What is more important?

Something that you can't put down

That's a screenplay. Only the great scripts compel you to keep turning the pages. Other than, I don't think you can cheat in any one direction. At the surface, you have to hook the reader with narrative and you'll need dialogue to vest them. What's the heart without the bones?

This answer will sound dumb and generic, but it's all of them. None of these elements are mutually exclusive in screenwriting (and, I would argue the case is the same in novels, as well).

A script cannot survive purely on dialogue. You can have the snappiest, wittiest, greatest dialogue on Earth, but if your concept sucks, or your plot is horrible, it won't really matter.

Also, if your characters don't have depth and aren't well-developed, then the best dialogue in the world won't save them, either, because the dialogue might not sound/feel organic to those characters.

Great dialogue is the natural product of great characters. Characters guide dialogue, not the other way around. I know several writers who come up with the dialogue first - a great joke, a stinging insult, a profoud realization - and try to force it into a scene by having a character say it, just because they are so in love with the line they came up with. But, in most of those cases, it comes off as forced because the dialogue - no matter how good it is - doesn't fit the character and/or the scene.

You can also write amazingly deep, developed, interesting characters, but if you put them into a meandering, crappy plot, your script is dead.

Narrative is important, however, I don't feel it is AS important as plot, characters, and dialogue. Narrative is the support structure of the script. It sets the tone and both creates and supports the mood of your story. If it dull, over-written, under-written, choppy, etc., your script MAY crumble.

However, it might not, if your concept and story is strong.

And, I disagree that a screenplay is all about plot and dialogue. Sure, I agree with the plot. But, in some films, the action and visuals dominate and are more important than the dialogue. Speed didn't have great dialogue, but the action was fast-paced and riveting.

Action is a product of plot. Dialogue is a product of characters. Both are products of story and concept. There is a complex interplay between all the aspects of a script. They all support each other.

The skilled writer is the one who can blend all of them together seamlessly.

Here Here Opti! Good show and well put.

I don't think "the dialogue is the plot."

I think the dialogue is the vehicle through which the plot manifests. That particular story required that the motivations of the characters be told through dialogue. To use the example of one, or even a few, movies/scripts and try to apply them as a blanket explanation of all movies is faulty.

However, WHMS wasn't just a movie about people sitting around talking. They were doing things. They were going on dates, and singing karaoke, and playing Pictionary. The activities they were engaged in advanced the plot, and that plot was expressed through dialogue.

As you said, though (and the point I was trying to make as well), every script is different and to make a generality like "a screenplay is all about plot and dialogue" or to interrogatively imply that "dialogue is everything" is inaccurate.

Some screenplays are driven by dialogue. Some are driven by action. But ALL are really driven by plot, which grows from concept. That plot is merely expressed through dialogue and action.

Some scripts are heavier in dialogue than action. Some are heavier in action than dialogue. But ALL consist of both dialogue and action and could not survive without one or the other.

To say that one is more important than the other is missing the point.

Again, it is the task of the expert screenwriter to decide which his/her plot requires more of and to seemlessly interweave the two in a delicate balancing act.

Well, I believe that if EVERYTHING doesn't work well together, then your script sucks.

And, as I've said and as you've said, it all depends on your story. One element will NEVER be more important than another in EVERY story. So, it seems to be to be an inarguable point to begin with.

However, I think we're getting into an "apples/oranges" discussion here. But, if I must choose between, for example, dialogue and structure, I'll choose structure.

A good concept that is conveyed in a poorly structured screenplay, will result in a sloppy, disjointed mess. Great dialogue means nothing if it is entangled within a structurally crippled story.

On the flip side, crappy dialogue contained in a screenplay with pristine structure will produce an "OK" script. You might at least get some assignment work from a script like that. Why? Because even though the dialogue sucks, it will make sense, advance the story, and the script will invariably hit all the correct dramatic plot points and beats as the result of its superb structure. You will be recognized for having great skill in dramatic structure.

Structure alone can enhance weak dramatic tension.

However, we again run into the problem of the interplay of components. Tight, expert structure comes from a well-thought-out, clearly defined plot. If the plot is crisp, then great dramatic structure will both spring from and enhance it.

However, crappy dialogue is the result of poor skill, poor imagination, or poor understanding of the characters. These won't necessarily detract from great structure, but can't make up for bad structure, either.

If scripts are like cookies, then structure is the flour and dialogue is the sugar. If you leave out the sugar, your cookie will be nasty, but it'll still be a cookie. It will be bland and tasteless, but you could still eat it.

If you leave out the flour, you won't have a cookie at all. You'll just have a puddle of melted sugar (and butter and eggs and vanilla). You can't eat it at all.

Or, think of it with respect to the checklist a reader must fill out when reading your script. If you have incredible structure, it will enhance your plot and conflict and you might still be able to have interesting characters, if you portray them that way through action. So, the only thing you're really missing is dialogue. If you just have great dialogue, you won't necessarily have good structure, or conflict, or plot, or even great characters.

