After continuously attempting to edit my WIP down to a manageable length (the goal is 110-ish pages, currently at 130), I've noticed something interesting: I tend to repeat my points in dialogue much too often, creating a repetitive nature in my storytelling. It's quite frustrating I hadn't noticed it before, but am grateful I came to the conclusion.
Has anyone hit on this minor snag in their work? I suppose I could have caught this in the outline phase, but I couldn't see the forest for the trees, I guess...
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Have you read, "Dialogue," by Robert McKee. He gives a good explanation of why it's important not to repeat points in dialogue and how to analyze your scenes so that you spot this and eliminate it.
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Good call, I haven't read McKee's book, but I'd be happy to check it out!
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I’ve dealt with this before. When I read Syd Field’s book, he made a point multiple times to show the story, not dialogue the story. That point has had me thinking of different ways to write me scenes which has cut out a good chunk of repetitive and unnecessary dialogue.
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Yes, I've had the same tendency to hammer home the same point more than once, but it eventually becomes an insult to the reader's intelligence and I'm trying to decrease it.
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Great point, Nicholas Catron. I haven't cracked a Syd Field book in some years, remembering only the basics of his points, but not the details. Being said, relying on the visuals would definitely strengthen the WIP, especially being this an animated feature. Thank you!
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Good luck, you definitely got this!
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I notice that sometimes, James. I do a separate rewrite focusing on dialogue to catch problems like that.
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That’s really smart Maurice!
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James Welday, Chapter 12 has the part about his method for analyzing dialogue beats.
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There's sometimes a fine line between logical progression of an interaction and a jumping conflict. You can't move too fast, or else the exchange loses its emotional truth, and you can't repeat or else the scene drags. This is why I like the McKee naming the beats method.
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Thanks, Nicholas.
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Super helpful all around, thank you everyone!
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You're welcome, James.
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I did dialogue over kill on my first writing course in 2014 but now practically stopped. (Still tend on too much dialogue but no longer repeat what’s been said before.) I try to turn what would have been dialogue into small action or subtext instead. We must be our own “continuity” expert, each beat or character reveal a succinct progression not regression. The empty page is a piece of real estate, words the maximum bang for minimum ground space.
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I haven’t done this in a while. But I make a note of what each scene achieves. If I do the same thing twice. One has to go or they get combined.
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Can't think something up, just borrow phrases from established scripts...
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If you pre-write all your beats for your scenes and use a solid structure, it's a lot easier to avoid this issue.
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This is the reason why it is important to put things away for a while before re-writing. I have a whole series of passes I do. The first one is scanning for unnecessary profanity. I believe profanity should be used judiciously, but I'm always surprised how much lazy writing I do using profanity instead of something more meaningful. Looking for repeated dialogue points is another pass. Our minds like shortcuts and we tend to fall into predictable patterns, but time away from a project really helps identify these problems.