I love dialogue. Any kind of dialogue.  My husband will testify to that on a personal level, but today we’re here to talk about dialogue within scenes and don’t need his opinion.  

Please welcome author and scriptwriter Cindy Carroll back to RU for another great lecture.

Take it away, Cindy!

Sometimes the best part about a movie is the dialogue.  But what about books?  Most of the time you remember the description.  You remember the characters.  You don’t usually come away from reading a book thinking – Wow, that dialogue was awesome.  So why not?  Dialogue is tough to get right.  Great dialogue is even tougher.  Dialogue has a big job in a book.

Dialogue should serve one or more purpose:  move the plot forward, develop character, illuminate the theme, take the story in a new direction, give the reader information.  There are other purposes of course but those are the ones I aim for.  It can also reveal how characters feel about each other, foreshadow events, provide conflict.  And as long as you do it right, dialogue is showing.

How do you do it right?  How much do you need?  I would say every scene needs dialogue.  Writing good dialogue is hard.  People say some writers just have a talent for it. And that may be true but I think writing good dialogue can be learned.  One tip writers are given is to listen to conversations around them.  Good advice, just don’t write dialogue exactly as you would hear it in the real world.  Real conversations are full of things that you don’t want in your dialogue.  You wouldn’t include the ums, the ahs, the yeses, the nos, the person’s name etc.

For example:  “Gee, Bob, remember the last time your cousin showed up?  We all ended up in jail because Hank, the town Sheriff , had a grudge against him.”

Another example of bad dialogue:

“Betty, are you going to the wedding?”

“No.”

Wouldn’t it better if Betty said something like “I’ll be washing my hair.”  Or “I’d rather have a root canal without any freezing.”  Her answer is still no but it reveals so much more about Betty and the story.

One more example:

“John, what are you doing?’

“Well, um, I’m, ah, nothing really.  Just watching TV.”

Dialogue should be crisp.  Clean.  Serve at least one purpose not just to add word count.  One thing I would highly recommend is watching movies.  Listen to the dialogue.  Listen to the subtext.  Don’t have characters say something they wouldn’t normally say because you the author need to get the information out there.  Try closing your eyes and just listen to the dialogue.  How much of the story do you get?  By the end of the movie do you know all the important parts?  Do you know what happened?  You’ll miss the visuals yes, movies are a visual medium, but do you get the gist of the story?  Is the important information revealed in dialogue? Can you tell who is talking without seeing them?  If you take the dialogue tags out of your manuscript do you know who is speaking?  You should. Each character should have a unique voice.  All of your characters shouldn’t sound the same.

I love subtext.  The deeper meaning in the actions or the dialogue.  Knowing what the person means without them having to actually say it.  I saw a perfect example of subtext in X2 (X Men 2).  Jean Grey tells Logan he’s a bad boy.  Women don’t bring the bad boy home.  They marry the good guy.  Logan tells her he could be a good guy.  This speaks volumes.  He didn’t say straight out that he wanted to marry her.  But he did tell her he wanted to marry her. 

Why is dialogue so important?  White space.  It helps quicken the pace.  A lot of readers don’t like lots of narrative.  They look for those dialogue passages.  There should be a good balance of dialogue and narrative in your story.  I try to make sure I have at least some dialogue on every page.  After all your characters need to talk to each other.  Sometimes that’s the only way you can realistically get information across.  Just remember to make sure it doesn’t sound forced. 

Now get your characters talking.

***

RU Readers, do you have a favorite line of dialogue you would like to share?  We’d love to hear it!

Thank you to Cindy for joining us today.

BIO:Cindy Carroll joined RWA in 1992 and started out writing novels but turned to scripts when an idea for one of her favorite television shows wouldn’t leave her alone. That first attempt, and her second teleplay for the same show, garnered her honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition in the screenplay category.  She graduated from Hal Croasmun’s screenwriting ProSeries intensive in June of 2008.  Her interview with David Rambo, writer/producer for CSI appeared in the summer special edition of The Rewrit, the newsletter for Scriptscene, Romance Writers of America’s screenwriting chapter.  Currently working on the rewrite of her second feature, Cindy is also developing two new television pilots. www.CindyCarroll.com

Join us on Friday when author Zoe Winters tells us what she wishes she would have known before jumping into the self-publishing pool.

Please join me in welcoming Cindy back for another exciting lecture. If you missed her first post on loglines, click here to learn how to boil your story down to 25 words or less.

Take it away, Cindy!

If you write books switching over to screenplays may seem easy. You already know how to tell a story. You know about goal, motivation and conflict. You know that your characters have to be sympathetic. Show don’t tell is a constant mantra you play in your head. You know the story needs to have a beginning, middle and end. And you know the dangers of the sagging middle. Some of you have even taken courses to apply three act structure to your novel. Or a course on applying Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to your book. And don’t forget the W method of plotting. Piece of cake to switch sides and write movies, right? WRONG. 

