What are the best ways to improve dialogue in sketch writing? I am asking the more advanced writers on the forum to give me a few tips. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Don't be put off by the 'advanced writer' tag either. Cheers.

Quote: Nigel Kelly @ October 9 2008, 6:19 PM BST

What are the best ways to improve dialogue in sketch writing? I am asking the more advanced writers on the forum to give me a few tips. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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What sort of stuff are you writing?

Obviously anybody answering this post is going to look a bit of an idiot because it means they consider themselves a "more advanced writer"...! Never mind, I'll have a go anyway. (And I don't consider myself to be one.)

All I can think of is listening to real people and practice practice practice. Next time you're on public transport, put down that newspaper, switch off the Ipod, and listen to the annoying people in the next seat. Make a mental note of the vocabulary they use.

Write pages of random dialogue and bin it afterwards. Imaginary conversations. Think of a character and write a page about him going to the shop for a pint of milk. What conversation would Basil Fawlty or Victor Meldrew or David Brent have with the shopkeeper? What makes their speech different? In your real life experience, what phrases do old people say, or young people, or posh people, or not-posh people. Maybe even start with a list of close friends and family you know well, and see if you can list their verbal tics from memory?

Short sketches I would say, nothing too long. Definitely not sitcom as I'm nowhere near experienced enough for that.

Quote: Griff @ October 9 2008, 6:29 PM BST

Obviously anybody answering this post is going to look a bit of an idiot because it means they consider themselves a "more advanced writer"...!

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Shit, you've caught me out.

Sorry Seefacts, hadn't seen your post when I was typing mine.

Keep it simple. I think it's best not to do realistic dialogue, with umm and ahhs, leave that for the actors to interpret later on.

Cut away anything that is not needed. You want it short and snappy.

I think it's best not to do realistic dialogue, with umm and ahhs, leave that for the actors to interpret later on.

I think there's a difference between realistic dialogue and naturalistic dialogue.

Naturalistic dialogue is where you try to reproduce every umm, ahh, mannerism and stammer. Obviously that's no good for comedy sketches, or anything else much, unless you are making someone's speech pattern the butt of the joke. (NB by "verbal tics" I meant annoying speech habits, like people who say "- yeah?" at the end of every sentence, or worse, " - no?". Not actual tics.)

But realistic dialogue is where you have a sketch with a young mum in a doctor's surgery and the mum sounds like a real mum and the doctor sounds like a real doctor and they don't just talk like walking mouthpieces for jokes. I think that's a skill worth developing.

You're right Griff, that's what I meant

I have for most of my life had imaginary conversations in my head. I'm sure that makes me some sort of sectionable case, but still... I find dialogue the easiest part of writing. Characters, plot, story, that I have to work at, but dialogue seems to come naturally to me for some reason. I think the best way to think of it is to imagine the scene and instead of forcing words into your characters' mouths, allocate their general characters to them and where you want the scene to go and then try to let the conversation develop organically. Say lines out loud - you'll be surprised how obvious a duff line becomes when you try to say it. And once you've written it all, have some friends do a read through and let them tell you what they found difficult to say or what flowed well.

Everyone writes differently but if there's something i've learned is that it's a bad mistake to keep listening to how actual people talk to improve your writing. These people have got nothing to do with the fictional characters you're portraying.

It's even worse if you don't know the people you're listening to, you'll never develop you're own style that way and you are supposed to KNOW the characters you are writing for comedy.

Do a really detailed character sketch for all your characters that go back years, history, likes, psychology, everything and you'll find that the dialogue will flow. This is a trusted method, if you get stuck, do some research in the library on the things you are unsure about.

Of course i'm only telling you what works for me.

Everyone writes differently but if there's something i've learned is that it's a bad mistake to keep listening to how actual people talk to improve your writing. These people have got nothing to do with the fictional characters you're portraying.

So your fictional characters are nothing like actual people?

Do a really detailed character sketch for all your characters that go back years, history, likes, psychology, everything and you'll find that the dialogue will flow.

I imagine this technique is particularly useful for writing short sketches.

The trick is to make believable dialogue funny and engaging.

But that's well hard.

All i'm saying if your characters have a believable history the dialogue will be believable just like real people. I think it's a bad mistake to listen to conversations from strangers and working it in the dialogue. Every person is different you see. So are your characters.

Just think what the character's ATTITUDE is and that should help. And by all means listen in to peoples conversations in pubs and on buses - just make sure they are not hard bastards with tattoos.