![]() ![]() The Breakfast Club is about five teenagers from completely different social circles during detention one Saturday. Very subtle changes - such as India’s shoes - give us an insight into their psyche without us needing to be told anything verbally. The actors convey a lot through very little, particularly the main characters of India and Charlie. The tension is built up using either silence or background music, and the talent of the actors. In some of the most poignant scenes, there is little to no dialogue. I talk about it a lot, because it completely changed my view on screenwriting. Stoker begins and ends with a voice over. A simple exchange of glances between characters can be far more intimate than a verbal exchange. If your character doesn’t need to speak, there’s really no point in giving them any dialogue. It offers up the opportunity to explain things too much, and run the risk of telling over showing. Too much dialogue can be condescending to the audience. The way they recount their story also gives us a chance to work out how reliable or unreliable they are. The characters very often speak eloquently, but with their own idiolect. Whilst his characters speak a lot, I don’t feel that it’s too much dialogue - Watson and Holmes aren’t mind readers, and they only way they - and the reader - will learn about the case is from the client telling it to us. Conan Doyle uses it a lot in Sherlock Holmes, when potential clients are recounting the details of a case to him and Watson. The way someone constructs their sentences and pronounces their words can say a lot about them without us ever needing to be told it.ĭialogue can be great for telling back story. We may hear scripts, but we predominantly see them, and what someone does as they speak can completely change the meaning of what they say.ĭialogue allows you to hear the character both in fiction and in scripts. ![]() It also makes it harder for the reader - and potential bringer to life - of your script to envision what it will look like on screen. However, this gives you less control and creative freedom. If you write screenplays, the temptation can be to write dialogue and only dialogue, and leave the description up to the director. However, studying Creative Writing has taught me that too much dialogue can be the equivalent of binge-eating your favourite food: it can take your love away. It’s one of my favourite things to write because I feel like I can really see and hear the character when I put those words on to a page. ![]()
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