the hardest damn dialogue to write...

[ftangredi]

... is people saying hello when a character enters a room.

"Hello." "Hello" seems like such a waste of space.

Comments

[hector31]

Hey.

[vavaverity]

Fraaaank! How nice to see you.

[skin_it_mahatma]

yo.

[vinylchances]

Not that I'm in any position to lecture YOU on how to write scripts...

But when I was taking screenwriting classes in college, I always enjoyed the challenge of finding a personalized greeting that fit each character's personality, whether it be warm and sincere, socially awkward, sarcastic, bitter, what have you. Never used the word "hello."

Yeah

[el_jefe_rey]

How about 'Care for a shag?'?

[ftangredi]

I can usually manage something. But I was stumped on this one for some reason. The man already in the room has returned from being away for a few days. He knows he is going to have to have a serious, unpleasant talk with one of the people he is waiting for. The two people coming in are miserable and exhausted.

If they had seen each other hours before, no greeting would be necessary. But the two-day absence seems like something that needed to be acknowledged.

I've solved the problem in a natural way. But it was a pain in the ass having to think about it when I knew exactly where the dialogue had to go once the preliminary crap was out of the way.

It's even worse when somebody is coming into a room and everybody is happy and everybody needs to greet the newcomer. But at least in those cases, you can just write AD LIB GREETINGS. And let the actors worry about it.

[spherulitic]

Sup dawg. Howz my homiez hangin'?

[ftangredi]

Or I might just use that.

I think it will work especially well for the 70 year-old German grandmother.

[quinquennia]

I was just going to add " 'sup bitchez!"

[skin_it_mahatma]

since grandma is german, "'sup bitchen!"