Speaker 1: How do you write good dialogue? What even is good dialogue? Before I can answer those two questions, we first have to ask and answer another. What's the purpose of dialogue? If you've poked around on the internet or read some of those story and screenwriting books, then there's a good chance you consistently came across the same answer. The purpose of dialogue is to further the plot. But I don't think that's entirely accurate. For me, the purpose of dialogue is a bit more simple, yet also more diverse. For me, the purpose of dialogue is to reveal something. That something could be a character trait, backstory, a plot twist. It doesn't matter, as long as it's necessary to the story or characters. If your dialogue doesn't reveal something, it shouldn't be there. That's rule number one. Now we know what the purpose of dialogue is, we can answer the next question. What makes good dialogue, good? Good dialogue has to fulfil just two criteria. A. It must reveal something. And B. It has to engage the viewer. Simple. Deliver information in a way that engages. Rule number two. Less is more. Ever read any Hemingway? If you haven't, then go pick up For Whom the Bell Tolls or The Old Man and the Sea. One thing we can all learn from Hemingway is his iceberg theory or theory of omission. He thought that we should try and limit the amount of detail in stories to as little as possible. The real detail should be implied rather than actually written. He was talking about story structure and character, but I want you to apply this to dialogue. Don't use 20 words when 5 can convey the same message. Leave some of the information in subtext rather than the text. So when you write a piece of dialogue, go back to it later and ask yourself, can I convey the same message in less words? Can I imply the same message with different words? Some of what makes dialogue engaging is all about delivery, which is obviously dictated by the director and actor. But if you make the dialogue efficient, then you make the delivery much, much easier. Rule number three. Respect the character. Every character you ever create or write for comes with a collection of beliefs, values and behaviours, and their dialogue is largely a result of those things. Keep them in mind when writing their dialogue and make sure that what they're saying is something they would say. Dialogue which is out of character not only weakens the character, it also spoils the suspension of disbelief for the viewer. Your characters should feel like real people, and real people don't suddenly change the way they speak or what they say. That isn't to say you can't change those things, but it must be well-motivated and introduced early. They have to change over time, not suddenly just so they can say a cool piece of dialogue. Once you know who your characters are, you can write dialogue to match. Rule number four. Trust your audience. For the eagle-eyed viewer, you may recognise this rule from my previous video, 4 Rules to Better Storytelling. It's the exact same rule. Your default opinion of your audience should be that they're smart enough to follow your dialogue. Don't have anyone over-explain anything just for the sake of the audience, condescension will make your audience disengage from your writing. So give them plenty of trust and don't assume they're too dumb to follow. A certain amount of hand-holding is sometimes necessary in some genres like science fiction or fantasy, but that should be minimal and you should assume that they will get it with minimal explanation. Rule number five. Match your tone. All films have a tone. An overall tone and a scene-to-scene tone. Be aware of this when writing. The dialogue you're writing needs to match the tone of the scene firstly and to a lesser extent the tone of the film. All dialogue sits somewhere on this spectrum. On one end we have realistic dialogue and the other we have stylistic dialogue. Yeah, I did just make that word up, but let's roll with it. Realistic dialogue aims to reflect the way people talk as much as possible, so it's devoid of big moments and monologues. Conversation doesn't flow the same as stylistic dialogue. People don't wait to speak and will often talk over each other. Realistic dialogue is never really noticed as it serves to deepen your characters through the information that it delivers. For an example, take a look at this video by The Nerdwriter examining No Bone Box dialogue. I'll put the link in the description below. Stylistic dialogue is pretty much the opposite. It's concerned with how the message is delivered more than what message is delivered. It flows and zips and will generally feel and sound snappy. It'll contain big moments of drama, jokes and be overtly over the top. It doesn't really reflect real life dialogue and is largely designed to serve the scene, not the characters. Shakespeare is the best example of pure stylistic dialogue. Figure out where the scene you're writing dialogue for fits on this spectrum and adapt the dialogue accordingly. The best dialogue fits somewhere in between. For me, the best example of dialogue which sits right in the middle is found in the movie written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The film contains plenty of dramatic dialogue but it's finely tethered to realism with how the dialogue is constructed. Walker pays great attention to detail with the dialogue and makes sure that it reveals something every time. As an experiment, go to a local coffee shop and just sit there for an hour or so, listening to how people talk. Not the words, but how they talk. Do they take turns? Do they interrupt? How does their volume change? You get the idea. Think of your characters as real people and you'll write convincing dialogue. The sixth and final rule is to make your dialogue pass the stranger test. Once it's all written, you want to make sure it sounds good and it reads well. How do you do that? You read it out loud. This is a tip I've stolen from Aaron Sorkin. If you can get through your dialogue without stopping to double check what you're reading, then you've probably written good dialogue. After that, give it to someone else to read aloud. I call this the stranger test. Since they're unfamiliar with the words, anything that doesn't make sense will be hard for them to read and so they'll struggle. If they do, make note of what they struggle with and find out why. Then go back and rewrite it. People assume that scenes like this captivate people. Because Tarantino is good with words. It's a conversation about Madonna, it really isn't all that interesting. It's essentially what writers are supposed to avoid, small talk. But Tarantino understands that the actual words don't matter. What those words reveal, does.