style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> Writing natural-sounding dialogue – the kind that
makes characters feel real – comes easily for a chosen few.The rest of us have to work hard at it.
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> Like anything else, it’s a skill that can be
learned and, with enough discipline and persistence, mastered.
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> But since mastery requires so much damn time and
effort, here’s a quick tool to use in the meantime.It’s a list of fifty common utterances that often
appear in natural-sounding dialogue.Work
a few of these into your script, and you’ll start sounding like a pro:
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> *Use that last one only in comic strip bubbles for
characters who are asleep.
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> So there you have it.It’s not an exhaustive list, but these are
some commonly used examples.
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> They show up a lot in Oscar winning films and
Pulitzer Prize winning plays.
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> Of course they’re only tools and are pretty much
just fillers, so you don’t want to go overboard with them, but when used sparingly
they can give your dialogue a genuine “real-life” feel.
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> You’ve been working for months on your latest script, and it’s almost ready to market. Frankly, you’re just about out of steam. Of course you are. Screenwriting is hard work – at least if you’re trying to do it well. But it’s not all so damn laborious. Here are…
There are certain sentences you don’t want to hear in connection with your screenplay. One of them is: “He wouldn’t do that.” He wouldn’t respond to a killer that calmly. She wouldn’t head to all the way to Ohio just to follow a lead. He, she, they – wouldn’t do that. Credibility is crucial in screenwriting. Actions need…
Feeling out of creative steam? It happens to every writer at every level. There’s so much resistance, so much rewriting, so much everything – it’s easy for any writer to lose momentum. But momentum is everything. All you really need, to eventually succeed, is to move forward. All you really need is momentum. If you…
style=”mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;”> I’ve had producers mean very different things when they’ve asked me for a “synopsis”. Some have meant a one page “pitch” for my script. Others have meant a full-on multi page “summary” of the story (otherwise known as a treatment). These are very different things, and it’s important to…
When I read scripts, there’s a phenomenon that happens fairly often. It goes like this: The writer manages to impress me with some fresh comedy in the early pages, and I’m looking forward to more of the same. But then the writer does something that threatens to ruin the whole script. Don’t worry if you’ve done…
style=”font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;”> It’s Halloween season, time to turn to spooky stuff. Going eerie won’t be hard for me at all because the screenplay biz can be downright bloodcurdling. Here’s my top five countdown of screenwriting frights: style=”font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;”> style=”font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;”> 5. Screenwriters are constantly vanishing…