Not How People Talk

Realistic dialogue would be unwatchable. Real speech is full of um, uh, repetition, tangents, and incomplete thoughts. Film dialogue creates the illusion of natural speech while actually being meticulously crafted to advance plot, reveal character, and create subtext simultaneously.

Aaron Sorkin writes dialogue that no human would actually speak — rapid-fire, perfectly articulated, building arguments like architectural structures. David Mamet writes in clipped, repetitive patterns that mimic how people circle around what they really mean.