Finding Your Voice (How to Write a Script)

In the fifth examination of how to write a script, we take a look at dialogue and  voice. What makes for effective dialogue? How might a writer express their voice and style? And why did Robin go to karaoke the day before recording this episode and knacker up his vocal chords? Find out all this and other things right here!

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Transcript

Alright writer types? It’s episode five of how to write a script. There are four other episodes predating this one, awaiting your attention, if you’re interested. This time we’re focusing on voice, which is slightly ironic since I’m rather on the brink of losing mine after going to karaoke and singing Unbreak My Heart a bit too forcefully. Though apparently some people like when my voice it’s gravelly. Perverts mainly, I assume. But yes, this episode we’ll be thinking about dialogue, since we didn’t talk about it last episode, and it’s kind of important. And then we’ll ponder how a writer finds their voice and style, so that’s a nice easy topic! So come on everyone, let’s put on our artsy berets, stare wistfully out of the window of creativity and commence some thinking about writing a script.

Thinking About Writing: How to Write A Script. Part Five, Finding Your Voice.

Hi, I’m Robin Taylor, writer and script editor un-extraordinaire, and this is Thinking About Writing, the podcast which aims to explore and demystify some of the terminology and techniques involved in script writing. This is for anyone who is right now writing, or maybe thinking about writing at a future point in their life for TV, theatre, audio and film, as well as anyone who got thoroughly confused and thought this episode about voice is actually a companion podcast for reality singing show, The Voice. Is anyone still watching that? Probably not. But anyway, welcome on in.

So yes, voice. A lot of the technical aspects we’ve looked at so far are in many ways aiming to create a strong, clear framework in which the writing can really shine without the audience thinking, “You what?” And one of the prime, though not exclusive, ways that a writer and their characters can express themselves is through dialogue. If you end up with a fondness or inclination for writing scripts rather than prose, it probably indicates that you like writing dialogue. And I am personally a self-confessed dialogue fan, so I’m gonna be getting over-excited about it, while acknowledging that of course action can be do a lot too, and you could write a script with no dialogue at all, doing a Mr Bean all over the place. But right now, we’re talking about talking, so let’s do that!

Writing Dialogue

Right, we should start with the technical way dialogue is presented in the script, as we didn’t cover that last time. It’s not too complicated in itself, if your character name is centre aligned then the dialogue appears beneath that, if it’s left aligned then it’ll be to the right, with the option of a parenthetical, if, as we discussed last time, there’s something which wouldn’t be apparent in the dialogue itself. Now something interesting to note is that with a theatre script it can be a popular habit to include guides before the script to any special coding within the dialogue. For example a hyphen could indicate interrupted speech, a forward slash denotes overlapping speech. And allow me, if you would, to think about why we only really see these guides in stage play scripts. Well, for one thing, chances are people read theatre scripts and see these guides, so it becomes emulative practice, but also because a theatre text may well go on to be performed by different companies in a way that TV or film scripts aren’t, so a writer might want to be slightly more instructive about how the script should be performed. Now, I might be mildly controversial here and question how necessary these instructions actually are. In a worst case, if the script is full of complex symbols which require frequent reference to the guide, that doesn’t feel that helpful. If there are only one or two instructions, that’s arguably going to be quite self explanatory. It’s understandable why people might want to use them, an interruption for example can be tricky, particular at read through where if the performers aren’t on the ball it could end up going “God dammit, I just wanted to….” Pause “Don’t say another word” And sometimes including Interrupting in a parenthetical can help with that. Equally sometimes a writer might want to give an understanding of what a character might have said if they’d been able to continue, in which case a forward slash, or bracketed italicised words can do that. Sometimes an unknown incomplete thought can be more interesting though, as we are left to wonder and interpret what they might have said if they’d only had the chance. So, as ever is the way in the Thinking About Writing Cinematic Universe, I’m not saying don’t do it, if these kind of symbol prompts in the text help your vision then that’s totally valid, just don’t feel that it’s something you have to include because that’s the done thing if it isn’t actually adding anything to your own approach.

