While making a few edits to yesterday's post about the civil rights / women's rights discussion between Peggy and Abe in "The Beautiful Girls" I realized that it might be helpful to go into a bit more detail on the dialogue techniques in the scene.
As we've discussed before, it can be difficult to learn about these kinds of writing techniques because the writers themselves keep the process fairly well-hidden (for a number of good reasons), and because for-profit guides to film and television writers are generally geared to novices. Over the weekend, I listened to a phone seminar on advanced dialogue techniques, given by instructor David Freeman. He has posted an article on some of the techniques here on his web site along with a lot of sales language, and also discussed additional techniques in the seminar. Freeman is touchy about participants revealing too much of his work product, so I'm going to walk a fine line in this post between giving him proper attribution for concepts that I discuss in the analysis of this scene, and not unfairly "giving away" on the internet work product that is the core of his business.
I also want to put Freeman's analysis into context. In his opinion, thirtysomething pioneered a style of writing "naturalistic" dialogue that has been widely copied in television drama. His recommendations assume that this kind of naturalistic dialogue is the gold standard for capturing realism and dramatic tension between individuals interacting in ordinary settings. Whether or not we agree with his value judgment on that style of writing, it is interesting to note that this style, these techniques, are touted to aspiring writers, at least within some Hollywood circles, as the "best", most complex, most advanced, style of writing because it is "real". (It's beyond the scope of this post to discuss the history and implications of different styles of realism in both literature and drama, but it is another interest of mine.)
With that in mind, I'll turn to the techniques that are in play in the Peggy/Abe scene.
The first (not to mention most obvious and standard throughout TV) is that the audience enters the scene with the characters already engaged in their conversation and action. Another screenwriting instructor called this "entering the scene as late as possible". We get right to the dramatic meat of the encounter without a lot of exposition or other set-up. This slice of life technique makes the audience feel like they have just happened upon two people having a real conversation.
Secondly, the dialogue achieves naturalism through the use of simple vocabulary, incomplete sentences, and a certain degree of inarticulateness -- phrases like "you know" and "it was a couple of places." Short, naturalistic exchanges also provide a contrast for the more heightened, articulate sentences later in the scene.
Although the characters are speaking naturally and using relatively simply vocabulary, their goals -- what they want from one another in the scene and what they indicate about their larger goals as individuals -- are complex, layered, and in conflict to some degree. Several techniques combine to create this effect in the scene.
First, the dialogue reveals that the characters have a layered, multi-dimensional relationship. (Mad Men does this particularly well.) They see each other in more than one way and want more than one thing from one another. There is a romantic attraction, but Abe wants Peggy to agree with his politics and wants her to either change her job or the way she does her job to conform with his beliefs. Peggy wants to like Abe, and agrees with some of what he is saying, but also defends her integrity -- her work, her client, and her perspective as woman facing discrimination. The scene reveals the layers of the relationship and puts them into conflict.
The conflict gives each character multiple goals, which also adds complexity. The conflict puts Peggy in a position of having to take some action. She can agree with Abe's point of view and possibly advance the romantic relationship, but she would have to compromise her own sense of self and possibly take some action at work. Or, she can maintain her own point of view and integrity, but end her time with Abe on a bad note. As the audience we may pull for her to make a certain decision, but we also recognize the conflict. We'd like the character to achieve both goals, while acknowledging that is not likely.
The second half of the Peggy and Abe scene is an example of the technique Freeman labels "own track" and describes on his web site with an example from thirtysomething. As Peggy and Abe are trading dialogue on civil rights and women's rights they are each staying on their own track - their own line of argument. Peggy says that the only way she could enter the University Club is if she arrived in a cake, and Abe responds by saying there are no Negro copywriters. He doesn't completely ignore what she is saying, but uses his response to bolster his own point without openly acknowledging hers. At the same time, the exchange reveals that neither character is completely right in their opinion -- they both make valid points. The competing truths create multiple empathies for the audience, who can see an aspect of truth on both sides (even though they may ultimately side with one argument or another).
Finally, within the scene as a whole there is a shape to the emotional progression. As the audience experiences multiple empathies, our feelings shift, sympathizing on some lines with Abe's point of view and goals, and then sympathizing with Peggy's. The scene gains complexity through the shift, and gives the narrative a sense of movement.
When we look at these techniques in total, we get a scene with seemingly simple, naturalistic dialogue that achieves complexity by indicating that characters have multi-layered relationships and conflicting goals that may not be able to be reconciled. In turn, these techniques build complexity over time -- in the course of the episode, the season, the series, we see Peggy in multi-layered relationships with multiple characters, while watching her pursue multiple goals. Every Mad Men scene is not this complex, but many are.
And as I concluded at the end of the last post, this is one scene where the complexity of the character conflict is a good reflection of the historical conflict, perhaps because it brings up classic '60s examples of the way in which the personal was political.
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