STORYTELLING UNIT: DIALOGUE & CHARACTERS LECTURE

Through our lecture with Steve Cooms, we discussed the importance of dialogue and characters in a screenplay and the different type you can get for each. Before discussing these two parts of screenplays, Steve reminded us that the 5 golden rules of screenwriting



Dialogue
When we were talking about dialogue Steve used Pulp Fiction's 'golden watch speech' as an example of dialogue which talks about a watch going through so much shit (literally!). But, Steve felt that the speech was better for theatre than film. Although its a fantastic speech, it's long and drags through. dialogue needs to be relevant and needed. "Dialogue is the least important thing with screen writing", this is what Steve was telling us. The fact that dialogue is on a need to know basis, so if the dialogue doesn't advance or help the plot in any way then it isn't needed in the script. This is where i can refer back to rule 1 of screen writing "Need to know" with the idea of only telling the audience what they need to know but also rule 2 "Show don't tell", so if there's a way of showing something rather than using dialogue, do that instead. "Actions speak louder than words" was said by the American novel writer Mark Twain and this is correct for screen writing as well.
We went on to the type of dialogue a character would use. How they would talk, if they would be polite, rude, shy, etc. would they use phrases? What phrases would they use? As well we were told not to be too formal or artistic with our dialogue, it needs to be realistic and life like. A typical British man in 2016 who smacks his toe into side of the table would probably shout "Ah shit!!" not "Oh my good lord that hurt terribly" since no-one talks like that these days. From this I began thinking about how my characters would speak:

"The Father - James. 43 years old. Average day man, works in a supermarket, bit over weight but loves listening to music, favourite era is 80's pop music like Michael Jackson, Wham!, Duran Duran, etc. After losing his wife because of a medical illness, he's over protective of his daughter. He aims to do it out of love and care but ends up pushing her away and gets angry when she doesn't listen to him. James will often shout first and let his temper get the better of him but regret it later on, but since the death of his wife he finds it hard to express his feelings and tell his daughter why he's like this."
This is the character description I gave for my character. With this in mind I'd have James fairly polite, not swearing and cursing randomly as someone young tends to do. However, when he starts to get angry with his daughter he would say phrases like "Listen to be Lily" "Act your age!" but when getting really angry I would have him starting to swear to show he's got to a much higher rage and bring some fear towards the audience with this. Since he's in his 40's and is a fan of the old music I could have him commenting on Lily's music taste or the fact she's always on her phone to show the difference in age and interests and show some conflict between the characters as well.

"The Daughter - Lily. 16 years old. Very 'mainstream' and rebellious teenager who wants more freedom and mistakes her Father's protective attitude for being unfair and thinks that he just doesn't want her to have any fun. Loves mainstream programmes and music such as Justin Bieber, Cheryl Cole, Drake, etc. and typically will be texting her friends or talking on social media. She has a very stubborn attitude and doesn't really enjoy talking to her Father as he's stopped her going to parties and things with her friends. She took the death of her Mother very badly but never opened up about it to her Father."

Looking more into this character. Lily is a modern teenager so she would use a lot of slang like saying something isn't any good wouldn't be "Oh that's rubbish" it would be "That's crap" or "that's shit" since its become more acceptable in society to swear more regularly. The majority of dialogue from this character at first would actually be texts or 'tweets' with social media which you could easily show through actions of her on her phone. When talking to her dad she'd probably get more aggressive or stubborn wanting her own way, trying to act older by saying something like "this is bullshit" or "for f**k sake!" but not too much since she'd get told off. She would be very rude and anti-social with her father but very social with her friends.

We discussed not being too real with our dialogue. A character wouldn't say "Hi, How are you? I'm fine thank you very much for asking". Dialogue should sound natural and suit the characters type. So if I used myself as an example I would say hi to someone like "Hiya mate, you okay? Yeah no bad thanks" which means the same thing but said differently and sounds more natural. Steve told us we could use grace notes or indications on how the character might speak but we need to watch out not to over do it. Steve also told us to avoid big speeches if possible. Actors and humans usually only speak 3 lines before someone else talks or something happens so if we can keep it like this, do it. We talked about accents and to watch out for them. If a character needs an accent like Scottish or German, Don't write it like "Ve has vas of making you talk". Just write that the character is German and expect the actor to know how to do the accent. "Dialogue that gets peoples attention and serves your script on a need to know basis is good dialogue" is what Steve told us, make the dialgoue a need to know basis and don't use it to fill the plot. Remember the rule "Show don't tell".
We went on to talk about the most important rule in dialogue which is apparently 'Denial'. The best way to show that someone is in love is to have them say that they aren't in love! Denial opens the story more and gives more to show.

Characters
We moved on to look more into characters and as an example of interesting character we were told to use our friends because they're interesting, you don't always have to like your friends but they'll be interesting to you from the memories, the laughs you've had, the failures you've been through etc. These are the things that make an interesting character. As well, when you say you know your friends, you can predict how they will react. for girls its the girl who always gets back with her boyfriend that keeps cheating on her. The lad that talks about getting with all the girls on a night out but can't chat up a girl to save his life. For characters in scripts you need to know them like you know your friends. What're they flaws, strengths, issues and vulnerabilities, you should know these for your characters. As well, the main characters, lead roles, are often very little people, like a no-body. They will be lower class, not a higher class successful man/woman. Characters without any flaws like Superman or Jesus are harder to write about BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO FLAWS. This means the writers have to create flaws for that character.
Something important for a character is back story. A back story tends to be an explanation, away from the current character and a front story is the next move they'll make and the current character we have. These are things to consider for a character, especailly the main one. If making a character a pychopath, how do you make the audience like that character?

You stick a bigger pychopath or 'monster' next to them and the audience will like that smaller monster better. Breaking Bad is a good example with this. Walter White wasn't hated as a character until right at the end when the writers wanted him to be hated. Until then we got characters like Gus Fring who the audience hated and feared and this made Walter seem nicer. As a fan of the show I can see how this worked. I loved Walter until the final series and then I suddenly looked back and realised how much of a monster he was. Its a technique used by writers all the time.