The Screenplay: The Line

The building block of a scene

The Line is a part of dialogue, and is variously defined as:

1. One speech by a character
2. One sentence of one speech by a character
3. (In plural) All the speeches by a character throughout a scene or script

Here we’ll look at the first sense of ‘Line’ — one speech by a character, generally a short one.

There is a rhythm that arises from a good scene of dialogue between two or more characters, or between one character’s lines and his actions. A well-written scene can use this rhythm to entrance the reader and absolutely draw him into the world of the tale. If the characters are well-defined, and revealing themselves while they are propelling the action forward, their lines become a sort of dance that will compel the reader to keep reading the script. This is the sort of scene that actors love to play, and directors of actors love to stage.

The rhythm comes not only from the content of the lines, as in the hopes and fears revealed, the conflict of desires, or the information disclosed, but it also comes from the relative length and intensity of the lines.

The most powerful line is a single utterance, let it be a word or a grunt or a scream. But such lines only gain their tremendous power from having been set up by the context of the scene and the script up to that point, and by the rhythm of the lines that lead up to them.

A character defines himself as much by the length and rhythm of his lines as he does by their content.

A well-written scene of lines of dialogue is lamed by too much description of actions. Such description should be limited to that which is absolutely necessary to tell the reader what is going on; mere adornments of actions get in the way.

But sometimes an action serves as part of the rhythm of the lines of dialogue; it can punctuate a line or give a character a chance to delay his line, building suspense as to what his response will be.

The screenwriter must develop his sense not only of how the scene should, he hopes, be played and shot and seen onscreen, but also how it ‘plays’ when it is read. Beginners will err mostly in wanting to put in too much description in a dialogue scene, noting the action of every character for every line he delivers. This slows down the reading of the script, bogs it down, and blurs the reader’s focus from the characters, which is where it belongs.

(Even where the talesman only uses the screenplay form to compose a proto-draft, uses it solely for his own purpose, and intends to draw from it a novel or other form of writing, he should refrain from too much reliance on descriptions of actions breaking up lines of dialogue. What counts in a dialogue scene is the nature and dealing of the characters. Description should be added later unless the act described is crucial to the events of the scene.)

Chronic action by a character in a scene, such as a nervous tic, should be noted only once (twice at the maximum) and indicated as continuing:

Throughout the scene he keeps lighting cigarettes and stubbing them out.

In the same way, adverbial notes as to how lines are to be delivered, in parentheticals, slow down and distract the reader from the lines; actors and directors resent parentheticals as attempts by the writer to force them to play the scene in a narrow, predefined manner. Parentheticals should be avoided. Use them only where the general way the line is delivered is not at all obvious from the content of the line — the way such a line would normally be played.

If the screenwriter has defined his characters well, he should need not rely upon parentheticals. The reader, actor, and director should know quite well how this character would feel and behave in this scene, and how he would deliver this line.

(Composed on keyboard Tuesday, June 3, 2008)