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Remember the courtroom scene in Allen's movie Bananas? Allen is representing himself at the trial. He takes the witness stand and begins
to cross-examine, asking a question, running into the witness box for the answer, then jumping out again to ask another question.
I suggest you do the same thing (in the privacy of your own home, of course). Make up a scene between two characters in conflict. Then start an argument. Go back and forth, changing actual physical location. Allow a slight pause as you switch, giving yourself time to come up with a response in each character's voice.
Another twist on this technique: Do a scene between two well-known actors. Use the entire history of movies and TV. Pit Lucille Ball against Bela Lugosi, or have Oprah Winfrey argue with Bette Davis. Only you play all the parts. Let yourself go. And if your local community college offers an improvisation course, give it try. You might just meet a Pulitzer Prize winner.
6J Curve the Language
I learned this technique from Danny Simon, Neil's older brother, who taught a comedy writing class for many years in L.A. Both Neil and Woody Allen credit Danny Simon with teaching them how to write narrative comedy.
Simon didn't like "joke jokes" in comedy, funny lines inserted just to be funny. They had to be organic, tied to the story. So to get a funny line, you work with what the character would naturally say, then just "curve" it a little.
Here's an example of the process. You're writing The Godfather, and Michael Corleone has come to Las Vegas to tell the older, more established Moe Greene that the Corleone family is buying out his interest in the casinos. Moe Greene is outraged. What does he say in response? At first, you might write out the line in plain vanilla, as it occurs to you:
"I'm Moe Greene! I was running this place when you were in high school!"
Not good enough. So you tweak it:
"I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were in high school!"
A little better. But we can do more with it. In the movie the line is:
"I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!"
That's curving the language. In an old Seinfeld episode, Elaine is suddenly being hit on by Jewish guys. She's told this is "shiksa appeal." So she goes to a rabbi to ask about it. The rabbi tells her it's a myth.
Her reply might be something like this:
"Something's going on here, because every Jewish guy I see is making a play for me."
Blah. Curve it. What would be a substitute for "Jewish guy"?
"Something's going on here, because every able-bodied Israelite I see is making a play for me."
Curve it some more:
"Something's going on here, because every able-bodied Israelite in the county is making a play for me."
The line in the show:
"Something's going on here, because every able-bodied Israelite in the county is goin' pretty strong to the hoop."
7] Place Exposition Within Confrontation
Many writers struggle with exposition in their novels. Often they heap it on in large chunks of straight narrative. Backstory, what happens before the novel opens, is especially troublesome. How can we give the essentials and avoid a mere information drop?
Use dialogue. First, create a tension-filled scene, usually between two characters. Get them arguing, confronting each other. Then you can have the information appear in the natural course of things. Here's the clunky way to do it:
"I am in love with Jeffrey," Sondra said.
"Why are you attracted to him?" asked Mabel. "Why? Oh, so many reasons. The way his teeth sparkle and his eyes glisten. The lilt of his voice on a summer's day. His strong arms enfolding me."
"You're such a romantic!"
"Yes, but then Jeffrey is, too. He writes me love poems, you know."
And so on. We get the information that Sondra is in love with Jeffrey. We get an idea that she has her head in the clouds. But there's too much fat here. One way to convert this into confrontation might go like this:
"Why do you keep staring off like that?" Mabel said. "Sorry," Sondra said, "I was just thinking..."
"Yeah?" "Of Jeffrey."
"Oh, please! Is that why you're so out of it?" "What do you have against Jeffrey?" "What do I have against slime, you might ask." "Mabel!"
"You really like this guy?"
"I'm in love with him."
"Here, here's the number of my shrink..."
This may not be your way to approach it. That's okay. There are countless ways to do it, all more interesting than the original exchange. Just keep in mind that if your dialogue characters are "on the same page" mentally and emotionally, your dialogue won't be compelling.
Often, this is a good way to convey something positive and sympathetic about a character to the reader.
8] Employ the Sidestep
One of the most common mistakes new writers make with dialogue is creating a simple, back-and-forth exchange. Each line responds directly to the previous line, often repeating a word or phrase (an "echo"). It looks something like this:
"Hello, Mary." "Hi, Sylvia."
"My that's a wonderful outfit you're wearing." "Outfit? You mean this old thing?" "Old thing! It looks practically new." "It's not new, but thank you for saying so."
This sort of dialogue is called on the nose. There are no surprises, and the reader drifts along with little interest. While some direct response is fine, too much of it renders your dialogue bland.
Thus, the sidestep, where you avoid the obvious or direct:
"Hello, Mary."
"Sylvia. I didn't see you."
"My that's a wonderful outfit you're wearing."
"I need a drink."
I don't know what is going on in this scene since I've only written four lines of dialogue. But this exchange is immediately more interesting and
suggestive of currents beneath the surface. I might even find the seeds of an entire story here.
You can also sidestep with a question:
"Hello, Mary."
"Sylvia. I didn't see you."
