How to Finish Dialogue for Plays

Video Transcript

"STEVE CAVERNO: Steve Caverno, on behalf of Expert Village, here today to talk to you about formatting and play production. Now, we're going to talk about how you write dialogue on the page in the formatting process. So here, we have the same page where we have the scene description and let's look at the dialogue. Okay, so we have two characters, Evan and Sonia. Evan says "Hi," Sonia says "Hey," and then we come in for a pause. So, here's some of the ways in which we can influence dialogue. Hi, hey, pause. So, there we have a pause in the dialogue. That's a direction to the actors. Then, we have Sonia saying, "Do you want to come in?" Evan says, "Yes, thank you," and then Evan enters. So, here's a way we can break up the dialogue with action and we can list the dialogue. Also, down on this line, Sonia says, "Have a seat." Evan sits. So, we can have Evan sit right there and that gives a little direction inside the dialogue. You can also say, "Have a seat." Sonia sighs perhaps and that gives a little direction that something she might do in a sound type of capacity but with the dialogue. "Do you want coffee? Do you want a cup?" And then he says, "Sure," and then she exits. And then right down here, we have offstage which is denoted by the OS in parenthesis. That basically means offstage, the character is delivering a line from offstage. "How do you take it?" and then Evan says "Black." And then we hear some dialogue offstage. So, here's some of the ways in which we can see dialogue is written on the page. It's basically written in a back and forth process. Also, there's a lot of room on this page. Some of these things will be happening here so that's how the dialogue functions and that's how we lay it out in the page in the formatting of dialogue."