Dialogue is...

[mbarrett]

Character driven. What I mean by that is - you create your character and within that character they are going to speak a certain way. They will also have a specific draw or pronunciation that they do.

If you had all of your characters speaking in the same manner and tone - then they would be extremely boring - all the same and monotone. The story wouldn't get very far.

You want your dialogue to snap and to be relevant to each character.

Just a thought.

[mscherer]

Couldn't agree more, but I would add: easier said than done.

I'm afraid it is one of the major flaws in my own writing, but there are some tricks of the trade that help. Here's an excerpt from my ol' friend The Unknown Screenwriter:

There’s an old trick that’s been around a long time that explains how to check your character’s dialogue to see if it’s any good… To see if we can actually TELL who’s speaking. Just cover up the character cue (character’s name) in your screenplay and see if you can tell who’s actually speaking the dialogue.

There’s MERIT in that trick…

Unfortunately, a lot of screenwriters trying to break in simply don’t get it. They think that the actor should take care of all that INTERPRETATION and make each character distinguishable.

Here's the link to that post: www.screenwriterunknown.com/

[Sean Z P Harris]

Ah, great trick, Mike. I know it would certainly work for a few of my characters in the feature I'm working on at the moment. In fact, I think it would work for most of them, although now I come to think about it, the main protag is the one with the most "normal" speech patterns.

I guess he is recognisable as such compared to those around him (they're not all crazy loons, but each do seem to have modes of speech and repeated phrases that set them quite apart from each other). I don't think his dialogue is boring, but he, now I come to think about it, doesn't have any repeat phrases (I watched Good Will Hunting last night, and Robin William's character, Sean, was always interjecting the word. "sport." "Hey sport!" That kinda thing. Tags of speech I once heard them called.

[zzf]

From word player: "each line of dialogue should advance the plot, reveal a character trait, or get a laugh -- and it's best if it does all three."

THINGS TO AVOID: colloquialisms that you use in your own speech patterns. When striving for authenticity with dialogue, we have a tendency to take it too far: "Well, like, umm, woulda, gonna, shoulda." In my own experience I have a problem with some first drafts, having characters say the word "say," as a little preamble into any line of speech. Thank heavens for rewriting.