You’ve finished the first draft of your script and you feel great! It’s rough around the edges, sure, but with a few nips and tucks it will be fine. Maybe the dialogue runs on a little long, but so what? When the story sells, the studio will fix it, right? Wrong. Dialogue is one of the most crucial elements in your screenplay. It’s the reader’s only real clue as to the personality and characteristics of your protagonist and other characters. Think of it this way. When you see an actor speak on screen, you hear the words as the author intended them, albeit through the actor’s and director’s interpretation of who that character is. But when you read words on the page, they have to be sharp and powerful enough to achieve that same impact to capture the reader’s attention. Washed out, wimpy exchanges will have the reader or executive tossing the script before the tenth page. So, then, how do you make your character’s words sparkle on the page? By making them real. When I read scripts, I use dialogue as one of the first barometers to gage a writer’s level of professionalism. I might give them a few pages to prove themselves, but if they don’t know their character’s personality well enough to let it come through in what they say and how they say it, then they’re simply not worthy of my time.

Marisa D’Vari’s SCRIPT MAGIC: SUBCONSCIOUS TECHNIQUES TO CONQUER WRITER’S BLOCK recently published by Michael Wiese Productions

What is great dialogue?

• When a character says something in a fresh, clever way;

• When characters express a unique sense of humor;

• When infuriated, envious, angry, or just jealous characters convincingly seem to keep their cool, uttering dialogue to enemies that make them seem as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth;

• When dialogue leaves something unsaid, something that can be expressed by the character’s emotions;

• When the words are so crisply suited to each individual character in the script one can tell who’s speaking without looking at the character’s name.

Now that you see the need to polish your dialogue, how do you get started? By observation! Characters need to sound real but real people do not speak in complete, formal sentences. Go to a public place, such as a mall or outdoor cafe, and listen to the way that people actually converse. More important, notice the differences in the way people talk.

Listen to:

• A teen-age couple madly in love;

• Construction workers as they shoot the breeze and eat their sandwiches;

• Teenage girls at their favorite cosmetics store;

• A tired mother with her children;

• Tourists marveling at sites you’ve seen since childhood;

• A couple who seem miserable with each other;

• A pack of skateboarding boys.

While you should take note of the cadence of their speech, their slang, and their unstructured, informal tone, do not pay attention to content. You’re a screenwriter. You’re the "god" that gives your characters not only life, but direction. The people you heard on your outing don’t have an agenda, and they don’t need to conclude their own personal dilemmas in the same ninety minute period that your characters do. Every word that your characters say needs to fit a specific purpose. Simply moving the story forward isn’t enough. It must also reveal nuances of their character, reveal a tiny bit of their backstory, and suggest their relationship to the character they’re speaking with. Let’s face it ... nothing in life is truly equal. In every relationship, there’s someone who leads and who follows. When two contemporaries of either sex are speaking, one always has it slightly over the other. The next time you see two such individuals conversing, take careful note. Who has the upper hand? How is it articulated? Through tone of voice or through something they seem to exude? And, if this is the case, imagine how you’d describe it on paper. Ready now for that rewrite? Here are some tips that can help!

Examine each block of dialogue for the following:

• Is it longer than four lines on the page? It shouldn’t be. Long dialogue makes an executives’ eyes glaze over.

• Is it "on the nose?" (meaning, do the characters say exactly what they mean, or do they couch their dialogue in a more innovative and calculating format).

• Imagine describing your story and characters to a friend, and then erasing all the character’s names in your script so that they wouldn’t immediately recognize who was speaking. Ask yourself if you’ve differentiated the characters clearly enough so that your friend could guess who was speaking by their slang and the way they phrased their conversation?

• Reread each block of dialogue and ask yourself if it’s something you’d believably overhear on a street corner.

• Imagine a friend or family member who’s something like your character speaking their words. Close your eyes and really imagine it. Does it work? If so, keep it in. If not, rewrite!

© Marisa D’Vari 2000 All Rights Reserved.

Marisa D’Vari is the author of SCRIPT MAGIC: SUBCONSCIOUS TECHNIQUES FOR CONQUERING WRITER’S BLOCK, published by Michael Wiese Productions in April 2000. Formerly a Hollywood studio executive, D’Vari is now a creativity consultant and speaker as well as the producer/host of TV’s SCENE HERE, a series showcasing writers, producers, and directors from the world of film and television. You can download a chapter of SCRIPT MAGIC and access interviews and articles about screenwriting from www.scriptmagic.com.