Learning to write

hey what's up everyone im a newcomer to the forum. it's good to see that everyone can share there ideas and people can help eachother out. so if you guys could do me a favor too that would be great. i currently just started getting into the craft of eachother so yea call me a scrub or what not but i wanted to know if you guys know any other way to help better my grammar.
thanks
 
A lot of screenwriters have problem with dialog. Often it comes across as very wooden.

here's a tip I read somewhere and it works a treat for me. Take a small handheld voice recorder and go to a coffee shop. Buy a coffee, sit down with the paper and record customers conversations. It doesn't matter what the people are saying, but its handy if you get a minute or two of a chat between two or three people.

Now go home, open up Final Draft or whatever screenwriting program you use, and write down as a screenplay the conversation between these people. With all the ers, ars, interupted sentences and pauses. Take a look at it on the page. That was real people talking in normal day to day life. Looks a lot different from the "he says, she says" dialog many screenwriters pour out.

Just my opinon of course and don't let the people in the coffee shop catch you recording them! Coffee can be hot and burn certain areas of the anatomy!!
 
Steve Shovlar said:
A lot of screenwriters have problem with dialog. Often it comes across as very wooden.

here's a tip I read somewhere and it works a treat for me. Take a small handheld voice recorder and go to a coffee shop. Buy a coffee, sit down with the paper and record customers conversations. It doesn't matter what the people are saying, but its handy if you get a minute or two of a chat between two or three people.

Now go home, open up Final Draft or whatever screenwriting program you use, and write down as a screenplay the conversation between these people. With all the ers, ars, interupted sentences and pauses. Take a look at it on the page. That was real people talking in normal day to day life. Looks a lot different from the "he says, she says" dialog many screenwriters pour out.

Just my opinon of course and don't let the people in the coffee shop catch you recording them! Coffee can be hot and burn certain areas of the anatomy!!
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That's a really great tip...

I've always been more of a director/cinematographer type and spend my time watching people ... how they move and interact physically... It never crossed my mind to listen to (and discreetly record) people's everyday conversations and then go back and study the structure of those conversations...
 
I like that exercise too but I think you'll have to do some editing after that. "Real" human conversational speech is not what gets put into screenplays. You have to take out the uhm's and er's (unless it's part of the character). Script dialog is driven dialog in the sense that it drives to make a point about the character or progress the story.

@ ortem: sounds like a new thread to me but I'll recommend this to start.

This one is a standard.
 
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I'd say listen to the opening scene in the diner in Reservoir Dogs. That dialogue is pure poetry.
 
R!ff R4ff said:
I like that exercise too but I think you'll have to do some editing after that. "Real" human conversational speech is not what gets put into screenplays. You have to take out the uhm's and er's (unless it's part of the character). Script dialog is driven dialog in the sense that it drives to make a point about the character or progress the story.

@ ortem: sounds like a new thread to me but I'll recommend this to start.

This one is a standard.
Click to expand...

Have to agree with that. Script dialogue is not generally the same as real dialogue insofar as if the dialogue has no point then trash it. The coffee shop example:

Bill and Bob having coffee for example. (real world convo)

Bob

This coffee sucks.

Bill

Just a second. Where's the toilet here?

OK in a screenplay you would omit where Bill says "Where's the toilet here?", because it's not useful in anyway. It doesn't tell us anything about the character and it doesn't drive the story in anyway. It would just be better that he get up and go to the toilet. Also if the dialogue is not dramatic trash it or change it. In the original posters dialogue the characters say each others names a bit also. You should delete this in every instance that it doesn't assist the story/character.... for example someone looking for another person WILL say their name. But to go back to the coffee shop example its a bit like:

Bob
Bill, this coffee sucks.

Bill
Just a second... Bob, where's the toilet here?

Just has no point.

A heavily wooded Oak forest is silhouetted by the morning sun. An eerie stillness is shaken by faint gunfire. The SOUND of approaching footsteps takes over.
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When your highlighting sounds in capitals, dont highlight the sound adjective or the word SOUND : In this case without rewriting: The sound of approaching FOOTSTEPS takes over.
 
Hi sometimes the only way to improve is to up your game. What i mean by this is. Get yourself a screenplay coach. In the end it will save you a lot of time. Maybe not a lot of money. But certainly a lot of time. I am also passionate about screen writing. I wish you well. Keep writing
 
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