GENERAL CONCEPTS

The core of this program is a massive database of dialogue samples - the finest selection of dialogue from movies, plays, TV shows and novels. You’ve probably read books on dialogue that are full of advice that consists of vague generalizations which you forget about two minutes after you’ve read them. Far and away the best method of improving your dialogue skills is to see examples of great dialogue at work - and not just any examples, but examples specifically tailored to the scene you are writing. The strength of this program lies in its careful selection and analysis of dialogue and particularly the advanced “keyword” search capabilities. Each piece of dialogue also has a detailed list of keywords which describe the content of the speeches. This is vital since there may be a very good scene about anger, but the actual word “anger” does not appear anywhere in the text. Similarly; many love scenes never use the word “love”. A conventional search would not find the sample - using the Great Dialogue© program it would.

It is not intended that you actually copy the dialogue samples. The purpose of the samples is to inspire you to create your own dialogue and give you specific techniques on how to accomplish that, and there is nothing like samples from the masters to do that. Of course, you can use public domain (out of copyright) dialogue directly if you wish, but starting a speech with “to be or not to be”, may not endear you to either the critics or the audience.

So please think of this program as a kind of “starter dough” for your own inspiration. Use the “Quote of the Day” or “Random Quote” buttons to start off your day along with your cup of coffee to get your creative juices flowing, or just type search words that are related to the scene you’re working on. But don’t forget to think laterally and explore ideas that may be only indirectly related to the scene you’re working on. Have fun! Language is an exploration and an adventure, and we wish you bon voyage on your journey through the wonderful world of Great Dialogue™.

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RUNNING THE PROGRAM

Whenever you are working on dialogue, keep the program running in the background so that you can access it with a quick mouse click. This way you can get inspiration on the fly whenever you need it.

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MAIN SEARCH ENGINE (SEARCH BOX / FIND BUTTON)

What are you working on? Is it a scene about love, hate, interrogation, betrayal, anger, stupidity, sex? Just type in the word or words that describe the scene you are working on in the “Search” box and press “Enter” (you can also click on the “Find” button). A list of keyword hits should appear in the “Search Results” screen. These hits can be a single word, but most likely the keyword will be part of a phrase (the “keyphrase”) describing the dialogue sample. The program automatically puts the cursor in the “Search Results” screen, so all you have to do is to press the down arrow to scroll down the list (you can also use the mouse if you prefer). As each keyword or keyphrase hit is highlighted, the actual dialogue attached to it will appear in the box (frame) on the right-hand side of the screen, along with boxes showing the scene setup, notes, title and author(s) of the dialogue samples. The scene setup and notes are not always needed, so these boxes may be empty.

YOU CAN CHOOSE 3 DIFFERENT WAYS TO SEARCH FOR KEYWORDS:

“Contains”

This is the default keyword search parameter and allows you the most flexibility and is also useful for “idea fishing”. For example if you typed the search word “old” you would also get samples which contained words like “cold” and “soldier”. Search for “critic” and you will also get “criticism” and “critical”. If you are searching for a particular word, though, using this parameter could result in a lot of irrelevant hits.

“Exact Match”

This will search for exact words or phrases. If you type in “old”, you will get selections containing words like “old man” and “growing old”, but not words like “cold” or “soldier”. Be aware, though, that typing in “critic” will NOT find “criticism” or “critical”. If you type in “old man”, you will only get selections containing that exact phrase. Try to avoid typing in too complex phrases as that will limit the number of selections.

“Starts With”

This is handy if you are looking for all the dialogue samples that use a certain technique, since the name of each technique is listed at the beginning of the keywords which are attached to each dialogue sample. You do not need to type the entire word as you would in “Exact Match”. If you are looking for examples of SARCASM, for example, all you need to type is “sarc” and click “Find”.

MULTIPLE DIALOGUE SAMPLES WITH ONE KEYWORD OR KEYPHRASE:

Sometimes, a keyword or words or keyphrase is identical for more than one dialogue sample. In that case, you will see the small green box on the top of the right-hand columns which usually says “1 of 1” change to: “1 of 2” or “1 of 3” and the color of the box changes from green to blue. Whenever there are multiple hits, you will also hear a “BEEP”. If you want to hear this sound cue, don’t forget to turn your computer’s sound on and turn the volume up. The list of the second and third or more samples attached to the keyword or keyphrase are listed by “TITLE” in the bottom left frame, and the next sample can be selected by clicking on the titles or hit “TAB” and it will take you to the list of titles where you can scroll through the list using the down arrow.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not use the words “and” or “or” when typing in search words or topics. This will severely limit the number of hits you get as most of the keyphrases do not use these words.

