How To Write The Best Dialogue – Shane Stanley

December 15, 2020

Film Courage: How do you write good dialogue?

Shane Stanley, Filmmaker/Author/Instructor: I think the best dialogue comes from the best listeners. I had an absolute crash course in writing dialogue. Years ago I used to write with Charlie Sheen. I don’t care if they don’t credit him on the sitcom’s he’s been in as a writer, I know who has been writing the dialogue. I worked with him for three years. I never read or heard better dialogue from anybody other than that which came from him that he wrote and I asked him one day. I used to be really good at writing scene direction and my dialogue was flat. It wasn’t interesting, it wasn’t engaging, it wasn’t edge of your seat. I asked him one day when we were writing. The way we worked is we’d set it up, I would write the scene direction, he would do the dialogue unless you know it was basic stuff (it was easy). I finally said to him Where do you get this encyclopedia of incredible dialogue, I’ve never heard anybody with it before? and he said You just listen. He said…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).