by Paul Ashton
the voice that belies who they are rather than who they wish to be.
Authenticity means listening, listening hard, and really hearing how
people speak and what people say. If your play is about squaddies defending
an outpost in rural Afghanistan then their voices will be affected by what
brought them there and the necessities of being there – background, train -
ing, military language and slang. But a working-class teenage private from
Essex on his first tour of duty will surely sound different from an experi -
enced Captain who has been through Sandhurst, even though their technical
shorthand may be precisely the same.
Unless your characters have a rare condition (such as Foreign Lan gu-
age Syndrome) then authenticity should mean ringing true with every thing
that we know about them and everything they know about themselves. It
won’t be the only thing that defines and characterises their voice – but it
will be the fundament upon which it is based.
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UNIQUENESS
As I said at the beginning, every human voice has a unique tone defined by
the unique physiology. But uniqueness isn’t just about a tone of voice – high,
low, soft, harsh, resonant, thin, nasal, monotone, melodic.
Everybody has their own individual grammar. Even those who can
execute perfect RP in perfect grammatical constructs will still have their
own grammar – their own natural way of ordering and juxtaposing what
they say. Everyone has their own rhythm and pace, their own way of phras -
ing, of emphasising, repeating, stumbling, pausing, or even gliding forward
melodiously.
No matter how much they manipulate, practice and mask it, everyone
has an individual grammar – and it usually exposes itself at times of crisis,
when the mask slips.
Spoonface Steinberg speaks in a curiously forthright, matter-of-fact
way, yet with a unique vocabulary and sense of phrasing that is a consequ -
ence of her autism.
Frank Gallagher speaks with a wild, ranting rhetoric when in one of
the drunken or drugged reveries where he sets the world to rights.
Little Voice doesn’t speak at all. She communicates through the songs
of Judy Garland, Edith Piaf and Shirley Bassey until the climactic, critical
moment where everything she feels and has wanted to say to her mother
tumbles out.
Withnail speaks with the theatrical hyperbole of a failing actor who
wants everyone to know that although he is mostly off his face, he is still
more interesting and talented than they are. He doesn’t just ask for a
drink, he demands the finest wines known to man.
Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It and In the Loop speaks in expletive-
ridden but infectious and quite brilliant invective against anyone who crosses
his path. His vitriolic tongue appears to know no bounds – yet despite his
apparent rage, annoyance, dismissiveness and sheer offensiveness, he is
normally in complete cutting control of what he says and how he says it.
TICS
It’s as easy to give a character’s voice a tic as it is to give that character a
pronounced limp or quiff or mannerism – a stutter or stammer, a speech
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impediment such as a lisp or an unpronounceable ‘r’ or ‘l’. Impediments can
say something about character, but even a debilitating stammer will only
go so far towards voicing who your characters are. Tics are really only
surface – the first, main thing we see or hear. Using them to characterise
voice alone will render your characters into clichés or solely comic
creations. For dramatic characters, a tic can be an ingredient – but not the
whole recipe.
ACCENTS
The same goes for accents. You don’t need to ‘write’ accents literally. An
indication the first time a character speaks is enough to establish the man -
ner of their pronunciation. And remember, accent is not the same thing as
dialect or grammar. A character can speak with a Liverpool accent and with
a heavy use of Scouse dialect – but they can also speak with a Liverpool
accent yet use non-region-specific grammar and vocabulary.
Accent is a way of colouring a character’s voice – but it is potentially
only as skin-deep as a tic.
DIALECT AND SLANG
Dialect is more complex and potentially more problematic. Dialect is a
region- or class- or occupation- or experience-specific grammar and vocabu -
lary. The issue is that not all readers or audiences will understand it. This
is less of a worry for audiences because it’s only one part of their immersion
in the world and they potentially have other means of understanding what
the characters say or mean. But trying to read a script written in dense,
heavy, indecipherable dialect is a nightmare. It’s not a novel – as with Irvine
Welsh’s books, where you can soak up the dialect and take your time.
Scripts are written to be played, so reading them at a perplexed snail’s pace
is a fundamental block to knowing whether or not the storytelling for the
medium really works.
For me, the rule of thumb is to be sparing and precise with dialect.
Don’t write the accent in a phonetic transcription of how you think it
sounds. Just tell us what the accent is and allow the reader’s brain and the
actor to give it voice. Then use dialect when the word or term bears no real
relation to vocabulary that might ordinarily be used.
208 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
Take the sentence: ‘Do you understand?’ In many regions the words
are the same though the accent will vary. Some might say: ‘Do you get me?’