Another curious technical aspect of writing which is open to preference is placing stress. So the line “You could have said something” could vary depending on if the stress was on “You could have” “You could have said.” or “have said something” And usually, again that could be an interpretative option, or self apparent in the text, but if the meaning fundamentally changes depending on where the stress may be then there’s the option to italicise, underline or bold it. You could even capitalise, though as established last time, I’m not a fan of capitals myself. Feels like someone’s booming “YOU could have said something.” And I’d suggest not overusing it in the same way you don’t want to use exclamation marks too much, because it can feel like everyone’s yelling or lost control of their volume levels. And there are other grammatical tools available, such as a question mark followed by an exclamation mark if you want to turn your “What?” into a “What?!” I mainly mention this because it’s got the delightful name of an interabang. 

The last technical point I’d make before we get into the actual art of writing dialogue is the small detail of using Continued when a line of dialogue continues over a page break or is broken up by an action line. With most script writing software that’s done automatically, but if you’re going rogue on a non-unionised word processor then you’d want to include it yourself, most typically adding “Cont’d” in block caps and a parenthetical, (Brackets) The reason for this is again mostly for performance, because if an actor sees their line end the natural assumption is someone else will speak next, so an indication that they’ll be carrying on is helpful to avoid any awkward pauses before they turn the page and say “Oh, it’s me” But also it just indicates there hasn’t been an error in the character names, when it might have changed to whoever else was speaking. Though some might say it should be apparent in the dialogue who is speaking without even seeing the names, ahhh. Well, maybe, yes, that would be nice. So let’s consider how we might achieve such a magical thing.

Creating Dialogue

Before we get to desirable qualities in dialogue, it seems apt to embrace the definitive nature of this How to Write A Script series by asking how to create dialogue, and as with many aspects of analysing how I personally do this stuff, I’m forced to wonder if the way I do it is weird. That’s only been exacerbated by a recent internet fact I read which said that a percentage of people, I’ve forgotten what the number was, maybe 30%, don’t have an internal monologue. Is that true? Or is it just some nonsense like we only use ten percent of our brain? Because I don’t understand how people think if they don’t have a voice in their head. Then again, maybe that explains the state of the world a bit. Get in touch if you don’t have an internal monologue and explain how you think. Because personally I’ve always got a voice jabbering away in my brain, in fact it’s often a bit of a dialogue, as two voices have an ongoing argument, which explains why I rarely make decisions or indeed get much done. So in that sense, I find dialogue quite easy because I just let those internal voices have a natter, imagining how a conversation would go. Indeed I often run through dialogue several times in my head to shape it in a way that feels fulfilling and consistent and does what I want it to do. Arguably I let it stew in there too long, when it’d be better just to get a version down, so I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, and indeed maybe it’s weird. Again, let us know.

What is definitely beneficial is to have an ear for conversation and an understanding of how it functions and varies in particular situations. For example, in an interview situation the pattern is generally one person asks a question and the other responds in a cycling pattern. That set up in a supposedly casual conversation could feel strangely formal or one-sided. And indeed variations stem from context. If someone is concerned about the person they’re talking too then they may be inquisitive, empathetic, calming. If someone is trying to hide something then their responses will be evasive and they might fire back questions in an effort to change the subject. And evidently these changes can link to the nature of the character or their current state. And this is where the idea of dialogue matching the character, even if we couldn’t see the names, comes into play. 

So a confident character we can think is likely to speak with a definite manner, their words to the point, potentially brusk, they may well speak in imperatives, such as “Look” or “Listen”, naturally ordering around those they speak to. A nervous personality is more likely to stumble around their words, struggle to get to the point or say anything assertive, to even contradict themselves out of fear of saying the wrong thing “Yes, no, I did sort of want to, but I thought you might not want me to want to.” Now, potentially we’ve done a lot of the character work by the time we start putting together the dialogue, and you might want to go back and listen to episode two on character creation if you want to hear more about that. So you can bring a sense of who the character is to how they speak. If you’re a more intuitive or empathic writer you might want to let the character speak and then find out who they are that way, or, as suggested previously, you may want to try writing a monologue for them, so as to begin to explore their voice. This can be helpful for an actor too, as it might give them more pure insight into their character which will influence their performance.