Screenplays and books are two very different animals.  While they share a lot in common they are different disciplines.  But ones I think complement each other.  Learning scriptwriting can help you improve your novel writing.  And I believe that writing novels first can give you a head start when it comes to writing screenplays. 

So what are these differences?  While a good story is a good story, there are formatting differences.  In a book an editor or agent probably won’t bat an eyelash if your manuscript is Times New Roman or Courier New.  Margins won’t be a huge concern to them either.  In screenplays formatting is essential.  That’s why, before you sit in front of that computer and type FADE IN: you should read as many scripts as you can.  In the genre you want to write.  There’s a reason for the 1.25 inch margin on the left side.  There’s a reason slug lines (scene headings) are capitalized. A script page does not look like a manuscript page.  And they need to be written in Courier, 12 pt.  Know how to format your script so it looks like a script at the very least before you send it anywhere. 

Which brings me to the whole read, read, read.  The first thing you probably heard when you announced you wanted to write a book was to read, read, read.  Same goes for scripts.  But you need to know what kind of screenplays you’re reading.  By what kind I mean is it a Spec script (a script written on speculation, no contract)?  Is it a shooting script (with scene numbers in the margins)?  Was it written on contract?  Did the director write it?  Was it written by someone with a track record like Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers)?  All those types will be slightly different.  For example some things a director will put in his script (camera angles, shots, transitions) you should not if you’re writing a spec script.  Robert and Alex don’t have to worry so much about the rules. 

Let’s talk about length.  Size matters.  Books generally come in around 400 pages for a 100,000 word book.  For screenplays the general rule of thumb is 85-120 pages.  But you have a fantastic 300 page script you say?  Like almost any rule in writing this one can be broken – once you’ve established yourself.  That means having writing credits (screenwriting writing credits) or production credits under your belt.  If you don’t have the credits and you send in that 300 page script, even if it’s formatted properly, it will most likely be introduced to the trash can before anyone gets past your cover page.  The reason for the strict page limit?  The general rule of thumb is one page of script equals about one minute of screen time.  So that 120 page script is a two hour movie.  And that 300 page masterpiece is a 5 hour epic. 

Let’s move onto the most obvious difference.  No chapters.  While most books and scripts have a three act structure the script has no chapters.  It has scene headings.  When I started writing scripts I stressed over how to “do” things.  I knew what I wanted to show but I didn’t know how to write it down.  It’s actually not that hard.  You need slug lines.  Those tell the director if the scene is indoors or outdoors and the time of day.  And there’s no need to get fancy.  Just day or night will do.  If it’s actually in the afternoon you can put that in the description part under the slug line.  Think of a scene as being any time the director has to move that huge camera.  So a sequence of events in the living room, dining room and kitchen would actually be three scenes with three separate slug lines.  While in a book that might be all one scene.  For example: 

INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY 

John sits on the couch, beer in hand.  He takes a gulp.  Shakes the can, crumples it and tosses into a pile on the floor. 

With his gaze still clued to the TV he gets up and walks towards the… 

INT. KITCHEN – CONTINUOUS 

John yanks the fridge door open, frowns.  Slams it closed again and stalks to the… 

INT. DINING ROOM – CONTINUOUS 

A note on the table.  John picks it up, reads, crumples it.

                                                 JOHN

                        She took my beer again.

 One thing that is the same is the need to show instead of tell.  However, in screenplays it needs to be all show.  You can’t put in the script what you can’t see on screen.  The director needs to be able to set up the shot.  So no introspection.  The only time you have a little leeway with telling is when you introduce a character.  Everywhere else you need to show because movies are a visual medium.  As I said before, if the director can’t set up a shot for it, it doesn’t belong in the script.  Quick telling sentences won’t work the same way they do in books.  

Sure you can show someone is inquisitive by having them always ask questions, constantly researching facts.  Writing screenplays forces you to really focus on how you show something.  Instead of saying – she was surprised by his sudden appearance you have to show that.  

Another example:  

CAROLYN, 17, smartest girl in high school but also the loneliest.  

You can’t set up a shot for the smartest girl in high school.  How do we know that?  How do you show that instead of just telling the reader?  You could show awards for scholarly excellence on the walls.  She could drop her keys by the phone and you could show no new messages.  No pictures of her and her friends.  She could check her computer and see she only has two emails.  One from her mother and one is spam. 

At first it seems overwhelming and some people just give up.  It’s always hard to learn something new.  But the actual structure isn’t that different from books.  You still need an inciting incident.  You still need turning points.  You want to make sure your sagging middle is tightened up so it’s full of action.  Because of the visual nature of screenplays it’s vital that you show instead of tell and keep everything active. If you want to try your hand at writing a script I recommend downloading some from a website, get a free script writing software just to try and go for it. 

