Dialogue by Robert McKee

Author:Robert McKee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Performing Arts / Film & Video / Screenwriting, Reference / Writing Skills, Language Arts & Disciplines / Reference, Drama / General
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2016-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

VOCABULARY AND CHARACTERIZATION

As noted in previous chapters, nouns name objects and verbs name actions. A character’s vocabulary names what he knows, what he sees, and what he feels. His choice of words is all-important because a character’s façade of talk should be a doorway to his depths. Passive, blurry, generic phrases flatten a character and numb the audience; active, concrete, sensory language arouses insights that weave dimension and complexity into a character.

To create a brilliant surface of talk that leads the audience into a character’s depths, your method must move in the reverse direction: Start within your character, and then work outward from content to form to effect.

First, draw on your sensory and visual powers to imagine content (what your character sees and feels on the inscape, the unsaid and unsayable), then craft his dialogue (the said) into a form that slips his words into the reader’s or audience’s ear with effect. In essence, you must transform the images in your character’s inner life into the verbiage of his outer talk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.