Finding idiosyncrasies in how someone speaks can help to build a sense of distinctiveness and individuality, though it’s wise not to necessarily overdo it. I remember a shop keeper who used to call customers “My darling” and that’s peculiar and amusing, but if I were to put that idea into a script and the character said “my darling” every time they spoke, it’d feel overdone and a bit cartoonish. And indeed, while consistency can be a desirable quality, it’s also worth recognising that in real life, you know, that terrible place, people’s speech patterns do alter depending on the situation. The big cheese CEO of a major company doesn’t talk to the board the same way they would to their children. Or if they did, it’d feel like a sketch “I’m unimpressed by these numbers when it come to broccoli intake at dinner.” So sometimes the challenge can be to variate speech while still feeling truthful to the core character, to show different sides to them without abandoning the essence of who they are. But it’s also part of the fun and intrigue of writing, recognising how people change based on who they’re talking to, whether they love them or hate them, building up a sense of relationships and dynamics, feelings of unspoken pre-history. If all your characters are meeting each other for the first time, or it feels like they barely know each other, that’s not necessarily very exciting, unless you’re quickly building their relationship, whereas picking up on hints in the way people who have an understanding of each other interact is intriguing and engaging.

Now of course there is one style of voice which a writer is likely to be most familiar with and that is their own. And it may well make sense to incorporate yourself into how a character speaks because that should come naturally to you, rather than having to manufacture an original voice. But the risk here is if all the characters sound like you, because they then don’t have their individual voices, they all simply sound the same, and a reasonable assumption a reader or audience may reach is that it the writer is simply speaking through their characters. And even if you do manage to resist that urge and bring in a suitable level of variation, you may still want to recognise if you have particular vocal habits which are permeating the characters. Personally I say well and just a lot, for some reason, and I some times notice all my characters keep saying well and, well, that’s not great. So it can be necessary to go through and do a cleanse and fix anything which isn’t sitting right or is limiting the voice. We’ll talk a bit more about these type of issues when we get to proof reading later in the series - that sounds more like a threat than a tantalising advertisement. 

Character in Voice

Now if you know me, you’ll know I like making fun of some of the slightly luvvie things that actors can say before suggesting they’re actually making a valid point. I have literally done that one other time in the episode on motivation. But in that vein, another classic when an actor remarks “My character wouldn’t say that.” The tempting response could be “I invented your character, they say what I say they say, buddy.” But at times they may be onto something. Sometimes something isn’t quite right and the necessity of the script has made a line come out which doesn’t really fit the character and it needs another look to make it more suitable. And realistically, sometimes we may write lines which are a bit clunky or just word salads and really awkward for someone to actually say. Having the script read out can help to recognise these discrepancies, but also just saying the line back to yourself and realising it doesn’t have a particularly pleasant mouth feel to it. Crikey I do it all the time on this show where I read back something I wrote and think “what the hell was that supposed to mean, stupid past me.” Some might argue that I let a fair few of those slip through the net anyway. Why is this episode so self-referential? Anyway, sentences or speeches can run too long and would benefit from a timely comma or full stop to replicate real speech and just give the performer space to breath. Even silly things like not recognising when words feel more natural in their abbreviated form can matter. If your character says “I am not going” they can sound robotic, simply because they’d more likely say “I’m”. So there’s a necessity to recognise that written and spoken words can be quite different, and to make it sound genuine one has to be able to adjust our writing to how people actually speak and again be skilled and picking up and replicating vernacular.

