Dialogue

1. Dialogue On-the-nose and off Houston Wood WRI 3320 Hawai’i Pacific University

2. People rarely say exactly what's on their minds • People search for words. • People try to phrase things so it won't cause problems. • People aren’t sure exactly what they want or what they mean. • In struggling to express themselves the way they want, people come up with surprising inventions.

3. People also rarely listen very well, especially in an argument or under stress: • People often answer the question they expected to hear, rather than the question that's been asked. • Often they respond a line or two later. • Especially when bringing up something painful, people often talk in circles until the other person figures out what they're really trying to say.

4. Avoid having two characters speak directly about the main matter they are discussing, unless it's a climactic scene, and even then, load their words with hidden agendas. • Let your characters struggle for their words, and come up with inventions. • Let characters talk a little aimlessly—ramble--when they're scared of getting to the point.

5. Avoid dialogue exposition • Exposition provides information the audience “must” know. • Often it is information the characters know already. • Show don’t tell. • Let the audience work, and “fill in.” • Avoid “radio lines” that describe what can be seen.

6. There should almost always be tension between => • what your character is literally saying, • what your character intends to communicate and • And what your character is thinking. • On-the-nose dialogue is to literally and clearly speak what is being thought.In general, this is dull.

7. Good screen dialogue should avoid being on-the-nose • On the nose dialogueis expected, trite, unimaginative, the text-book cliché response. • Good dialogue, on the other hand, is as much about concealing as it is about revealing. • Good dialogue opens up scenes and characters’ personalities, and consequently opens up your story. • On-the-nose dialoguecloses down scenes and characters, and so tends to make scenes shallow and dull.

8. In on-the-nose dialoguepeople in love tell each other how much they love one another. • Example: A woman who's angry because her husband is cheating on her and also because her father did just the same thing to her mother and she knows that she's repeating the same pattern -- SAYING to somebody how she's angry because her husband is cheating on her and also because her father did just the same thing to her mother and she...etc., etc., etc.

9. When to Use On-the-Nose Dialogue Occasionally people do say exactly what they mean, in life and in well-written scripts. When to use on-the-nose dialogue:  • When economy is most important or • When emotions are running brutally hot or • When you are concluding a scene that has had none

10. But . . . beware . . . • Use on-the-nose dialogue very sparingly--and usually at the end of a scene—as good dialogue—obscuring dialogue—is needed for a dramatic battle.  • A character spills the beans, speaks her heart, explains the McGuffin, announces his important discovery.  At the beginning of the cene?  Without a fight?  Without conversational diversions?  Where's the drama in that?