How To Write Great Dialogue

Conflict is like the catalyst for compelling

dialogue

. You can have

great

dialogue

in the scene without it, but the dialogue will almost always be better with it. It's no coincidence that the most iconic lines of dialogue are those at the height of the conflict. Blade Runner's tears. in the rain gladiators I will have my revenge The silence of the lambs I ate my liver or social media you don't have my full attention you have the minimum amount if you want to find a list of the most iconic dialogues in the history of cinema I would find that most of those lines are pronounced at a point where two opposing forces collide with tremendous tension.

Now there are several qualities that make up good dialogue and what better place to start than a purpose. It is an objective fact that if a line of dialogue does not have a purpose, it is guaranteed to be bad dialogue now, the purpose can be fulfilled in many ways, it could be exposition, Airy or serves for characterization, advances the plot or does To make the viewer laugh, there are a million and one ways a line can serve a purpose, but One thing is certainly clear: every line must serve at least one and the mark of a

great

write

r is to

write

dialogue that serves several purposes at the same time.

Same time. Let's take this example from The Lord of the Rings. Now, what is this dialogue for? First of all. It tells exactly how Bilbo feels about the other hobbits in his neighborhood as long as the viewer can unravel the cryptic nature of his phrasing, but it also tells us about Bill, that character, he's cheeky, he likes to throw riddles knowing that almost no one will solve them. , so it's a person. who likes to confuse other people and gives us the impression that he is quite witty as well as quite socially awkward. This line serves a variety of purposes and serves them well, making it a great line of dialogue, but what is an example of dialogue? that fails in this aspect where it really lacks meaning, yes can I have a dozen red roses please, oh hi Johnny, I didn't know what you were, how much does it cost?

It'll be $18. Oh, keep the change, hello, doggie. my favorite customer, thank you very much, bye, now analyzing why the room is a terrible movie is like kicking a helpless, armless, legless man while he is face down in a puddle. It's not exactly difficult, but this is a great example of what happens when there is dialogue or just a The whole scene serves no purpose, it's hilariously bad because it's so boring, because when you have dialogue that adds nothing to the story , your scenes will look an awful lot like this one, so you shouldn't do it unless you're actively Trying to make a terrible movie, in which case you'll knock yourself out, preferably Literally no purpose is fine, but even a line with a purpose It can be terrible.

Take this, for example, a day has passed. I haven't thought about you. I'm in agony I thought about not being with you I can't breathe I'm tormented by the kiss you should never have given me My heart beats hoping that kiss doesn't turn into a scar Now what is the purpose of this dialogue Well, it tells us that Anakin loves Padmé and, as a dialogue exchange, I'll forgive my French because Greek dialogue is much more nuanced than the simple purpose it serves. Not only is this example unnatural because it feels incredibly inauthentic as if no human being had made it.

Say those words, but that's a topic we'll touch on later in this video, but it also likes a critical quality that makes good dialogue good, exactly that and that's subtext. Now, if you were to ask me, subtext is by far the most important quality that makes good dialogue, it is also by far the most difficult part to master, simply put, subtext is the difference between what a character and what he wants to say. I have no doubt you'll have heard the on-the-nose phrase around anything we see, a particularly clumsy line. For example, when we as an audience use the phrase on the nose, what we are really trying to say is that it is a moment that lacked the subtext it needed and we are going to find an example to explain this concept, so let's say you have to Steve and Joe Steve just found out that his father has died, so Joe says Steve, are you okay?, to which Steve replies I'm okay now, of course, Steve's not really okay, his father just died, What he's really saying is that I'm actually not okay.

I feel terrible but I don't want to talk about it because right there is the subtext of that line when he says I'm fine now this example really is the most generic example of subtext you can find but it is a good example to demonstrate the concept, in a nutshell, subtext is the show's Don't Tell rule, applies to dialogue as a definition, subtext is what the character actually says: the words they say, when a character says exactly what they feel, I'm really mad at you or I'm really mad sad right now i want a hug such lines can be jarring because they lack that subtext or, as the layman would say, they are on the nose you can't just have your characters announce how they feel and that makes me feel angry and I think a Fantastic example of subtext done right is Hannibal and Clarice's exchange in The Silence of the Lambs.

During the entire exchange they are talking about the serial killer Buffalo Bill, the person Clarice, Hannibal's paintings, and a myriad of other topics, but in reality the topics are not what the characters are discussing because the entire exchange is really a power struggle the characters are having a battle of wits trying to gain dominance over the other to manipulate them the conversation is not a conversation it is more of a game chess game of the two moving their pieces trying to achieve a checkmate to make the other bend to their will and the fact that they are trying to achieve power over the other is never explicitly stated, but is strongly implied in the angles of the camera and the way the dialogue is written.

In this case, the subtext is not just in one line, but it is also the entire scene and if you wanted to find the example of the polar opposite, one of poorly done subtext, a fantastic example would be this infamous interstellar love line, it is the only thing what we have. You are able to perceive that it transcends the dimensions of time and space. Now many don't like this line and they don't like it for one simple reason because this is a notion that should be delivered with subtext like any topic should be, but the problem with this line is its Nolan directly says to the audience: Hello, did you know the thief?

