From: CHARACTER MAKES THE STORY
By Sol Stein
Dialogue is a foreign language, different from whatever language a writer has grown up using. It can make people unknown to the writer cry, laugh and believe lies in seconds. It is succinct, can carry a great weight of meaning in few words, and, above all, it is adversarial. That doesn't mean shouting. Adversarial dialogue can be subtle. It also has modes that are akin to pitches in baseball, fastballs, curve balls, sinkers. Let me give you a couple of examples.
Here's an Elmore Leonard character propositioning a woman with a curve ball: 'Let's get a drink and talk for a few days.' A sinker is useful for comedy: 'Are you going to let go of me, or shall I scream and let the neighbors see you in your undershirt?'
Characters reveal themselves in dialogue best when they are under stress and blurt out things they never meant to say.
What counts in dialogue is not what is said, but what is meant.
Dialogue is not at all like recorded speech. Evidence: Court transcripts are recorded speech, and awfully boring.
Exercises:
1. "Writers get a great weight of meaning in few words"
Go through your script. Remove half the words from each dialogue line without losing any meaning.
2. Curve ball: 'Let's get a drink and talk for a few days.' A curve ball is when the audience thinks it knows where a line is going, but is surprised by where it ends up. Go through your script and put in a curve ball.
3. Sinker: 'Are you going to let go of me, or shall I scream and let the neighbors see you in your undershirt?' A sinker is when a character pitches a line in such a way that the antagonist is unable to hit it back. Go through your script and put in a sinker.
