1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,922 [MUSIC PLAYING] 2 00:00:13,979 --> 00:00:16,020 If you're going to have your characters talking 3 00:00:16,020 --> 00:00:20,670 to one another, it should be for some reason, 4 00:00:20,670 --> 00:00:23,460 not just to have them chattering away. 5 00:00:23,460 --> 00:00:25,410 When people talk, there's usually 6 00:00:25,410 --> 00:00:29,400 quite a lot of padding and verbiage, pauses 7 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:30,000 and ums and uhs and you know and like, 8 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,759 and ums and uhs and you know and like, 9 00:00:32,759 --> 00:00:36,750 a lot of stuffing in the conversation like that. 10 00:00:36,750 --> 00:00:38,850 And if you put all of that into a book, 11 00:00:38,850 --> 00:00:45,510 it can get either unintentionally comical or very 12 00:00:45,510 --> 00:00:47,290 boring. 13 00:00:47,290 --> 00:00:54,170 So dialogues in books are much, much more selective. 14 00:00:54,170 --> 00:00:56,400 And they're usually trying to find out something 15 00:00:56,400 --> 00:01:00,000 from the other person or they're making some social move. 16 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:01,880 from the other person or they're making some social move. 17 00:01:01,880 --> 00:01:07,310 They're making some power play of a social nature 18 00:01:07,310 --> 00:01:10,730 or trying to ingratiate themselves, 19 00:01:10,730 --> 00:01:15,050 or they may even be attempting to be seductive. 20 00:01:15,050 --> 00:01:17,690 So how people talk and what they say 21 00:01:17,690 --> 00:01:20,510 in a book is indicative of who they are, of course. 22 00:01:20,510 --> 00:01:23,000 It has to be consistent with who they are. 23 00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:27,530 But it's also telling the reader things 24 00:01:27,530 --> 00:01:30,000 that the reader needs to know, but most particularly, 25 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:33,050 that the reader needs to know, but most particularly, 26 00:01:33,050 --> 00:01:36,410 what their intention is in talking 27 00:01:36,410 --> 00:01:38,820 to this other character. 28 00:01:38,820 --> 00:01:40,610 What are they trying to achieve? 29 00:01:40,610 --> 00:01:42,210 What is their goal? 30 00:01:42,210 --> 00:01:43,670 And what are they trying to avoid? 31 00:01:43,670 --> 00:01:46,580 [MUSIC PLAYING] 32 00:01:50,470 --> 00:01:53,460 What people say to one another and what 33 00:01:53,460 --> 00:01:56,570 they're thinking while they're saying those things 34 00:01:56,570 --> 00:01:58,610 may be quite different. 35 00:01:58,610 --> 00:02:00,000 What the person listening hears, what they understand 36 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,020 What the person listening hears, what they understand 37 00:02:04,020 --> 00:02:06,820 by what the first person has said, 38 00:02:06,820 --> 00:02:10,479 which can be something like, that person 39 00:02:10,479 --> 00:02:13,890 is trying to be quite rude to me although, they've 40 00:02:13,890 --> 00:02:15,780 put it in a polite way. 41 00:02:15,780 --> 00:02:19,950 I get it that they're being dismissive and condescending 42 00:02:19,950 --> 00:02:21,540 to me. 43 00:02:21,540 --> 00:02:22,980 You can do it like that. 44 00:02:22,980 --> 00:02:26,390 You can hear a veiled threat. 45 00:02:26,390 --> 00:02:30,000 For instance, you can hear some information 46 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:31,970 For instance, you can hear some information 47 00:02:31,970 --> 00:02:36,120 that the first person wasn't intending to give you. 48 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:38,120 Maybe they're attempting to be seductive 49 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:40,940 and the other person just thinks they're an idiot. 50 00:02:40,940 --> 00:02:44,450 All of these can happen. 51 00:02:44,450 --> 00:02:51,260 Pickup lines-- what the person says, what the recipient hears, 52 00:02:51,260 --> 00:02:53,840 those can be two quite different things. 53 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:55,940 It might be fun sometimes to have 54 00:02:55,940 --> 00:03:00,000 to have your character overhearing two other people. 55 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:00,960 to have your character overhearing two other people. 