Screenwriting : To write it as its spoken or not? by Stacey Chehardy

Hi Stacey I always like to hear characters speak in their own dialect. I come from the UK and I did not recognise a great deal of the phrases and slang used in 'Winter's Bone' but I understood the context and the subtext. Their dialect added to the world they lived in. I think as long as you use language and dialect that is current to the time period of the narrative it shouldn't be a problem. Good luck with it.

Hey Stacey, I think what the reader meant is to dial it back some. Being authentic is always a great ideal, but if you spell every bit of a character's dialog phonetically, it can actually be a distraction. It slows the reader down. Give just a touch of dialect. A hint. Your story is set in New Orleans so the reader already knows there's a dialect. Actors will know how to deliver those lines. However, you are the writer. It's your script. In the end, it's up to you. Nonetheless, this feedback does have merit. Worth considering. Best of luck! :)

Hi Stacy, I forgot to add, in the industry we use a phase called 'OTN' , 'On the nose', which means that your characters are actually saying what they mean. This can sound a bit ScoobyDoo, perhaps you need to look at your dialogue and see how much of it you can rewrite as subtext. Hard to say without seeing the script. Good luck with it!

Thanks everyone. Donna, no, I don't have a problem with OTN, they were referring to the way the dialogue was written. (ex "jes fine" )

It depends on how distracting it is to the reader. If they have to go over it and over it to get what was said, it pulls them out of the story, which is bad. Also, if it goes on too long, it can make the screenplay tiring to read. Sometimes it's better to give a parenthetical (heavy New Orleans accent) and let the actor do the work.

I say, make sure that the characters that play the parts either are and can portray the authentic accent. Words in a screenplay are meant to be heard really more than written.

Hi Stacey, I agree with Beth that actors (and directors) should know how to handle dialects. Scripts are much easier to read and work with if they're written without phonetic spellings. You can make exceptions for words that might have unique pronounciations, like names for example, or if there are deliberately mispronounced words.

I handle dialects by describing the characters who have accents in the Character Trope. The grandmother in my TV series, "My Black and White Family," is originally from Memphis, Tennessee. The character trope says that she has a strong Memphis accent and I let the director and actor decide how words should be pronounced. If the actor doesn't know the accent, there are plenty of voice coaches, such as the Complete Actors Place in Sherman Oaks, that can quickly teach it to them. Don't try to write your script in a dialect because it will just confuse everyone. Colloquialisms, such a "gonna", are OK because most actors will understand them.

What Laura said. It's like the different between, "I am going to take this outside, and shoot it." And, "I'm gonna take this shit outback and fuck it up." That's dialect. The same line, told in different ways. Accent would be more like, "Imma take dis shit outback an' fuck it up." ^.^

Woody Allen is great at dialogue. If you see his movie, people have a natural flow to their conversation. In real life, people interrupt one another and say things like "uh and hum." If you ever read his script, that is in the dialogue. Dialects can be difficult to pull off. As an actor, I had to do a Southern accent. Which is not hard cause my Mom is from New Orleans (Nawlins), so the dialogue was written naturally and I just added the dialect to it. I toned it down a bit cause sometimes certain Southern dialects are hard to understand for people who are not from the South.

Avoid adding accents in your dialogue if you can help it. If it's somehow relevant to your story, is integral to your tale, then fine, but you need to keep it as clear as possible. Don't confuse a reader.