I've been thinking a lot about script writing lately and how much I don't know about it.
One of the ways this has come up recently is that I have fallen in love with the show Bob's Burgers, which is the animated story of a family that owns and operates a burger place. It was created by Loren Bouchard, who also brought yuo Home Movies and Dr. Katz.
One of the things I love most about the show is how natural and effortless the dialogue is. It sounds like a real, believable conversation. The characters talk over each other, laugh at each others jokes, and interrupt themselves to switch to a different topic. What brings it to another level, is that you can tell through these conversations how the characters relate to each other. If Bob is upset with his kids, he'll still take a moment in his rant to ask about something they said, he'll laugh at something they said or show some concern for their interests even as he's mad at them.
So I started to wonder what I could learn from this.
And then it got complicated.
You see, large portions of the dialogue are ad-libbed and it's hard when looking at the final product to tell what was in the script and what wasn't. Did the writers write false starts to sentences or was that the voice actor? Would I, as a novelist, be able to find this quality I'm looking for by studying scripts?
No, probably not.
Then I start asking: should I be looking at what just the writers have done? No! I should take the final product and learn from that. I should learn from what the writers and the voice actors have created together and what parts speak to me and how I interpret it, rather than looking at what the writer created alone as just a part of the finished product.
Now, this is probably pretty obvious to everyone. It's the combined forces of script writer, actors, and directors that create a story for TV or the stage. It's obvious to me too, but community story telling is one of those things that's, to me, both fascinating and terrifying.
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