With this in mind, there can often be an emphasis on realistic dialogue, and obviously if speech sounds like natural conversation and the tone is aiming for natural, then that is certainly a desirable quality. But it’s important to note that it is still dramatic writing, it is aiming to reflect rather than emulate reality, cutting out the dull and irrelevant elements so as to focus on what is important and not getting bogged down in the mundane. I’ve said in the past that trying to write every umm and err that a person might say can actually diminish a script, as it may not work so well when performed, sounding a bit unnatural when read out. And indeed if the vibe you want is more of that natural err umm manner, it may make sense to write towards a more improvisational style, where the performers are enabled to riff and speak more naturally. That still requires a script and a structure though, you can’t just write “The characters do and say stuff here.” Though that would save a lot of time and effort. But clearly there are some writer and directors who embrace and encourage improvisation and other writers are insistent that they wrote the script that way on purpose so just say the damn words on the page. 

But again dramatic writing doesn’t simply replicate speech. Think about repetition, repetition can often make speech feel artificial or just boring because if there’s too much repetition of a particular word, that repetition can leave us thinking “What’s with all the repetition?” That’s why language has synonyms, so we can say the same thing in different ways, and that’s what makes speech interesting. Without this it can be dull, inauthentic or ineloquent. And even the way a writer writes an ineloquent character can have artistry and thought to it. Then again, to take this too far, we may shove words into the mouths of characters who wouldn’t use them to force some variation into the writing. So knowing the logical vocabulary of your characters can also help in making sure they speak in a way which feels true to them. 

We can also be aware of cliche and generic language, again something which can occur in everyday speech. It’d be a bit ridiculous to suggest a writer shouldn’t imitate tropes and memes in speech, but we can recognise that some times a phrase can feel a bit too familiar, particularly in dramatic writing. There’s a classic supercut of every time a character in film or TV says “You just don’t get it, do you?” And that’s not a particularly commonly used expression in everyday life. So we may recognise when our characters are basically speaking like a character in a TV show, for example. That sort of self awareness can work sometimes, if it befits the general style of the script. We all love an action hero quip, for example, and indeed without it they’re just going around brutally murdering people rather than having a fun jokey experience. But other times self aware writing can be a bit like the writer waving a huge red flag to announce “Hello, I am here writing this!” We may recognise as people who like scripted content that sometimes we have been influenced to copy that kind of scripted speech. Which sort of raise the question, what’s wrong with that if that other scripted stuff was good? Fair point. If it feels like a bit of a soulless imitation, then it’s a big issue though. So the balance between natural dialogue and dramatic dialogue can sometimes be a bit of a tight rope and requires the writer’s acknowledgment of when there could be better ways to express what they want to say.

We may talk about some writing having a conversational style, and this can be fine if that’s the intention, and as long as the conversation is interesting and develops. But if it is simply mimicking chatter which doesn’t go anywhere, well we could just listen in to people’s conversations in the queue at Gregg’s rather than paying nineteen pounds for a cinema ticket and a tub of day old popcorn. If scenes run too long in their effort to portray genuine conversation, they can drag, effect the pacing, diminishing audience interest, and cut into future scenes time allowance. 

Purpose and Intent

Writers have tools to keep the dialogue on point, and fortunately they are things we looked at in previous episodes, how efficient. So knowing the purpose of the scene will influence what is discussed - is it gathering information, forging a deal, making arrangements. Then how much time needs to be dedicated to this, and is anything which is surplus to this purpose necessary? A scene can have a number of purposes, and it may have tangents, but it’s generally quite easy to see when the purpose has been served but the dialogue continues unnecessarily. Another useful device is knowing the character’s intention in the scene, which links back to the work we did on motivation. So in a more plot driven story it may well be something practical, they want to persuade someone to give them a job or form an alliance, for example, or it could be something more emotional, such as caring for the other character, or manipulating or seducing them. If you know what the characters want that will determine how they speak to one another and where the focus lies in the conversation. Without these considerations the risk is that the scene has no point or direction and therefore the characters are border line rambling.

