THE PLAY’S THE THING

Making your dialogue work is obviously essential when writing a play because dialogue is your principal means of communicating character and story. When starting to write dialogue for your first draft, there are key elements you need to keep in mind:

Differentiating the Characters:

Although, like all writers, you will certainly have a style when writing a play (it is easy to distinguish a Mamet play from, say, an O’Neill play), you must work, nonetheless, within the world of your play to give each character their own separate voice . How a character speaks is every bit as important as what they say. Do they for example use long words or short, slang or formal language; do they have a stammer, or words they like to repeat? Are they prone to say things in long-winded ways or in short taciturn bursts? None of these choices are arbitrary, they are all reflections of character. A PhD in literature will obviously speak very differently than a sportscaster. A business executive will sound different from a musician.

Each character’s vocal style should, in fact, be so unique that were you to hide the character assignations, you would still know who was talking.

If you have done your prewriting preparation, especially your first person character monologues, you will have already gone a long way toward developing each character’s idiosyncratic voice.

Dialogue and Scenes:

Once you put your character into a scene that is hopefully rich in story content and conflict, you will find that your dialogue evolves to a new level, that of the alchemy of interaction. Dialogue in a play does not exist in a vacuum, but is in fact a synergistic dance between characters. So ask yourself questions such as: Does your character interrupt other characters, never letting them finish a thought? Is one character silent, while another rambles? (Keep in mind that silence is as powerful a communicator as speech.) Does your character use words as weapons and if so how effectively? How does your character express an emotion like anger or love that may be different from another character? One character, for example, may show they love someone by teasing them mercilessly, while another may go completely mute around the love object. Remember, the playwright has only dialogue to express the myriad of emotional interactions in a script. So choose wisely.

Dialogue, by the way, is also the only means for revealing exposition in a scene, but that is a topic for another day.

Subtext:

Finally, you must also develop the fine art of writing subtext. What is subtext? It is meaning or intent that lie underneath the lines. It is what a character actually means, though they may be saying something very different. Subtext in dialogue is what makes a play richer and more challenging. Why? Because life is full of subtext. People often hide behind words, and audiences know this, and so they enjoy trying to pick up the “real” meaning beneath what a character says.

Subtext usually does not appear as strongly in a first draft as in later drafts, as the first draft is for “getting it all out,” and therefore the writing may initially be more on the head, less subtle. Still, it is important to understand, even early on, its importance.

In the end, most of the weight of a play rests upon its dialogue. Exploring the elements of differentiation, interaction, and subtext will help you to write it more effectively.