Creating Unforgettable Characters (21 page)

In Robert Anderson's play
I Never Sang for My Father,
there is a strong subtextual scene in the first act. It takes place in a restaurant and seems to be about a son taking his father out to dinner. The subtext of the scene is quite different. It's about the lack of communication and tension between father and son, and suppressed anger from a son who doesn't live up to his father's expectations.

Although the subtext will always be partly dependent upon an actor's interpretation, I have inserted what might be the subtext of various lines of dialogue. The scene in the play occurs between the father (Tom), the mother (Margaret), and the son (Gene), but for the purposes of this discussion, I have condensed the scene and focused on the Tom-Gene relationship.

Waitress comes up for drink orders: WAITRESS: Dry martini?

TOM: (a roguish twinkle) You twist my arm. Six to one.

(SUBTEXT: I'm quite a man to drink my martinis this dry!)

What's your pleasure, Gene . . . Dubonnet?

(SUBTEXT: To Tom, Gene is certainly not as much a man as he. Therefore, he wouldn't drink martinis; he'd drink , Dubonnet.)

GENE: I'll have a martini too, please.

TOM: But not six to one.

GENE: Yes, the same!

(SUBTEXT: I defy you to think I'm any less than you are!)

TOM: Well!

(SUBTEXT: What an upstart!)
Now, this is my dinner, understand?

GENE: No, I invited you.

TOM: Uh-uh, you had all the expenses of coming to get us.

(SUBTEXT: Look what a generous father I am—and how fair-minded! And remember, you don't make enough money to pay for this trip—and pay for my dinner!)

GENE: No, it's mine. And order what you want. Don't go reading down the prices first. . . . Whenever I take you out to dinner, you always read down the prices first.

(SUBTEXT: Let me give to you. I want you to enjoy the meal and yes, I can afford it.)

TOM: I do not. But I think it's ridiculous to pay, look, $3.75 for curried shrimp.

GENE: You like shrimp. Take the shrimp.

TOM: If you'll let me pay for it.

GENE: No! Now, come on.

(SUBTEXT: For God's sake, let me treat you to this shrimp, please!)

TOM: Look, I appreciate it, Gene, but on what you make . . .

(SUBTEXT: You aren't as successful as I am or as I'd like you to be.)

GENE: I can afford it. Now let's not argue.

As the anger builds before they even have a chance to order, Tom declares: "I don't feel like anything. I have no appetite."

WHAT IS BAD DIALOGUE?

The elements that make up good dialogue include conflict, attitudes, emotions, and subtext. What, then, is bad dialogue?

■ Bad dialogue is wooden, stilted, difficult to speak.

■ With bad dialogue, all characters sound alike, and none of them sounds like a real person.

■ Bad dialogue tells the subtext. Rather than revealing character, it spells out every thought and feeling.

■ Bad dialogue simplifies people, instead of revealing their complexity.

So how do you improve dialogue if you know it's flat, bland, uninteresting, or wooden?

Let's begin with a scene that you see in many scripts. A screenwriter has been called into a meeting with a producer, who's interested in producing his script. What follows is meant to be some of the worst dialogue ever written (I take full credit for it—it was written especially for this book).

PRODUCER Well, come in. It is a real pleasure to meet you. You know, I liked your script very much—it is really very good.

YOUNG WRITER Well, thank you. It is my first script, and I'm really very scared about what you'll think about it. I'm from Kansas, and I have never been to a big city

before, and I feel really lucky to meet someone like you. I have admired your work for so many years.

PRODUCER Oh, that is very nice of you to say that. Let's talk about making a deal.

Pretty dreadful, isn't it? It's wooden. It's boring—no life or energy to it. Both characters tell us just what they're thinking and feeling. Both characters sound the same.

To begin with, this dialogue can be improved about 5 percent by doing nothing else but writing contractions instead of "it is" or "I have," and by taking out all such excess words as "well," "oh," "you know." Simply making it more conversational will begin to improve it. But to make the dialogue work, the scene needs to be rethought.

I asked for help from one of my clients, a writer named Dara Marks, whose dialogue always has energy and rhythm. We worked through the process in much the same way I would work through a consulting session on dialogue. I asked the questions; we discussed; she rewrote.

We began by looking at different aspects of the scene. First we asked,
Who are these people?
We know the writer is from Kansas, he's new to Los Angeles and admires the producer. We know nothing about the character of the producer.

What are producers like? The producer stereotype is a frenetic dealmaker who's out to make a lot of money, or a fifty-year-old, cigar-smoking shark, hungry to exploit young talent. Dara and I agreed that, while any stereotype has some truth in it, most producers are quite different from that. We discussed producers we had met: those who were very relaxed and laid-back (or high), those who played tennis every afternoon, those who were nervous, those who were self-important, those who were very knowledgeable about all aspects of film.

We discussed the various
settings
where we've met producers—in their offices, in restaurants, in a hotel suite if they're from out of town, in a home office, at a party, or on a racquetball court. Since we've both actually had meetings on a boat, that's where we decided to set our scene. We created a producer in his early fifties, very successful, who runs his business from the main salon off the large, airy aft deck of his ninety-foot yacht.

Picking a more unusual setting (but one that is entirely believable in Hollywood) gave us opportunities to move away from the traditional and the predictable—and to create more interesting and real characters.

We then thought about the
attitudes
of our two characters, and decided that the producer would be asleep at the top of the scene, and the young writer would be overly excited and eager.