But this isn’t really a dialect, more a re-phrasing that might happen in
Liverpool as much as Brixton. But in parts of Scotland the dialect would be:
‘Do you ken?’ And this would not be used anywhere else. Certain circles,
such as gangsters aping the Mafia they see in the movies or smart-arsed
blue-collar professionals, might say ‘ Capiche? ’ Which tells you something
about who they are, what they do, how they think.
Not all use of dialect means replacing words, it might just mean addi -
tional texture. So when a character greets another with ‘Alright’, in
Liverpool it might be ‘Alright kidda’, in Derby it might be ‘Alright me duck’,
in Barnsley it might be ‘Alright flower’, in Glasgow it might be ‘Alright hen
or ‘Alright pal’, in Newcastle it might be ‘Alright pet’, in Afro-Caribbean
communities it might be ‘Alright blood’, in the unreconstructed East End of
London it might be ‘Alright geezer’. And it might be none of these things.
Your character might have their own unique way. Dialect is about varia -
tions in language and grammar, not the trans literation of accent. So keep
it simple and sparing to keep it effective.
Slang, or jargon, isn’t quite the same as dialect. It is less to do with
where people are from and live as with the arena in which they converse.
So soldiers use slang. Gang members use it. City traders. Policemen. Builders.
Management consultants. Drug dealers. Bloggers. Slang is about using lan -
guage in nich
e ways, ways that make sense usually only to those who
understand the language, whether it’s for their convenience or to obscure it
for anyone else listening.
The problem with slang – as encountered by any writer trying to catch
authentic ‘street’ dialogue for teenagers – is that it can shift and change and
date quickly. So again, use it meaningfully and purposefully, not casually –
because as a token or over-used or under-researched gesture, it will stick
out like a sore thumb.
NATURALISM
In stories, naturalism and realism are not the same thing. Realism is the
unflinching portrayal of life as it can be at its lowest ebb and in the absence
of fairy-tale endings. Realism isn’t the style of the telling, it is the portrayal
of subject and world.
THE END 209
Naturalism is more to do with style – the natural manner in which the
world is presented, and which we recognise. Many elements of La Haine are
naturalistic – such as the dialect the teenage characters use – but the story
is realism. It is an almost operatic expression of a ghetto in Paris with glori -
ous shades of black, white and grey (when colour would be more naturalistic).
In dialogue, naturalism is a more useful term than realism. Natural -
istic dialogue doesn’t feel arch, artificial, theatrical or filmic, sculpted,
manipulated, but sounds like something any person would say. Ken Loach’s
films are naturalistic, while Mike Leigh’s are not. Both often explore the
lives of ordinary people. But Loach’s characters (or rather, those of the script -
writers he has worked with such as Paul Laverty) speak naturalistically.
But a naturalistic style does not necessarily mean great dialogue and
it can be a badge of false honour proudly worn by some writers – false
because it only really tells us that the characters speak and the world is
presented in a certain manner, not that the story is good. Just because it is
naturalistic doesn’t mean it is therefore more worthy or meaningful or
interesting or expressive. It is only these things if it is the authentic expres -
sion of an engaging character in a dramatic situation – in a strong story.
Don’t be hoodwinked by the allures of naturalism – it’s a choice you make
about world, character and style, but it won’t make your script better or
have more intrinsic value by itself.
Also, don’t presume convincing naturalism is easy to write. It isn’t. It
requires an intense, deep understanding and awareness and receptiveness
to what ‘naturalistic’ and ‘natural’ means when people express themselves.
STYLISATION
The opposite of the naturalistic is the stylised. Stylised dialogue – and over -
all style – is self-conscious, deliberate, not an attempt to reflect what appears
to be natural but a desire to create and control a style and tone and timbre
and manner. (Ironically, the more self-conscious you become about making
your characters sound naturalistic, the more likely it is they will become a
stylised version of natural – and so not natural at all.) In a way, since all
scripts are a fiction, all dialogue is stylised. It doesn’t come from nowhere,
and it is styled as much by medium, tone and format as by the writer’s
hand. There are infinite variations on what this non-naturalism might look,
sound and feel like.
210 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
A Number is a play in which the deliberate, constant, repeated non-
finishing of lines, non-answering of questions, disorganisation of expression
and non sequitur is a key characterising feature. For an outlandish world
in which a man discovers there are ‘a number’ of cloned versions of himself
in existence, and which explores the existential meaning of being yourself
when there are a number of ‘you’, it perhaps makes complete sense that the
dialogue is by turns awkward, dense, strained, elliptical, incoherent, yet
also at times startlingly clear and unambiguous.