Now that’s not to say that dialogue should be blunt or clipped, only focusing on the plot and ignoring the humanity, and indeed there’s a balance to be formed and it’s useful to make sure the dialogue does not feel too expositional. There are two whole episodes focused on the topics of Exposition and Show Don’t Tell in series one of this podcast, so if you want to hear more about that, those are where you wanna go. Essentially the risk can be that dialogue can be too direct, stating facts and information in a way which doesn’t feel real, purely serving the story, which audiences can naturally be turned off by. At the other end of the scale the writing can be almost obtuse if it’s trying too hard to not be expositional, in which case the writer knows what’s going on but hasn’t really let the audience in on it very well. And this may sound frustrating, asking for dialogue to feel purposeful but not too purposeful, and there is a level of fine tuning that can go on to make sure it is contributing something vital without being too blatant in its aim. It is a skill to tell a story without showing the workings that you are undertaking to do so. Fundamentally it comes down to communication, not just between writer and audience but between human beings as a whole. 

It helps to recognise subtext and nuance, that people generally don’t speak directly, that we use words to suggest, or that we don’t necessarily always recognise what we’re subconsciously saying. Sure, sometimes people can starkly blurt out their feelings, usually when they’ve reached the end of their tether, but if they do that all the time then it can feel unearned or untruthful. Subtext also allows for economy of language, to be able to say a lot without actually writing so much, which not only demonstrates human understanding but helps out with dreaded word and page counts. So if you were to undertake a script about a fractured family relationship, you could write a long tirade for a character where they yell at their father “You treat me like rubbish. I try so hard to be a good son and you don’t even engage with me and it makes me feel miserable all the time.” Or you could write a scene where the character is leaving the house and hopefully calls out “See you later.” and gets no response, and we see their reaction to being blanked. Effectively it achieves the same kind of feeling, but rather than splurging out the characters emotions and the state of affairs, it invites the audience to interpret, to empathise with that feeling, and it’s potentially more emotionally effecting because it is felt without the character being able to express their hidden emotions. 

As I say, maybe towards the end of the script that character has had enough and finally builds up the strength to berate their father, then there could be audience catharsis in that - at last they told him how it is - whereas if we began with that, there’s no journey or discovery for the audience, it’s just all out and apparent, and there is little room for that relationship to develop, unless the father then attempts to make amends, which would adjust the approach to the plot. So we can see communicating to an audience isn’t about stating the obvious and pushing a story upon them, but its arguably more about inviting them to understand, to use their own skills of communication to recognise what you are showing to them.

Now it may well be that you’re not that fussed about realistic dialogue and wish to write in a different manner, lyrical couplets or a very heightened manner, and that’s all lovely and valid too. In such a case, consistency is probably what matters most as well as conviction, so it is delivered in a clearly intentional way and doesn’t come across as accidentally odd. Though it’s probably quite an obtuse reader who is thinking “Why on Earth does everything the characters say rhyme.” But this isn’t to say that all realistic writing is uniform, there are naturally variations between them, and this essentially comes down to a writer’s voice. Topic change time!

Thinking About Voice

So voice can be something difficult to qualify or quantify or even another word that starts with qua and ends with ify. Now forgive me if I’m wrong, but it’s possible that when we hear voice being mentioned our mind can instinctively go towards dialect and regional identity. And there certainly are writers whose distinctiveness is associated with a particular place or region: Jimmy McGovern and Liverpool. Lisa McGee and Derry, via Derry Girls. Alan Bennet and the general north. Does that mean they can only write about those areas? Of course not, but their ability to capture the identity of a place does contribute to making the writing feel unique and interesting. We’ve discussed before that giving a script a strong sense of place can add to its character, so naturally that carries across to the speech of the characters. So if you have the knack to convey the dialect of where you grew up or live, it can be another string to your bow in terms of making your script stand out and have an identity, transforming dialogue into something which sparkles with life and culture. 

