Dialogue tuner

[benbrangwyn]

I don't know how easy this would be to do... involves showing all the dialogue for a particular character in sequence through the script, allowing the writer to edit for consistency of style, tone, vocab etc.

I've got a license for FadeInPro so could do it there once I've finished the script, but I actually prefer to write using YouMeScript, and would love for that to be the one place I go to write.

And thanks for YouMeScript - it's a true little wonder, and you gotta be some kind of genius to make something so feature rich AND lean, while being so user-friendly to actually write with.

Major kudos to you, Jake. YouMeScript rules.

[admin]

Dude! Thank you! Sorry I've been completely ignoring the forum, just too much going on with family, work, now viruses etc. Spec this out for me, go into detail a bit, and I'll see what I can do, maybe not immediately but...

- Jake

[benbrangwyn]

OK... riffing off FadeInPro for dialogue, plus adding a feature I've not seen before. It looks like complex programming to me, but I'm no code jockey.

So I think there are two parts to this. First, getting the "voice" of a character to be consistent. Second, making sure a characters "actions" feel aligned and consistent (this is the new one).

Why are these two important? Well, for "voice", one of the key determinants of quality in a script (or a novel, for that matter) is the extent to which characters feel authentic and differentiated in terms of their words. A "voice consistency" feature allows this to happen, giving you the opportunity to make sure that the character uses the same amount of slang, or abbreviation or pacing. You could also nuance it more finely, pegging the voice to the rhythm of character development more sweetly.

The same goes for "actions". Using the term "grab" rather than "pick up" might not be *obviously* jarring on the page, but it might jump out to an author in a list of actions for a character that is otherwise very gentle in his/her actions. It's my belief that all these little inconsistencies are noticed either consciously (by expert readers) or unconsciously (by less attuned readers) and WILL negatively impact a reader's perception of the script.

So... onto the spec. Here's how I imagine it could work:

1. Select "character consistency" from a menu item
2. Get a drop down of all the characters in the script (you already have this for your "character" feature), and select one. Alternatively, in your existing "character" dialogue box you could have choices in addition to the "edit" and "delete" actions to cover dialogue/action consistency
3. You see a dialogue box with the character name and then the choice of either "dialogue" or "actions"
4. If you select "dialogue"...
   1. you get a window which lists each piece of dialogue from that character, in sequence, with page number (to give you an idea of how far through the script this is)
   2. It's important that this list is easy to read through to assess the consistency of "voice", so can't be a little window
   3. If you click on a line of dialogue, the main window moves to that point in the script so you can see the context
   4. You're able to edit that piece of dialogue directly to give it a consistent "voice"
   5. Probably needs a "Save", although if you're editing the doc directly, may not be needed
5. If you select "action"...
   1. you get a window that lists out any Action sentence with that character's name in it
   2. this is obviously flawed for the sentences that have a pronoun rather than the character name... unless you could put some intelligence into this feature so that it would pick up sentences starting "he/she" directly after a piece of dialogue that was attributed to that character... hmmm... sounds too complex
   3. but even without a complete list of actions, it could highlight inconsistencies that might signal to the writer that this character's actions need to be made more aligned and consistent
   4. then same as the "dialogue" section

Hope that's aspiration AND helpful. Cheers.