438 - How to Listen

John and Craig talk dialogue. How characters speak is an optimized version of real speech — but if you optimize too much you risk making your characters feel artificial. We listen to clips of real conversations to pick out patterns and tendencies you can incorporate to help improve written dialogue.

Then we dive into the mailbag for questions on perspective (48:03), submission agreements (51:40), and best practices for non-WGA writers during a strike (55:58).

In our bonus segment for premium subscribers (1:06:56), we get political and discuss the current state of the Democratic primary.

• Victory for both partnered Irish election opponents we discussed in episode 436
• Scriptnotes, episode 241, in which John predicts Parasite
• Assistants’ Advice to Showrunners
• Mythic Quest on Apple TV+
• California Penal Code 632 and the legality of eavesdropping
• Scriptnotes, episode 433 with Greta Gerwig
• Appalachian English from Mountain Talk
• The Austin History Center’s accounts from visitors and an interview with architect Tom Hatch
• Ben Platt on Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
• Fck Work But Ima Go, episode 404
• Key & Peele’s OK (uncensored)
• Scriptnotes, episode 45, in which we discuss perspective
• Adhesion contracts
• Travel Time
• Mark Kelly is running for Senate in Arizona
• John August on Twitter
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by James Llonch (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

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You can download the episode here.