Now some writers may extend this into writing in phonetics to fully capture the dialect, but that’s worth a bit of thought. They’re not easy to write and you should assess how effectively they communicate your intentions. An accent can be implied without being written verbatim. If someone reading is spending more time translating in their brain than enjoying the dialogue, it could be an issue.  If it’s a technique you want to try it might be wise running it past someone less familiar with the vernacular you’re using to see how well they can follow the dialogue. And if you’re looking to write something which isn’t in your own regional accent than you may want to be particularly sensitive and considerate whether it’s appropriate to adopt it. You don’t want to end up with something that offends an entire geographical area, as a rule.

 But voice isn’t restricted to where we are from. It can also be simply how we express ourselves or communicate, and this can be determined by perspective, experience, imagination - all sorts of things. It’s fair to say that often a writer’s voice can be inspired by other writers, the kind of culture we consume and enjoy in our formative years. This can lead to work which is influenced by, paying homage to, or frankly pretty much imitating other writers. And this isn’t a bad thing, if anything it shows that a wannabe writer can potentially take on the aspects of writing which speak to them, showing a level of engagement and understanding which can be vital as part of being a conscious writer. It is then, generally, a matter of moving on from that initial inspiration, continuing to explore and develop as a writer in our own right, whilst potentially still staying true to the spirit of the work which effected you in the first place. A daunting prospect perhaps, but it recognises that while some aspects of voice may spring naturally from our upbringing and the world we grow up, it can also be found and honed over time. 

It’s more than likely that the first piece you ever write will not perfectly encapsulate your personal voice. More likely there will be hints of your personality which need to be fostered. It’s thus a matter of deducing what you enjoy, or where your strengths are. And this is another challenging thing to do independently. It’s possibly another reason why many writers begin their journeys in theatre, because it’s possible to stage work and get an audience response, to get a sense of what they appreciate in your writing. You might want to listen to the episodes talking to Box of Tricks theatre about nurturing voices, or with Jonathan Harvey where he discusses finding his voice and how hearing an audience react to a play influenced his writing. At the same time, the ability to adapt ones own approach to match someone else’s style can be a critical skill when it comes to working on existing shows, where you can’t simply do your own thing without derailing the established in-house approach and getting swiftly fired. But within this we can acknowledge another couple of factors in voice. For one, we can imagine giving the same plot structure to five different writers and then see how they each translate that, and within each version there will be their different voices, even if they were aiming for the same style. But also part of a voice or style can be in how a writer plots a story, the decisions and directions they take which may be unexpected or unusual and therefore distinctive.

Voice can also relate, as you could sort of expect, to what the writer has to say. Telling specific rather than generic stories, writing unique, under-represented characters or incorporating social or political commentary can all show a writer’s voice. This can give the work a sense of urgency, a feeling that this is writing which needs to be heard. We can also cross reference a writer’s voice with their personal style. We might talk about Pinteresque, Tarentinoesque or Chekhovian writing, where there are particular techniques, topics or themes which define the writer and are oft imitated. Again these may be approaches that you develop over time, and are often the product of necessity or innovation, thinking “How can I do this in a particular way which really conveys the mood I’m going for?” or “How can I do this in a way that hasn’t been done before?” Obviously it’s quite a task to dramatically reshape the conventions of writing, which is why we don’t necessarily name styles after writers particularly frequently, but it’s certainly an ambition worth aiming for. Because in that process you may well challenge yourself and do great, interesting things. Indeed, one of the best ways that a script can stand out is to be trying something different. Taking risks can mean a script ends up a little too unconventional, but within that there may well be the spark of originality which excites folks who are likely used to seeing the same old thing time and time again. The challenge for everyone involved is to then hone that spark so that you have control over it and can use it effectively without diminishing it. It’s not always a successful endeavour, but it indicates that there can be opportunities out there for mavericks, as well as safe pairs of hands.