"My that's a wonderful outfit you're wearing."
"Where is he, Sylvia?"
Hmm. Who is "he"? And why should Sylvia know? (Go ahead and find out for yourself if you want to.) The point is there are innumerable directions the sidestep can go. Experiment. Look at a section of your dialogue and change some direct responses into off-center ripostes. Like the old magic trick ads used to say, you'll be pleased and amazed. Here's a simple on-the-nose exchange:
"Are you ready to go, dear?"
"Yes, darling, just a moment."
Possible responses:
1] The Non-Response
"Are you ready to go, dear?" "I was so humiliated."
2] Answer With a Question
"Are you ready to go, dear?"
"Why must you always do that?"
3] The Unexpected
"Are you ready to go, dear?" "I saw you downtown today."
4] Interruptions
"Are you ready to—"
"Please, Arthur, just stop it."
Note: You show interruptions with the em dash. An ellipsis (...) is for a voice trailing off on its own.
5] Sudden Punch
"Are you ready to go, dear?" "I want a divorce."
9] Use One Gem Per Act
We've all had those moments when we wake up and have the perfect response in a conversation that took place the night before. Wouldn't we all like to have those bons mots at a moment's notice?
Your characters can. That's part of the fun of being a fiction writer. I have a somewhat arbitrary rule—one gem per quarter. Divide your novel into fourths. When you polish your dialogue, find those opportunities in each quarter to polish a gem.
Lawrence Block once gave the following line to a cop describing a suspect. The suspect is reportedly ugly. How ugly? someone asks.
"God made him as ugly as he could then hit him in the mouth with a shovel."
10] Say It With Silence
A pow
erful dialogue device is silence. It's often the best choice, no matter what words you might come up with. Hemingway was a master at this. Consider this excerpt from his short story "Hills Like White Elephants." A man and a woman are having a drink at a train station in Spain. The man speaks:
"Should we have another drink?" "All right."
The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table. "The beer's nice and cool," the man said. "It's lovely," the girl said.
"It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig," the man said. "It's not really an operation at all."
The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on. "I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything. It's just to let the air in."
The girl did not say anything.
In this story, the man is trying to convince the girl to have an abortion (a word that doesn't appear anywhere in the text). Her silence is reaction enough.
By using sidestep, silence, and action, Hemingway gets the point across. He uses the same technique in the famous exchange between mother and son in the story "Soldier's Home":
"God has some work for everyone to do," his mother said. "There can be no idle hands in His Kingdom."
"I'm not in His Kingdom," Krebs said. "We are all of us in His Kingdom." Krebs felt embarrassed and resentful as always. "I've worried about you so much, Harold," his mother went on. "I know the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak men are. I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day long, Harold."
Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on the plate.
Silence and bacon fat hardening. We don't need anything else to catch the mood of the scene. What are your characters feeling while exchanging dialogue? Try expressing it with the sound of silence.
11] Let It Flow
When you write the first draft of a scene, let the dialogue flow. Pour it out like cheap champagne. You'll make it sparkle later, but first you must get it down on paper. This technique will allow you to come up with lines you never would have thought of if you tried to get it right the first time.
In fact, you can often come up with a dynamic scene by writing the dialogue first. Record what your characters are arguing about, stewing over, revealing. Write it all as fast as you can. As you do, pay no attention to attributions (who said what). Just write the lines.
Once you get these on the page, you'll have a good idea what the scene is all about. And it may be something different than you anticipated. Good! You're cooking. Now you can go back and write the narrative that goes with the scene, and the normal speaker attributions and tags.
I've found this technique to be a wonderful cure for writer's fatigue. I do my best writing in the morning, but if I haven't done my quota by the evening (when I'm usually tired), I'll just write some dialogue, fast and furious. It flows and gets me into a scene.
With the juices pumping, I find I'll often write more than my quota. And even if I don't use all the dialogue, it's a good exercise. The more dialogue you write, the better you'll get at it.
12] Minimize
This is the opposite of the let-it-flow exercise. Here, you make a copy of your scene and go through it, cutting as much as you possibly can. Cut
words, cut lines, replace words with silences and action beats. See how close to a silent movie you can make the scene.
Doing this will almost always make your dialogue better, sharper. You can now add back what you wish.
DIALOGUE AS A WEAPON
It's often helpful to think of dialogue as a type of weapon, especially when the conflict is running high.
Verbal weapons are employed by characters who are trying to out-maneuver each other. There's a whole range of weaponry to choose from— anger, epithets, pouting, name-calling, dodging—virtually anything from the arsenal of human interaction.
John D. MacDonald's classic The Executioners (basis for the two Cape Fear movies,) is about a lawyer, Sam Bowden, whose family is stalked by the sadistic rapist Max Cady. Cady's first act is poisoning the family dog, Marilyn. Sam hasn't been totally upfront with his wife, Carol. She challenges him:
"I'm not a child and I'm not a fool and I resent being ... overprotected."
