Unit 3 - Lesson 5: Capturing An Audience
An Introduction
Craft:
This lesson is meant to show you how to improve your dialogue writing. When it comes to writing scripts, almost everything is supported by dialogue, which is why knowing how to write and practicing writing dialogue will help you in the long run. We'll be starting off with a video that's been put out by the YouTube channel, Standard Story Company.
The video is linked to the right of this text.
Connect:
Now we'll be talking about what you just watched and adding on some new knowledge!
When it comes to writing a script—screenplay or play—it's almost entirely reliant on dialogue. If you can't make your dialogue interesting, then your characters, situations, and even conflict might fall flat. Your dialogue needs to vary from character to character as well. If anyone in your cast can say it, then your audience might get bored.
How do you fix this? With quirks! Maybe you have a character from France who constantly mixes up two words. Or maybe you have a character who only refers to people as "honey", regardless of their name or status. Maybe you even have a character who hardly speaks at all, but when they do, their voice is low and rumbling. These quirks will help define your cast of characters, and they'll make them stand out to the audience as well!
More lessons here
Create:
This is the final step in this lesson. Now you get to put what you learned into practice!
Pick a character that you feel is interesting. This can be the same character you've used in previous lessons or a new one. If you can't think of a character, think of an interesting job you know about and imagine the type of person that performs that job.
Once you have your character, start writing some dialogue for them. Make sure to choose a quirk or two and stick with it. If you break away from the quirk, the audience will notice. You might want to draw the audience's attention to that at a certain point, but it regular conversation, it's best to be as consistent as possible! After you've got a finished scene, read through it imagining your character saying all this. Does something feel a little too far fetched? It might be time for revision!