There are a couple of interesting things to note here. One is that, we might aspire to honing our voice to the extent that we can deliver what is definitively an “Insert name of you, the writer” script. The kind of thing that only you can write and no one else could. Mainly because that might ensure no one else could steal your job. But we might worry that folks don’t like our distinctive style, or that they’d get bored of it if we kept doing it. And it’s a tricky one, isn’t it? You don’t necessarily want to keep doing the same thing over and over, particularly if it doesn’t seem to be getting much response. But if you have a voice or style that you feel is true to you, you don’t want to give up on it and move on when maybe it just needs more time to really flourish or for the right person to appreciate and promote it. And some people simply don’t want to be pigeon holed or restricted to one particular style. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s absolutely an argument to try out all sorts of things and experiment when you’re starting out to learn what you like, what resonates with you and where your skills may lie. And absolutely don’t assume you can only do one thing when the core skills of writing are transferable across all mediums, yet certain ones may simply fit your approach better than others. 

I’d also say that, even though this episode has had a focus on dialogue, that isn’t the only way the voice is expressed, and certainly not style. It can be in your visual storytelling, the innovative methods you embrace a particular humour or emotional understanding which is special to you and conveyed in a fresh way. Finally it also helps to recognise that even distinctive writers, such as the likes of Russell T Davies for example, are always innovating and hitting different octaves in their voice, while still fundamentally staying true to themselves. You can fake a voice, of course, just like this. But when it feels genuine, an audience tends to feel it and respond to it. And as has been a bit of a theme in this episode, it’s about communication. Because that voice is inside of you, it’s just about finding an effective way to express it. And it is a challenge. But it’s exciting too. And speaking of exciting, it’s time to think about that launderette idea I’ve been harping on about all series. Whoopee.

Putting This in Practice

So how do we apply this kind of thing to terminally doomed launderette based drama, White Wash? Blimey, we’ve had two weeks off talking about it, I’d almost forgotten it existed. What a happy time that was. Looking at our lead character - I don’t know why I say our, I’m clearly trying to share the blame there - Gloria, well, we know she works in customer service, but she also kind of hates her job, so that’s going to have some influence on how she communicates with others. If she’s under-estimated then she’s evidently smart, and I think she’d potentially reflect the disdain she receives back onto the men folk in her family. And it’d be fun to give her a bit of acidic wit to take down the patriarchy that’s suppressing her. So in that sense, it’d be nice to see that she speaks to her friendly customers nicely - she’s a professional, she can be caring when it’s earned, and she isn’t only always spiky, but when pushed she can push back. Inspired by that “my darling” shopkeeper I mentioned before, there could be an inherent fondness and familiarity in how she interacts with customers which denotes that she’s been doing the job a while and has got to know these individuals, without us needing to see that developing, it’s already in place. 

There can be a bit of a shift between the friendly front of house person and behind the scenes where she’s all business - like almost too officious and serious, to show she’s basically got misplaced, frustrated potential, stuck in a job she’s too good and ambitious for. It’s possible to marry these two sides to her without feeling inconsistent or deceitful, it’s just that in different environments her behaviours naturally shift, particularly based on how she feels about the people she’s dealing with. If we go down the route that she’s essentially mentoring her nephew who is heir to the family business then that’s a particularly interesting relationship, and the dynamic of their dialogue could be a lot of fun, mixing a bit of contempt, resentment, alongside a protective fondness, which he evidently has to earn - we need to see he’s not like the rest of them, that he’s got respect for his aunt, even if he is also a bit of a douchebag at the same time. There’s going to be that generational clash between how a millennial or Gen X type speaks to a Gen Z, and if he’s been raised as the golden child then he’d naturally have a certain arrogance and entitlement to how he sees things and therefore communicates, whereas Gloria has had to struggle to get most things. If they end up on missions together, for the business, then it’s also fun to think about how they’d deal with the situations. Would Gloria naturally go in a little bit too strong, keen to prove herself, but consequently riling up people, while the nephew with a more laid back, diplomatic approach can often get things done. Figuring out the strengths and weaknesses they both provide will determine how they behave in different situations, allowing for complexity within their characters and therefore variation in how they communicate between themselves and with others. So there’s a strong core for each, but they are not stoically singular in their behaviours, which can allow for surprising and shifting dynamics, rather than everything being too predictable.

