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Question 1

Voices

Answer 1

Voices are made by writers to ‘speak’ to a reader

Question 2

Purpose and process

Answer 2

Strategies and tactics to find and hone voices of characters

Question 3

other people’s writing

Answer 3

gives a reference point for your own work

Question 4

Engage

Answer 4

The writer needs to engage an audience or reader

Question 5

Refine

Answer 5

Refine the language so the narrative or sequences have maximum impact

Question 6

Draft

Answer 6

A version of the writing - there will be several drafts

Question 7

edit

Answer 7

what to leave in and what to cut out

Question 8

Drafting

Answer 8

to sharpen the focus of the writing

Question 9

influence of film on writing

Answer 9

sharpens the focus of the story by cutting out extraneous information

Question 10

show don’t tell

Answer 10

John was very angry with his child. John grabbed the child by his wrist and slapped the back of his leg or “Come here NOW!”

Question 11

Forward movement

Answer 11

Moving a story on
when we speculate about the character - it advances the story
The character drives the story

Question 12

character’s voices

Answer 12

Must be distinguishable between each other

Question 13

consistency in tone

Answer 13

Each character will be recognisable from how they speak. The writer will immediately know how one character speaks and what they would say

Question 14

Indirect responses

Answer 14

Why don’t we worry about the food shopping later?
He’s bound to be gluten free. carb free, sugar free, fun free isn’t he.

Sol Stein believes good dialogue needs to be oblique - to contain indirect responses.

Question 15

Interruptions

Answer 15

He was such a lovely boy he -

- Did you want tea or coffee mum?

Question 16

pauses

Answer 16

You should do this question in the exam…

… yes, definitely.

Question 17

repetition

Answer 17

He made me laugh so much. He did… When he tipped the dinner on the tablecloth. You would have found it funny. He really made me laugh.

Question 18

Hesitation

Answer 18

Er… well… I’m not sure if that’s actually correct… yes, well. You know better.

Question 19

overlapping dialogue

Answer 19

CONSTRUCTED TO IMITATE THE REALITY OF PEOPLE TALKING ACROSS EACH OTHER
Anne Yes, /we’d love to come and see your holiday snaps
John I’m afraid we’re rather tied up that weekend

Question 20

genre

Answer 20

drama, documentary, play, docu-drama

Question 21

sub-genre

Answer 21

romance, comedy, black comedy, horror, fantasy

Question 22

main aim of speech

Answer 22

to give an insight into a character and action

Question 23

voices

Answer 23

are representations of how people really talk

Question 24

dialogue creates

Answer 24

an illusion of reality. to make you feel you are eavesdropping on a real conversation

Question 25

Real life transcripts

Answer 25

are dull, directionless and often incoherent - Sol Stein -go to a supermarket, eavesdrop, most of what you hear is ‘idiot talk’

Question 26

transforming transcripts into dialogue

Answer 26

tidy up all the stutters, false starts, hiccups - edited to sound like ‘real speech’

Question 27

Raymond Chandler ‘Double Indemnity’ adaptation

Answer 27

The book’s dialogue was ‘written for the eye and not the ear’ - he had to reinvent the language

Question 28

Caryl Churchill ‘Top Girls’ ‘Three more sleepless nights’

Answer 28

Two kinds of quarrels - one where you speak and one where you both talk at once.
overlapping speech. Uses backslash to indicate speech overlapping. CONSTRUCTED to imitate reality

Question 29

Harold Pinter - The Caretaker, The Birthday Party

Answer 29

‘superficially at least, of a devastating naturalness… the vocabulary of real conversation’

Early stage work applauded for its verisimilitude - appearance of being real or true. Uses Literary devices such as pauses, repetitions, and linguistic confusions. Highly Stylised - ‘Pinteresque’.

Question 30

Pinteresque

Answer 30

Resembling or characteristic of his plays. Pinter’s plays are typically characterised by implications of threat and strong feeling produced through colloquial language , apparent triviality and long pauses.

Question 31

Verisimilitude

Answer 31

appearance of being real or true

Question 32

colloquial

Answer 32

informal or everyday language

Question 33

Vernacular speech

Answer 33

One of the amazing parts of really good dialogue is that it gives you the impression of being in the vernacular without being in the vernacular

Question 34

Story involves

Answer 34

structure, time, theme, plot

Question 35

Peripheral narrator

Answer 35

Nick - The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald

Nick is on the periphery of the story - a ‘witness’ narrator - he observes the actions of others

Question 36

First person narrator

Answer 36

Jane Eyre -‘…to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.’
Opinionated and possibly biased - can be unreliable. Used to create tension in a story.

Question 37

Neutral narrative

Answer 37

the significance of the voice passes on to the characters

Question 38

Distinctive characters and voices

Answer 38

A voice has to be established by the way it uses language and also by the actions the character undertakes

Question 39

Context of speech and intonation

Answer 39

where/when it was said and also how something is said - the intonation

Question 40

David Mamet Oleanna, Glengarry glen ross

Answer 40

Characters often speak in half finished sentences, staccaco

Question 41

bad dialogue

Answer 41

platitudes, over used phrases, statements

Question 42

Subtext

Answer 42

what the conversation beneath the words is communicating (between the characters and to the audience)
Jules Feiffer - it’s a matter of understanding what’s going on and leaving some of the subtext for the audience to work out for themselves’

Question 43

subtext woody Allen

Answer 43

what a character says does not necessarily coincide with what he or she means
Annie Hall - dialogue accompanied by subtitles on screen which reveal the characters thoughts beneath the dialogue - what they are really thinking.
an acknowledgement of subtext and also a parody of subtext

Question 44

subtext Harold Pinter

Answer 44

There are two kinds of silences. One when no words are spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed

A language locked beneath a speech.
The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don’t hear

Question 45

Writers allowing actors and readers/audiences freedom
Surrender their voices
Relinquish ownership

Answer 45

The writer creates the characters but then the script is handed over to directors, actors to interpret them just as readers interpret a book
A writer SURRENDERS their voice to the reader
Writers have to allow the actors and audience freedom
Readers bring their own experiences and prejudices and personalities to a text