Dialogue: Finding your character’s voice
I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”
“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
“Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac…It’s in the hole!
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
Nothing catches the eye of an agent, manager, producer or studio exec more quickly than distinctive, compelling dialogue. Yet how to write dialogue that not only entertains, but conveys character and advances the story?
That’s the focus of the latest addition to the Screenwriting Master Class curriculum — Core V: Dialogue. This unique 2-week online course immerses participants in this critically important subject area, teaching you key principles and practices for writing strong dialogue.
* You will learn how to dig into your characters to find their voice as well as time-proven tools to write dialogue that is distinctive, effective, and realistic.
* You will put to use what you have learned by workshopping some of your story’s primary characters, finding a synergy between who they are and what they say.
The course, which begins next Monday, May 9 and runs through May 22, costs just $195 and includes:
* Six written lectures (three each week) which you can not only study in the context of the course, but save for later reference.
* Daily forum Q&As moderated by the instructor.
* Weekly workshop writing assignments with instructor and class feedback, a chance for you to explore your own story’s characters and their dialogue.
* A weekly 1-hour live teleconference between instructor and class members to drill down into the course material as well as your own stories.
It also includes me as I will be teaching the class.
A quick word about Core courses: We have switched them to two week single subject classes to make them more affordable and to give writers greater flexibility re what areas to study.
There are eight Core courses, the first four of which we have already offered since we launched SMC in January:
Core I: Structure
Core II: Concept
Core III: Character
Core IV: Style
Core V: Dialogue
Core VI: Time
Core VII: Theme
Core VIII: Scene
We have created these eight Core courses to provide all the essential knowledge you need to be able to write a professional quality screenplay.
We will be offering Core VI in June, Core VII in July, and Core VIII in August, then starting the whole cycle again on a monthly basis beginning with Core I in September.
For now, the date to remember is Monday, May 9: That’s when Core V: Dialogue begins. To enroll, go here.
To learn more about Screenwriting Master Class course offerings including our writing workshops, script consults, and private one-on-one script mentoring, go here.
UPDATE: In comments, DWS asked about the difference between the Core III: Character and the Prep: Character Development classes.
While the Core courses have a writing component for participants, they are primarily lecture and discussion based, covering both the theory and practice of screenwriting. So the 2-week class Core III: Character has six lectures covering all the primary character archetypes, different metamorphosis paradigms, and an overall character-based approach to screenwriting.
While Prep: Character Development has lectures, it is primarily a writing workshop, a 2-week class where participants use a set of tools provided in the course and a series of writing assignments to dig into the main characters in their stories. Between written feedback from fellow writers and the instructor as well as weekly teleconferences, the goal is for a participant to emerge from the class with a deeper understanding of each individual character and their overall respective narrative functions.
In other words, Core III: Character provides the theoretical foundation and Prep: Character Development puts the principles from that course into practice in a workshop format.
I will be teaching the inaugural offering of the Prep: Character Development class from June 27-July 10. Given the fact that the number one most common critique I hear about from professional readers is scripts with “weak characterizations,” this is a hugely relevant course.
For more information, go here.