example of subtext one of my short films but this time around i'm going to give you a fresh example hot off the presses say you have a scene with a mother talking to her rebellious teenage daughter mom's worried that the daughter is partying and getting into trouble with boys so here's how that scene might look without subtext all right i'm going to sarah's i might
• 06:00 - 06:30 spend the night you're going to go out drinking with boys aren't you no god why don't you trust me because you lie to me and i worry about you well you need to get a life mom okay pretty lame right here's how it would look if we said the same things through subtext hi i'm going to sarah's i might spend the night remember when you used to come home from
• 06:30 - 07:00 school and be so excited to tell me all about your day when i was like six were still a little girl to me aren't you i'm a girl with places to be [Music] okay so still kind of cheesy but a lot more interesting when that real conversation is taking place between the words that's the power of subtext nobody wants their dialogue to feel disposable you want to give your characters especially your leads lines that people are going to be quoting for years this is exactly the kind of thing
• 07:00 - 07:30 that makes a great actor want to take on some indie film role if anybody orders one i'm leaving i am not drinking any more low and that's how a lot of films just get made in the big leagues these memorable lines are like a currency for getting good actors so what separates the disposable from the memorable in dialogue i would argue that memorable lines are unexpected and specific now we've already covered being specific with your dialogue so let's talk about giving your characters lines that surprise mother if you can catch your audience off guard with the line that
• 07:30 - 08:00 still feels right for the character then you've landed in that sweet spot of memorable dialogue hasta la vista baby here's johnny i love the smell of my pum in the morning skip your first instinct for a line if you're trying to make something memorable and try approaching your dialogue from a different angle and if you can't think of anything unexpected that your character might say then unfortunately the problem might lie with the fact that you're writing a story based around an inherently
• 08:00 - 08:30 uninteresting character because any interesting character is going to have the capability of surprising the audience i drink your milkshake and that's it thanks for watching is that the best line i can end on