Screenwriting : Bad versus Good Dialogue by Geoff Hall

Thanks for sharing this Geoff Hall !

ERGO: The rings of power was truly bad...

thank you for this Geoff Hall

It's very interesting to see just the preview pictures of these videos where the 'Bad' is typical illustrated with a woman character from a new thing, and the 'Good' is a man character from an older thing.

Thanks for the share, Geoff Hall!

Anthony A Miller that’s a little too simplistic, Anthony. As soon as we divide life up by such a strong dividing line, we exclude any nuance that there may be. Not all the bad examples quoted, are from films with women in them. In fact, the first clip is from a male character.

You think filmmakers & actors saying "bad dialogue" believed the pages suck before they filmed it? Think about it- hundreds of eyes read the pages before production and nobody in a position of power said, "the dialogue sucks."

I find some of the definitions helpful and some troubling. For example the definition of 'on the nose' as 'characters saying what they want'. In my experience, human beings spend an inordinate and annoying proportion of their time telling others what they want and don't want. You just need to make sure the subtext is there. Similarly this notion that you should be able to take any item of dialogue out of context and have it immediately recognisable as being from one character or another. It's a useful 'North Star' but I'm not convinced it's ever 100% true in practice. ('Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes' could be said by any of the Mafiosi in The Godfather, for example.) But I do like the definition of subtext as a combination of the 'unsaid' and 'unsayable'. That's a useful technique - you can ask yourself what the unsaid and unsayable correlatives are for any piece of dialogue. And if they aren't there, perhaps that bit of dialogue needs a bit of rethink.

I think "As you know" dialogue is one of the worse, Geoff Hall. It sticks out so much in a scene. It's better to rewrite the dialogue or use a visual instead of using "as you know."

Maurice Vaughan or rewrite the scene, Maurice. If the scene is there to ‘explain things’, then perhaps it shouldn’t be there?

That's a great idea, Geoff Hall. Rewrite the scene to give it more purpose than just explaining things.

Dan MaxXx indeed, Dan. Bad films do get made. Bad dialogue in films does get by a hundred eyes.

I was watching a programme on TV - FBI I think it was called. Dreadful dialogue.

Lead Agent - Lithuania? Is that in Russia?

Other Agent - No.

Lead Agent - Close enough…

This even got past the writer’s room full of talent.

I decided to not watch anymore of it. If that was the quality of the writing, I’d already had enough

And yet we pore over our scripts thinking that everything has to be immaculately conceived and written to get anyone’s attention.

John Clive Carter I think it was poorly defined, John. And yet helpful to know that on your nose, or maybe what we might call, ‘stating the obvious’ is just jarring to hear. Like you say, subtext is the key.

M LaVoie well said!

I believe it's Robert McKee who says, "Show don't tell." :) To support #2 in the above

For me, dialog makes or breaks the movie. If the actors have nothing worthwhile. or interesting, to say, what's the point of the action? You've seen one car chase, you've seen them all. The first Batman movie was wonderful ... the rest repetitious until you get to the Joker, that has dialog that makes sense, and is interesting. So, how about show AND tell? Watch a film like Inherit the Wind ... the script was superb in presenting and clarifying the issue of evolution v creationism, free speech v ideological conformity. Yes, I know....movies like that are for people with brains and use them. Very unusual, I know, but stay with me. Today, movies are interchangeable, as are the actors and the dialog. That's why movie makers are going broke.