So what about Moon? In another (literally) outlandish world where
clones realise they are clones, the style is far more naturalistic. There’s no
necessity that a certain kind of idea or subject or story will require or derive
a certain style of dialogue and storytelling. In both examples the style and
tone feel like they fit and work.
Caryl Churchill’s style in her play is brilliantly spare, uncomprom -
ising, perplexing, frustrating, yet expressive and in a way strident. In the
end, it isn’t overdone or overplayed. Those moments where characters do
clearly express what they mean – and are realising what it is they think
and feel – make perfect sense of the ellipses elsewhere. It doesn’t explain
them away or simply clarify them, but it does make sense of why they are
the way they are. One of the journeys of scene three is for Bernard 2 to
realise and admit that he is truly frightened of Bernard 1. The dialogue
takes him on that journey in all its circumlocutory glory.
In the indie movie Brick, the world of the contemporary American
high school is expressed and turned inside out by the highly affected film
noir gangster dialogue that the characters use. It isn’t just the dialogue, it
is in elements of the action and story too. But while it looks like any modern
American high school, it sounds like a movie from the 1950s. It’s a master -
stroke that you either do or don’t buy into. Here, the writer uses a very
specific genre-infused self-conscious style in order to tell the story of contem-
porary kids in a unique way.
Much is said about Pinteresque dialogue. But Pinter’s best characters
all have a voice of their own. Meg, Petey, Stanley, McCann, Goldberg and
Lulu all sound different, unique. What perhaps characterises the ‘Pinter -
esque’ is the style and tone of the drama as a whole, and the moments
where the action pressurises and changes how the characters speak – such
as Goldberg and McCann’s interrogation of Stanley in The Birthday Party.
Here, they become an intimi dating force with a sinister machine-gun style
THE END 211
of bullying delivery to scare Stanley. If dialogue is a way of expressing the
whole world, then Pinter’s dialogue is Pinteresque because it expresses the
whole world of his plays.
The danger with stylised dialogue – especially when writers are trying
to be absurdist or surreal – is that it takes over, it replaces all voices with
one voice, one tone, one register. Even if your story is an absurd, repetitive
or fragmented nightmare, it doesn’t mean the characters should not have a
unique voice. On the contrary, if they don’t have one, then your idea will feel
more like a trick, a single statement, a play about an idea rather than about
the characters.
RHETORIC
Rhetoric is the artful technique of manipulating language with the intent
of persuading the listener to agree with the speaker – whether or not what
is said is truthful, rightful or justifiable. Rhetoric is a series of tropes and
tricks and constructions that are employed towards an effect. It does not
come naturally, although the more a person
uses it, the more second nature
it can become. But it is ultimately an applied technique.
It is the domain of kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers,
politicians, preachers, agitators, lecturers, lawyers, poets, seducers, sales men,
advertising copywriters. Think about the effect of the great speeches in his -
tory – Marc Antony in Rome, Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, Henry V
to the troops at Agincourt and Elizabeth I at Tilbury, William Wil berforce
on abolishing slavery to Parliament, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Add -
ress, Churchill’s wartime speeches, John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address,
Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’, Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’,
Barack Obama’s election campaign and inaugural speeches. Rhetoric is the
art of making a great speech, such as those in Henry V, Independence Day,
Julius Caesar, Wall Street, Cyrano de Bergerac, Romeo and Juliet, Murder in the Cathedral – or as delivered by the barrister in any number of TV
legal dramas.
Rhetoric isn’t solely for the formal purpose of delivering a persuasive
speech. It can be anywhere that a character seeks to persuade another, but
it will necessarily be identifiable in the way he or she organises, juxtaposes,
inverts, repeats, compares, contrasts, exaggerates and alliterates to get a
point across.
212 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
The danger is that it becomes an empty trick, impressive to hear but
without true substance or meaning. So you need to decide for any given
moment where exactly a character’s rhetorical words sit on the scale bet -
ween powerful persuasion and empty outpouring.
LYRICAL
A ‘lyrical drama’ is a particular kind of species – not really a play, but a lyrical
poem with a narrative structure, such as Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.
Lyricism in dramatic writing – beautiful, resonant, emotional, songlike
expression – can be a truly defining quality, but it’s not normally achieved
when the writer is consciously trying to ‘be poetic’. What you tend to get there
is sentimentality, indulgence or (sin of all sins) bad rhyming. Lyrical dialogue
and monologue does not need to rhyme and does not need to ‘be poetic’. It