Keeping these three elements in mind, we reworked the scene in the following way:

INT. YACHT—DAY

TIGHT ON a pencil that rolls back and forth across the top of a desk as the yacht sways softly in its anchored berth. The CAMERA WIDENS to first reveal the soles of two deck shoes perched cross-legged on the desk, then the entire slumbering form of the PRODUCER comes into FOCUS. Like a baby in a crib, he rocks gently from side to side with a half-finished script laid out across his chest.

The YOUNG WRITER appears at the cabin door, slightly off balance, and very uncomfortable at being on a boat (this is probably his first time off dry land). Awkwardly, he looks around and sees that the producer is asleep. He doesn't quite know how to handle this.

YOUNG WRITER

Ah-hem. The PRODUCER doesn't move.

YOUNG WRITER

(louder) Ah-hem . . .

The PRODUCER casually opens one eye and glances at his watch.

PRODUCER

You're late.

YOUNG WRITER I'm sorry, sir, but the bus . . .

PRODUCER

(sitting up) You rode a bus? . . .

YOUNG WRITER (very uneasy) Well, yes, sir . . .

PRODUCER I never knew anybody who rode a bus.

(He jots down a note to himself.) Gotta try that.

The PRODUCER lights up a cigar, which only serves to make the YOUNG WRITER more seasick.

PRODUCER So, kid, what can I do for you?

YOUNG WRITER (surprised) It's my script, sir, you asked to see me.

PRODUCER

I did?

YOUNG WRITER nods.

PRODUCER

What's it called?

YOUNG WRITER "They All Came Running," sir.

The PRODUCER rummages through his desk.

PRODUCER Let's see, running . . . funning . . .

The YOUNG WRITER sees his script and points it out to PRODUCER.

YOUNG WRITER

That's it.

PRODUCER Oh, yeah, the running script . . . j Running's out this year, hockey's big.

YOUNG WRITER It's not really about running, Mr. Dinklemyer. It's about Kansas, where I'm from.

PRODUCER Kansas, huh? Sorta corny and homespun?

(thinks for a beat) Could start a new trend—I like it! Okay, kid, you gotta deal!

In this reworking of the dialogue, notice that the producer's attitude is leading the scene. He has an attitude about new experiences (he might try taking the bus sometime), about Kansas (it's homespun and corny), and an attitude about commercial trends (he's successful because he has a "nose" for what's hot and what's not).

The dialogue now has some rhythm, an unusual setting that could be used by actor and director, a feeling for the producer's character, and an attitude for him. But we still don't have much of a sense of the young writer.

To begin developing his character, we began with his backstory. We decided that he has come out to Los Angeles and has given himself exactly a year to sell his script. This is the last day of the year, and at this point, he figures he has nothing to lose. He is angry, frustrated, and feeling a bit hopeless about the whole situation.

Just as the producer leads the scene through his attitude, we decided that the young writer will lead the scene through conflict and emotion.

We then reapproached the scene, keeping most of the elements we liked from the last draft, but now focusing on the young writer's contribution to the scene:

INT. YACHT—DAY

The YOUNG WRITER sticks his head inside the door, and is very annoyed to see the PRODUCER sound asleep.

YOUNG WRITER

Ah-hem. The PRODUCER doesn't move.

YOUNG WRITER (very loud) Ah-hem . . .

The PRODUCER awakes with a start, embarrassed to be caught napping.

PRODUCER (fumbling to pull himself together) You're late!

YOUNG WRITER

(amazed)

I've been here since nine this morning.

PRODUCER Well, I'm a busy man.

(shuffles some papers around his desk) So, what'd'ya got?

YOUNG WRITER About six hours before I gotta be on a bus back t'Wichita.

PRODUCER

You ride the bus?

YOUNG WRITER Something wrong with that?

PRODUCER No, I just never knew anybody who did that before.

YOUNG WRITER Well, we're the people who watch your movies. You oughta try it sometime.

PRODUCER I don't think I like your attitude.

YOUNG WRITER (blowing his cool) I'm not selling my attitude, sir! I'm selling my script, so either buy it or I'm going back to the farm.

PRODUCER What farm? What script?

YOUNG WRITER (exasperated) The script you wanted to see me about.

PRODUCER I did? What's it called?

YOUNG WRITER "They All Came Running,"

The PRODUCER rummages through his desk.

PRODUCER Running stories went out with disco!

YOUNG WRITER It's not really about running, for God's sake, it's about the plight of the displaced dirt farmer in Kansas.

PRODUCER Dirt, huh? Who cares about dirt?

YOUNG WRITER (throws his hands up in the air) I give up! I'm going home. . . .

PRODUCER

Wait a minute!

(thinking aloud) Dirt, earth . . . Homespun, I like it. Could start a new trend. O.K. . . . You got a deal. . . .

The YOUNG WRITER is startled. He stops in his tracks and spins around.

YOUNG WRITER

(excited) You mean it?

PRODUCER Sure, kid . . . But we gotta change the title!

Now we have two equal characters, each contributing to the scene through attitude, conflict, backstory, and intention. With stronger characters, the dialogue has become stronger.

If you were to continue working on this scene, there are several different directions you could take.

You might decide that the scene has too much of an "edge" to it, that both characters are a bit too angry and adversarial. You might decide to give the edge to one character, but not to the other. Perhaps the writer is angry, but the producer refuses to get hooked by his anger.

You might decide to add "business" to this scene, detailing the individual activity of each character. Think for a moment about some of the more unusual meetings you've had. What has gone on in those meetings, besides simply talking?