Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: Read your dialogue aloud
This is truly one of the easiest things you can do to improve your dialogue writing: When you finish a draft of your script, read aloud each character’s dialogue, all of their sides back to back to back.
Things to check for:
- Does each line work? Does it sound ‘real’ when you read it aloud?
- Repetitive lines
- Catch phrases a character might use
- The cadence of a specific character’s talking style
- Track the rhythm and pace of each side per what’s going on in each scene (i.e., they should match up)
Overall, one big thing you’re checking to see is if each of your characters has a distinguishable manner of talking. Plus, if YOU stumble over a particular side of dialogue, chances are an ACTOR will, too. Time. To. Edit.
It makes so much sense to do this, what’s so dumb about it? You. Standing in a room. Alone. Reading aloud. It’s awkward at first. But once you get used to it, it becomes a necessity with every script you read.
By the way, both Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter allow you to print out an individual character’s sides of dialogue consecutively.
Up your dialogue-writing chops. Read your dialogue aloud!
This has been another installment of Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work. For more articles in the series, go here.
