Film Courage: I’m wondering if we can critique some dialogue of a scene I’ve written?
The scene is set in modern times and it takes place in a Human Resources Department where
our protagonist is Maya.
She's a single mom in her mid-30s, she works as an administrative assistant.
She's not one for I guess what you would call “water cooler gossip.”
She's kind of you know head down, works hard.
Some of the other employees don't like her but she she kind of tunes it out.
The other person in the scene is Tommy and he's a young HR professional in his mid-20s.
He landed the job out of college and he's been promoted as he's a diligent worker and
committed to seeing the company run smoothly.
Tommy has sent Maya an interoffice email and asked her to be at his office.
He does not say why in the email and so the scene takes place where Maya is knocking on
the office door of Tommy's which is a jar.
He's at his computer.
So Maya says Hi Tommy and she knocks Hey Tommy sound effect it's cool yeah sorry yeah that's
fine and there's uh Tommy typing I don't actually have the typing sound oh hey Maya thanks for
stopping by have a seat please Maya sits down in the office chair facing Tommy's desk her
body language is a bit tense Tommy speaks so and he quickly gets up from his chair and
shuts the office door okay Maya thanks again for being here listen Tommy pauses to reflect
Maya leans in everything good there's a little bit of an inflection in her voice which indicates
worry Tommy clears his throat and breathes in Maya as you know our company policy states
that all employees electronic communications are monitored from time to time so that human
resources can be certain that said employees are in accordance with company rules and regulations
my response okay Tommy from October 25th Maya to January 25th our IT department noted that
within this span of time you had spent an excessive amount of time on non-work-related
websites during your agreed upon hours of employment with us using a company computer
which is located at your desk and Maya interrupts Tommy wait what what are you talking about
Tommy raises his voice slightly louder as you may remember Maya from the company handbook
that was given to you on your first day of employment with us which you signed all computer
time within an employee's work hours should be strictly work related it was noted and
he pulls out his little handy-dandy pen clicking it it was noted that you visited the following
websites on these dates and he turns around a piece of paper that's printed and denotes
with his pen each incident Maya looks at the paper in disbelief and she sees on the paper
a time stamp a url of the alleged website the make model and operating system of her
work computer scanning the paper and shaking her head she kind of exclaims I don't even
have an account on the social media site and i've never been to this blog I don't know
what this is Tommy exhales and pauses therefore Maya in violation of company policy we're
really sorry but we're going to have to let you go Maya responds okay wait stop I noticed
the other day there was a login page to my computer and the username was someone else's
I don't go to these websites I don't even go to these websites on my off hours so what
are you talking about gets defensive Tommy interrupting my your check has been prepared
we will pay you through 5 pm today we will need your access card and the key to your
desk before giving you this final check are you able to provide these two items for us
today and so that's the dialogue um you want me to work yeah please okay let's do that
okay um cool by the way fun the first thing i'd say is we don't have to worry about the
dialogue yet okay the first thing you have to ask is what is the scene about because
the person who's doing all the talking is Tommy but in fact it seems to me like the
scene is going to really be about Maya that the point of the scene is that Maya's getting
fired the other point about scene is that she's getting fired unfairly so one of the
most important things you have to do with each scene is say what is this actually about
dramatically what is the center of the scene the center of the scene is Maya's getting
fired unfairly now I would need to know the rest of the story to really work it because
the truth is if Maya's getting fired unfairly and she is going to go out and get a much
better job in a career that she really loves like paragliding teacher then this scene would
first of all be much shorter because we don't really care why she got fired unfairly so
you'd want to just get right to it in fact you know most of the dialogue would go but
if the scene is about how she's going to now try and find out who did it and therefore
it's going to get into a thriller we would need to get those details into the dialogue
because right now there isn't actually enough specifics in Tommy's accusation so the first
thing you need to do is decide what the scene is about is it about Maya being motivated
to investigate Maya being motivated to change her life so we're talking about a bigger question
which is what's your story about the scene is part of the story you have to know what
the story is about then you can know what the scene is about the scene is always about
an action currently the only person taking an action in that scene is Tommy Maya doesn't
do anything except sit down and so one of the things I would say is if it's Maya's story
which seems like it was from the content of the scene you would want to give her some
action it could be begging it could be insisting that she'd be given a hearing it could be
trying to explain it it could be turning on Tommy and saying why he thinks he's really
doing it there's a lot of possible scenes which give Maya an important action because
