"On The Nose" Dialogue

[@patataeve]

I love that your videos don't just give formulas, but encourage us to think and analyze the choices and paths of good writing. Thank you!!!!

[@writingforscreens]

It's one of the hardest things about being a writer...realizing that you're on your own, and must do precisely that: think and choose. Thank YOU!

[@bobpowers9637]

“I’ll be back”

[@writingforscreens]

Ha! Yes - great one!!

[@bizzy423]

Your video just punched me on the nose. I'm such a newbie I didn't even know what the phrase meant. I just spent the day writing a documentary instead of drama. Thanks for punching me in the nose and waking me up !

[@writingforscreens]

Put some ice on that :) I am so glad that the ideas connect - I've been creating this channel by thinking back decades to my newbie self struggling to find useful how-to on screenwriting, and asking myself: what would help? Your comment really helps ME.

[@crzyprplmnky]

Simply excellent! I appreciated this defense of on the nose dialogue in a sea of easy critiques.

[@writingforscreens]

Thank you so much!

[@lioness3146]

You are very underrated, but pls know that your videos really help me and alot of other people! It means alot you take time out of your day to help those of us who want to learn

[@writingforscreens]

Thank you SO much for telling me this, it is really encouraging. It helps keep me inspired to do more. Please do ask questions if there's something particular you would like me to talk about - go to "Contact me" at writingforscreens.com.

[@rustinonthevine]

Thank you for this. I just rewrote a few passages of dialogue that had been bothering me, and they were some that contest readers had flagged as expository. But you were right, being on-the-nose wasn't the problem, they were just stale and, frankly, unimpressive. Much, much better now.

[@writingforscreens]

Thank YOU - hearing something like this is so deeply the payoff for making these things!

[@DeeperAnime]

You are a genius, my friend

[@writingforscreens]

"Genius," you say? Well - perhaps. Not for me to say. We shall let the algorithm decide! But seriously: THANK you!!!! Tell your writer friends!

[@goso03]

Good video. Thanks :)

[@writingforscreens]

Thank YOU for your comment!

[@thehendersonhouse8200]

As a prolific D&D player, I spend a lot of time improvising on the nose dialogue - players often use blunt truthfulness to get what we want from the NPCs. (We lie when it suits us too, but) I feel like it's taught me how the truth can be used as an instrument, or as "an action," like you said. Laying everything out on the table gives you the chance to persuade in a very reasoned way, but I think one of the most interesting things about it is that once you do that, its then up to the other characters to respond. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Just because an outcome seems logical to the person being "on the nose" doesn't mean that the motivations of the other characters won't interfere in realistic and concrete ways with that logic. Once that happens, then you get the juicy drama and frustration. "On the nose" lines have that potential! (Plus, I think being "on the nose" CAN be very realistic. People want to be understood, and we often do our best to represent our point of view honestly. When you bare your soul like that and *still aren't understood,* it can be painful!)

[@thehendersonhouse8200]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2KZgYqXqsR2fNU great example of someone being on the nose and getting shot down for comedic effect lol

[@writingforscreens]

This is VERY true and helpful. Thank you!!

[@mikehess4494]

Thank you.

[@phedonkonstantinidis7026]

Gogol would concur. Excellent points. Thank you.

[@writingforscreens]

I don't think he would like it unless I was also wearing an Overcoat...

[@Whyiadda]

That belongs in a museum!

[@writingforscreens]

Thank you!

[@oliverford5367]

It depends on the context. The "standing in front of a boy" line in Notting Hill sounds cheesy on its own, but works at the end of a whole film about how someone famous and someone ordinary struggle. But because it's been built up it works. However a lot of the time you want subtext

[@writingforscreens]

I agree!

[@gregthomas5822]

Would you say that at times the "on the nose" dialogue can be used as a foundation upon which more subtle and contextual dialogue can be built and eventually used to replace the "on the nose" dialogue a writer begins with? Like a foundation for a house. You don't really see it because it is below ground. You see the walls built on top of the foundation. But you need to start with the foundation.

[@writingforscreens]

Sure, that can be a way to work. It helps to know what someone is not-saying when they are using subtext. But also, sometimes, you want to say it.

[@saramarzoli9647]

You got me thinking about the line "You're gonna die tomorrow Lord Bolton. Sleep well" from Game of thrones. HOLY SHIT, WAS THAT FUCKIN LEGENDARY and on the nose.

[@writingforscreens]

Yes, I agree!

[@whobitmyname]

Can we get this man an additional 82.2k subs already?

[@writingforscreens]

I know, right?! But building slowly, surely... thank you!!

[@badraldenshalgen4489]

❤

[@amalprakashcj]

❤️❤️❤️

[@ad6417]

Best on the nose..."Melee at the HuLaLa!"--Pearl Harbor.

[@writingforscreens]

Haha!

[@DrBell-gi7bf]

Avoiding on the nose dialogue is a piece of advice most published authors will give to amateurs. Like advice you hear in life, it's not the law.

[@stevecarter8810]

The Jaws reference isn't right: on the nose here would be "I'm unsettled by the size of the shark I've just seen and remember I'm already worried enough being in the ocean in the first place"

[@writingforscreens]

Yes, fair point...but they also DO need a bigger boat.

[@kmatlockii]

To me, this comment is a great encapsulation of the point the video is making: don't worry about being too direct as long as it's interesting and sounds plausibly natural. "We're going to need a bigger boat" is an on-the-nose statement for the characters that artificially compresses all of the anxieties you mentioned into a short line of dialogue that sounds realistic.

[@writingforscreens]

@@kmatlockii The way I see it is: "On The Nose" does not have to be "Objective" or "Summary" - it can be a blunt personal expression of a feeling or opinion.

[@tomlewis4748]

@Steve Carter: I really hope you're being facetious. If Spielberg had used that line in the movie, he would've spent the next 30 years selling caramel macchiato's at Starbucks. The line that Scheider said was absolutely on the nose. But it also implied perfectly in subtext the reason why they needed a bigger boat without telling us on the nose why they needed a bigger boat. This is why it's iconic, and why we all remember it so clearly, 47 years later.