Screenwriting : Authentic Dialogue by Erik A. Jacobson

I like workshopping it with actors. Sometimes being in that space with the basic parameters but no script to dictate the words really allows for the most authentic response in the moment.

Generally speaking, I tend to write the voices of people I'm familiar with. If I need to go outside of that, I use YouTube.

For both my screenplays based on true lives, I read reams of interviews, things the people wrote, listened to them talk on film to get a feel for them as characters and the way they speak. I virtually lived them!! For my latest project, I have one character -- a drug dealing Jamaican -- and this has been really challenging to get him to sound realistic but I have a friend (who I made through Stage 32 :) )whose Goddaughter's husband is a Jamaican so he is kindly translating the character's dialogue into patois and this is helping me bring him to life.

I'm wondering if I should mine my friend's kid's vernacular.. Good story

I wrote about a cartel once and for some reason I nailed it. I researched the life of those people and learned a few buzz words. I wrote about things no one would would ever think I would know about. My readers were totally shocked I wrote it. It was a challenge stepping into an opposite world from mine but I did it to prove I could and for other reasons I cannot discuss. I do not believe in sticking totally to the "write what you know" rule. I enjoy writing of my culture best but as writers we should be great observers and recorders of other cultures than our own and of individuals unique to our own way of thinking and doing. I prefer to write of my own little world but I am not sticking to that. Last night I watched Tombstone again with my husband - one of our favorite films. I have never been a cowgirl, did not live in those times, never shot a man, but I totally related to those characters. My husband remarked that he really felt for each of those characters, and I did as well. They were criminals and outlaws! That writer was smart in that he revealed what we all are - just human. If one can show that - the spirit of a character and relate in that way - the rest is just decoration. I see people as that in real life. I relate on a spiritual level - spirit to spirit. The rest of what makes a person different is not important to me. I think I am saying to be a people person and the rest can be researched. More than one of those cowboys cried in the film. I will remember that far longer than I will remember their dialogue, but "I'll be your Huckleberry" was a great line. I watched Gunsmoke as a small child and told my parents I wanted to be Miss Kitty when I grew up. They were horrified. I like her because she was strong and sweet at the same time and everyone wanted to be her friend. She was a bad girl running a brothel but I did not care. She had heart.

Erik, I look not only to personal experience, but also to Google and YouTube.

One of my main cripple's when I write in English...neither that I'm native nor I even lived in the States...and I do enjoy a good slang in a movie...this is what makes movies such as Training Day, Good Fellas, Platoon etc so good...richness in the actual period slang...however I'm doing my next script in Macedonian, army slang end of the 90's (when I actually served) gonna do me some slang-justice this time :)

Also consider what you can communicate non-verbally to make you interactions feel more real. Sometimes it is more engaging to watch for what a character isn’t saying in a situation or to a certain person, rather than laying everything out in the open.

I think there are a few things in play.

Will the audience understand it?

Will the audience see it as authentic?

Does it need to be authentic to get the job done?

I will try and write what feel real. If I can achieve that I am done.

Here is an example. In the USA people wear “Flip Flops”, Aussies call them “thongs”. In the USA a thing is “g string” underwear. So my USA friends had a laugh when I said summer in Sydney is BBQs and thongs.

Cultural difference will play a part in how I write.

I am working on a Shakespeare adaptation; his other plays and sonnets help inspire additional dialogue. For example, Sonnet 147 is Will getting angsty about unrequited love.

Lol, Erik, I am more intrigued/jealous of you in LB at 1:30am! Bucket list paradise location to retire!

Dan M - You'd love LB and it would love and inspire you in return at any time of day/night. Great little beach town!

:But crisp, clear dialogue, with a minimum of verbiage, is hard to find and sometimes even harder to imagine. " - That's a contradiction to normal speech, isn't it? The dialogue in a Dashiell Hammett novel is tight, but it isn't how people actually speak, because real people are choosing their words while they speak. However, no one wants to hear a lot of "Uh.." "Well..." and "You Know..." in a film or TV show. So its a compromise between real speech and lines that crack like the report of a .45 pistol (as Hammett would say).

“You always have a very smooth explanation ready."

"What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?”

― Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon

Hannah M - "This is one of the problems up the with we have to put." Winston Churchill

Zorrawa also has a great point. Considering who the characters are, how they're feeling in that situation, what they want, where they are in their personal development and how they feel about who they are talking to are great things to consider. You can then play with conversations not going the way characters expect and how they react to this.

The trend with realistic dialogue can really stop a screenwriter in their tracks. If you compare screen to play, playwriters are Gods who are allowed the privilege of having their characters essentially preach poetry--just look at Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf or No Exit. There are, however, instances in which a screenwriter is allowed to write dialogue that has a fictional tone. If you look at the first season of True Detective the characters have huge chunks of very sophisticated dialogue, which when placed in the hands of a talented actors like Woody Harrelson and Matthew Mcconaughey works. I should probably mention that much of the best dialogue in True Detective was stolen from author Thomas Ligotti's "The Conspiracy of the Human Race" and snippets from Swamp Thing comics.

The trick is to get your first draft down, even if the dialogue is corny. You can then work with actors and record the sessions, or you can read it aloud with a partner. See if you can say less. Use subtext. Use action to give context. If they're drug dealers, then they probably aren't just going to be insulting each other the entire tire, that's more of a beginner's trope. Drug dealers are educated. They are streetwise. They speak in code. The Wire does a great job of showcasing realistic dialogue within that specific genre and I would investigate that show and take notes. You may even consider doing a ride-along with a police officer. There's nothing that sounds more hammy than two "tough guys" trying to out-wit each other in their dialogue. Find the reason that they're dealing drugs. What are their hopes? Where do they want to be? How long have they been in the game? What kind of jewelry do they have? How old are they? Have they ever been outside of their neighborhood?

It's your screenplay--you are God. Do whatever you want. If you want the characters to not be stereotypical, then that could work as well. Maybe one of the characters likes poetry and therefore speaks at a level elevated beyond the language of the block. Maybe another character is stoic and thinks before he speaks--silence in dialogue can often say more than words. Good luck, brother!

Authentic dialog is what one character MUST say at that moment in the scene. Dialog in a script is the illusion of conversational speech.

That is a greatly great idea, E. Lamoreaux! I feel like I saw that in the film "In a World" but it was for accents, not dialogue, but a good idea for both!