Goody-Two-Shoes Dialogue
If a scene only works when someone explains it, the problem started pages ago.
Dialogue isn’t the solution you need
Dialogue is the goody-two-shoes in a screenwriter’s arsenal. There it sits, right up the front of the class, with its hand up, saying, ‘Pick me! Please! Let me fix that.’
Explanations make the audience passive when you want them to be active participants — and when they want to be active participants.
It’s always easiest to solve script problems by having a character ask the right question, and another character give the correct answer. But that’s the worst way to reveal information in a screenplay.
When it comes to fixing your script problems, leave dialogue in its seat. Don’t convey crucial plot information through a character’s mouth. Get the audience to deduce it for themselves. You want them actively involved in creating the story with you, not passively sitting back having it spoon-fed to them.
Here’s the tough truth. Most of the time, maybe as much as 90% of the time, dialogue is the wrong solution to your script problem. And even when it is the right solution, it will probably be in the wrong place.
Look for the problem in the Setup
Script problems nearly always occur long before they become visible, and are nearly always caused by missing information in the setup.
When you strike a problem (or someone reads the script and points out a problem), don’t try to fix it where it came to the surface. Instead, ask yourself:
- What information – usually about who knows what, or who thinks what – does the audience need to know to work out what’s going on at the problem point, without explanation?
- Can I plant that information earlier, so that the audience brings it into the moment?
- And can I plant it naturally, so it’s an intrinsic part of an earlier scene’s action?
Choices and action are the solution
If possible, don’t just move the dialogue earlier in the script. Try to get the information across through action.
This works best when the piece of information you need the audience to carry into the scene is about what someone knows, and what they feel about it. You can often reveal this through how they respond to previous situations.
It feels natural in that situation, but it pays off later as well. You’re giving yourself a two-for-one.
The Sixth Sense is a famous and clear example of this. Without drawing attention to it, Olivia Williams (Bruce Willis’s wife) subtly misconnects with him throughout the film. It’s only when we see the wedding ring roll across the floor that we realise that it’s because he’s also one of the ‘dead people’ that Haley Joel Osment ‘sees.’
Information the film has been planting all along.
If the information must be verbal (“He dresses like a hobo, but he inherited half a billion.” “There’s track work on this weekend – no trains.”) don’t have it suddenly pop up in dialogue right when it becomes relevant.
That’s too on-the-nose and draws attention to your hand as creator. See if you can convey it earlier through action, or through something a character notices, but doesn’t overtly react to.
And if you can’t find a way to do that, put the words into an earlier scene in a way that makes them a natural part of the scene.
Trust the audience to notice anyway, and tuck it away in the back of their mind, just in case.
Your audience doesn’t want to be lectured by a writer who holds all the reins and controls all the information. They want to feel that their participation in creating the story matters. That they are partners, not passengers.
Quick Checklist
- Can the audience infer the key fact without anyone in the scene stating it?
- Are earlier scenes carrying the load so this scene can play clean?
- Is any line only there to transfer information? Can I convert it to action, or move the information earlier?
- Have I planted beliefs/knowledge necessary to one scene in an earlier scene?
- Is my plant intrinsic to the earlier scene’s purpose (not a bolt‑on)?
- Can I do it without dialogue – through behaviour, reactions, point of view shots, music cues, framing etc etc? If I have to use dialogue, can I make it seem to be about something else?
