I had a rather odd moment writing a horror script the other day. Had a group of characters together and wanted them chatting but couldn't come up with dialogue for them if my life depended on it. I've written fantasy novels, dozens of short films and a feature now in strange worlds with weird monsters but when it came to having five college males talking about football I came to a dead stop. Seriously! I actually contacted a writer friend who's a high school football coach cause I couldn't come up with a single line of dialogue. Any one else ever hit that roadblock?
Screenwriting : So that character looks up and says ???????? by Bill Albert
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It usually means that the scene lacks conflict and the characters lack individual goals and obstacles in the scene. Try giving each character conflicting goals that are at odds with each other at two levels: each character's superficial goal is the immediate goal of the character in that scene, the subtext goal for that character addresses what the character arc is for the whole film. For example, the bad pitch (but simplest) is your hero's "scene goal" might be to get his buddy to not to tell the story about how he got really drunk last week and embarrassed himself in a significant way. The buddy's goal is to embarrass his friend so that he'll grow some balls and do something risky tonight so the buddy can get laid. The subtext of the dialogue is the main character will have to work through the issue of what made him drunk and embarrassed last week to live through tonight and the buddy is going to die because he's got an inherent vice that puts him in the cross hairs of whatever's killing everybody else.
A trick to doing this with multiple characters in a scene is to stretch personalities into polar opposites that drive conflict. There's a dramatic theory that says the audience reacts to this conflict because our own brains are struggling with the same warring aspects of our own personalities attempting to find balance. That's why you see the same stereotype characters cropping up over and over again: one is cold intellect, one is hot passion, one is selfish ego, one is caring empathy and they usually center around the main character who is the decision making "self." You don't have to hammer the nail on the head that heavily, but when you're stuck it's a place to start.
But ultimately, when you run into the problem of characters you can't give words to, it means they lack a reason to speak. Go back to your writing mantra: GSU (Goals, Stakes, Urgency). Find what each one's goal is, puts stakes behind it and give them an urgency and the words will come.
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It means I have no interest in football what so ever. It's incredibly boring to me. It takes place in a college town and to help set up the environment students would talk about football.
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Hi, Bill. Yeah... that happens. Sometimes you find yourself facing a subject matter that is foreign to you or a subject you have zero interest in, personally. For me, when that happens, I dive into research to help. Or I ask someone more familiar. I don't know what's happening in your scene nor anything about the characters, more specifically, nor their relationships to one another, nor what needs to happen for story purposes, etc, but... perhaps just have them talk about something else. Lol! Maybe at the surface, they talk football but then get into some debate about something else—show more who they are as people. As an audience member, I love being surprised. So if I'm confronted with a bunch of football players I expect a certain type. But if a group of jocks delves into some existential crisis or philosophical debate, I'm gonna lean in more. Okay, who are these guys? Especially, if that discussion hints at some theme or what's ahead in your horror script. Could be a fun scene. ;) Hope that helps!
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My suggestion: go to Youtube and watch a channel of two guys commenting about a game or about their predictions. This should serve as inspiration.
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That was why I asked my friend. It's a very short scene that leads us to one of the main characters. That was it. It takes place in Iowa City and having lived there I know you are going to have people talking about football sooner or later. It's not a scene structure problem or lack of conflict. Just some background color.
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Oh yeah, I couldn't write sports driven dialogue with a gun to my head. I'd probably just have them complain and throw things at the TV but never specify what was being watched in the first draft. "Oh man!" "Come on!" "Unbelievable. Un--beee-lievable. Are you kidding me, ref?!" "How can you make that call?!" "Well, I just lost forty bucks."
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Ah, Bill Albert, so no scene or writing or structural issues, per se, just adding some Midwest cultural reference and/or sport-related colloquialism. Got it. Yeah, football is big in the Midwest. Very popular. ;)
Just cut scene and move on to next
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Don't talk about football. Talk about beer and sex. LOL
Claude! You've never been in Iowa City! LOL
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Why does he look up and say anything? Silence can be golden and this could be a perfect place for a money shot for your actor and a strong scene transition. No?
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You should have active dialogue with sub text. You should foreshadow an event in the plot or reveal character intention. For example, in the original Predator starring Arnold Swarchenegger, the group of commandos couldn't figure out what they were up against, but they found through the jungle that the creature bled green, and the dialogue was, "If it bleeds, we can kill it." So they all ended up dead, except for Arnold because he outsmarted the Predator. Your dialogue she be so multidimensional that it covers so many points in the story without losing a beat.
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Read Erik Bork's new book 'The idea'. I think this will be very useful.