Take two blog posts into the shower?

I'm just after being told off for not blogging at you so much lately, and here I am back in seconds with a, well, second.

I may have mentioned this before but if I did, it was to say that there's a type of dialogue I love that I've never been able to write. And I just have. By accident.

It's the line that makes no sense but in doing so, makes vastly more sense than a logical, rational version would. The example I would've given you is Billy Bragg's line about waiting for phone call, "when at last it didn't ring / I knew it wasn't you". What I've just written is a text to a friend. There's something up that she doesn't want to go into, but I wanted her to know we could natter about anything, this problem or just about anything to take her mind off it.

So what I wrote was: "Call if you don't want to talk."

If you think dialogue is just grand oratory or just something to slip in after you're tenth draft of a script, you're wasting your time. Consider directing. Real people talk absolute rubbish to each other, we hardly ever listen and we certainly don't wait our turn in the conversation politely, but in our selfish rubbish we understand each other and we give away so much.

And we also misunderstand, both other people and even especially ourselves and our own motives, plus of course we lie with abandon.

Drama is dialogue, and isn't that wonderful?

Consequently my entry to this year's Red Planet competition consists of very little talkin' and a lot more helicopter action than any reasonable TV company could ever afford.

William