really what we want to know is what's Maya going to come out of this it could be that
Maya's crushed and it's going to we're going to see her be miserable for a long time before
she discovers paragliding teacher so the the dialogue it only matters in the sense that
it reflects what the character is trying to accomplish and what we are trying to tell
in terms of story for the character so that's the first thing is dialogue comes last um
the next thing about the dialogue though I would say is you can be a lot shorter um you
know when she walked in just as a dialogue lesson I would say he comes and says Maya
sit down and then he says names the the websites and the type of website the specific information
would tell us a lot about what this story is about assuming it is the investigation
or it's just he says you know i'm sit down you know linens are us uh vacations unlimited
and whatever it is we're finding out about the person who did log in and it's also just
more interesting dialogue he just starts reciting these weird things or outrageous you know
porn sites or whatever it is terrorist sites she's going to be like I don't understand
like she is but then she's going to say I saw Freddie at my desk or someone at my desk
and you know that only so and so has a key because they're my superior whatever it is
you're going to be explaining the situation that sets up the rest of the scene and the
rest of the business terminology that was in the scene should go unless it is possible
to make it a wonderfully suspenseful scene in which Tommy is just blathering on with
you know corporate double speak and we're getting tenser and tenser not about what's
he getting to but then you would build the scene a little differently his speech would
be more Tarantino-y in which he's playing little mind games with her as he does it so
it's not impossible it's not like there's an only one way to write a scene you can play
this scene with that kind of long speech from Tommy but then Tommy's got to have a reason
that he's doing it the actual corporate liability not that important I can keep going but I
probably should stop there no I love it so I think the first thing then I need to determine
what is it that's going to happen to Maya from this story what's the story then what's
the scene because the scene only exists within a story um and with the story it's always
going to be for me the same six questions who is it about what do they want why can't
they get it what do they do about that why doesn't that work what is the end and if you
think about in this case it's like well who is it about it's about Maya or Tommy or maybe
it's about someone else about somebody that you know takes Maya's job and this whole scene
should just be Maya you're fired um but let's assume the scene's about Maya so who is about
Maya what does she want does she want to keep this job or does she want to get a better
life once you've made that what's the obstacle the obstacle of keeping the job is she got
fired unfairly the obstacle of the new life is she wasn't prepared for this she's broke
what does she do about that if each one if she wants the job back she has to find out
who did this or find out what Tommy's up to or she would take those actions always asking
what is the story about and the story is going to be about a character wanting something
and so story is about she needs this job she has this son and you know she's kind of been
left to pay a bunch of bills and money's tight for her and she doesn't like this job but
she really needs it um that's that's part of the story I guess there has to be more
of what is going to happen to her life well then you have to decide yeah in a big picture
what story do I want to tell do I want to tell the story of someone who takes on the
corporate bad guys is it about someone who stumbles on a sinister plot is it someone
you know whatever kind of story you want to tell is really going to make that determination
what kind of story do you like if you like the sinister plot story or if you like the
she's going to team up with a whole bunch of other people who are unfairly fired and
create their own company you know I mean there's all sorts of it could start be the start of
a comedy or it could be the start of the thriller right and so with the dialogue it should be
much more to the point don't worry about the corporate double speak unless I was really
going to do this crazy sort of Tarantino-esque in theory less is more on dialogue but not
always some great long scenes exist it just had better be worth it better be something
that is creating some set piece moment where something extraordinary is happening not just
a big turning point but we're getting a sense of the style of these characters in this movie
that's going to be all about mind games or all about taking down Tommy because he's such
an ass right like Glenn Gary Glenn Ross exactly those long scenes and and shows these salesmen
and kind of like what their style was and different things right and so this is not
that I don't think that there are there's really any absolute rule like keep dialogue
short although in general keep things short because we like to move along but truthfully
it's more a matter of finding the model that you are trying to be like if you're saying
yes I want to have a really dialogue heavy intricate character-based drama then keeping
it short is not always to your advantage it depends you just have to make certain choices
everything is a choice and every choice has a price you have to decide what type of thing
you're trying to do make the choice to do that and then you build every other thing
based on those choices.
Question For The Viewers: How would you critique this scene?