Dialogue: Talking heads
Just as in dating you must know what your characters want. Your audience wants a mystery. . They want to see their favorite actor say something stunning. What does your character want?
How can you maintain dialogue keeps the audience awake and the story reader motivated? As a writer you will here that a producer wants a story with passion. What is passion? Passion means you earn a paycheck. The words leap off the page and the makes producers want to buy it as a concept project. You know bad dialogue, you have seen it. Like me you have fallen asleep when the dialogue fails to motivate you. Characters must speak in a tone that fascinates the mind. What will happen after Darth Vader says,” Luke I am your father.” For over 230 minutes Luke has been searching for a father figure, first his uncle, then Obi Wan, then Han Solo (TM). But at the end of the “ Empire Strikes Back” it is revealed. Faced with the realization that his mortal enemy is his father Luke screams. The dialogue shows you that he can not take the realization of a bad father. What will he do, surrender to the dark side.
In “Casablanca” the writer’s uses dialogue that is immortal.
LENGTH OF DIALOGUE
When you write for Hollywood, you are not writing a play. Monologues that stretch for over minute are best for the stage. If you have followed my advice and read several dramatic scripts then you are aware that its short and to the point. In the first article on story, I indicated that a movie is told in pictures. To be precise moving pictures. Just as a stage actor cannot use his booming voice on a movie set ( microphones), your writing must be subtle within the frame work of the picture. As your characters are speaking great thoughts or common words, life continues to evolve, people come in and out of the coffee shop. While the camera is focused on the antagonists or the protagonist life is around them. Some times your character will interact will these” extras”, but mainly they will speak short lines , not choppy, dialogue. Your sentences will vary from 3 to 9 words. If your character has a long sentence of twenty or thirty words, its expository. You are telling a story with words and not pictures.
If you have written too much exposition, you are
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