Dialogue Samples
A Song of Solitude
Below is a scene taken from A Song of Solitude featuring the protagonist and his uncle. This scene was created to contrast Thym’s youth and inexperience with Tarik’s callous-yet-caring nature in order to show Thym’s human side. I particularly love the way that I was able to really differentiate each character from each other through just their voices and actions. Below the in-website excerpt, I have a .pdf available of an extended version of the scene available for download.
“I killed a king?”
“No, just the patriarch of their leading military family. Is he really dead?”
“Aye, and not just dead either.”
Tarik shook the weak youth. “Spit it out, boy! This could mean an act of war.”
“I was trying to find out why they killed the village. None of them would talk, save for a scared little one. When I finally got to Dirn, he wouldn’t talk either. I tried everything to get him to talk, but almost nothing worked.”
“Almost?”
“Humiliation stirred his tongue. He spoke freely after I cut off his beard.”
“Please tell me you didn’t do that. Tell me that what you just said was a lie.”
A grimace spread over the boy’s face. “I might have cut something else off as well.”
Tarik allowed himself to collapse. “At least you killed them all.”
“Well…”
Tarik propped himself on his elbows. “You did kill them all, right? Their king won’t hear about this, will he?”
“I might have let two of them go.”
“Might? This is a matter of life or death, might is not an option.”
“So, I definitely let two of them go.”
Tarik eased back to the sand. “We’re doomed. A war with the Dwarrow is definitely not what we need.”
“I don’t think a war with them is going to be our highest priority.”
“You shamed and killed the son of the late king, heir to the oldest and strongest of royal families in all the Dwarrow kingdom. How is that not a priority?”
“They weren’t acting under strict orders from their king.”
Tarik was on his elbows again. “Damn it, boy, spit it out! Don’t just give me bits and pieces.”
“Dirn spoke about getting paid for the work. In total, over two hundred pounds of gold and silver was paid to this band, plus a substantial poundage for the king. Supposedly to buy their silence.”
“Who provided the gold?”
“Prince Keirnok.”
“That slimy bastard!”
Thym shuffled in the sand. “Who exactly is Keirnok?”
Tarik stood up, dusting the sand from his pants. “I’ll explain that part in a bit.” He extended his hand to the boy. “Are you still too weak to walk, or do you think you can handle a short walk along the beach?”
Thym took the hand, struggling to stand on fragile legs. “I’d like to try and walk. You worry about me too much, it was just a few days without food.”
The greying man took his nephew by the waist, hoisting an arm over his shoulders. “Even you are mortal.” The two started trudging north along the beach. “If five days without food and two without sleep leaves you this weary then I’ll have quite the time trying to get you battle worthy.”
“Oh, laugh at me all you want, I’ll show you up in a duel any day.”
“Says the boy being dragged along a beach by his uncle.”
“If memory serves correctly, Cyrus was your equal by the time he turned fourteen. Cyrus hasn’t held a candle to me in years.”
“I went easy on your brother. I may be your uncle, but I was still your father’s Regent. He even had a hard time matching me.”
“Oh yeah? Just you wait. Whenever I’m able to fight again, I’ll prove myself as your better.”
Laugh
This screenplay is based off of a short story I wrote that bears the same name. Just like the original piece, which was written in a style consciously different from what I normally write, I wrote this screenplay as a challenge to myself. I started screenwriting just before my senior year of undergrad and ran into a spell of writer’s block. When I approached a friend with frustration over this, they suggested taking an old work of mine and adapting it to the screenwriting style. I took this idea and adapted a few scenes from a variety of works I’d written, but got no real joy out of those. In an attempt to try to revitalize my waning interest in the subject, I challenged myself to find the one piece I had that would be most difficult to translate into the screenplay style and make it good.
However, due to the length and style of the manuscript, I’m not putting up an excerpt on the website. However, please check out this PDF version.