John August

QandA

The challenge of writing good dialogue

QandA, Words on the page

I think my biggest writing challenge is creating good dialog that helps define and develop my characters.  How do you approach writing dialog and what methods have you found to be effective to help develop a character’s voice?  Do you read your dialog with someone else, or do you prefer to work it through by yourself?  Do you have specific actors in mind when you write dialog?  How much is changed or influenced during the production process?

–Doug
Orange, CA

Doug wrote “dialog” instead of “dialogue,” which prompted me to look up what the real difference is between these words. It turns out they’re equally valid, though the short version makes me bristle for some reason. I guess I associate it with HyperCard “dialog boxes,” rather than things actual people say.

However you spell it, dialogue is what most people think of when you say screenwriting. It’s certainly the most apparent of all screenwriting attributes; bad dialogue is always noticed.

To me, movie dialogue is what real people would say if they could take a few seconds to think between lines. It’s faster, more direct, with much less filler than normal speech.

There’s actually quite a range to what counts as good movie dialogue. The quippy and clever banter in a romantic comedy would sound terrible in Lord of the Rings, while that movie’s stoic speechifying would be deadly in a modern drama. What matters is that there’s a consistency within the movie. In more than one recent film, I could tell when one screenwriter wrote some lines, and another the rest. It bumps.

The most important thing to keep in mind when writing any dialogue is that someone has to say it. Just because a line looks great on paper, that doesn’t mean it will work in an actor’s mouth. So it’s important to speak it aloud, both as you’re reading it and afterwards. As a rule, I won’t write any line of dialogue without speaking it several times to make sure it flows. Even as I’m typing this answer, I’m talking under my breath to listen for the rhythm of the sentence.

If I know which actor is playing a given role, I certainly tailor the dialogue to suit his strengths — at least as I perceive them. For instance, I did a few days work on [The Rundown](http://imdb.com/title/tt0327850/) specifically so I could write things for Christopher Walken to say. A lot of times, you worry about going over-the-top, but with Christopher Walken, there is no top. It’s quite liberating.

You have to expect that some dialogue will change during production. Almost always, the line the actor comes up with will be worse than the one you wrote. But the end result is better than having an actor trying to say a line he really doesn’t feel or understand.

Seeing a rough cut of your film

Directors, QandA

If a screenwriter gets a film produced, will he or she get to see a rough cut of the film at its earliest stage?

–Geoff
Nova Scotia

That mostly depends on the writer’s relationship with the director and producer(s). If the screenwriter has been an active collaborator throughout the process, then definitely. If the relationship hasn’t been as close, it’s more likely the writer won’t see the first few rough cuts of the film.

And that’s a mistake. The writer should absolutely be included in the editing process. While the rest of the team has been bogged down in weeks or months of production hell, the writer generally has fresh eyes to all of the material shot. He’s not sick of the actors, the locations, and the scenes which took all night to shoot. Instead, he remembers the movie everyone was trying to make six months ago.

By WGA policy, any writer who works on a given film is supposed to have the opportunity to screen a cut of the film early enough in the editing process that any notes or suggestions he may have can be incorporated. For a long time, this rule was never enforced. Over the past few years, however, the studios have gotten better about making sure these screenings happen — although they often occur too late to be productive. For instance, I’ve sat in writer screenings where the film was already color-timed. No matter what I wanted to suggest, the movie was already locked.

Recently, there’s been a push to invite the writer to the first test-screening, assuming the screening happens in the Los Angeles area. It’s certainly a good idea, since huge decisions are often made based on the results of these screenings, and the screenwriter may be needed to implement them.

The movies I’m proudest of are the ones in which I was able to take a significant role in post-production, whether that was sitting down next to the Avid or talking through specifics with the director. I don’t always get everything changed the way I’d like, but I do feel the films are better for the input.

Regaining confidence when nothing is working

Psych 101, QandA

What do you do to regain confidence when your ideas don’t seem to be working or you can’t find an approach?

–Matthew Paul

A very smart writer colleague — and I can’t remember exactly which one, so she’ll remain nameless — takes the time to write a letter to herself when she starts a screenplay, describing how excited she feels to be working on it. Then, when the darkest day hits and she can’t go on, she opens the letter and reads it. That gives her the oomph to finish.

I think that’s remarkable. And completely insane. I mean, who writes letters to themselves? I could never do it. But if that would help you, be my guest.

As I’ve mentioned in countless other columns, I write out-of-sequence. So if I get to a scene that I just can’t crack, I move on to something else.

The greater problem is when I don’t want to be working on a specific project at all. Since I don’t have a magic letter-to-my-future-self, my fallback is to change my work patterns. I’ll write all night, or at a hotel, or longhand on the beach. I’ll write scenes that could never possibly be in the movie, just to break the characters out of the plot shackles I’ve set for them. (I find loud, shouting arguments — which I never normally write — are great for this purpose.)

A lot of it is just facing down your own self-doubt and attacking it. Easier said than done.

Setting up a project without having the underlying book rights

QandA, Rights and Copyright

I was reading the insert page to the [Stand By Me](http://imdb.com/title/tt0092005/combined) DVD and it mentioned that the writers were unable to afford the price of obtaining the rights to Stephen King’s novella “The Body” and so they set about pitching it to various studios.

I understand that the point would be to have the studio purchase the rights and then have the writer(s) work on it. But what guarantees that the studio will let them?

–Josh Caldwell

There’s no guarantee. The studio could say, “Thanks for bringing this great book to our attention,” option it, then turn around and hand it to another screenwriter. I’m sure it’s happened.

In the case of [Big Fish](http://imdb.com/title/tt0319061/combined), I took the book to the studio and asked them to get the option. They certainly could have hired a bigger writer — at that point, I had only written [Go](http://imdb.com/title/tt0139239/), which is certainly not a great writing sample for it. But they were gracious enough to say yes, because they liked my writing and were willing to take a chance.

Standard advice applies: doing anything puts you at risk. But doing nothing will get you nothing. If there’s a book you can’t afford to option yourself, it’s worth trying to get someone to option it for you.