slade75

Here's what I mean...

A common piece of advice is read your dialogue out loud to see if it sounds good/realistic.

Now, cut to a great piece of dialogue you've heard in a movie, you know the kind that raises the hairs on the back of your neck. You have it in mind? Now imagine it recited/acted by someone you regard as the worst actor/actress in the world. It's spoilt right? But how do you recognise it isn't the dialogue that's bad? The reading out loud advice might not help.

Read it out loud isn't necessarily the great advice it sounds like. If a speech hasn't got any feeling behind its delivery, you may lose the effect of the dialogue.

Any other advice for sharpening up dialogue? (Mine makes people wince apparently, and there was only three lines of it!!) I read it out loud, in the tone I intended it, and it sounded like what I was going for...so I guess I just have far too high an opinion of my acting skills!

Thanks.

__________________
"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"
Stuart Vasepuru,
Edinburgh, Scotland

slade75

I can see that is bad dialogue, but let's pretend I didnt instantly recognise it as bad dialogue. How would reading it out loud tell me it was bad?

My point wasnt that good dialogue can be ruined, or that bad dialogue could be saved by acting, my point was, if you dont recognise it as bad dialogue on paper, I dont think reading out loud will help you.

__________________
"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"
Stuart Vasepuru,
Edinburgh, Scotland

Mike

I think you've answered your own question here.
Seems to me that you might have a too opinion of your writing skills rather than acting skills. Dialogue is tricky. When to say it, when to display it, how to say it, tone, conversation vs. contrivation--it's an important aspect and hard skill to master. Perhaps if you're having trouble, you could give us some excerpts and some of us might be able to help you work out some kinks.

An important aspect (but sometimes overlooked aspect) that Word Weaver mentioned is: "If you find that people wouldn't normally talk that way, then you know the dialogue needs work." To me, this is true...to an extent. You don't want to fluff your work with "um..yeah," "okay...so..." - those kind of things we feel our lives with: smalltalkisms. But you don't want to make it like stupid movie lines where quips parry and flounce back and forth much faster than they actually would. This is contrived. This is really bad writing & acting.

__________________
- Mike

biggles

"Gee Golly Jeepers, that was a close call!" is not bad dialogue in itself. Depends on the context. I'm being pedantic here for a reason. Like an actor decides his intention when delivering a line , so does a writer.
Gary Oldman could be playing a psychopath drinking coffee while watching a waitress he has his eye on near spilling a plate and says that line to her as a means of self amused ingratiation.

biggles

crap - no such thing. Dialogue is not a beast unto itself. It lives within lines of context- FOOOOOOL

biggles

random THIS hahahhaha

biggles

I pity you too. More than typos can say!

slade75

I didnt answer my question... but it seems my writing skills are bad, (I have a too opinion of them!) as I can't seem to get my point across.

I write a piece of dialogue, I post it, advice received = "Dialogue is bad, read it out loud"
Yet you say I answered the question with "If you cant recognise it as bad dialogue on paper, I dont think reading it out loud will help"

I'm interested in what exactly to look for when reading it out loud, that I dont get from reading? I think "read it out loud" is overused in advice given for dialogue, and when its used on it's own without a "and listen for..." it just becomes an easy piece of advice that sounds wise. I've been guilty of saying rather than saying where I think the dialogue falls down.

__________________
"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"
Stuart Vasepuru,
Edinburgh, Scotland

Azmakna

lol... acting skills! can't you hear your characters whispering in your ears?

__________________
don't count me a blank page
waiting to be written on,
see me as a written page
waiting to be photocopied.

http://www.writersbeat.com