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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33740
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33740
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I don't pretend to be able to interpret Sorkin on this, but I would make this point: When we write, we have punctuation to break sentences into meaningful phrases. In speech, unless you are Victor Borge, you do not. And in writing, if the reader does not get the meaning of the sentence the first time, they can go back and read it again. In conversation, they can stop you and ask you to clarify. But on stage or screen, there are no second chances.

So, dialog has to make its meaning crystal clear the first time though. A large part of this is making sure that the stresses fall in the right place, that the line, as naturally spoken, causes the key words that convey its essential meaning to be highlighted.

To me, this is what rhythmic prose is all about. It is not exactly metrical because by and large the unstressed syllables don't matter. It is all about making sure that the important words fall in the stressed positions.

One of the things that makes metrical poetry so hard to write and (unless it is written brilliantly) so hard to read, is that the syntax has to be manipulated to fit the meter. And in the hands of anyone less than a genius, this means that the syntax is tortured to fit the meter.

It is much easier in prose rhythm to make the syntax fit the rhythm. But it equally possible to ignore it altogether, and it seems that many writers simply have no ear for this at all. (Which may be what Sorkin means by it not being possible to teach dialogue.)

As I noted above, you can get away with it in prose because the reader can stop, slow down, or go back and read again until they work out what was important in a passage. But in dialogue, which the listener only gets one shot at in real time, fitting syntax to rhythm becomes much more important.

This, of course, is just to do with the basic problem of conveying meaning. Drama needs dialogue to convey more than just meaning. It must also convey emotion and beauty.

Music, as we know, can have a powerful emotional effect, which is why most dramas have a soundtrack. And music is rhythmic and much of its emotional power comes from that rhythm. It follows that the admittedly more subtle rhythm (or dissonance) of prose can have an emotional effect as well.

Finally, beauty has a profound relationship to order and order to rhythm, so again prose rhythm adds to the beauty of written work and to the beauty of dialogue.

Original score: 4