Dialogue, "Nova" Rewrites, and the table reading.

I'm a slight drop in standards or a small flash of inspiration away from being finished with the final draft of "Nova". Considering we're not shooting until the spring, there's certainly plenty of time for one of those things to happen.

Since storyboards have been finished on the film for awhile now [and since Kyle has asked that I don't make any changes that would cause us to alter them], my focus on the past few drafts of "Nova" has been the dialogue. A lot of my interest in film comes from dialogue-heavy movies like "Clerks," "Slacker," Chasing Amy," and "Pulp Fiction," and I enjoy writing the most when I'm putting words in characters' mouths and penning dueling conversations [re: swears]. It's probably what I pay most attention to when it comes to my writing, and it's certainly what I work hardest on at perfecting. Some of my friends and peers have even said it's my strong suit, which is a compliment I value quite highly. So with some, hopefully excusable arrogance, I'll admit my current work on the script has really had me in what I consider my element.

Which is why I was looking forward to the table reading we had while I was at Kyle's a couple weeks ago. I work a little too much in a vacuum these days, and actually getting to hear someone other than myself speak my scripts' dialogue aloud is rare. One of the few universal tricks I've learned about screenwriting is that anything you write to be spoken, you should at least say out loud to yourself -- a practice which will usually weed out most dialogue problems. But talking to yourself can never take the place of real conversation [no, I'm not up to arguing the point], and little quirks or idiosyncrasies that can pass your own bullshit detector when you're listening to yourself usually will stand out huge when someone else is saying them.

I found a few of these during the table read, most of which were easy, albeit annoying, fixes to make. A couple were more perplexing, particularly near the end, and I actually spent several days on one scene because I just couldn't seem to come to any real consensus with myself on how to do it better. This was particularly hard because no one else who'd seen the script, even those at the table read, had pointed out the problem to me, adding an extra level of self-doubt.

For the sake of showing my process, I've quoted the original passage of dialogue below, with apologies for not having it in proper screenplay format. This scene takes place during the film's denouement, in roughly the last five minutes of the film.

ANGEL
I know what a book is, Clayton. I'm not dense. But it's not the same thing. I don't how I'd explain it except...

CLAYTON looks at her, expectant but confused.

ANGEL
[solemn]

Rebecca.

CLAYTON
Rebecca?

BEAT.

ANGEL
It's just...you get so invested, you know? You spend so much time with them, you know what the dream about, and hope for. Everything they want. And some of them, you're so sure they're going to get there, and selfishly...

CLAYTON
You want to be there when they do. No you're right. With her, right now I want her back, but I think I'll miss what won't happen more.

ANGEL
But it'll still happen. They'll still have dreams. We just won't know how they end.

A couple of things are apparent right away. First, if you haven't read "Nova," then the above conversation likely makes no sense. However, even if you don't know the specifics of this particular conversation, or what the subject of the film is about, you should be able to read this exchange between the the characters of Clayton and the Angel with some natural sense that people would be talking to each other like this.

Now, I can safely say the information that needs to be in this passage for the sake of the overall narrative is there -- they're saying what they need to say for the story's progression [again, those who haven't seen the script have to take my word on that]. So really what's most important is the execution, that how they're talking is natural, and that the individual characters and their responses to each other are not non sequiturs [re: it does not follow]. Their replies have to make sense in context of the conversation, their characters [they have to respond as someone with their personality would], all while getting in that information that is necessary to keep things going.

It actually happens a lot more naturally than I make it sound. But breaking it down is important because if one of those things fails, everything is a little off. Too often in dialogue I see lately we're forced to accept these outrageous jumps because "that's what the character has chosen to say," as if an actual person saying something is somehow not held to the same standard as the plot of the film, and as if that character shouldn't have to explain why he goes against what the film has told us is his usual inclinations. The sad thing is, in a pinch, it works, and a lot of times you can get away with it. But like a lot of easy fixes, it's lazy, and hurts the weight of the narrative, even if it gets you where you need the plot to go.

Another problem comes from what's going on in the scene. The Angel is trying explain something to Clayton, and I as the writer am trying to have her do this without it being clear what I'm doing is exposition in dialogue. Exposition is almost always awful, though, and in order to avoid the "Listen to us explain how the engines work" syndrome a lot of science fiction suffers from, I tried to come up with something a bit more artful. So what we have is the Angel giving Clayton half of the story in "It's just...you get so invested, you know? You spend so much time with them, you know what the dream about, and hope for. Everything they want. And some of them, you're so sure they're going to get there, and selfishly..." and then have Clayton figure the rest out on his own and say "You want to be there when they do."