RU Readers, have you ever tried your hand at writing a script? If so, tell us about it!

Cindy Carroll joined RWA in 1992 and started out writing novels but turned to scripts when an idea for one of her favorite television shows wouldn’t leave her alone. That first attempt, and her second teleplay for the same show, garnered her honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition in the screenplay category.  She graduated from Hal Croasmun’s screenwriting ProSeries intensive in June of 2008.  Her interview with David Rambo, writer/producer for CSI appeared in the summer special edition of The Rewrit, the newsletter for Scriptscene, Romance Writers of America’s screenwriting chapter.  Currently working on the rewrite of her second feature, Cindy is also developing two new television pilots. www.CindyCarroll.com

On Monday, medical suspense author CJ Lyons stops by to give us pointers on brand building. You don’t want to miss this!

No kidding. 

I recently used the logline I’d created in Cindy’s workshop to draft a query and realized it took me half the time to write the letter than it normally would.  Was that query perfect?  Absolutely not, but I was able to spend more time editing and less time trying to figure out what to say.  All because I had the logline.

Same thing happened with the synopsis.  At that point, I knew I had to ask Cindy to be a guest blogger with us.

So here she is.  Welcome, Cindy!

 I’m going to be talking loglines.  What they’re not.  What they are. Why you need one.

The thing I want to clear up first is what they’re not.  I hear the term tag line used interchangeably with logline all the time.  Loglines are not tag lines.  They are two different marketing tools.  A logline tells you what the story is about.  A tag line goes on the movie poster.  If you heard the line – don’t go in the water – would you know what that movie is about?  Would you have any idea who the protagonist is?  What they want?  What is getting in their way?  What’s at stake?

So what is a logline then?  If someone asked you what your story is about would you know the answer?  Really know the answer?  The logline isn’t plot, twists, sub plot, dialogue.  It’s your concept.  At the most basic level, it’s the spine of your story.  It’s what holds everything together.  Okay, now what is your story about?

The general consensus is that the logline should be twenty-five words or less.  If you go over by a few words that’s fine.  But the twenty-five word limit forces you to be as precise as possible.  Trim the excess words and get right to the point.  There are various schools of thought on what the logline should include.  All of them agree on three things.  The logline should tell us WHO the story is about, WHAT he wants (Goal), and WHY he can’t have it (Conflict).  A good logline will have the GMC .  I like to start my loglines with the inciting incident or character motivation.  Why does the protagonist need to go through this story?  What prompted him to take action?

There are no names in loglines.  Unless it’s about someone famous and that’s the hook.  It should be generic.  An adjective to describe the noun.  Of course there are always editors or agents who don’t mind a logline with names.  But in general I would leave them out.

To stop a murder, a sexy librarian must deliver a rare first edition from the library to the man holding her sister hostage, but the library burns down.

That tells me more then:  To stop a murder, Lexa Tome must deliver a rare first edition from the library to the man holding her sister hostage, but the library burns down.

I actually recommend coming up with the logline first, before writing the story.  Think about how hard it is to write a ten page synopsis after you finish writing the book.  You want to put in all the best parts.  So, it’s even harder to trim down everything to twenty-five words that conveys your story.  Having the logline first helps you stay on track.  Think of it as your thesis statement before writing an essay.  I refer back to my loglines to make sure I haven’t veered off too far in another direction.

So, why do you need a logline?  Besides keeping you focused there’s the marketing angle.  Sometimes all you have time for is that logline if an agent or editor asks.  I put the logline for my book at the beginning of my query.  Because it’s only twenty-five words it fits well on the back of a business card too.  Great for networking opportunities and those agent/editor appointments. 

Give it a try.  Boil that story down to twenty-five words or less.

Thank you, Cindy. 

Does anyone want to be brave and share their logline?  Cindy will be with us if you want to run one by her.

Here’s mine from the online workshop:  When a child molester is murdered, his cousin, a former victim, goes undercover to clear herself of murder and discovers a black market baby ring.

And it’s twenty-five words!

Bio:  Cindy Carroll joined RWA in 1992 and started out writing novels but turned to scripts when an idea for one of her favorite television shows wouldn’t leave her alone. That first attempt, and her second teleplay for the same show, garnered her honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition in the screenplay category.  She graduated from Hal Croasmun’s screenwriting ProSeries intensive in June of 2008.  Her interview with David Rambo, writer/producer for CSI appeared in the summer special edition of The Rewrit, the newsletter for Scriptscene, Romance Writers of America’s screenwriting chapter.  Currently working on the rewrite of her second feature, Cindy is also developing two new television pilots.