Writing Dialogue for Scripts

by Rib Davis

This work deals with the genres of stage, radio, television and film, providing examples and giving practical advice. Chapters deal with conversation, naturalistic and stylised dialogue, pace and variation, scripted narration, comic dialogue and presentation. As well as highlighting the ways in which dialogue varies from one genre to another, this book shows how many of the skills of writing dialogue may in fact be applied to all other script genres. The author assesses different types of dialogue in the 20th century from Oscar Wilde to Quentin Tarantino.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Drama

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1998

Reviews

[Benjamin Bauer]

Bit pedantic, but Davis knows his stuff. There's a lot of useful kernels to be gleaned from this trim tome. If one grows impatient, they can also skip ahead to chapter 12, Reworking the Dialogue. It provides a succinct synthesis of many of the points he illustrates throughout the book, and is honestly a chapter I could see myself referring to several times when scripting.

[John]

I enjoyed this book, liked the fact that it was brief, that he uses dialogue from real plays, and found a reminder of many essential ideas in writing scripts. I like also the fact that Mr. Davis is brave enough to criticize Shakespeare, because the man (if there is only one person writing these plays) at times definitely needed an editor. Few producers stage Shakespeare's plays using the full script. Here's a quote: "The basic point is that conversational dialogue, unlike written dialogue, is a mess."

[Alison Rogers]

Very helpful book which uses worked examples.

[Sisay Abide]

Highly wanted book

[Scott Seeger]

The one thing I got out of this book is that all dialogue should be action oriented. otherwise I didn't get much more.

[Lynn Neeves]

excellent source for anyone writing any dialogue.

[Belle Meade School]

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