Day 10 of Nanowrimo went well. It’s always nice to have more time on the weekend to write. I can have a morning session take a break for a good part of the day and then come back to it later.

Yesterday I talked about the challenge of the second act of a screenplay. Today I’ll share another aspect I’ve traditionally struggled with and that’s dialogue. Although I have improved in this aspect of screenwriting I still have to be aware of my own reoccurring pitfalls in this area.

I remember during screenwriting courses in college getting the note on my scripts of “your characters are sounding too much a like”. I also remember hearing around the same time that if you develop your characters well enough then you should be able to remove the name of the character and still know who is speaking. I took these ideas to heart but still didn’t quite grasp the path to achieve this.

I am by no means an expert on dialogue but I do at have a greater understanding of what makes intriguing dialogue. Many aspects go into how unique a character sounds besides just the words they use. One character may talk more, one may respond with one word answers, one character might use slang more, etc.

I’m always developing my storytelling skills and this includes dialogue. This draft I’m working now will have stale and excessive dialogue I’m sure, early drafts usually do but it is something I will improve on with each rewrite.

Now I need to get back to Day 11..

Until tomorrow.

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