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Need help wth dialogues..

eraserhead_in_time

eraserhead_in_time

Hey
I'm currently writing a feature length script.. however I really don't know if the dialogues seem alrite..
here is an excerpt from the script..
Little background on the characters to help you judge the dialogues

ROHAN, AKANSHA and CHOPRA are 3 detective in training sent to crack a closed room murder mystery.
ROHAN our protagonist is a wily fox with silver tongue. He wants to crack it fr the money and glory.
AKANSHA is a woman trying to make it a man's world. Methodical and determined..she lacks somewhat in street smartness..
CHOPRA has flunked the past 2 exams.. He goes into this case totally believing the curse that is surrounding the murder..he thinks the case cannot be solved by normal methods..he is insecure and scared...

SAXENA is the victim's husband..

This is just a small scene...Kindly let me know what u think..


NT. drawing room - NIGHT

ROHAN catches upto AKANSHA who is going over a file. He walks upto her.

ROHAN

So, who are we striking first?

AKANSHA

(scanning the pages)

I'm going to speak to the husband first!

ROHAN

Don't you mean we?

AKANSHA

(still reading)

Uh-huh.

ROHAN

Listen.. Just so we are clear. We are in this together, alright? We don't hide facts.. We don't hide evidences.. We work as a team. There is no reason why instead of one, two of us can become CID.

A faint CREAKING sound as CHOPRA walks in the door.

ROHAN

(Looks at Chopra and back again)

Or..three...

AKANSHA

(Closes her file)

Right.

She struts towards the STUDY followed by ROHAN and CHOPRA.

int. study - night

SAXENA, a man in his early 30's, sits behind his desk twirling a pen around his fingers. He is good-looking individual with a dominanting physique.

As he twirls the pen faster and faster, it slips out of his hands and goes rolling on the floor. It is stopped by the ROHAN as he enters the room.

ROHAN

(twirling the pen in same manner walking towards him.Looks at the pen)

Cambridge..huh..pretty fancy..

SAXENA turns around to face all three of them.

AKANSHA

Mr.Saxena, we would like to ask you few questions.

SAXENA shifts weight on the chair looking uncomfotable.

saxena

Does it mean..I mean..

ROHAN

All it means is..since you were in the house when someone got killed we have few questions for you..Formality if you will..

AKANSHA

Not that we are ruling anyone out at this moment..

SAXENA

So I am a suspect?

AKANSHA

Mr.Saxena, how long have you known Gloria for?

SAXENA

(thinking)

Umm.. Since college.. We met at Cambridge..

ROHAN

This is your first time here?

SAXENA

Yes! I never wanted to come but it was.. She wanted to.. I asked her where do you want to go for our honeymoon? Spain? Australia? (sbakes his head) She chose this god forsaken land...
 
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i like the tone of the scene, but one suggestion I ll have is about Rohans little "monolog"..try to make it shorter. For example, I wouldn't write:
"listen.. Just so we re clear".
As you heard before, you need to show and not tell, so instead of saying the line, she should lean over the table towards Akansha. Her body language will say "I'm being serious right now, and you need to listen to me".
 
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Script formatting doesn't translate well on the board. So I will ignore the format issues. The dialogue has a very staccato pacing which makes it seem unnatural in places. There were a couple of things which seemed odd.

When I'm rolling a pen and it spins out of my hand, it flies forward. Yet when Rohan picks it up and walks towards Saxena, Saxena spins around, that is, his back is towards them. As a reader, that didn't make sense. Most desks face the door, so he would have seen them enter.

The final dialogue is rather shaky. "Does it mean? ... I mean ..." I haven't a clue what's happening. Is he nervous? For someone with a dominant personality, that seems unlikely. I'm not sure what he thinks it means. Then later when it is clarified, it seems that obviously everyone is a suspect. I would remove all that dialogue. It doesn't contribute anything to telling your story.

I think calling him "Mr. Saxena" and her "Gloria" was bizarre. She was his wife. I think Akansha would say something more like "Mr. Saxena, how long have you known your wife?"

You said he's sitting behind his desk. Then at the end, he says he was on his honeymoon. That confused me. Is he at his home or away on his honeymoon?

I think that you have some solid characters to build your screenplay around. I didn't hear anything from Chopra. Akansha and Rohan had similar tone to me, but this was just a short segment. But you'll want to be careful. Female characters written by male writers tend to sound masculine or overly stereotypic. Even if you mean her to be competitive in a man's world, she would have certain differences which you will want to keep in mind. I would make Akansha a bit more sympathetic towards Saxena in her interview. Show her "hardness" when she debriefs with the other two detectives. ("I know this must be hard for you, having just lost your wife, but we need to ask you some personal questions.")

That last part just becomes a series of talking heads. That is, everyone is talking to each other rather than engaging in action on the screen. While it can work for short scenes, it can be overused in detective scripts and weigh it down. You might break it up by having a short action statement of Chopra playing with something on a shelf and knocking it off. It breaks the flow, gives a visual statement about Chopra, and keeps the scene fresh.

It will be interesting to see how you develop it more fully.
 
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