Her volley is direct, telling him she resents the coddling. Sam responds:
"I should have told you. I'm sorry."
Sam's apology is meant to diminish his wife's anger. But his words ring hollow to her, and she continues to advance:
"So now this Cady can roam around at will and poison our dog and work his way up to the children. Which do you think he'll start on first? The oldest or the youngest?" "Carol, honey. Please."
"I'm a hysterical woman? You are so damn right. I am a hysterical woman."
Carol uses sarcasm, Sam tries again to soften her up, and she responds with a bitter observation and a curse word. Sam the lawyer tries another tack:
"We haven't any proof it was Cady."
She threw a towel into the sink. "Listen to me. I have proof it was Cady. I've got that proof. It's not the kind of proof you would like. No evidence. No testimony. Nothing legalistic. I just know."
Seeing that this has no effect on her husband, Carol quickly shifts and brings out her heavy artillery:
"What kind of a man are you? This is your family. Marilyn was part of your family. Are you going to look up all the precedents and prepare a brief?"
She has attacked both his manhood and his profession. Sam attempts an answer but Carol cuts him off (interruptions are good weapons, too):
"You don't know how—"
"I don't know anything. This is happening because of something you did a long time ago." "Something I had to do."
"I'm not saying you shouldn't have. You tell me the man hates you. You don't think he's sane. So do something about him!"
Carol wants instant action and Sam knows he can't provide it. The stress of the situation brings out weapon-like dialogue.
Don't forget that silence can be a weapon as well. In William E. Barrett's The Lilies of the Field, a German nun wants wandering handyman Homer Smith to stay and build a chapel for her small order. He just wants to get paid for a small job and move on. He confronts Mother Maria Marthe:
"I want to talk to you," he said. "I've been doing work for you. Good work. I want pay for what 1 do."
She sat silent, with her hands clasped in front of her. Her small eyes looked at him out of the wrinkled mask of her face but there was no light in them. He did not know whether she understood him or not.
If one character knows what holds great importance for another character, he can often turn that into his strongest weapon. After the silent treatment, Homer decides to play hardball. He directs the nun to a Bible verse, The laborer is worthy of his hire, and explains, "I'm a poor man. I work for wages."
Not to be outdone, and using the same weapon, Mother Maria Marthe shows Homer another passage: And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Homer realizes he is dealing with one crafty nun who has won the initial tussle.
Not every scene, of course, is going to involve stark conflict. Some scenes are preludes to conflict. But even then characters can use dialogue to position themselves for the battles yet to come, when their more potent weapons will be employed.
Consider the dialogue in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It is almost entirely about language as weapon, as when George plays his sadistic game, "Get the Guests." He throws fact after embarrassing fact in the faces of the young couple visiting his home, reducing them to emotional rubble.
Of course George and his wife Martha save the most lethal weapons for each other. The drama never flags because the dialogue escalates in its violent intent.
Indeed, when it's really clicking, dialogue can be described in combat terms. T
here are thrusts and parries, roundhouse punches and uppercuts, retreats and advances.
In this brief exchange from the classic Casablanca (script by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch) Major Strasser, the Nazi official (played by Conrad Veidt in the movie), is questioning Rick, the saloon owner (Humphrey Bogart).
Strasser obviously has the more powerful position and uses oily charm to communicate. Rick, on the other hand, couldn't care less about the show of authority.
STRASSER: Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Unofficially, of course.
RICK: Make it official if you like. STRASSER: What is your nationality? RICK: I'm a drunkard.
We can sense here not simply gamesmanship but the contempt Rick holds for this entire process. His last answer, a mere three words, perfectly conveys his attitude. It's a little firecracker he tosses into the Nazi's mailbox.
A few lines later, Strasser lobs a grenade:
STRASSER: We have a complete dossier on you. "Richard Blaine, American. Age thirty-seven. Cannot return to his country." The reason is a little vague. We also know what you did in Paris. Also, Herr Blaine, we know why you left Paris.
At this point Rick takes the dossier from Strasser's hand.
STRASSER: Don't worry. We are not going to broadcast it. RICK: Are my eyes really brown?
Again, Rick shows his contempt with an acerbic remark. The cat-and-mouse game begun here elevates to become the main plot of the story.
Not every scene, of course, is going to involve such stark conflict. Some scenes are preludes to conflict. But even then characters can use dialogue to position themselves for the battles yet to come, when their more potent weapons will be employed.
Finding the Right Words
How do you know what verbal weapons a character is likely to use? And when? How can you anticipate the various moves opposing characters are likely to make?
It's easy if, before writing a scene, you have a few things in mind. First, what are the characters like? If a character is the charge ahead type, he'll speak that way. His words will be forceful, direct. Sam Spade in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is like that. Here he confronts the odd little intruder, Joel Cairo:
"I've got you by the neck, Cairo. You've walked in and tied yourself up, plenty strong enough to suit the police, with last night's killing. Well, now you'll have to play with me or else."