Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Dialogue in Action - A Few Tips

Please continue writing your full length plays.

Additionally, please read the article "Dialogue in Action" and answer the few questions below: (to be handed in next class)

1. Define "subtext". How might writers use subtext according to the article to improve their dialogue?
2. Define "beat". How do beats work in a play?
3. How might a writer provide "backstory" more effectively?
4. What is verisimilitude? How does this term create problems for a contemporary playwright using soliloquies or monologues or asides?
5. Who is a "confidant" in playwriting? What purpose did they serve in a play? Why might we avoid this in writing plays today?
6. Give some advice about writing monologues.

You are free to work on this homework if you need a distraction or break from your full length play.

--Good dialogue is precise and purposeful; a distillation of normal speech (not really normal speech)
--Characters NEED to speak in scenes--they shouldn't just hold their tongue or hope that a bad situation will go away
--Dialogue should reveal characters (characterization), provide point of view, move the story forward (plot), and allow the author to approach theme
--Dialogue is not everyday speech; it is crafted and carefully chosen
--Dialogue begins with your character's need to speak
--Dialogue is the result of well-defined character building (see entry on character below)
--Color your dialogue with details about your character's history, emotions, desires, and subconscious and conscious thoughts
--Dialogue is action taken to satisfy a need, want, or desire
--If a character doesn't say something--the audience cannot hear it
--Do not substitute stage directions for what a character should SAY
--Make your characters react to what they are HEARING (everyone listens differently and hears what someone is saying differently)
--How a character hears is just as important as what a character hears (or what a character says)
--Write exposition (backstory) to affect the present conflict (not just to provide a well-rounded character)
--Exposition should be revealed on a needs-to-know basis
--Characters should "play" off each other
--Monologues should not simply be plunked into a script; in some cases, break up your monologues to allow other characters in a scene to respond to what they are hearing

2 comments:

Savannah said...

1. Subtext is content underneath the spoken dialogue. Sort of like the inner person the character is, but the things they never really say. In other words, the attributes of the character that need to be shown through their actions.
2. A parenthetically noted pause interrupting dialogue, denoted by (beat), for the purpose of indicating a significant shift in the direction of a scene, much in the way that a hinge connects a series of doors. A beat can add suspense, drama, and intensify a scene.
3. The writer may provide “back-story” more effectively by having other characters comment on the background of another character, or perhaps through monologue.
4. Verisimilitude, I believe, is the cross between imagination (what is real) and what is tangible. (ie; real world). The use of verisimilitude may create issues with explaining strange happening within the play.
5. A confidant is a person to whom secrets are entrusted, and in playwriting is perhaps a person who knows things all the other’s don’t. In play’s today, the confidant may complicate the play a bit more than we feel is necessary, or that we have time for.
6. Monologues, to me, are a great way to give background and insight on the speaking character. I would never normally have a character come out in all their lines, saying what their thinking, or their entire background. We want the character to be focused on what’s happening in the scene and the “right now”.


savannah jean

Savannah said...

:)

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