Dialogue
So I was asked the other day to talk a little bit more about how I write dialogue and so I'm going to attempt to do that. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be disappointing, but we'll see.
Listen to the podcast version here.
(Transcript)
So I was asked the other day to talk a little bit more about how I write dialogue and so I'm going to attempt to do that. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be disappointing, but we'll see. Uh, but it did remind me if you have a question you want me to try and answer, I can certainly try and do that about Midnight Burger or about writing or about, you know, whatever. If you want my take on something, I'd be happy to give it a shot. Hit me up on, you know, on whatever platform you find me on. And um, you know, if it's something that I feel like I can talk about for a few minutes, uh, I'd be happy to do that. Um, so let me give it a shot here.
Dialogue. I did a whole talk about dialogue over on our Patreon. I did this five part series about making audio drama and being a creator and all of that stuff. And so I went off on dialogue for a while. So this will be a kind of an addendum to that. Um, what do I want in dialogue? I think dialogue should be funny even in very dramatic situations. I think it's a good idea for the characters to have a sense of humor, even if it's dark material. I don't know why that is. I think it brings you into the story very easily. I want dialogue to be surprising. I want it to be true. I want it to be purposeful. Um. Treating dialogue like it's an information delivery device is a good way of looking at it, but people think the only information to be conveyed is the movement of the story, but dialogue can and should contain multitudes.
It can deepen the connection between the characters in a way that doesn't necessarily have to do with the plot moving forward. You can do deep background on the story; details about the world that the characters are existing in. That doesn't necessarily have to do with the plot moving forward, but it does help to, sort of put a nice color on the background.
Dialogue should be fun, and I don't mean fun like goofy. It should be, it should be a roller coaster. If a scene goes exactly the way the audience is expecting, you have probably failed in the scene. It's the worst feeling in the world, and this happens to me and Finlay all the time. When we're sitting there and we're watching some sort of TV show, and either she or I will say the next line, like we literally, we don't know what the next line is, but we say it and we end up being right.
That's gotta be a terrible feeling for a writer. The audience really shouldn't be able to do that. It means they're ahead of you and if the audience is ahead of you, you are behind and you are the one telling the story and they want you to hurry up. Right?
A very meat and potatoes approach to writing dialogue is to always know what your characters want, and to have them go for their objective in the scene. that's what a good acting teacher will say to you as an actor as well. Know what your objective is, go for your objective.
I'm not sure I agree with that.
If a character goes into a scene knowing what they want, it may take a sense of discovery out of the scene. Sometimes that's appropriate. If the scene is about something very cut and dried, like I need that person to, to give the other person the Twinkies, if that's, if that's what the scene is about. But in a scene where there's something more complicated going on, you might be better served just knowing how your characters are feeling going into the scene.
You might do better for the spontaneity in a scene if even you don't know how it's going to go.
You know a scene needs to be there. You know how your characters are feeling, the rest is discovered in the writing of the scene.
So I was asked to talk about how I write dialogue and like I said, I think I'm going to ultimately fail at that mainly because the main reason why I've come to write dialogue the way I do really is just practice. I did it a whole lot, and the more I did it, the better I got at it,
and the better I got at it, the easier it became. I don't really talk about craft a lot when I talk about stuff, mainly because everything is different for everyone, and every tip that works for someone is an absolute failure for someone else.
So mainly I try and focus on people who aren't writing. The key to writing is writing. The way to do it is to do it. That's incredibly frustrating to hear from someone who just wants some advice, but it is true if you're sitting there and you've never actually finished a thing, I can guarantee you that getting to the end and finishing it, no matter how garbage it is, is going to feel great.
And not only will it feel great, each finished thing is like an apple crate. You keep stacking them and stacking them, getting a better and better view over the wall until you can finally see clearly towards the type of writing you've always dreamed of doing.
Right. Okay, but enough about that I won't dwell. Dialogue. Here's the thing. The way I write dialogue is not a logical process. It's not a rubric that I apply or a grocery list of things that I tick off when I write dialogue... when I write dialogue. I can hear the scene in my head like a melody, but I can't hear the words.
And when I write the dialogue, it's almost like writing a libretto.
Something needs to be here because I can hear it. But what are those words? I am sorry how artsy fartsy that sounds. I wish it was something more teachable, but that's how it goes for me because I really did think about it. I really did think, how do I do this? And that's the best estimation I can come up with.
I know what this scene sounds like, but what are the words?
And there's music that I hear with each character too. I can't write a scene with Deidre and Verge without hearing the, without hearing the Flower Duet from Lakmé. I can't write for Gloria without hearing, uh, Calexico. Simple, straightforward, A little Dusty. Casper's Warren Zevon: weird, mournful, a little funny.
Ava is Eric Satie. Leif is the Stooges. The Mucklewain's, The Mucklewains sound like Watchouse to me.
It's weird, I know, and probably not very helpful, but that's how it is. But hey, even though it sounds weird, try it sometime. It might get you out of your head. Don't think about the story or the plot. Just think about how your characters are feeling and think about how the scene sounds in your head. You don't know what the words are, but you know how it sounds.
Now, try filling in the words. You never know. It might work for you.
Dialogue is a bit of an orphan in the writing world. If you have too much of it in a novel, it can feel a bit odd in film and television. Writers are always encouraged to shorten scenes and to get to the action. And in theater there's a presentational quality that writing kind of has to have that can make it hard to find a place for the, the subtlety and the nuance of an artful interaction.
So maybe the reason people struggle with dialogue is because it's discouraged in so many forms.
It's rare in a dramatic format for a story to encourage you to just sit there and listen for a while. In audio drama I've found that that's not the case. Maybe that's why I like it so much. It seems to be a place where you can finally find a moment to talk.
You can't take your cues from tv, film, or theater when it comes to audio drama. It's not the same thing. You have to find your own way of doing things, and I think all of us in audio drama are still trying to figure that out, which is probably why it's such a hard thing for me to talk about. It's all very new.
So I think for the time being, it's better to just do it and keep doing it and use your instincts. And then a few years down the line when someone says, Hey, how did you do that? You can have this lovely moment that I'm having lately where I say, right, how did I do that?
-j