EXPOSITION THROUGH DIALOGUE

http://www.filmscriptwriting.com/an-overview-of-dialogue/

AN OVERVIEW OF DIALOGUE

Dialogue is an excellent tool in developing a character. It should be used to gradually grow and evolve your characters and expound on the character arc. A lot of would-be scriptwriters worry about their ability to write dialogue but a great screenplay needs strong characters and a captivating story first and foremost. A great example of this would be the early episodes of Star Wars.

Effective dialogue should achieve five things:

1. Move The Story Forward
When you write dialogue you want to make sure that it keeps the story flowing. If your script comes skidding to a halt during a conversation between two characters then you need to edit how the information is given out. Break it up, show it through action or whatever else you can think of to keep your story moving along at a good pace.

2. Reveal The Emotional Stakes
During every conversation your characters should go through a range of emotions and display them accordingly. Remember that different characters will display the same emotion differently. While one character may go into a destructive rage when they are angry, another might try to mask their anger behind a fake smile.

3. Reveal Your Character’s Background
Every character has a different background which affects how they speak. An intelligent character might use a myriad of colourful phrases to describe things while a street punk will use a few monosyllabic words to explain things.

4. Reveal Conflict
There are many types of conflict which will effectively show the type of relationship between two characters. A light hearted couple of jibes about a character’s choice of pants shows that both characters are close and friendly. An all out fist fight indicates a poor relationship with a certain amount of backstory to it. In movies dialogue tends to replace the inner thought you’d find in a novel. Any conflict must be verbalized and explored. If there are two characters in a scene and they both want the same thing then the scene feels flat, everything moves along too smoothly. Nothing goes smoothly in real life and your script should be much the same.

5. Create Tension
Every character has an agenda, some are out in the open and some are hidden. Clashing agendas result in tension either on the surface or in the subtext. When you’re in a scene remember that each character wants something to happen, often in opposition of the character they are playing off. How does your character react to these situations? Be aware that each different situation will result in your character reacting in a different way. As the script progresses and your characters grow the reaction becomes more focused and explosive.

Realistic Dialogue

Critics often focus on the realism of dialogue. The truth is though that good dialogue is not at all like a real life conversation. Dialogue is much more sharp and to the point. Movies are action orientated, if you want to write a dialogue loaded piece then a play is the medium for that.

You want to think of dialogue as edited speech, like two friends talking with all the extraneous and unnecessary parts taken out. No umm-ing and ahh-ing, and no rambling. Dialogue should be like a good conversation, everyone makes their point quickly and succinctly and then allows others to put in their two cents. Avoid having characters going off on long rants or monologues, instead try and keep any dialogue to a couple of lines. Occasionally a long speech is needed but you need a really good reason and message behind the monologue otherwise the audience will get bored quickly.

There are ways you can keep dialogue “realistic” without it being dull and long winded. Allow your characters to interrupt each other from time to time, have them overlap. They can lie and exaggerate to each other. Also you want to avoid having characters referring to the name of the person they are talking to.

When you are writing the first draft of your script you shouldn’t worry too much about writing dialogue. Don’t over think it. Just let it flow and come from the heart and it will seem a lot more natural. You can always go over it in the rewrite to tweak and improve it. Some writers put barely any effort into the dialogue in the first draft, leaving basic phrases they can change later.

As you write down the dialogue be thinking to yourself, “is there a shorter, snappier way of saying this?”. You’ll eventually get the hang of saying the most in as few words as possible. Once you get inside the head of the character you’re writing for it makes it much easier. This is why some scriptwriters like to write out a character biography and backstory for their main characters before they begin writing the dialogue.

A character voice consists of eight things:

1. The text/words
2. The subtext/meaning behind the words
3. Grammar
4. Vocabulary
5. Accent and/or cultural influences
6. Slang
7. Professional jargon
8. Style, rhythm and structure

A Simple Exercise To Improve Your Understanding Of Dialogue

If you’re serious about being a scriptwriter then you should invest in a digital Dictaphone. You might want to ask permission first but use the Dictaphone whenever you can and record conversations with as wide a variety of people as you can. Listen back to it and note the details. You’ll begin to develop a feeling of when people interrupt each other, when the topic gets changed, when there are lulls or uncomfortable moments.

Subtext: The Meaning Behind The Words

Exposition Through Dialogue

http://www.filmscriptwriting.com/exposition-through-dialogue/
EXPOSITION THROUGH DIALOGUE

One purpose of dialogue is to communicate the backstory, background information and any facts that are necessary to the story. This is known as exposition. It is all too easy to lump the majority of the exposition in the first few pages of your script but this gets the story off to a slow start from which it may not recover. It also lessens the opportunity for shocking revelations and plot twists towards the end of your screenplay.

This means that you need to spread your exposition evenly throughout your screenplay. One of the best ways to do this is to include all the exposition necessary for the audience to understand the story…but no more. Anything that isn’t required to understand the story right away you can save for later on down the line.

One of the biggest strengths of the X-Files franchise was its ability to give enough information to the viewer to understand the story, while keeping them in the dark about things they didn’t need to know. This allowed the audience to empathize with Mulder and Scully as the story progressed and more dark secrets were revealed.

Saving exposition until crucial moments is a fantastic way to keep the story exciting. It keeps the audience guessing and doesn’t allow the script to become predictable.

It can be hard to keep exposition natural. That is, keeping the dialogue sounding like a real conversation. You want to avoid dialogue that just gives the game away while standing out like a sore thumb.

People don’t talk like that and neither should your characters. This is where you can use the scriptwriters tool of conflict to add realism. Have your characters argue over backstory. Every character has their own point of view, his extends to the past as well as the present.Not too convincing is it?

It is also possible to add exposition in scenes without using dialogue. You can pass information over visually. Throughout a movie you character could wear a wedding ring and have pictures of himself with a woman and child in his wallet and in his house. Yet you never see this family in person. The audience will surmise that the character has been through a divorce but still think of their ex-wife and child with fondness.

Using Flashback For Exposition

Flashbacks are often used in poor scripts as a cheap and easy way of introducing exposition. Rather that spoon feeding the information to the audience, flashbacks tend to scoop the exposition out in big dollops, failing to hold the interest of the audience and failing to move the story forward.

If you do choose to use a flashback then you have to be careful about the way you use it otherwise it may appear amateurish. When thinking of using a flashback you need to make sure it’ll meet this checklist:

• It’ll move the story forward.
• It motivates the character.
• The audience already cares about what happens in the future.
• It’s short and to the point.
• It transitions well.

If the flashback doesn’t contain an event which currently motivates the character in the present then there is no point in showing it. Similarly there’s no point in a flashback if the audience hasn’t been given enough to care about what will happen in the future, the flashback will merely serve as an interruption to this goal.

Flashbacks are a lot more effective when they are transitioned well from the present story. Something about the scene should trigger a character’s flashback otherwise there’s no reason a flashback should happen. It could be a sound, visual image, a place, a name, anything that could conceivably make a character think about the past.

As a rule exposition is best told through natural dialogue but a flashback, when handled correctly, can also be highly effective.