This movie is love. That's the problem with this line. It's telling the vision of the film's themes in a direct way when in reality those things should be expressed with subtlety. the nose message broke the illusion of reality for some viewers because it was too complicated. In reality, it is a common apartment. Newer writers are often fooled because instead of showing it across the board, when applying it to dialogue, they will abandon the subtext and say exactly what. The characters are sincere not necessarily because they are bad at writing, but because they rely on it thinking that the themes and ideas may be too subtle, so viewers may miss them and assume that the audience lacks the intelligence to do so.

Seeing through the lines this, of course, is not a very, very entertaining experience for the audience, if anything it comes across as condescending. None of this is to say that dialogue needs subtext to be good. I mean, the subtext is great, but look. In this example, I is an iconic line, possibly one of the most iconic lines in film history, and it turns out to have no subtext either. It's exactly what it says on the tin. It's like anything when it comes to storytelling. The rules are simply. The guidelines and sometimes the most entertaining examples are the ones that break those rules.

There is now a common myth floating around the writing scene that good dialogue must be realistic. The truth is that that is not all bad, however, it is bad advice because if a new writer. If he turned around and took that advice to heart, his dialogue would have become unbearably boring. The point is that great dialogue makes the audience think it's authentic when in reality, if it's truly authentic, it's almost certainly going to be bad dialogue, okay, that's a lot of process, so come on. Breaking it down If you sat down at dinner or in some public place and listened to a conversation in an attempt to learn about dialogue you realize one thing if you transcribed an everyday conversation into a manuscript, it would almost definitely be an incredibly boring copy.

An incredibly important distinction Conversation is not dialogue The two are completely separate things The real sweet spot that all great dialogue writers hit is that they write dialogue that the audience feels so real that they believe it to be authentic even though there is very little of it. of realness in them Now that the dialogue is iconic, it's great, but how often do you see real people get so angry at a person that they point a gun at them and start reciting Bible verses? Now, if the answer to your question is "frequently", please tell me where you live because I want to go live there, but in a well-made script you will find that the characters are much more inventive than real people.

There are no arms or land or transition points. A real conversation is like a winding river that goes around and around. and often hear completely new streams often lack direction often a conversation is not even complete because the topic moves on to something completely different before reaching a conclusion, but a good exchange of dialogue is like a train track to the point efficient and even when your characters go on tangents that serve the main purpose of the scene and build towards that final resolution. Take the Inglourious Bastards opening, for example, the hands. Lander is chasing a group of Jews and interrogating the farmer to see if he is hiding them in the middle of the scene, Han stops talking about the war and goes on a random tangent about rats that have no bearing on the purpose. of his visit until the conversation flows more and it turns out that he is comparing rats to Jews and his saying howl when analyzing the behavior of vermin can become a better hunter, this plays a role in the outcome of this scene because he says that the rats hide under the floorboards, which turns out to be exactly where the Jews are hiding, even in a scene where you might think there's a nonsensical tangent it's the exact opposite and the ability to make them is incredibly relevant. of having tangents that make the exchange feel real because those kinds of transitions happen in real life but then having those tangents realign and serve the master's purpose of the scene, by doing so, you deliver that compelling purpose of good dialogue and you also generate a feeling of authenticity.

That's excellent writing and it's something Tarantino is a master at and I would talk more about that, but I already made that video. I think a great way to distinguish dialogue from reality is that you know what it's like when you're arguing with a person, the argument ends, and five minutes later you slap yourself in the face because you thought of the perfect witty response to the conversation that's already going on. Well, in dialogue there are no five minutes to think, the very moment someone says something, that witty response that takes most of us a few minutes to think comes out directly: you didn't have seconds, you had three weeks in which to think. created the universe. a third of that time well one day you'll have to tell us how you did it again no one in the real world talks like that because no one is smart enough to respond with wit with such ease and immediacy but damn if clear listening doesn't help and if not is entertaining like nothing else, maintaining the illusion of dialogue is real, conversation is truly essential in any type of story, be it drama, romance, horror or anything in between, but there is one genre and only one genre where it can be broken that rule of realistic illusion and that is the comedy, that is one of the key differences between a comedy and almost all other genres in all other genres, that veil of that illusion of realism must be maintained because if it is not the film it will be less entertaining, but in comedy immersion is not the priority, but rather the pursuit of creating comedy.

Any rule can be broken if doing so creates a genuinely funny moment, this can mean creating toilets or adhering to more generic tropes, such as having a character who does nothing but exposition and jokingly calling it basil exposition I suggest you don't worry. for this kind of thing and just have fun, that's for all of you, yes, it could mean breaking the fourth wall or breaking any various cinematic standards, as long as doing so creates a good comedy, all of this breaks the realistic illusion, but it also makes the movie better. Take this clip from 22 Jump Street, the sequel to 21 Jump Street.

I can't believe the Koreans wanted the church back. Yes I wantsay, well, there was an even bigger abandoned church right across the street. Yes, now this dialogue is the opposite of realistic, it is completely meta and breaks the fourth wall by making fun of how they are moving a direction down the street in accordance with the change. in the movie titles and then they also tease the upcoming movie by showing that 23 Jump Street is under construction, it's completely unrealistic, but it works because this kind of dialogue is the kind of dialogue you can only get away with when you write comedy now if you're watching this I guess you want to be a better writer too.

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