56 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:05,690 So that's another kind of use of dialogue, 57 00:03:05,690 --> 00:03:08,770 an overheard dialogue. 58 00:03:08,770 --> 00:03:12,290 And if you do that, usually the person doing the overhearing 59 00:03:12,290 --> 00:03:16,900 is either learning a secret or hearing something quite 60 00:03:16,900 --> 00:03:20,890 unpleasant about themselves, so that experience people 61 00:03:20,890 --> 00:03:26,640 may have had in wash rooms, say, wash rooms in high school 62 00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:29,080 about overhearing other people discussing you 63 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:30,000 behind your back. 64 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:31,240 behind your back. 65 00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:34,180 Because it is true in society in general 66 00:03:34,180 --> 00:03:37,210 that people will say things about you behind your back 67 00:03:37,210 --> 00:03:39,339 that they would not say to your face. 68 00:03:39,339 --> 00:03:41,684 [MUSIC PLAYING] 69 00:03:45,910 --> 00:03:49,240 It's hard to speak about someone's tone of voice 70 00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:53,140 or their voice apart from what's happening to them 71 00:03:53,140 --> 00:03:55,190 and who they are. 72 00:03:55,190 --> 00:03:57,490 So you need to know who they are. 73 00:03:57,490 --> 00:04:00,000 You need to know where they're living, 74 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:01,840 You need to know where they're living, 75 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:04,960 what their social level is, what sort of vocabulary 76 00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:08,380 would be available to them, how they talk. 77 00:04:08,380 --> 00:04:11,480 What's their level of speech? 78 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:14,920 What is their local dialect? 79 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:18,880 I just watched a film called "Bad Grannies." 80 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:20,380 I see these on planes. 81 00:04:20,380 --> 00:04:23,050 So they're all talking southern-- 82 00:04:23,050 --> 00:04:25,030 southern dialect, and they're putting 83 00:04:25,030 --> 00:04:29,260 in a lot of vernacular expressions 84 00:04:29,260 --> 00:04:30,000 because that's who they are. 85 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:31,950 because that's who they are. 86 00:04:31,950 --> 00:04:36,450 They're not New York sophisticates, OK? 87 00:04:36,450 --> 00:04:40,920 Shakespeare was criticized by French literary people 88 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:43,920 of the time because in his plays there 89 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:46,440 are people who speak in an elevated manner, 90 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:49,110 namely the aristocrats, usually speak 91 00:04:49,110 --> 00:04:52,500 in blank verse in a rather convoluted way, 92 00:04:52,500 --> 00:04:55,380 and then there's always some comic characters. 93 00:04:55,380 --> 00:05:00,000 And they speak in vulgar vernacular, 94 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:00,210 And they speak in vulgar vernacular, 95 00:05:00,210 --> 00:05:04,920 so the grave digger in Hamlet, the gatekeeper in Macbeth. 96 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:07,740 There was obviously an actor or a couple 97 00:05:07,740 --> 00:05:10,980 of actors who specialized in this kind of part. 98 00:05:10,980 --> 00:05:13,650 But the other reason that Shakespeare 99 00:05:13,650 --> 00:05:16,830 mixes these kinds of speech is that he 100 00:05:16,830 --> 00:05:19,170 was playing to an audience that consisted 101 00:05:19,170 --> 00:05:24,150 of everybody, whereas French drama of that era 102 00:05:24,150 --> 00:05:26,340 was court drama. 103 00:05:26,340 --> 00:05:30,000 So they were doing plays based on Greek mythological figures, 104 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:31,830 So they were doing plays based on Greek mythological figures, 105 00:05:31,830 --> 00:05:35,940 all of whom spoken beautiful Alexandrians. 