Writting arguments and fight scenes

Jon Starr

Jon Starr

Veteran
I'm not currently working on anything at the moment, but I enjoy writing a lot.

However I've been wondering two things. First is:

When it comes to writing a dialogue between two individuals, and they get into an argument and they begin to talk over each other, how would you write that in?

I wrote it once by writting the dialogue of the first actor, then stating that the two character were speaking at the same time and wrote the dialogue for the next character. However when the actors read it, they didn't understand that and I had to explain it to them.

Is there a way to write it so it's easily understandable?

Also, I'm wondering about fights. You normally want the scripts to follow the amound of time in the movie, but what do you do when you write a fight? Especially if you're not the one taking care of the fight? I used to write it in detail, but most of it would be thrown out the window. Also it just seemed to be weak. I remember seeing a BTS for star wars and when george lucas wrote his first draft he said "I cheated a lot, for the fight scenes I just wrote 'they fight'".
 
I write Dual dialogue so it's side by side. So each sentence carries not only both the characters names (both flush left and right) but the dialogue is carried too.

Here's a link to DDp that explains it more: http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/showthread.php?t=25176&highlight=dual+dialogue

'Writing Fighting' you can learn by reading other produced scripts online. But in brief, keep the action to the content of the scene, but don't go over the top in details.

another link to DDp about fight scenes: http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/showthread.php?t=26505


EJ
 
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I write one person at a time dialogue, but mine gneerally go:

Code: 
Darryl:
Amy, you've got to believe me, I would nev-

Amy:
You're lying. You were lying then, you're lying now and you'll lie-

Darryl:
No! I would never lie! Just that one time, I promise!

The difficult thing is that when you're actually making the movie, people want to be able to easily hear each character's dialogue, so you have to figure out *how* you want them to talk over each other. A lot of directors tend to be too cautious with it, having the actor stop their dialogue on a certain word and the other actor to immediately pick up, but this creates a space inbetween the dialogue where it becomes obvious they're not actually talking over each other.

But that relaly comes in the directing. If you end their dialogue mid-sentence with a hanging word, it should be pretty well understood that they're talking over each other.

For fighting, if you just remember one page is about one minute, then keep your paragraphs short and well spaced. If the fight scene is about 30 seconds long, you could just aim for half a page. Each paragraph could be limited to a specific action, like:

Code: 
Amy leaped in with a right hook across Darryl's face, sending him sprawling back against the wall.

Darryl recovers, ducking her second blow and returning with a knee to Amy's gut. She doubles forward and he follows up with an uppercut.

She flies through the air, landing on the coffee table and breaking it in two.

She rolls onto her stomach, pulling herself on to her knees and coughs up blood.

She growls at Darryl. 

Darryl stares back, his resolve unbroken.

She stands, slowly.

He balls his hands into fists, a line of blood working its way from his mouth.

Without missing a beat, Amy suddenly jumps in. 

AMY
Shoryu-ken!

With a mighty dragon punch, she connects against Darryl’s groin, stomach, ribs and chin and blasts him through the wall into the living room.

About half a page. Would translate to about 30 seconds. Also, you can attempt, as a writer, to control the speed and flow of how the fight goes by breaking your prose in paragraphs. The more action in a single sentence, the faster the action goes (especially to those who read and visualise the script). if you spend one entire paragraph writing that the character stands up, that single action happens much more slowly and with greater emphasis.

Also, this was posted in another thread but is really good reading: "The Rhetoric of Action" and successful uses of imagery, wordplay and fight scenes in scripts:
http://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/rhetoric.htm
 
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Wow, thanks a lot guys for the great responses.

The dual dialogue is really what I've been wondering about. There's also the matter of the fact that the director would want to know what dialogue is supposed to dominate the other. Usually the audience only hears one side at a time, and not both, and sometimes what one person said needs to be heard more than the other. This is why dual dialogue is so tricky and I've been wondering what you guys do as well. I suppose when it comes to the acting it really comes down to giving a nice loud voice and really dragging the dialogue so it's more noticable over the other person.

Thanks for the info though. Any other tips would help.

Thanks for the info on the fight scenes. I always had an idea, I just wasn't sure how you would time something like that. But good points.
 
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