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Lesson 5
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2 Replies
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KZ’s Elevated Dialogue
Vision: To master screenwriting so that I can win contests and become known as the go-to script fixer, and work with producers to get movies made from my screenplays.
What I learned doing this assignment…is that my characters were pretty distinct in their dialogue. There were a couple of things I changed:
Where Wendy’s boss finds out that she and Darwin are in the same meditation class.
Chuck:
No more conversation with him, you hear?
Wendy (original reply – cliché)
Loud and clear.
Wendy (new reply)
The only thing I’ll say to him is, “How low will you go?”
Where Wendy tells her assistant, Jason, to buy her some size 10 yoga shoes.
Jason
Ten? Who was your daddy, a platypus?
Wendy
I have long toes. So did Caesar.
And this one, changes the relationship between Jody and Wendy a bit. I originally had Jody saying her last line out loud to Wendy. Now she mutters it to the Underlings, not strong enough to say it out loud:
INT. SUPERIAN OFFICE – ELEVATOR – LATER
Jody has changed back into her street clothes, and is chatting with the Underlings. Just before the elevator door closes, Wendy catches it, enters.
WENDY
Where you guys headed?
The others share a look. They don’t want her to come.
JODY
Drinks. But I know you. You’re gonna wanta rest up for the big day tomorrow.
WENDY
Actually, I have plans.
JODY
No you don’t.
WENDY
I do. I have a date.
The door opens. Wendy exits first and walks away, with purpose, as always. Jody mutters under her breath.
JODY
Poor guy. Try not to bite his head off.
The Underlings snicker their approval.
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Paul Elevated Dialogue
4. Vision of success from this program: I want to write scripts that become movies that change people’s lives.
5. What I learned from doing this assignment was how it really helped to just focus on one character at a time and only read their lines. It was like spending time alone with them and getting to know them better. The assignment also helped me clean up a lot of dialogue that began with unnecessary words such as: “Well…”, “So…” etc. and which dilute the immediacy of the dialogue.
3.
A. Lilia – Protagonist – 19 changes.
1. To cops who have blocked off her street and won’t let her through.
Before: “But I live down there.”
After: “Who says so?”
She goes from being plaintive to challenging authority.
2. As she observes cops and soldiers destroy the fentanyl lab.
Before: “What’s going on?”
After: “What are the crooks in uniform doing now?”
Goes from generic to expressing her downright contempt for the cops.
3. After one of the guests in the hotel where she works makes an unwelcome pass at her.
Before: “I want your people to bring him here – to Culiacán. I want him alive.”
After: “I don’t want him dead – yet.”
Adds suspense.
B. Senator Marcus – Antagonist – 10 changes.
1. His son has phoned him for advice after a girl just collapsed at a party in the family house.
Before: “How’s she looking?”
After: “You stay cool, that’s what you do.”
Senator Wolfson is cold and calculating and knows how to handle tricky situations.
2. He is answering journalists’ questions after the girl has been taken away in an ambulance.
Before: “It was she then who deserved to die.”
After: “Poetic justice.”
More concise and reflects his dismissive and aragont attitude towards other people.
3. In answer to Jaime, his ex-colleague in the DEA, who asks if he’s planning to stay for long.
Before: “Not if I can help it.”
After: “In Culiacán, even a day is too long.”
Replaces a cliché with an expression of his real feelings for the place where he used to work for the DEA.
END
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