Dispatch From The Quest: Paul Wie
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Paul has a “writing-character bonding experience”:
I’ve always wanted to improve my dialogue, and this week marked a big step in me doing so. First of all, the lectures inspired me. They taught me how to make dialogue more entertaining and meaningful, how to drive the story forward through speech. They set the right foundation for our exercises — writing monologues and scenes with subtext.
After working on backstories and profiles for so long, I enjoyed hearing my characters speak for the first time. Thoughts emerged I didn’t expect. They behaved in surprising ways. Little by little, I saw them come alive. The experience was like playing a tennis match after months of practicing strokes. I could see the prep pay off in the real game, and the work I’ve done allowed me to play more naturally. Though I’m far from finished, though I have much more to learn and work at, I feel like I’m off to a good start. I have a better idea of who my characters are, and I feel more in tune with them than ever before.
So thank you, Quest, for this writer-character bonding experience. I end the week inspired and excited to write. And right now, that’s the best thing I can ask for.
In talking with the Questers in our weekly teleconference, some of them expressed an affinity for writing dialogue, others… not so much. To the former, a tip of the cap with a reminder… don’t rely too much on dialogue as movies are primarily a visual medium. To the latter, how to engender one’s ability at writing dialogue?
The Quest lectures, tips and writing exercises provide several angles, but perhaps the single biggest thing is precisely what Paul described: a writer-character bonding experience.
In my view, as writers we should do everything we can to enable our characters to come to life. Whether it’s questionnaires, biographies, interviews, monologues, or perhaps the most valuable, what I call ‘character sit-downs,’ anything we can do to engage our characters and immerse ourselves in their lives can help us eventually hear their voice.
In our teleconference, we talked about inverting the old saying “seeing is believing” to “believing is seeing.” That is if we believe our characters exist in their own unique story universe, then we can see — and hear — them.
And that is the foundation to everything else, all of those techniques we use to bond with them because they do exist.
If we can experience that, their voice will follow.
Then we can shape what they have to say into dialogue.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Paul: Director + Writer. Loves Spielberg, Truffaut, Abrams, Kurosawa, Attack the Block, cinematic stories beautifully told. @paulhwie.