You'll just have a bunch of characters standing around saying cool things we care nothing about.

dramas?

"To me, I write dramas, so dialogue (again, it's the product of characterizations, relationships, etc.) seems to be very important to me." Maestro

It's what isn't said, but understood that makes great drama. Take the best screenplay dramas - Ordinary People, tender mercies, in the bedroom, You can count on me, searching for bobby fisher, finding forester, smoke, kramer vs. kramer, etc... sure the dialogue was important, but it isn't the tape measure for drama.

Some writers breath life into things and then there's the rest of us. Why drizzle truffle oil on a dominos pizza?

I'll leave it to you to to fight it out in a gentlemenly way, but my opinion is that a good story with bad dialog can be fixed much more easily than a bad story with killer dialog. I believe dialog to be an extention of action. Let us not forget that the first few decades of film had no dialog to speak of (no pun intended). Even "My Dinner with Andre" could not stand alone without it's action as minimal as it is.

With all due respect, "what's not being said" -- silence, etc. is part of "dialogue."

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With all due respect, it's not. *Shakes fist at maestro*

Dialogue, by etymology, is the spoken part of conversation. "Not talking" is still communicating, but not through dialogue.

At least that's my definition.

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Indeed.

Perhaps I've been hanging around novelists for too long.

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Perhaps. I think, though, that discussions such as this get mired down in personal "definitions" of words, and artistic opinions of concepts, rather than adhering to the actual meanings of these concepts. It's very artistic and imaginative and warm and fuzzy to consider silence as "dialogue" and to embrace and romanticize that idea as some truth, and may even make the author of that book seem somehow insightful (though misinformed), but it doesn't actually fit the defintion of what dialogue actually is. (Dialogue from dialogos where dia means "through or across" and logos means "speech, word, reason." Also akin to Greek legein "to gather, say." Also dialegein "to gather and speak").

Silence is part of a conversation. It is part of the communication of ideas. However, it is the non-spoken, non-dialogue, part of the overall conversation. This is especially true in terms of screenwriting, where dialogue (usually) strictly means the spoken words of the characters.

And, I think you've hit on another great point. Dialogue, by itself, doesn't necessarily make a great conversation between characters. It is the interplay of the dialogue (words), facial expressions, overt actions, silence, etc.

(If you want to be technical, dialogue itself is an action. But, that would be too broadly inclusive a definition for this debate.) :

Back to the original question, I still believe that good structure can save bad dialogue, but good dialogue cannot save bad structure.

Dialogue comes from the characters. It is their reaction to the situations the writer puts them in. The situations themselves, however, are guided by structure.

Structure comes first. Then dialogue. That's the natural progression of a well-crafted story. That's why, to me, structure is more important (in your hypothetical scenario), though only slightly.

IMO, Screenplays evolve from a top-down process, IMO. Correcting things from the higher orders has an affect on the lower ones (trickle down). That's why, IMO, concentrating solely on dialogue to strengthen a story is the wrong approach, because that is a bottom-up process (you can't trickle up).

Adjusting structure will invariably have an effect on dialogue (as it will influence the situations and motivations of characters), but adjusting dialogue will not necessarily have any effect on structure.

Indeed, and I agree with you, but that seems like a different argument ("Bad dialogue can kill a good script" versus "Would you rather have good dialogue or good structure?").

Sometimes, it's the actor him/herself that makes the dialogue suck.

As Michelle Rodriguez once said, she "writes" all of her own dialogue because she doesn't think a screenwriter can write dialogue for "her" characters as well as she can. So, many times she ignores what the script says and ad libs.

Which, I find funny since she is probably the most one-dimensional (and morbidly untalented) actress working in Hollywood and most of her dialogue sucks. In all of her movies, she basically plays the same character, devoid of any depth, likeability, or nuance.

So, I have no doubt that she "writes" her own dialogue because it's usually as bad as her acting.

Good thread. Informative and provocative.

This section needs more like it, so that my brain may absorb information, like sawdust to vomit in aisle 2.

By no means I want this to become a pissing contest.

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Says the guy with a urinating dog avatar.

well...

Let us not forget that the first few decades of film had no dialog to speak of

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not really. the earliest films were documentaries but, as soon as they started making narrative stories then dialogue was always there....just in the form of subtitles.

whoo

I wasn't talking about the absence of dialogue, just the nuance of it. When characters interact we understand that there's a sense of history amongst them. That they communicate with inference, nuance, subtleties, etc and a great screenplay (drama or otherwise) has textured dialogue. It's hardly ever about the exact words being said...

It's what ISN'T directly said, but understood (in context to the story) that makes a great story. By no means was I referring to silent film

NikeeGoddess said:

not really. the earliest films were documentaries but, as soon as they started making narrative stories then dialogue was always there....just in the form of subtitles.

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1 title card every minute or so doesnt amount to much and the characters would have done a whole bunch of action for a title card that read "I'll save you, my dear..."

oh

what's subtext and where can I purchase it?