Well-worth Reading

The Emmy-winning writer/director/producer and MLB baseball announcer (though he didn't win an Emmy for that...) Ken Levine has a nice piece on his terrific blog about writing dialogue.  If you haven't checked out his blog here, it's very entertaining and information, particularly about the world o' entertainment, of which Ken is an expert, having written for such shows as Cheers and M*A*S*H, and several movies, including Volunteers with Tom Hanks.  (And i wasn't joking about him being a baseball announcers -- he's broadcast for the Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, and most recently the Seattle Mariners. 

In his discussion, Ken makes the point that most people don't talk in literate, well-crafted sentences, and it's the writer who has the good ear, being able to re-create the more normal patterns of speech who leaps out. 

He also mentions several of the best English dialogue writers grew up speaking other languages, and then later singles out several writers whose collections of their work are worth checking out, specifically highlighting the great British playwright Tom Stoppard with a photo.  I mention this for a particular and amusing reason.  It's worth noting that Tom Stoppard was born in -- the Czech Republic!

You can find Ken's piece directly here.