\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nY\u2019all I read a lot of scripts. And the one note I give over and over and over and over to the point that I can pretty much copy and paste it from one review to another\u2026. let your characters lie.\u00a0Let them omit, stumble, and circumvent. Allow them to be completely unable to express what they\u2019re feeling. Make them unable to admit a truth. Let them sit in silence because they can\u2019t think of anything clever to say! Let them say the exact wrong thing!
\nDee Rees talks about it in her BAFTA lecture\u00a0(which you should ABSOLUTELY WATCH): that what your character actually says\u00a0should be three degrees of separation away from what they mean to say.
\nI read script after script after script where characters articulate their needs, desires, and objectives with perfect accuracy off the cuff 24/7 and there is not one single human person on this planet who is actually able to do that. This is the #1 thing that\u2019s going to make your script sound stilted and the #1 thing that\u2019s going to make shit difficult on your actors. Let them shut up, and let them lie.
\nThis!! In real life no one says what they mean. We say we\u2019re fine when we\u2019re not. We keep secrets because the truth is painful or embarrassing. We fight over stupid shit that\u2019s a stand-in for what we\u2019re really upset about.\u00a0We don\u2019t say what we want or need because recognizing, let alone vocalizing, our wants and needs is hard.
\nIf your characters say what they mean all the time, you, as a writer, are robbing yourself of so much power to affect the audience. This is true in all writing but especially in dramatic writing, where everything in the character\u2019s interior life has to be externalized in some way to be known. You can create intimacy by allowing the audience to see something your character hides from other characters. You can create tension by letting the audience know the character has a secret or has told a lie they don\u2019t want revealed. You can create catharsis by allowing the character to finally say what they\u2019re really thinking at a key moment.
\nYou\u2019re also creating a much more interesting text for your actors because you allow for the presence of subtext. If you\u2019re someone who directs your own material you\u2019ll start to realize how little you actually need your characters to say to make it clear exactly what\u2019s going on with them. What starts as a monologue in the first draft may, in rehearsal, become a single line, which in the final cut becomes a shared glance, and the audience will still know exactly what you mean.
\nI love this. thank u so much for pointing this out so concisely, it explains so well why some lines have an insane impact, while others feel just meh
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OP opens acknowledging script reading and note-giving as structural features of the industry but I think she undervalues how shallow assessments by time-pressed lower-tier fake-it-til-you-makettes actively discourage subtlety.
Bcuz its an ask already to be the assistant/d-girl reading your script of one of 3 that night to understand even a capably written straitforward protag
I think this may be one of the auxiliary forces behind the \u201cGolden age of TV\u201d as vs. movies, that because TV spec scripts (to pitch as a writer) don\u2019t have to develop new characters or (to pitch as a pilot) get attention paid to the potential of characters independent of the immediate scenario
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