There is no way to sugar coat this so I’ll give it to you straight. I like to talk. Anyone who knows me will agree. Sometimes, I just don’t shut up.
But, to us novelists and scriptwriters, dialogue is an extremely important factor of our work. Dialogue is good. Dialogue is a major player in forming our personality and creating our character. Just ask my husband. He will tell you that my dialogue sums me up as a nag 🙂
So, writing dialogue should be a walk in the park, right? After all, we all talk on a daily basis, some of us even in our sleep. We are knowledgeable experts in the field of speech. We’ve been using words to argue and laugh our way through life for twenty, thirty (or us old ones) forty plus years. We know what we’re doing. We don’t need help in this area. Right?
Wrong.
Elmore Leonard and Quentin Tarrantino are arguably two of the best dialogue writers around. If you’ve read any of Leonard’s novel’s (and I do advise you to, if only for the dialogue), or watched any of Tarrantino’s movies, you will understand what I mean. They give their characters a ‘voice’.
By a voice, I mean your characters need their OWN voice. New writers often make the mistake of giving their characters THEIR voice, meaning all their characters sound the same as their author.
But how do I know when you’ve done this? What are the tell tale signs?
In his book ‘Save the Cat’, Blake Snyder talks about a simple test you can do to check whether you have bad and flat dialogue. Take a page of your script and cover your character names. Then, by reading the dialogue, see if you can tell which of you characters are speaking. It’s simple, but extremely effective.
So, just how do we go about distinguishing Bob the Postman from Betty the Accountant? Doesn’t all the dialogue look same, and it’s the movie actors who breathe life into them?
Hell, no! Novelists don’t have the luxury of actors. The dialogue we give our characters to speak can be the difference between novelists and screenwriters getting published or ending up on the slush pile.
Take these examples:
“If Mr Johnson catches you with that, you’re certain to be suspended, maybe even expelled.”
“Yo, dude. If Jonno sees ya, you’ll be outta here. No messing.”
See how both lines are saying the same thing, only in different ways?
Dialogue is conversation. Make it real. However, don’t forget the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule. You don’t need three pages of a husband and wife discussing their marriage problems, when a husband eyeing up the sexy waitress is enough.
Now, I thought I’d have some fun and set you a little quiz. Below, I have listed fifteen lines of dialogue from various films. All you have to do is guess the movie and the character saying it. It’s so easy, I don’t really know why I’m bothering 🙂
I’ll post the answers in the comment box on Monday.
OH, and no cheating on Google.
- “You can’t handle the truth!”
- “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
- “You had me at ‘hello’.”
- “What do they think I am? Dumb or something? Why, I make more money than – than, than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!”
- “I know what you’re thinkin’. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya punk?”
- “They’re not gonna catch us. We’re on a mission from God.”
- “Get away from her, you BITCH!”
- “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
- “I am not an animal! I am a human being.”
- “…I’m NOT gonna be ignored.”
- “Wendy…darling. Light of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya… I’m just gonna bash your brains in. I’m gonna bash ’em right the f–k in.”
- “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
- “They’re here!”
- “Fellas, last year I made three million dollars. But your fifty thousand was the most fun. Are you ready? Then, let’s go get ’em.”
- “I was a better man with you, as a woman, than I ever was with a woman, as a man. Know what I mean? I just gotta learn to do it without the dress.”
I completely agree with the post – dialogue isn’t just writing the words a character speaks, it’s the essence of that character that needs to shine through and make them unique.
Oh I loved this little quiz at the end! Tried to trick my hubby but he’s a bit of a film freak and he got ’em easily *roll eyes* 😉
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LOL. They are really easy aren’t they. I should have found really hard ones.
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Dialogue is so very important to the character and the story. Great post. I love that I’m getting your blog posts again. Where have you been?
I definitely got some of the quiz…I feel like an idiot because I know that I should have been able to answer all of them!
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Tiffany, leave your answers in the comment box! Lol.
