Dialogue Investigation

What is dialogue?

The literal definition is a conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie, in accordance with Google. Dialogue is something I've really been interested in because listening to good dialogue is incredible and having the skills to deliver it correctly is one of the most important parts of being an actor, in my personal opinion.

How do you write "good" dialogue?

To begin looking into this I found a website called Script Reader Pro. Right off the bat he gives a list of tips he refers to as vague. It should:
  • Propel the story forward
  • Reveal character and theme
  • Build conflict and drama
  • Sound different for each character
  • Entertain with witty, quotable lines
  • Never run on longer than three lines
  • Never be on the nose
However, right after he states that while it is good advice, it doesn't get into 90% of the problems with bad dialogue, nor how to fix said problems. He gives some good advice, to not just let your character "shoot the breeze" but rather make the dialogue put them under some sort of pressure, like making it dialogue that would be hard to say or to hear. Without conflict the scene becomes boring and the viewer will become disinterested in the content.
He also goes on to recommend taking a look at how many questions are being asked and make sure it's not just a Q&A scene with an exposition drop. Instead of having these bland questions have some sort of conflict in the scene, like an interrogation scene. There's also mention of heightened reality, which is those bits of dialogue that are like the witty comebacks you have hours after the conversation is over. The trick to good dialogue is for it to be fake but feel like real life.

Bibliography

Neil, et al. “Script Dialogue Should Be More Than ‘Just Talking.’” Script Reader Pro, 17 July 2019,
www.scriptreaderpro.com/script-dialogue/.

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