
For all the playwrights and screenwriters here on E.C.:
1. Take a page
of dialogue from one of your plays that has three characters or more
speaking to one another.
2. Using liquid white-out, blank out all the names.
3. Make a Xerox copy of that page.
4. Hand it to a fellow playwright, director or actor – someone who
reads a lot of plays.
5. Ask: how many people are speaking on this page?
If they can’t tell you the number of people speaking, there’s a
problem, no?
The complexities of language, and our personal choice of wording, phrasing, syntax, etc., is informed by our education, religion, age, culture, politics, familial hierarchy, gender, sexuality, ancestry, etc. In short, our personal use of language is as unique to each of us as our fingerprints. No two people speak the same. Why should they appear the same, then, on paper? The answer to that is simple: they shouldn't.