Quote: Marc P @ December 29 2008, 3:14 PM GMTYeah well, he only asked for A tip!
Oh yeah 
11) Read thread titles properly before posting overlong answers.
A tip from each of us. Page 4
Ignore all these tips and go on X-Factor, then you will have a stage and people will listen.
Quote: Griff @ December 29 2008, 1:30 PM GMTFunnily enough, when the subject of adverbs came up, one of the script eds actually said "Yeah, that's just Blackadder writing"...! But I can see what they mean. Much as Blackadder is pretty much my favourite show ever, it is a very stylized, artificial almost pantomime style of dialogue. And it's now been done, so anything adverb-heavy is just going to sound like a Blackadder ripoff.
What they meant of course was this kind of bad writing -
"Jenkins your monthly report is mind-bogglingly intergalactically awful".
People don't speak like that and the adverbs don't add anything. They make it less funny, not more.
They're right, but to be a dog with an agreeable bone.
It's certainly also the style of alot of Red Dwarf, I'm reminded of the scene where Lister tries to teach Kryten to lie.
Too many good tips already. Here's mine:
Have the confidence in your own work to ignore adverse comments from others that don't make sense; but have the humility to take on board the ones that do.
Realistic dialogue is funny.
Quote: Griff @ December 29 2008, 8:44 PM GMTI'm glad Dolly and Lee have brought up the "listen to how real people talk" tip. Last time I suggested on here that doing this was a good idea, someone came on and gave me a right earache about how "making your characters talk like real people is one of the worst things you can possibly do".
There's a difference between writing realistic - sounding dialogue and writing dialogue that real people would actually speak. Nobody wants to hear a sitcom character talking about the traffic jam on the M42 they've just been caught up in if it has nothing to do with the story. But people-watching is still essential to good writing I think.
Quote: Griff @ December 29 2008, 8:44 PM GMTLast time I suggested on here that doing this was a good idea, someone came on and gave me a load of earache about how "making your characters talk like real people is one of the worst things you can possibly do".
It wasn't me, was it? 
What I dislike is faux documentary dialogue which attempts to mimic the way people actually speak, complete with ums, ers, and tortured sentence structures; you used to get it a lot in the nineties, often accompanied by shakey cameras and muffled microphones, to make it more 'real'. I find that actors struggling to get out coherent sentences just makes me more aware of the artifice involved.
Everyday speech is a rich source of comedy, but dramatic dialogue, and in particular comic dialogue, tends to have a different rhythm to most actual speech. It is tidier and sharper.
What I am trying to say, and which you would probably agree with, is that the aim is not to make your characters talk like real people, but to use your ear to create the illusion that they are talking like real people. Which is what those writers who are masters of this sort of reportage, such as Alan Bennett, Victoria Wood or Caroline Aherne, achieve.
Quote: Timbo @ December 29 2008, 9:39 PM GMT, but to use your ear to create the illusion that they are talking like real people. Which is what those writers who are masters of this sort of reportage, such as Alan Bennett, Victoria Wood or Caroline Aherne, achieve.
No. I've been up North.
Quote: Marc P @ December 29 2008, 10:31 PM GMTNo. I've been up North.
Don't disillusion me. It's whimsical up North.
Grimmsical surely?
1. Only take advice that feels right.
2. Lee Henman is always right.
Quote: Griff @ December 29 2008, 9:02 PM GMTAgreed. It's how people talk, not the exact details of what they say.
So how is your script supposed to grab the reader? I thought you're supposed to grab the attention of the reader in the first few paragraphs. If (and I agree) it's how people talk and not the exact details of what they say, how the heck do you begin to write stage directions on people's nuances,voice pitches, tones etc?
Quote: Griff @ December 29 2008, 9:55 PM GMTAnd I agree, you can take naturalism too far with disastrous results. But only in extreme cases such as you describe. I don't think there's many sketches or sitcoms that get rejected because the dialogue sounded "too realistic".
Probably not, but you do see a lot of dialogue that could be snappier and tighter.
Oh I don't know, I quite liked People Like Us.
Oh yeah, but that was a parody of a documentary; I had in mind shows like Cops that were dramas shot as if they were documentaries.
Not sure if this has been said, but I just like to keep it simple. Everything.
My tip is:
Just get on with it.