106 00:05:35,940 --> 00:05:42,000 There weren't any clowns, vulgar people, bad sex jokes, puns 107 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:44,560 that were really pretty rude. 108 00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:48,900 But Shakespeare put all of that in because his audience 109 00:05:48,900 --> 00:05:51,270 consisted of people who'd only paid a penny 110 00:05:51,270 --> 00:05:54,300 to stand in the pit and other people who were having 111 00:05:54,300 --> 00:05:57,030 a fine time in the better seats and were 112 00:05:57,030 --> 00:05:58,810 from the upper classes. 113 00:05:58,810 --> 00:06:00,000 So he put in something for everyone 114 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:00,300 So he put in something for everyone 115 00:06:00,300 --> 00:06:03,720 and he always did that in his plays. 116 00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:07,050 And he knew perfectly well what he was doing. 117 00:06:07,050 --> 00:06:13,790 And if you go onto YouTube and find 118 00:06:13,790 --> 00:06:17,380 a thing called "Shakespeare Original Pronunciation," 119 00:06:17,380 --> 00:06:20,190 you will realize just exactly how many 120 00:06:20,190 --> 00:06:23,378 vulgar puns you have missed. 121 00:06:23,378 --> 00:06:26,372 [MUSIC PLAYING] 122 00:06:29,870 --> 00:06:30,000 Words and phrases come in and out of fashion. 123 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,110 Words and phrases come in and out of fashion. 124 00:06:33,110 --> 00:06:39,410 So again, if you're setting your dialogue in the past, 125 00:06:39,410 --> 00:06:41,900 you should-- 126 00:06:41,900 --> 00:06:45,110 you should be accurate to something people would actually 127 00:06:45,110 --> 00:06:47,660 have said then. 128 00:06:47,660 --> 00:06:49,670 This is "Alias Grace." 129 00:06:49,670 --> 00:06:51,980 And the passage that I'm going to read 130 00:06:51,980 --> 00:06:54,530 is the moment when Grace Marks, who 131 00:06:54,530 --> 00:06:57,260 is a convict in the penitentiary, 132 00:06:57,260 --> 00:06:59,540 first meets Dr. Simon Jordan, who 133 00:06:59,540 --> 00:07:00,000 is trying to recover her lost memory in order 134 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,110 is trying to recover her lost memory in order 135 00:07:03,110 --> 00:07:05,030 to prove whether she is a murderer 136 00:07:05,030 --> 00:07:06,590 or whether she is not a murderer. 137 00:07:09,380 --> 00:07:11,690 "He has brought with him an apple. 138 00:07:11,690 --> 00:07:14,480 He smiles his lopsided smile. 139 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:18,050 What does Apple make you think of, he says. 140 00:07:18,050 --> 00:07:19,700 I beg your pardon, sir, I say. 141 00:07:19,700 --> 00:07:21,890 I do not understand you. 142 00:07:21,890 --> 00:07:23,910 It must be a riddle. 143 00:07:23,910 --> 00:07:25,940 I think of Mary Whitney and the apple 144 00:07:25,940 --> 00:07:27,860 peelings we threw over our shoulders 145 00:07:27,860 --> 00:07:30,000 that night to see who we would marry. 146 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:30,890 that night to see who we would marry. 147 00:07:30,890 --> 00:07:34,500 But I will not tell him that. 148 00:07:34,500 --> 00:07:38,590 I think you understand well enough, he says." 149 00:07:38,590 --> 00:07:41,820 So how people spoke at that time-- 150 00:07:41,820 --> 00:07:44,260 so she says, I beg your pardon, sir, 151 00:07:44,260 --> 00:07:45,701 which you wouldn't say today. 152 00:07:45,701 --> 00:07:47,200 You wouldn't say, I beg your pardon, 153 00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:51,370 unless you were being very formal. 154 00:07:51,370 --> 00:07:54,940 Some people today say, pardon? 155 00:07:54,940 --> 00:07:59,090 But even that seems to be going away a bit. 156 00:07:59,090 --> 00:08:00,000 They're more likely to say, what did you say? 157 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:02,410 They're more likely to say, what did you say? 158 00:08:02,410 --> 00:08:04,060 Or something like that. 159 00:08:04,060 --> 00:08:06,380 Or, I don't get it. 160 00:08:06,380 --> 00:08:09,890 The conversations and books need to be specific to the time 161 00:08:09,890 --> 00:08:15,650 that you're writing in without being overly researched. 162 00:08:15,650 --> 00:08:22,040 That is, you can't go too much in that direction 163 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:26,950 or it's going to sound quite artificial and wooden.