The problem with these sort of interjections is that, one, it involves a character to have a sudden leap in knowledge, or to "get something" without any way to show their progression to that answer. It's also a mini-nightmare to get two actors or readers to cover the timing on something like that, and, if I'm honest with myself, is the sort of thing that doesn't happen enough in real life to be as clever as I thought it was. I'm already writing about a world where angels are falling from the sky -- the added stretch that two people who just met are finishing each other sentences might be a little too much now.

The final thing, and this has less to do with fixing this dialogue and more to do with avoiding the mistake in the future, is how did such a colossal failure in scripting make it through so many different drafts, and so many intelligent eyes on the script. My excuse for myself is a bad one, but understandable, in that I've been pretty well buried in this screenplay, and cliche though it sounds, I do occasionally miss the forest for all the trees. To a lesser degree, I guess I could also admit it's not quite as bad as I make it out to be, even though hearing it read aloud made me feel like I'd put a lot of gibberish down on the page.

I think the reason everyone else mentioned it is because of momentum, and since this is the falling action part of the script, it's not surprising my readers would blow past it, in a hurry to reach the film's conclusion. It's really a much smaller version of what the few dissenting opinions have always complained about as it concerns the "Return of the King" -- that at some point, you're on the way down the story's "mountain" and getting to the end has become as important as how you get there. A lot of dramatic things have happened, and you want conclusion, and you're a lot more likely to blow through a plodding ending without paying much attention to whether it's content is good or bad. It's a very good lesson for later work, to not be so hasty as a writer just because you see the finish line in sight. The end deserves as much, if not more attention as the other parts. Never check out.

So, taking all this into consideration, I worked for a couple of days until I came up this revised passage:

ANGEL
(interrupts)
I know what a book is, Clayton. I’m not dense. But it’s not the same thing. I don’t even know how I’d explain it except...

BEAT.

CLAYTON looks at her, expectant but confused.

ANGEL (CONT’D)
It’s like Rebecca.

CLAYTON
Wait. My Rebecca?

ANGEL
Clayton.

BEAT.

CLAYTON
Sorry.

ANGEL
No, but you see that’s it. I feel the same way - all these people, I watched for so long, and I got so invested in their lives, and everything they wanted out of them. And some were even actually going to get there, and I just can’t believe...

CLAYTON
That you don’t get to see it. You don’t get to be a part of what going to happen to them anymore.

ANGEL
But it’s still going to happen for them. We just won’t know. We don’t get to see how it ends.

As you can imagine, it was difficult to find four people to look at this change at 3:30 a.m. on a Thursday night/Friday morning [thank you Heke, Lex, Emily, and John].

I feel like this re-write is a marked improvement over the first. You might notice it's slightly longer, which I felt was particularly important because of the rush I mentioned earlier. Also, since I was worried that the character's responses weren't indicative of their characters enough, I added a few touches like Clayton's "My Rebecca?" with hopes of upping that personality quotient.

You might note I still keep Clayton finishing the Angel's sentence, but here it works a little better because rather than having Clayton take a logistical leap, his response is more of an acknowledgment of what she's saying to him. She's being less vague, and is more dominant with the exposition. It does get dangerously close to the sort of exposition I tend to dislike and warn against, but here I think it works because it lets the character of the Angel actually reach out to him and attempt to explain something to him. And he's actively trying to understand, despite his hangups.

But most importantly, this version sounds more like real people talking. There's less thrift, and there's less couching of things in ephemeral terms, which helps put everything more in the real world. It's easier to believe this odd conversation about unnatural things is happening in our world, which will then make what is being said a little easier for the audience to swallow.

Is it perfect? Well, no, I'd actually consider this rewrite one of those things that I could probably use another flash of insight on. The few people I had read it don't feel the pause of "Clayton/BEAT/Sorry" works very well, which I agree with, but for now works well enough until I find a better transition into the Angel's explanation of what she's feeling. Also, as much as I think the "That you don't get to see it." finishing of her sentence by Clayton works better in this version, I'm still not entirely sold on any actor making that sound natural. I'm still not sure it's believable, and I'd be much happier if an alternative would present itself.

I think this has been a good overview of my process when it comes to re-writing and reworking dialogue. It also covers the bulk of what I took away from the table-read, at least editing-wise, though there are a few others things I'd like to talk about as it concerns the experience, though I might wait until Kyle and I can more definitively say who is and isn't a part of our cast.

As of today, I feel done enough to set scripting on "Nova" aside, and get started on "The Familiar" again. But if I return to it soon, or get that breakthrough for these little things, I'm sure I'll post an update here.

Cheers.