And within all of this I’d have to ask how do I project my own voice? Well, I do like writing jokes, and even though this is a drama script, I’ve said in the past that brilliant dramas have aspects of humour in them too. There’s something inherently silly about a crime drama with a launderette as a central location, which befits a bit of humour, and I think Gloria’s misplaced aspirations towards being a crime lord and her useless nephew who doesn’t deserve such accolades would generate fun stuff. But I wouldn’t want the whole thing to be daft, so would need to find some gravitas and emotional impact in there too, which I like to think I’m capable of. I’ve always had a tendency to include dream and fantasy elements in scripts, but that doesn’t feel right here, and that’s one of those instances where I think varying my style to suit the project is necessary. And what else do I offer? Well, with those two bickering voices in my brain I mentioned earlier, that tends to allow for a flexible moral view, so I wouldn’t be saying crime or capitalism are inherently bad things, nor that their good either, which hopefully allows for some complexity in the characters, that these aren’t heroes or villains, but people pushed into situations by societal or personal pressures. Is the interesting? You tell me! But I do know a lot of my voice comes from the layering up, it’s not the first pass that nails everything, though it’ll be there in parts, but it’s the ongoing rewrites and refinements that really brings it out. So basically, I wouldn’t assume the voice is naturally there, I need to find and project it. And perhaps most importantly, not beating myself up and thinking I have to create the most original script ever written, but something which feels true to me and what I want to do. God this episode got even more self referential. Yuck.

Anyway, I’m not going to give some sample snatch of dialogue right now, because I’ve a feeling that’d sound cheesy and terrible out of context, but you’ve got time to insist via the social medias that I put together a sample of the opening for this concept which I officially don’t really like, which will be even more relevant when it comes to the next episode. So if you want me to suffer, you know what to do!

Right, I’d better summarise. And the core question of this episode is probably how do you find your voice? Recognising your cultural inspirations can obviously be useful, what you enjoy in writing will influence how you want to write yourself. So if you like wit or silliness, thought provocation or blood pumping action, that may lead you to bring that into your own work. In which case, as ever, consuming, watching, listening to and reading art will inspire you, whether it’s in thinking “I want to do something like that” “How would I do my version of that?” or “I could do something better than that.” Then applying your personal perspective on or understanding of the world, your culture or upbringing - not to get too shamanistic - but the spirits of people you’ve known and who’ve stayed with you, and then applying this way of thinking to your writing. Then the big challenge is to try things out, develop and evolve your writing, refine it so that anything which feels particularly generic or imitative or inauthentic is filtered out. So lots of writing, experimenting and development. Pushing to express yourself, to write in a way which encapsulates your point of view or philosophy or your spirit. Basically to communicate in a special, individual, powerful way. Because that’s what great voices do. Time for the end of the episode!

Outro

So there we go, we’ve thought about voice, an ephemeral thing that can manifest in all manner of ways and stem from a multitude of sources. Based on that description, I’m surprised this episode was slightly shorter than the previous ones. If you’re doing work along exercises at home, then obviously this is a great opportunity to write some dialogue. Or a monologue. Explore those character’s voices and your own. Imagine a scenario, or take a scene you’re planning, and put your characters into position to see what they say, how they communicate, how to get to the point without it feeling entirely functional but rather artistically fulfilling. No big ask, eh? 

Now we’ve covered most of the fundamentals of how to write a script, we’re now in a position to write a script, aren’t we? And where better to start next episode than with the start, in this case the first ten pages, that long held arbiter of script judgment! So that’s exactly what we’ll be doing next time, with a check list of aspirations for the opening to your script, which indicate qualities you potentially want to have ruining throughout. Until then, if you’ve any questions comments or strange noises you’d like to send our way you can do that through the Twitter/X thing @writing_pod, or through my web site doohickey, robinleetaylor.com where you can even request some script notes from my hairy self. You can also follow the podcast to make sure you don’t miss an episode, and leave a rating or review if you want to make my day. Thanks as ever for listening, keeping training that voice like an operatic prima donna of the written word, and take some time to do some thinking about how to write a script. Okay, take care, bye bye.