Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen

Previews did not show the Table of Contents, but it is worth searching the web for. The coverage includes practical techniques as well as case studies. Notes cover titles on topics over several decades. This book has four parts about what dialogue is, how it can mended, and how it can be created and designed. Trialogue, the third thing through which a pair of characters channel conflict in conversation, is an interesting concept because it overlaps social networks or media and comms devices; it is also looked at historically. Dialogue is reportedly the quickest way to fix a narrative text since it appeals to intuition. Those levels of depth are what the book is about. They can be found in first person voice. The approach could easily fill a site on the order of tropes for favorite titles, but for deconstruction and revision, which are also relevant to works in progress. It talks about finding characters in the dark, though not necessarily from the milieu, unless it were compressed and made to transfer meaning like in poetry, but reflexive so that it is symmetrical to the characters or human nature. If there is a boundary to be found, then this method is going to hit the lines to find out what happens then. The impact on the rest of the narrative elements is discussed. This extends back through the early philosophers, through tragedy, the merging of European roots into English, and the study of personalities to contemporary customs. Voice is plot.

Probably the best book on screenwriting ever (besides Egri), though there is also much here for the novelist and playwright. I am a professional TV writer, of long-standing (35 years), and I can tell you I used this book to figure out how to fix the problems of a complex pilot I'm writing; the author truly " guided me home." And lest you think I'm a McKee sycophant, I am not. I found little in STORY for me. The only thing I disagree with in DIALOGUE is that the author sells his own work short: it isn't just for those who are "lost" in their writing, like me, and the student, it's for anyone who writes fiction for a living, in any form, no matter how much experience they have. It's that good.

Very insightful

This book contains a lot of helpful information on how to write dialogue. It's dense with dialogue analysis and insights, tough to take in by just reading it through once. But it is helpful.McKee covers the three dialogue tiers (said, unsaid, unsayable) as well as how dialogue ties into story turning points and scene conflict type. I still have lots of practice ahead of me to figure out how best to do this in my story. I will definitely use his advice as a guide. He understands dialogue at a much deeper level than I do.However, many of McKee's dialogue examples did not speak to me. While I liked reading the dialogue examples for Breaking Bad, 30 Rock, The Sopranos, Frasier, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Great Gatsby, and agreed they were good, I disliked the dialogue from Shakespeare, Elmore Leonard, Sideways, Fraulein Else, and Lost in Translation. McKee says fine dialogue turns the reader/audience into a mind reader; I guess I'm not interested in movies which expect me to be as much of a mind reader as those latter examples did. I totally missed the subtext of the dialogue in those until he explained it to me as an aside. And that's after I already saw most of those movies!If I have to guess what every character means with every line, that's too much work and too little entertainment for me. Maybe mystery lovers liked the dialogue in "Lost in Translation"; I'm not a mystery lover. McKee quoted one novelist as saying that the crux of good writing is to, "Make em laugh, make em cry, make em wait." Lost In Translation and its dialogue did none of that for me. The subtext was so confusing and subtle that I lost interest in the movie. I can't even remember what it was about anymore, only that it won some award and I had no clue why.McKee says that with rare exceptions, a scene should never be outwardly and entirely about what it seems to be about. Dialogue should imply, not explain, its subtext. An ever-present subtext is the guiding principle of realism.Nonrealism, on the other hand, employs on-the-nose dialogue in all its genres and subgenres: myth and fairytale, science fiction and time travel, animation, the musical, the supernatural, Theatre of the Absurd, action/adventure, farce, horror, allegory, magical realism, postmodernism, dieselpunk retrofuturism, and the like. It's a bit unclear how, if at all, anyone writing in any of these "nonreal" genres should take his dialogue advice. It seems to me that even sci fi scenes need some good dialogue with subtext to be engaging.With McKee, all the accolades go to what is implied and unsaid over what is said. I agree that subtext matters, but for me, he's out of proportion with how much it matters to most people and how hard audiences are willing to work to discover the intended subtext. Also, memorable spoken character lines can elevate movie themes and characterization like nothing else.In the end, I think this book is geared more toward writers who want other advanced writers as their audience rather than the average reader or movie watcher. And McKee admits it is definitely not geared toward sci fi, fairytales/myths, action/adventure, horror or allegory. It's almost as if he's saying those genres can't have excellent dialogue. I disagree.But it was still a helpful book to read, and one I will be thinking about and trying to more fully understand for a long time. McKee understands how character's subconscious drives can deepen what they say or avoid saying, and how dialogue interacts with many other aspects of a story to make it all work together.

I haven't read the book yet, but it looks very interesting. It's from the same author as "Story", which is a popular screenwriting book, so I assume that this one will be as helpful! It doesn't only teach you how to write dialogue for the screen, but also for novel and the stage. A must-have for writers!

I have the book STORY by Robert Mckee, its a bible for story writing but this book I started to read but even after 10 pages nothing absolutely nothing makes any sense .. its only verbal jargons to fill pages with no meaning so far. A final verdict can be given only after reading full book but the way it is going, its seems a complete waste of time and money. Author is not making any point but just talking something something ... I am a fan of Robert Mckee though not this book 😕... So far.. will post update on completion..

Mais um excelente livro de Robert McKee. De forma didática, o autor apresenta a forma mais competente de criar diálogos que soam reais e que realmente contribuem para a evolução da história que se quer apresentar.O complemento perfeito para Story.

I've been to McKee's TV Day seminar, and I've read his previous book Story. Both were excellent and this book is no different. This book isn't for people who want what they call 'practical' advice i.e., a mechanical system to follow, paint by numbers. I'd say if you found Story illuminating, you'll like Dialogue equally so. I read the book when it first came out and am now listening to the audiobook.What I found most fascinating is McKee's analysis of different types kinds of conflict expressed through dialogue, especially his analysis of A scene from The Sopranos, and another from Lost in Translation.A last thought about the negative reviews: go over to amazon.com to see the reviews there which average 4.5 stars, with 3/4 of reviewers giving it 5 stars and 9/10 reviewers giving it 4 or above.

Annoying man, good book.