Prompted Dialogue Assignment

Prompted Dialogue

Assignment Instructions.

Building on what you’ve learned from the real-life patterns of speech from the eavesdropping assignment, you’ll now create a fictional dialogue between two people. Movie dialogue is “hyperreal,” meaning it’s improved, streamlined, and more powerful. It’s how we wish we all talked. It also usually contains a significant amount of subtext. What isn’t being said often influences what is said.

Following my prompt below, create a dialogue completely of your own making. Your submitted document should be at least a page in length, but otherwise can continue however long is necessary. This must be in screenplay format, so copy my scene description below into your formatting software of choice.

In-person students: upload to D2L and bring 1 copy to class.

Online students: upload to D2L.

THE PROMPT

INT. SUBURBAN SHOPPING MALL FOOD COURT – DAY

Sunday, lunch time. The food court is bustling. It’s packed with shoppers: hassled parents wrangling children, lone diners flinging through their phones, small groups of teenagers. Amidst all the chaos is a woman, alone, out of place. This is MAGGIE. She’s dressed in a slightly grimy black t-shirt scribbled with an unreadable metal band logo, torn black jeans, weather beaten black boots. She has a handful of earrings, tattoos poking out from under her shirt. She’s eating her fast food and enjoying it, pleasantly oblivious to the insanity around her.

The chair across from Maggie makes an angry screech as someone pulls it out from under the table. She looks up and gives a grin. Standing across from her is HAIRY JIM – similarly dressed, tall, broad shouldered. Maggie pops a French fry into her mouth.

HARIY JIM