dialogue - how's this grab you

[Vigorish9]

thanks for the help people. just a shout out, to everybody who finds the time to work and come home and write, my handshake. in the winter, i workless, so i can write and what i've found is that my best writing comes when i'm awake. lol

* * * * * * * * BENNY
* * * * ..I’m watching the tape,
* * * * looking for nothing and
* * * * everything all at once - but
* * * * the ace is that good... I can’t
* * * * catch him, but I know he's grifting,
cause I have that gene, that gene that
* * * * tells me something’s off. That
* * * * fuckking internal clock that
* * * * buzzes inside of me... then I notice
something odd...

Benny leans in to Dugan, talking directly at him.

* * * * * * * * BENNY
* * * * ... If I’m not looking at a perfect
fuckking match.* Two hundreds
with the same tag. My father
was a banker, he'd give me a
shiny quarter for every serial
number i could recite back. I’d
make up a jingle in my head so i could
remember… play the tune
back and it would roll of my tongue.
and just like that, i'm seeing everything
it's slowing down and i see you, looking
at Eddie like he just humped your sister. *

a ferocity washes over Benny's face like Dugan stole
his first bike.

BENNY
So I wonder why Mr. cool, just
folded a winning hand. Two
seconds in reverse, and there
it was. He's pulling cards in my game.
* * * * * *The long and short of it, i go to
excavate the truth and he's
already in kansas. like he’d
* * * * been tipped off. What do you
* * * * think of that?

DUGAN
I think you're a pyscho who likes
to listen to himself talk.

v9

[William Haskins]

i think you can further compress this and get more out of it. ("jiggle" should be "jingle", yes?)

i think if it were tightened up, it could be a god revelation of character.

dugan's response is a nice little payoff.

[bottomlesscup]

At that length, I assume it's a big moment in the script.

I wanted him to sit back when he starts talking about his dad. That's when he switches from relative immediacy to full-blown storyteller mode. Then, maybe, have him sit forward, right on top of Dugan at "So I wonder..." He's throwing it in his face: I got you, mofo.

Not sure why, but I didn't like the term "quick like." It didn't mesh with the rest of his word choices for me.

A little polish and it's ready.

[Vigorish9]

this dialogue came from my desire to distill the entire movie's backstory, so i could begin to write a synopsis.

so i said, i'm going to have a pulp fiction, training day, dialogue story telling sequence so i can start telling the story in the pov of view of how my lead character recieves information so I can begin to deliberately deceive the reader.

i'm setting the stakes in the ground, zoning out my plot points, setting battle stradgedy.

you guys with me? it was an exercise that turned into the above sequence. hopefully at full polish will be something like the 'watch story', in pulp fiction.

i actually blew up my first car in a script. THANK YOU. I did, just blew it up.

i was like okay, i got my characters sitting in the diner talking... to much talking, what would bill martell do?

how about when he strikes the lighter the SUBURBAN blows up? yeah, blow stuf up.

I was like three pages in before i regained consciouness and wrote my first shoot em up action sequence.

it was great, so i said forget it, i'm notching this up.

writing is so much fun.

vig

[kojled]

vigorish

very nice. reminds me of mamet. parenthetical (benny smirks) is not needed. the actor (and maybe director) will decide how this dialogue is delivered.

i'd cut one of the buzzings - doesn't flow, don't get it. 'dugan listens' is redundant. he was already listening, wasn't he? something that characterizes would be better like: dugan sighs, not looking forward to more - or - dugan shifts his weight, already tired of the monologue. what you have is a non-description

otherwise - reminds me of mamet. you know...mamet? yes, mamet. that's who it reminds me of. mamet


zilla

[Vigorish9]

i post this and i get answers. every suggestion will make the frst cut. so, every single idea by someone else, just stuck.

'dugan shifts his weight, already tired of benny's blabbering.'

i like that. it is a good example of showing; obviously this isn't the first time in dugan's life he's had to listen to benny espousing - we get that dynamic between them.

it's a good character reveal.

now my situation is do i reveal this in the first act, page 20 or so, the first time dugan and benny are together, when benny tells dugan, FIND EDDIE and benny drops the above monologue on him.

or do wait i and hold it for my third act when the audience realizes that benny's intentions wasn't to kill dugan - just use him to find Eddie the ace which led him to all the other priniciples in the con that burned benny.

it's revenge, i'm plaiyig benny as close to the best as alec baldwin played the casino owner in the COOLER, but with an ELVIS type feel to him -- in the end he kills everybody at the card game who cheated him, sans dugan who he cuts loose

in the first reveal pg 20, the entire story would be in finding EDDIE THE ACE

and about the title, what do you like better

long comes short (as in to make a long story short - hence the voice over which is a play on words and part of the toe of the script.

or

FINDING EDDIE THE ACE

eddies the con man, card shark the burned benny and skipped nd dugan has to find him

this is the grind in sceenwriting when you have to pick your direction and write into it. but the road not taken is compelling, it watches on your shouler as you write, waiting...

a lot of times i write two versions of the script. not that is no lie.

when do I reveal? it looks like i'm writing out the voice over, or maybe, just maybe keep it to page 6... and tell the story.

thanks people - may a giant banquet be held for each one of you for your contibutions.


anyone want to post i'll gladly give feedback on exactly how i feel. the good with bad.

thanks all

vig

[dpaterso]

anyone want to post i'll gladly give feedback on exactly how i feel. the good with bad.

I suspect that being trampled by Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes would be a far more pleasant experience.

-Derek
-----------------------My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57)

[Vigorish9]

the pages will reveal the man. i only speak the truth.

vig