Wendys LA4. HIRE Best Screenwriting Tips for Great Dialogue. Wendy Kram is a producer and the owner of LA FOR HIRE, a consulting company for screenwriters, filmmakers and production companies needing script development to sell and produce their projects. Follow Wendy on Twitter wendyla. Click to tweet this article to your friends and followersAs a producer and script consultant who reads hundreds of screenplays, one of the most common weaknesses in the majority of scripts I review has to do with dialogue that is expositional, or what we call on the nose where characters state exactly what they are thinking and feeling, or tell us information we already know. One of the best things you can do for your career as a screenwriter is to write great, believable dialogue that defines your characters and is rich with subtext. Producers, readers the gate keepers, agents, and executives will take notice, want to meet you, and hire you. Finding great dialogue among thousands of scripts can be a rare commodity and if you can develop this skill, it will make you stand out and get you work. My primary tip with respect to writing great dialogue is to avoid exposition at all costs, meaning dont have your characters state exactly what they are feeling, thinking andor summarizing action they plan to take, or have already taken. Ironically, great dialogue can occur in the absence of words  allowing your characters silences and unspoken actions that take place between what they say. Its the old adage Show, dont tell or dont over explain. Action can speak louder than words. Show, dont tell. In Mad Men, one of the series most memorable and shocking moments took place when Betty Draper shot at her neighbors pigeons right after she had a failed stint at getting back into her former modeling career. Don told her she didnt need to work because she was a great mother. Betty had just finished making pancakes for her children. On the surface, she should have been happy, but she was frustrated and stifled by her domestic role, and rather than say so, she went outside and took aim. This moment is a powerful, dramatic example of a woman who wasnt able to express herself in words and instead went outside and found another way to express her anger. The result a great, unexpected, authentic, shocking and indelible moment in television. Why Because in real life, people rarely say exactly what theyre feeling, therefore actions, like the one Betty Draper took, resonate because we can identify with feeling frustrated, unable to express that frustration, and then taking it out somewhere else. Lets look at another situation with a woman who is pissed at her romantic partner because he hasnt been paying attention to her lately. When he comes home from work and kisses her, she offers her cheek and turns away from him. Then when he asks her if shes mad about something, its unlikely that she would respond by saying something along the lines of, You know the other day when I wore a new dress and got my hair done and you didnt say anything, well that hurt my feelings. Instead, its more likely she would say, Nothing. Nothings wrong. What the woman might be feeling in the above scenario is, Please notice me. Im afraid you dont find me attractive anymore. I know youre getting bored with me and will want to leave me, so I dont want to be nice to you because youre going to hurt me. But if you were to have her state her actual feelings, her inner dialogue, the writing would sound on the nose whereas if you have her say, Nothing,  we know its not nothing. And this is how you build dramatic tension. Characters come to situations with separate agendas, and its important to understand and convey what these are. In the example above, the womans partner might have the agenda that he wants to give her a gift, perhaps tickets for a surprise vacation to show how much he appreciates her. Hes been under a lot of pressure at work lately and realizes hes been taking her for granted. But when he comes home and sees that shes pissed at him and wont say why, he decides not to give her the present. The dramatic irony is that he was planning to do something nice for her but instead chose not to, thereby reinforcing and escalating her insecurities and fears of abandonment. The above is just another example that demonstrates subtext, i. When you can do this, you get your audience to identify with your characters and invest in their outcome, rooting for them to resolve their issues and come together. With on the nose writing, you miss the opportunity to engage your reader on this deeper level and risk writing dialogue that is not authentic because people in real life generally dont speak their innermost thoughts out loud. Matthew Weiner, Mad Mens creator and show runner, is a master at writing with subtext. During an interview, I heard him say he never wants to make it easy for his characters. The statement may seem simple, but its fantastic advice for screenwriters. Real life is never neat and easy, but rather, its challenging, clumsy and often messy. In real life, people misunderstand each other all the time because they bring their own private baggage andor agendas to relationships. We get flustered, put our foot in our mouths, say the wrong thing when we want to say the right thing, fail to apologize out of false pride or hurt, and sometimes a powerful urge to say something is filled with an awkward silence. So why should our characters be different than we are Rarely do individuals speak in perfectly articulated prose. Anytime one of your characters speaks this way, catch yourself because this will be a tell tale sign that youre not inside your characters point of view. Instead, theres a good chance you might be imposing your own agenda, as a writer not the character who wants to get across a plot point. Readers, producers, agents, and executives will immediately tell that the dialogue is not authentic because its not your character who is speaking, but you. The magic of great dialogue takes place in a writers capacity to get inside his or her characters minds and see the world through their unique lens. In summation Avoid exposition, having characters state exactly what theyre thinking or feeling. Avoid having characters paraphrase action they plan to take or have already taken or describe information weve already seen and know. Write subtext, where characters might say the opposite of what theyre thinking and feeling. Dont be afraid of awkward silences or unspoken moments and actions. Making A Good Script Great Downloadable GamesGet our Script eNewsletter and receive the latest in screenwriting news and, for a limited time, get a free download of the How to Write a Screenplay workbook Instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a courses star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the. Hello Ms Hay. I am attempting to get my first freelance gig as a script reader. I have a BA in English Literature, but no previous experience or formal qualifications. Make sure you are writing from your characters point of view and understand his or her agenda. Make sure you are writing authentic dialogue, dialogue that reflects real people in real life as opposed to your agenda as a writer to get your plot across, in which case, it is likely to sound more like prose than dialogue. I hope you find the above helpful. Get your FREE Download full of dialogue writing advice from the pros. Bang. 2Write B2. W Resources. Check out the links below for free downloads, podcasts, video, articles and even free e libraries on all things writing and inspiration. If you discover any links are broken or wrong, please contact me. Free Downloads Not sure what how screenplay formatting works Want to know what should go in a one page pitchThen check out the most popular B2. W downloads below Bang. JOIN HERE TODAY. For even more free downloads, check out these blog posts on B2. W Cheat Sheet 1. Things To Check Before You Submit Your Script Or Novel. CHEAT SHEET 1. 0 Quick Tips For Writing Female Characters. Download a novel writing pitch template. The B2. 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