Speak

Ben Affleck. Pretty-boy actor with a mildly interesting love life, right? I recently listened to a podcast that reminded me that he is also an Oscar-winning screenwriter.

In ths podcast from Creative Screenwriting Magazine (iTunes, mp3) he is promoting the film he co-wrote and directed Gone Baby Gone. He covers many screenwriting subjects very quickly including how to adapt the fourth in a series of books as if it were the first, and the many advantages of speaking your dialogue to see if actors can say it:

15:50 – “Writers think about dialogue as ‘getting from A to B’ or having some thematic connection to something. None of that means anything if it can’t be delivered in a way that works. […Sometimes] it doesn’t sound like a human being talking”

If you haven’t seen the film, make sure you stop the podcast at 21:05 as there are huge spoilers for the end of the film.