Best Screenwriting Tips for Great Dialogue

Wendy Kram looks at the writing of Mad Men and deducts some tips for how to write sparkling dialogue.

As 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 don’t have your characters state exactly what they are feeling, thinking and/or 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. It’s the old adage: Show, don’t tell (or don’t over explain).

In Mad Men, one of the series’ most memorable and shocking moments took place when Betty Draper shot at her neighbor’s pigeons right after she had a failed stint at getting back into her former modeling career. Don told her she didn’t 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.

ScriptMag | Read the Full Article

Best Screenwriting Tips for Great Dialogue

ScriptMag | Read the Full Article

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