Day 11 Assignments

[Lois Wickstrom]

Lois Has Great Dialogue

What I learned… the dialogue I had was good. However, re-reading it, after a time break, let me see holes where I needed to fill in missing information and even got an idea for one new line of dialogue that clarifies the scene, plus adds some humor. I am writing a comedy. Anybody here ready to swap? reluctantspy@gmail.com

[Lisa Molenda]

Lisa has great dialogue

What I learned doing this assignment was that I have great dialogue within me. I had several scenes I didn’t know could be improved so much by changing the dialogue. Something magical happened when I was writing different options for dialogue and I started coming up with ideas to make it more concise, witty and clever.

Here are some examples of lines that I changed:

1.

before:

This is Jane. Isn’t she ethereal? I mean she’s practically a Disney Princess.

after:

This is Jane. A real life Snow White. Is that the one who made friends with all the animals?

2.

before:

Yes mama. I’ll get you some.

after:

Orange juice, coming right up. Would like anything else?

3.

before:

Alright, sweetie. Thanks for breakfast. This is the most delicious breakfast.

after:

Alright, sweetie. Thank you for the delicious breakfast.

4.

before:

No. Where do you get your protein from?

after:

No. I was vegan for like a week and became anemic. Where do you get your protein?

5.

before:

Hey you made it. You know, it might be easier to wake up in the morning if you weren’t vegan. Where do you get your protein anyway?

after:

You look tired. The vegan thing must be taking a toll on you. Where do you get your protein anyway?

[Brenda Clarke]

Concentrating just on the dialogue alone, is a great way to improve the script. I will endeavour to do more on the dialogue once I have written a few more scenes.

1. I immediately noticed many modern uses of language that people use to begin a sentence with such as: Oh, So, Well, etc. My first attempt of cleaning up the dialogue, How can I helpI did a sweep of the entire dialogue to remove these and replace them with language that was more suited to the period.

2. Let me muddle through it first was replaced with “I have things to attend to”. Which is IRONIC DIALOGUE where the audience know about Elliot’s ordeal but he is not giving anything away to his sister.

3. It could be by the end of the afternoon. Replaced with “It could be within the next hour”.

response was “Jolly Good” Replaced with “What a good sport”! When referring to the stallion servicing his mare. Gave it more sexual SUBTEXT.

4. I noticed I had repeated a saying, “What on earth” with two different characters using the same dialogue. So I cut it for one and changed it for another that was more suitable for the PROFILE.

5. How can I help? Replaced with: “What are you after”? more PROFILE suitable to the character.