Biggest Mistake Screenwriters Make With Dialogue by Karl Iglesias Video Lecture | Screenwriting: From Beginner to a Pro - Career Development

Film Courage: One of the techniques or topics
regarding dialogue interests me that remember
you talking about was dumping dialogue versus
just kind of like “real dialogue.”
So dumping of information?
I don’t know if that is correct.
It’s all at once.
It’s not breathing.
So dumping of information?
But sort of like giving everybody everything
they need right then and there.
It’s too much.
It’s not breathing.
It’s not natural.
It doesn’t evolve.
So how can someone slow down without giving
the reader or the audience too much information?
Karl Iglesias: Well, the first thing you have
to understand about dialogue is that it’s
got to be connected to the character’s desire
line in the scene.
In other words if the character has an objective,
an intention in the scene, the dialogue has
to match that intention.
And what I see a lot of times, especially
with exposition and information, is that a
character is saying all that information and
you can tell that it’s really the writer’s
objective.
In other words, the writer wants the audience
to know this information because they think
the audience need to know this, and this and
this, so the character are going to say this,
and this, and this.
And that doesn’t work because scenes and
dialogue are about the character’s intention
in the scene.
Everything a character says is matched to
what that desire line is.
So anything that doesn’t belong to that
doesn’t fit.
And you can tell whether it’s the writer
wanting the audience to know that information
or if it’s part of the character.
I am trying to think of an example…So write
the dialogue, first draft, do you whatever
you want to do.
Don’t worry about that.
But when you re-read the dialogue, ask yourself
for every line “Why is that character saying
this?
Why is that character saying that specific
line?”
Most of the time it will be because they’re
responding to or they’re reacting to something.
That’s fine.
But a lot of times you will find that a character
is saying something because you want the character
to say that, not because the character wants
something in that scene at a specific time.
So you’ve got to know what the character
wants and then every line of dialogue is a
strategy for that character to get what they
want and if that dialogue is not that, then
you rewrite the line until it fits.
Now in exposition, there are ways to make
sure the exposition in your dialogue matches
the objective.
For example, if I’m suspected of murder
and you’re the detective who is asking me
questions, right?
And telling me “Where were you?” and I
didn’t commit the murder, well whatever
I’m going to say is my desire to make you
think I didn’t do the murder.
There is a reason why I’m saying that line.
I didn’t do it.
I was at the movies.
Saying at the movies is exposition but its
connected to my desire to convince you that
I was not the killer.
You see, so the exposition matches the objective
of the character.
So there are ways to do this.
There are techniques to make sure the exposition
is settled, you know, part of conflict, part
of your desire line.
There is a lot of stuff you can do.
But that is the lesson you really have to
know.
That is the most important thing.
Make sure you know what every character wants
in the scene, make sure that what they say
matches that objective.
So I always bring up David Mamet, who is genius
at dialogue and he said once “Nobody says
anything unless they want something.”
So unless you want something, nobody says
anything.
Nobody is going to say “Hey, I’m a trustworthy
character.
Right?
If somebody said that to you, you’re going
to think “Whoa…why is he telling me this?”
There is always a reason, right?
And if we know what the reason is in the movie,
if you know what the character wants, you
can kind of figure out what the character
wants, it’s more interesting than somebody
dumping exposition.
Characters who just dump exposition, it’s
just boring because it’s not connected to
desire.
Even characters who disagree with each other.
Even though that might be kind of interesting
because there is some tension there, if we
don’t know what they want it’s going to
be boring.
So you see this a lot with amateur scenes,
like “Oh, I need conflict so my character
is just going to argue” and you have people
arguing back and forth.
It doesn’t mean anything.
Right?
Because we don’t know what they want.
That’s what makes something interesting
is intention and the obstacle to that.
Film Courage: We talked earlier about dumbing
things down, which this is a different way
of talking about it, but let’s suppose it’s
a doctor speaking to another doctor but they’re
not going to say…
Karl Iglesias: But they’re not going to
use doctor lingo?
Film Courage: Exactly!
And they may say something that is grammatically
incorrect.
They may use slang.
They may say “Um.”
Right?
It’s not going to be perfect.
Karl Iglesias: It depends on the character.
I like to talk a lot about contrast.
If we have two characters in a scene, it’s
always more interesting if the characters
are contrasted.
So if a character is speaking in a formal
way, so someone who is an academic or a professor,
or a doctor speaking in a formal way, make
sure that the person that he’s interacting
with speaks more slangy or in a more contracted
way because then you are going to create that
contrast.
Just like in painting, if you want to highlight
the color blue, you surround it with the color
yellow.
Right?
It’s opposite.
So it’s the same thing with characters.
A lot of the techniques in the dialogue chapter
in the book are about individuality.
How do you create individual voices because
having all the characters sound the same are
a very common problem with dialogue.
It’s usually the writer’s voice.
And (Aaron) Sorkin has actually been criticized
that all his characters sound the same.
But when I talk about his dialogue and show
clips and the actual script I show that he
actually does individualize and the characters
do sound different.
So it’s an unfair criticism.
But you have to do that.
If there is some difference in character speech
or cadence or contractions versus stilted
writing, grammatical, correct writing.
Film Courage: What if the characters speak
to themselves?
What if they’re thinking out loud?
What if they’re looking in the mirror?
What if they’re berating themselves, driving
and talking to themselves?
Karl Iglesias: That’s fine.
It’s really a character thing.
As long as you keep it short.
The problem that I see (with a character talking
to themselves) is it’s too long.
You know then we kind of wonder “Where’s
the conflict?
What’s happening here?”
I mean it might be interesting, but even something
that is really interesting for too long, we’ll
tend to disengage an audience after awhile.
So you can do it, just don’t do it for too
long.
Question for the Viewers: Do you have trouble
writing dialogue?
What helps you write better dialogue?