So in my most recent group of consultations, I got this question a lot: “What about my dialogue?”
I remember when I first got into screenwriting, I came across an interview where a professional screenwriter was asked, “How do you write good dialogue?” His answer: “Dialogue is the least important part of a screenplay. Learn everything else first.”
I subsequently discarded this screenwriter as insane, refused to watch any of his movies, and wrote a handful of e-mails to him explaining everything that was wrong about his proclamation that I never sent. But over time, I realized there was some truth to his statement. I mean how else do you explain writers rewriting dialogue the day of shooting a scene and coming up with something perfectly suitable?
What you eventually learn is that it’s the structure of the scene that enables the potential for good dialogue. Good dialogue rarely emerges on its own. For example, if a director came to you with a structure-less scene and said, “I need new dialogue here,” you’d be fucked. You could try and write some clever Quentin Tarantino shit with some Diablo Cody witticisms and a Paul Thomas Anderson monologue about milkshakes. But no matter what you did, it would be a mess.
However, if the director came to you and said, “Here’s the scene. This wife is about to cheat on her husband, and while he doesn’t know that yet, he’s suspicious of her recent behavior. This is their phone call. I need you to rewrite the dialogue,” now you have something to work with. You have some underlying tension in the scene. You have subtext. You have conflict.
With that setup, you could have a hundred screenwriters come in and write your dialogue and most of them would come up with something good. Why? Because there’s an underlying STRUCTURE to the scene that is built for dialogue. And that was the inspiration for today’s lesson. I wanted to look at the three big elements responsible for good dialogue.
Before we get to that, though, I want to make something clear. None of this will help if you don’t have the basics down. You can’t have a bunch of on-the-nose dialogue. You can’t have a bunch of melodramatic dialogue. The dialogue can’t be robotic. It’s got to sound like real people talking to one another. Ironically, there should be a slightly heightened quality to movie dialogue, yet not so heightened that you look like you’re showing off. And finally, like all of writing, there can’t be any laziness. Come up with a better word, a better sentence, a better analogy, a better turn-of-phrase. You have to try hard. When you’ve done all that, you’ll be ready for the below.
1) DIALOGUE FRIENDLY CHARACTERS
Last week a writer asked me, “Why does my dialogue suck in this scene?” I re-read the scene which took place between “the boring friend” and “the quiet guy.” In other words, of course the dialogue sucked. Neither of the characters was built for dialogue. If you want to write good dialogue scenes, you need characters who are good at talking. It’s no different than sending a couple of socially awkward introverts into a bar and telling them to pick up women. Their personalities aren’t built for that.
If you look at Pulp Fiction, one of the reasons the dialogue is so memorable is that the movie has a dozen characters who are dialogue-friendly. If you look at Deadpool, one of the reasons the dialogue rocked was because it starred the most dialogue friendly character of the year. Jokesters, anybody opinionated, motormouths, philosophical potheads, people who “just tell it like it is and if you don’t like it, fuck off,” really smart people who love to hear themselves talk, really dumb people who who love to hear themselves talk, weird people who have weird views of the world, idiots, the list goes on. If you want more good dialogue scenes, this is something you should be thinking about during the character creation stage. “Is this a character who’s going to say interesting things?” If you don’t have at least one of these guys, your dialogue is going to suffer.
2) CONTRAST
Many of the best dialogue scenes come from a contrasting dynamic. Two characters who are on different ends of the spectrum. Take one of the best dialogue movies ever – When Harry Met Sally. Harry was brash, opinionated and pessimistic. Sally was reserved, thoughtful, and optimistic. It was no wonder their dialogue was fun. Clementine and Joel in Eternal Sunshine. She was extroverted and a motor-mouth. He was introverted and chose his words carefully. 500 Days of Summer. He wanted to make it work badly and she didn’t. Silence of the Lambs. She was timid and scared. He was brilliant and manipulative.
What happens when you don’t have contrast? Let’s look at Mad Max: Fury Road. Great movie, right? But do you remember the dialogue? Did it stand out in any way? No, it didn’t. Why? Maybe the fact that Max and Furiosa were essentially the same person (alphas who did things their own way) contributed to the lack of interesting conversation. There wasn’t enough contrast in their dynamic. Not to mention, neither was dialogue-friendly. It should also be noted that “contrasting” can be momentary. It doesn’t have to be built into the characters from the get-go. For example, two characters who are similar may enter a situation where they disagree. In that case, the contrast is momentary, but it’s still contrast. It still enables the potential for good dialogue. With that said, it’s beneficial for your key characters to have a contrasting dynamic, since they’re going to be in the most scenes together. If they’re too similar or agreeable, you’ll have a lot of sub-par dialogue scenes.
3) THE NEGATIVE ELEMENT
Now this is a working theory so it’s not 100% there yet. But what I’ve found when I’ve broken dialogue down is that in almost every circumstance, the dialogue gets better when you introduce a NEGATIVE ELEMENT. The example I always like to use is a couple (NICK and LISA) talking at a diner. If all Nick and Lisa do is talk, that’s boring. But if we know that Lisa plans to dump (NEGATIVE ELEMENT) Nick at some point during the conversation, you now have interesting dialogue. And even if she dumps him at the start of the conversation (NEGATIVE ELEMENT) you’re going to have interesting dialogue.
Or maybe, for whatever reason, you want Nick and Lisa happy in the scene. That’s fine. But if you want to keep the dialogue interesting, you need to introduce the NEGATIVE ELEMENT somewhere else. For example, maybe Lisa’s abusive ex-boyfriend shows up (NEGATIVE ELEMENT) and sits a few tables away. I guarantee you the conversation between Nick and Lisa is going to get a lot more interesting, even if neither acknowledges that the ex has shown up.
Likewise, let’s say Nick’s just joined the army (I guess Lisa dumped him). If you write a scene where, when Nick gets to the base, he sits down with another soldier and the two discuss where he came from and how he got here, it’s going to be boring. But if the second Nick gets there, he’s thrown onto a Humvee to go check out an IED explosion, and the route they’re taking is laced with insurgents (NEGATIVE ELEMENT) and THAT’S when Nick is asked where he came from, the dialogue’s going to be a lot more interesting.
The negative element could also be subtle. Let’s say we’re following Nick and Lisa (he survived his tour of duty and they’re back together) to a concert. She’s been looking forward to this all week whereas he doesn’t want to be here (NEGATIVE ELEMENT). We’re more likely to get good dialogue out of that than if they’re both happy and excited to be here.
And it’s important to note that you have OPTIONS once the negative element’s been introduced. For example, Nick can be transparent about not wanting to be at the concert OR he can keep his feelings to himself. Either scenario will lead to some interesting dialogue. The idea is that a negative element creates conflict, and conflict necessitates resolution, or at least an attempt at resolution. So there’s more curiosity on the reader’s part on how this situation’s going to end.
Finally, just like there are characters who aren’t built for dialogue, there are genres and movie-types that aren’t built for dialogue. Dramas are one of them. You rarely come out of a straight drama going, “Wow, the dialogue in that was amazing.” It’s the same with Thrillers. Since they’re always on the move, you don’t have many long conversations. So it’s harder to write memorable dialogue.
For those types of movies, you want to place less focus on dialogue-friendly characters and contrasting dynamics and more on the NEGATIVE ELEMENT. As long as you’re introducing negative elements into your scenes, whether they be from the characters themselves or from outside forces, it should lead to better dialogue.
Negative Element Theory reminds me of Rashomon both in its simplicity and complexity. Feel free to comment on it, as well as offer your own dialogue tips, in the comments section.
