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ELA 5: What is Realistic Dialogue? 91 Views
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Description:
Remember the time your teacher said "That's fine, I don't care if you do any work at all, you all get A's, and a free used Toyota Camry." Yeah, we thought not. That's about as unrealistic as you can get, and it would ruin any classroom scene you might be reading or writing. We'll learn all about that and more in today's video.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:13
Picture this. You’ve just started reading a story, and [Girl reading a book]
- 00:16
you’re totally hooked. It’s about some brilliant scientists who
- 00:19
have been able to bring a dead animal back to life. [Fox opens it's eyes on an operating table]
- 00:22
You can’t put this thing down…until the scientists start talking.
Full Transcript
- 00:26
“Okay, Paul, what should we name this cute little thing?”
- 00:29
“I know,” said Paul. “Fuzzy! Because its hair is fuzzy and it gives us warm fuzzies!” [Doctors deciding what to call the animal]
- 00:35
“YAY!” said all the other scientists. Ouch. The dialogue is killing this story because [Girl puts the book down and stabs it]
- 00:41
it’s totally unrealistic. “Brilliant scientists” would never talk
- 00:44
that way… …let alone decide to name their creation
- 00:47
“Fuzzy.”
- 00:48
Dialogue does some heavy lifting in fiction… …and its importance can’t be understated.
- 00:53
It not only reveals facts about characters, but helps to move a plot along…
- 00:57
…as well as creates a believable world that allows you to get lost in a story. [Scientist walks into a lab]
- 01:02
i.e…no scientists with the vocabulary of a three-year-old…
- 01:05
For dialogue to sound natural, a writer needs to consider…
- 01:09
…who is speaking… …how old they are… [Coop pointing to dialogue considerations on a chalkboard]
- 01:11
…what their relationship is to the other characters…
- 01:14
…the time period in which the story takes place …
- 01:16
…what regional dialects might be at play… …basically, anything that might affect the
- 01:21
way characters talk to one another… …or the words they might use. [One guy reading a English to French dictionary and one guy reading French to English]
- 01:25
If your main character is a meathead jock… …you probably don’t want to have him using [A jock stood on a track]
- 01:28
words like “supercilious” and “infinitesimal”… …even if it would make you, the author,
- 01:33
look awfully smart.
- 01:35
Some stuff you can figure out just by doing a little research.
- 01:38
If your characters live in London… …you can go online and listen to some Londoners [London Queens guard soldier and a man hopping around]
- 01:41
speak to get an ear for their accent… …and for some of those funny British words
- 01:45
they use… …which will come in handy when it comes
- 01:47
time to write their dialogue. And…just paying attention to real life dialogue [Girl using a Macbook]
- 01:50
helps, too. The more you focus on the way people phrase
- 01:53
their sentences… …the better feel you’ll have for it when [Man and woman sitting down for a meal]
- 01:56
putting words into your characters’ mouths.
- 01:58
Just don’t put words into the mouths of actual people.
- 02:01
They seem to hate that… [Parents angry and the son shrugs]
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