Know what I mean?
Movie speech is so “elegant”, every word is perfectly spoken.
But reality is like: “um… so you know… I… uh…”… the spur of the moment, non-rehearsed, reality.
Maybe movies should add more “inelegance” to make them seem more “realistic”.
Idk if you hang out with people a lot and cultivate good banter then most movie dialog is subpar in comparison. Just got to step up your game friend 🤷
step 1 - find friends
It would be tedious and annoying to watch a movie of real dialog. That’s why there’s so much editing in documentaries.
No, I don’t think you want more realism in fictional writing. I’ve written two fiction books, and dialog is hard to get right, especially for characters very different from myself. When I first start, I don’t know the characters well, and I get the dialog wrong. About 3/4 of the way through the book, I go back and rewrite a lot of the dialog because I know the characters better by then.
For me, the fascinating part about writing fiction is that I don’t always know what the character is going to say, or do. I just have a general idea of what needs to happen in each section, but sometimes I’m surprised at the solutions they come up with. It really feels like I’m just an observer for parts of the process. They say what they say, and I write it down.
The worst thing that can happen while writing is to lose a conversation due to some technical reason. Because, I’ll never be able to recreate it exactly as it was the first time. I just need to ask them again, and start over.
If you’ve never tried writing fiction, I recommend it. It doesn’t need to be “good”, and you never need to show it to anyone, but I think you’ll learn a lot about yourself and how you see the world.
/smugbrag
When I was younger, my former roommate’s crush (and future girlfriend) described being part of our conversations as “like watching a TV show”. How much of that was us being cool and unique versus how much was us autistically mirroring characters from pop media? Don’t care, great compliment.
Movie dialogue tries to be verisimilitudinous, rather than realistic.
I’m mostly making this comment because “verisimilitudinous” is an excellent word that I love getting the opportunity to use.
I want everyone to talk like they’re in a David Lynch movie.
I’d like to be able to talk like a stand-up comedian. I rehearse shit in my head. Put the funny word at the end! Sometimes it even comes out the way I intend.
but realistic is boring.
I saw an interview with Joe Mantegna (I think), talking about David Mamet’s dialogue. He said “Everybody always says that he writes the way people talk. Bullshit. People don’t talk in iambic pentameter. He writes the way people wish they could talk.”
