Day 13 Assignments

[Lisa Duffy]

Lisa loves separating character dialogue!

What I’ve learned doing this assignment is a great exercise that elevates the quality of your character’s dialogue using their character profile. I struggle a lot with trying to create good dialogue. I learned a lot from this exercise.

Logline: A homeless teenage orphan, chasing her dream of becoming the next Adele, must survive the streets of L.A. and the pursuit of the criminal who killed her family.

CHARACTER PROFILE FOR MARGARET KENNEDY (not my lead, but the one who’s dialogue was most lacking).

Role: Clare’s aunt

Core Character Traits: Manipulative, condescending, resentful, calculating, sarcastic, self-serving.

Character Subtext Logline: Margaret is only out for her own gain. She views relationships as tools for her to use and if you are not a useful tool, you are doomed to her cruelty.
Secret: Her behavior is motivated by the shame and anger of being outed as a cheater by her brother, Thomas, in front of her husband and family.

DIALOGUE CHANGES

1. Clare is unreachable. Margaret looks at the others for assistance.

MARGARET

Before: This is terrible.

After: She looks completely out of her mind.

2. NURSE

I’m sorry, ma’am, but visitation hours haven’t started, yet. You’ll have to wait out there.

MARGARET

Before: I’m not a visitor, I’m Clare’s aunt, and I’m here to meet Dr. Bartolomeo.

After: I think it’s stellar that you follow hospital regulations to the absolute letter. Good

for you.

3. DR. BARTOLOMEO

Good morning, Mrs. Kennedy, thank you for coming in. No Mr. Kennedy this morning?

MARGARET

Before: He’s at work. What seems to be the problem, doctor?

After: The man’s a workaholic, what can I say. What seems to be the problem, doctor?

4. DR. BARTOLOMEO

We are preventing her from dealing with her personal crisis, one that will not go away no matter how long we keep her sedated.

MARGARET

Before: But doctor…

After: I wonder how Clare would feel about this…

5. MARGARET

Before: You can stay in here for now.

After: This is our best guest room. Carmela took the time to carefully clean it. Please be

respectful of that.

6. MARGARET

Before: There’s toothpaste and pretty much whatever you need in the bathroom. I’ll

leave you alone so you can get settled.

After: Whatever else you need is in the bathroom. I’ll let you get settled.

7. MARGARET

Before: Well, that was… interesting.

After: So. What can the Ice Queen get you for dinner?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by  Lisa Duffy.

[Marian]

Marian loves separating character dialogue! – Shark Abyss

What I learned from doing this assignment is, that simply reading the characters’ dialogue out of context and thinking about what you want to achieve, can lead to improvement.

CHARACTER PROFILE LISANNA / PROTAGONIST

Role in the story: Mother of Mia, shark expert, savior of the island.

Core Character Traits: pragmatic, courageous, aloof, difficult to see through

loving mother, underestimated

Character Subtext Logline: wanted to make the world a better place and failed, gave up and became pragmatic

Flaw: feels guilty about a mistake in the past, her claustrophobia hinders her from advancing in her job

Want: to earn enough money to make ends meet
Need: wants to be a good mother

Mission/Agenda Character Arc: needs to rediscover her ideals and come to terms with the past

Secret: wanted to save people in the past and defuse an explosive device of her activist friends, it went wrong and people got hurt

Lisanna is an action hero. I shortened her dialogue, made it more direct, removed words like “a bit” or “possibly” to make her seem more assertive and energetic. The dialogue is translated from German to English.

BEFORE: Just distract him a bit.

AFTER: Distract him with something!

BEFORE: What aren’t you telling me??

AFTER: Think about what you’re saying next.

BEFORE: You’ll have to excuse me, Julian. The age…

AFTER: Teenagers…

BEFORE: That’s enough, Mia. One more sound and we’ll give the iPhone back, okay? It’s not sustainable anyway.

AFTER: One more word and… goodbye iPhone! (beat) It’s not sustainable anyway.

BEFORE: Very impressive. What exactly do you want me to do?

AFTER: And what am I supposed to do here?

BEFORE: Bull sharks ram their prey, incapacitating them. They’re really dangerous.

AFTER: A bull shark rams its prey with tremendous force. Takes out anyone instantly.

BEFORE: But the rock… this kind of algae. That looks like here, the North Sea… But bull sharks live in South America….

AFTER: Rocks and algae…that’s the North Sea. These bull sharks live in South America.

BEFORE: Possibly… the bite resembles that of a bull shark.

AFTER: The bite is similar to that of a bull shark.

BEFORE: Bull sharks could theoretically survive here. Ecologically, it would be a disaster. So far, there haven’t been any.

AFTER: If bull sharks settle here. That would be a disaster for the ecosystem.

BEFORE: I usually dive with my own buddies.

AFTER: I only dive with people I choose myself.

BEFORE: A boom stick? If that comes in contact with the explosives…why not stun?

AFTER: A boom stick? There’s explosives down there!

BEFORE: I’ve never worked with that before.

AFTER: Can’t be that difficult.

BEFORE: You sure this is the way? Doesn’t look like submarines can get through here.

AFTER: Doesn’t look like any sub will fit through here.

BEFORE: Lucky. It appears the walls of the sub and the water inside, took the pressure.

AFTER: The steel wall and the water inside the sub have absorbed the pressure.

BEFORE: The cave is okay…but the boat….

AFTER: The cave is okay….

BEFORE: Quick. We’ve only got one shot at this.

AFTER: We’ve only got one shot at this.

BEFORE: I’ll ram these under the beam and knock the valve off. You’ve got a second or two, then you’ve got to be out. You got that?

AFTER: I ram it under the beam and knock the valve off. You got one second.

BEFORE: Looks like part of the accessible bunker. Must have caved in from the blast.

AFTER: That’s part of the tourist bunker. It must have sagged.

BEFORE: Bull sharks, unfortunately not. They’re the most dangerous. They ram you and immobilize you.

AFTER: Bull sharks are the most dangerous. When they ram you full force, almost nobody survives that. And that’s just the beginning.

BEFORE: I wonder how they even get here. Bull sharks live mostly in South America in Lake Nicaragua. That’s where the Maja used to dump their bodies.

AFTER: How did they get here? These are bull sharks from Lake Nicaragua. They’ve been used to being fed corpses since the Maja.

BEFORE: That’s what it looks like. Do you think the Nazis brought them here?

AFTER: Do you mean they’re from the Nazis?