Dialogue: Action / Reaction

In the Screenwriting Master Class course I’m currently teaching — Core V: Dialogue — Lecture 1 analyzed the first scene in The Social Network, eight pages of a verbal back-and-forth between Mark Zuckerberg and his (for the moment) girlfriend Erica. The main point of the analysis is to show that despite the scene’s dialogue flitting from this subject to that, there is a purpose to it. Beyond that, writer Aaron Sorkin uses a tried and true technique for writing dialogue. A response I posted on the course site:

Another way of looking at the ‘serve and volley’ analogy for writing dialogue is Action / Reaction. One character’s line of dialogue puts them in a power position in terms of the informational, emotional and/or subtextual content they deliver. The other character responds. Do they ‘fall back’ psychologically (react) or do they attack (action)? Ideally at least at some point, they do the latter and put the other character on the defensive. As noted in Lecture 1, we see this happening broadly over the course of the opening scene in The Social Network where at first Mark is Action and Erica is Reaction, but then she shifts the power position by breaking up with Mark, so she is Action and he is Reaction. But then even in micro, so many of Mark’s lines in the first 6 pages put Erica on the defensive, forcing her to react (if you go through the scene, note how many of her lines are questions, a clear sign she is trying to catch up to him, understand what he’s saying, reacting to him).

When someone reads a scene and their comment is “the dialogue felt flat,” generally that’s because there was no emotional or psychological shift back and forth between the characters. Again dialogue is not conversation; it is communication with a purpose. And generally from a writing standpoint one purpose is to create tension and conflict. A great way to do that is with Action / Reaction.

It’s easy to read the script for The Social Network and just deduce, “Wow, Sorkin is a genius at dialogue” and leave it at that. But if you really analyze the script, you can see numerous writing principles Sorkin employs in his dialogue.

Yes, it’s important to have an ear for dialogue. But there are principles and tips we can learn to enhance our ability to write strong, compelling dialogue — including Action / Reaction.