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“COMEDY” / “DRAMA” / “BOTH” BUTTONS

All of the samples in the database are divided into either Comedy or Drama. If you press the “Comedy” button, your search will only be for comedy quotes. The same is true for the “Drama” button. However, when you press the “Both” button (this is the default setting, you don’t need to press it when the program starts), you will have access to all the quotes. You are encouraged to use the “Both” button most of the time. This is because many quotes work in both categories. A line can be both ironically amusing and dramatically powerful at the same time, and it’s often hard to decide which category to put a quote in.

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“KEYWORD LIST” BUTTON

By pressing the “Keyword List” button, you will see a pop-up box called “Key Word Listing” with a (very long) list of all the keywords and keyphrases that have been attached to the quotes in the database. This is a kind of “idea fisher” - you can use it to generate random thoughts that may help you loosen up your mind and inspire those lateral thought processes that some writers get naturally, but most mortals need a little help with.

You can either scroll through the list, or type a search word in the text entry box at the top of the “Key Word Listing” frame and you will be taken to that word in the list. If you wish to move through the list alphabetically, then simply type the desired letter in the entry box - this way you can move rapidly through the Keyword List.

If you see a keyword or keyphrase in the list that interests you, click on it and then click “OK” (or press: “Enter”)and it will automatically appear in the “Search” box of the main Great Dialogue© screen, and the associated quote(s) will appear in the usual way.

NOTE: If you have selected either the “Comedy” or “Drama” buttons, and you press the “Keyword List” button, you will still see the whole list but bear in mind that you will only be able to access half the dialogue samples (either the Comedy samples or the Drama samples). For instance, if you click on a Keyphrase in the comedy category while you have the “Drama” button pressed, and then do a search on that Keyphrase you will get the message “no matching keywords found”. That is why we recommend that you keep the “Both” button pressed whenever you press the “Keyword List” button. See the Help file for more details.

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“RANDOM QUOTES” BUTTON / “QUOTE OF THE DAY”

You can select that the “Quote of the Day” appears when you start up the program to give your mind a little jolt of intellectual caffeine and get you up and running. And when you’re using the program it’s sometimes fun to just hit that “Random Quotes” button on the main screen which will take you to the “Quote of the Day” screen where you can click through samples to loosen up your thought processes whenever you need them.

The run the “Quote of the Day” whenever you start your program, click on the “Random Quotes” button and select that option from the box on the screen.

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“USER GUIDE” BUTTON

Since you’re already here, we presume that you figured out how to get here (congratulations!). If you are having any trouble using Great Dialogue Software™, please contact our tech support through our www.greatdialogue.com website or email: support@greatdialogue.com.

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“OVERVIEW” BUTTON

Pressing this button will take you to a text box that will describe some general concepts about writing dialogue. Yes, we know that we just trashed the concept of using vague generalizations, but we believe in providing you with everything whether it’s useful or not. In truth, though, there are a few general concepts that are handy to know.

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“TECHNIQUES” BUTTON

You will probably use this button the most. Do you need to create the perfect “put-down”, some “dramatic imagery”, a “faux pas”, a “retort”, a “cry from the heart”, a “taunt”, a some “enigmatic” or “thematic” dialogue? We have outlined many specific dialogue techniques that the top writers use every day. Not only do we give you specific techniques, but we also provide samples to show exactly how these work, and there are many more samples in the main database. Scroll down the “Techniques” list to almost 80 different techniques, or type in the name of the technique in the “Search” box on the main Great Dialogue™ screen and search the database for them.

NOTE: Some older computers may take a while to load the Techniques files the first time. Once it is loaded, though, you should be able to move through the file at good speed. If this is the case with your computer you may find it useful to read the next paragraph.

HINT: If you use the “Techniques” button a lot, you may find it quicker to minimize the file by pressing on the “minus” (-) symbol on the top right corner of the Techniques window. This window will then shrink and be accessible by clicking on its icon/button at the bottom of the Windows® screen which restores the window. This method keeps the file in memory and makes it quicker to load than using the “Techniques” button on the main Great Dialogue™ screen. If you are using Netscape Navigator you may have to click on the Navigator program’s icon at the bottom of the screen to restore the Techniques window.

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