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Right, I’m going to have a go at this quiz…
1. ‘A Few Good Men’ (or that film with Nicholson and Cruise)
2. ‘Dirty Dancing’
3. Erm.. I think it’s from a Classic but dunno which one 😦
4. Calvin Coolige? Haven’t a clue who that is so I’m guessing a US film.
5. A Clint Eastwood film
6. The Blues Brothers
7. Alien(s)
8. Um.. a movie with people in it… um… 😉
9. The Elephant Man
10. See 8.
11. Godfather/Goodfellas/mobster-type film?
12. Wall Street (think that’s it’s name.. Gordon Gecko character.. um..)
13. I should know this one…. an film with aliens? Independence Day?
14. I recognise that dialogue but can’t think of the film.
15. Tootsie! (I think)
And all done without the aid of the Interweb, as you can tell by some of my answers.
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I’ll let you know on Monday 🙂 xx
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Great post and great idea! #4 was my favorite!
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What Donna said, and
3 Renee Zellweiger’s character in that “Show me the Money” thing, which won an OscarI didn’t see it
4 Born Yesterday, Broderick Crawford’s character
8 Don’t know
10 Don’t know
13 Poltergeist–the little girl
14 That thing with Steve Martin and…Michael Caine? as con men. Great flick.
Donna and I have seen all different movies. Great quiz.
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I mean, “what Galeramage said.” Sorry.
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Oh a quiz super! – Loved the blog post as always, had never thought of that in writing terms but should have done being as I am always writng scripts and have to see/hear the characters – can be fun too when doing read throughs!
Right then – answers, couldnt get them all and I wont cheat as you A/ Would anyone dare to cheat on Donna?! B/ You would suss me out and slay me on Twitter!!! 😉 xx
So then….
1. A Few Good Men
2. Dirty Dancing (Ashamed I know this)
3. DONT KNOW
4. DONT KNOW
5. Dirty Harry
6. Blues Brothers
7. Aliens
8. Ferris Buellers Day Off
9. Elephant Man (I’m guessing there)
10. DONT KNOW
11. The Shining
12. Wall Street
13. Poltergeist
14. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
15. Tootsie (Guessing again)
Well that was a jolly way to spend my wake up coffee break! Thank you darling.:-) xx
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Right, here are the answers:
1. “You can’t handle the truth!”
– COLONEL JESSUP (Jack Nicholson) in A Few Good Men (1992)
2. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
– JOHNNY CASTLE (Patrick Swayze) in Dirty Dancing (1987)
3. You had me at ‘hello’.”
– DOROTHY BOYD (Renee Zellweger) in Jerry Maguire (1996)
4. “What do they think I am? Dumb or something? Why, I make more money than – than, than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!”
– (Jean Hagen, Singin’ in the Rain (1952))
5. “I know what you’re thinkin’. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya punk?”
– Dirty Harry (1971)
6. “They’re not gonna catch us. We’re on a mission from God.”
– The Blues Brothers (1980)
7. “Get away from her, you BITCH!”
– Aliens (1986)
8. “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
– Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
9. “I am not an animal! I am a human being.”
– Elephant Man (1980)
10. “…I’m NOT gonna be ignored.”
– Fatal Attraction (1987)
11. Wendy…darling. Light of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya… I’m just gonna bash your brains in. I’m gonna bash ’em right the f–k in.”
– The Shining (1980)
12. “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
– GORDON GEKKO. Wall Street (1987)
13. “They’re here!”
– Poltergeist (1982)
14. “Fellas, last year I made three million dollars. But your fifty thousand was the most fun. Are you ready? Then, let’s go get ’em.”
– Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
15. “I was a better man with you, as a woman, than I ever was with a woman, as a man. Know what I mean? I just gotta learn to do it without the dress.”
– Tootsie (1982)
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Hi Donna. What a fun post. I knew about half of these.
When it comes to dialogue, I don’t claim to know it all, but I think it helps to have known lots of different types of people. Thanks for a great post.
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Well, most of them were easy…but i guess i am late for an answer now…as they have been put up already….but those were all legendary!!
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