Great vid and helpful. Its no secret that Milch filched The Bard and The Bible for his writing of Deadwood. It also helps 10x more that he was already a solid writer.
4 minutes in and I already love this video. I’ve watched this series at least 50 times, probably closer to 100. Best dialogue of any show, ever. Period
Fantastic video! This is probably the best breakdown I've seen anywhere of not only how a scene works but also how to actually do it. Your analysis of the four separate complete scenes was great, too. The piecemeal analysis was good, but it was nice to see how everything came together in actual scenes. I see your last upload was five months ago. I hope you're going to continue with new content since you're really good at explaning things!
David Milch, as an expert writer and all around intellectual individual, probably studied the original rhetorical progenitor of the periodic sentence, Isocrates.
The characters talked using prepositional phrase filled sentences and indirect meaning on NYPD Blue's early seasons. It was very unique. Sipowicz could say something like "Past me standing here wanting to beat your balls, and me likin you for that killin, there's you thinkin like an uptown prick who can get over on the unwashed cop that I am"
The only thing I disagree with so far is that the paragraph spoken by Dan is not a major thing. I dare anyone to find a more fundamental explanation of who Dan is. A major character's raison d'etre is kinda sorta major.
Superb. Very useful insight and lots of interesting ideas that I'm going to look into further. And if you want to look at any scenes from The Matrix or There Will Be Blood that would be *chef's kiss*.
This might have value as a technique, but it is also a double-edged sword-do it 'wrong' and it can scuttle the writing, the story, and the audience. What do I mean by 'wrong'? I'll 'delay' that until it will make sense. It's similar to one of the techniques I employ as often as possible, something often referred to as 'withholding information'. Briefly, what this entails is giving the reader just enough info to get their minds engaged actively in trying to put 2 and 2 together to see if they can figure out the part of the info they don't yet have. This can work at the clause, sentence, paragraph, scene, sequence, chapter, act, story arc, and trilogy arc levels. The human mind is hard-wired to attempt to fill in the blanks automatically. It's a survival technique-figuring out what's going on, even with only partial info, increases the odds of survival bc it allows better preparation for what may come. Present the reader with a puzzle, even a tiny one in a 8-word sentence, they automatically try to solve it. Now, they're actively a part of the storytelling. And that's what makes reading fun. Humans naturally attempt to make order out of chaos, 24/7/365. They can't help themselves. This plays directly into that. The trick is to withhold 'part 2' of the info for the exact right amount of time, then give them the rest of the info. What's difficult is figuring out how long the delay should be. The more important that info is to the story, usually the longer the delay will be. But you want to give it to them either just before or just after they figure it out on their own, or you want to give it to them just before they give up in frustration. A bit of a guessing game for the writer. If you delay part 2 of the information too heavy-handedly, or too long, then it is no longer an effective technique, because it can backfire, and spectacularly. It does not promote story flow. It presents stutters to the flow. Readers hopefully fall into the fictive dream. Writers should avoid anything that pulls them out of it. Having to stop and think or to go back and reread something to make better sense of it works against both keeping the reader mesmerized with the fictive dream and also works against steady forward story motion and flow. You also need to be sure to give them enough info in 'part 1' to get them to that stage of wanting to figure things out and trying to. Simply puzzling them just does not work. So, writers, do this at your peril. They have to have enough bait to want to buy in. Like corner drug dealers used to say, 'First one (part 1) is free'. That cautionary aspect is the same cautionary aspect to be mindful of in using delay as a technique. The most important 'mechanic' of delay is the same as rhe most important thing in comedy-timing. It's knowing how much info to withhold and how long to wait before handing part 2 over to the reader, which must also be done. Do it properly, and they will fall in love with your story. Do it improperly and they will hurtle your novel off their balcony like a discus.
Too young to watch the series when it aired originally? It makes no sense, of course, but I confess I was taken aback by this. The mathematics works out, but, still, speaking for myself, twenty years ago was not that long ago. Twenty years ago seems perhaps like- ten years ago, maybe eight. When you get to be my age and many people around you seem like kids, you will understand. For now, though, I imagine my remarks will seem rude and arrogant, though these things are merely incidental to the point I am attempting to make. Anyhow, thanks for the vid.
I held the same interpretation. Deadwood- as a whole - was too chaotic to be taken over by any one individual. So characters struggled to maintain their grasp on any small piece they could control in the chaos. For Trixie and Dan, that was the Gem. (That’s my take, anyway …)
This is actually a very good alternative to the Five-Man Band trope. As much as I love it, it can be a struggle to come up with five characters personalities. Which is why in the story I’m writing, I instead wrote three main characters who eventually come together to achieve a common goal. The story I’m writing is called “The Road Ranger.” It’s a post-apocalyptic action crime thriller about a young former sergeant in the Calivadan Army Rangers who leaves military service after six years of intermittent conflicts to rebuild his connection with his parents. However just weeks later, Matt’s mother is shot dead even though she was supposed to be legally protected as a witness to a crime. Although he was promised justice by the police initially, it was later revealed that they refused to launch an investigation which Matt later decides to take matters into his own hands by bringing war and death to those involved in his mother’s murder. There are three main characters that come together to form a trio albeit slowly throughout the story. They are: Matt Santos/The Road Ranger (The Id): A killer of murderers and a crippler of thieves. Punishes evildoers harshly without a second thought. Due to his six years in the Calivadan Army Rangers, Matt is well-versed in using guns ranging from assault rifles to pistols and even explosives like grenades. He even makes use of tactical armor but he doesn’t actually get armor until the moment leading up to the climax. But at the start of the story, he does own a pistol due to his status in the military even though he’s no longer in service. He’s the one who does most of the killing of criminals between the three main characters. And because the story is mostly about him, he is eventually given the moniker “The Road Ranger” by the very end of the story after he sees himself in a newspaper wearing his full-body tactical gear. Maria Garcia: (The Superego) Prefers diplomacy over dealing death. She meets Matt Santos purely by chance because she was assigned to put legal protection placements on Matt’s parents. She actually starts a budding romance with Matt but things become complicated after she soon finds Matt is murdering criminals after his mother died from an unseen gunman. At the same time, she slowly finds her workplace is not as lawful as she thought they were. Eventually she allies herself with Matt which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with her budding romance with him. She knows how to use a gun herself. She’s just reluctant to use it if she can diffuse the delicate situation first. Miz: (The Ego) He’s passionate with all things hi-tech but he also prefers to act as tech support, leaving all the fighting to his soldier and cop friends. Due to his young age, Miz is the least combat-oriented of the trio. However his eccentric nature of needing to understand how things work makes him useful to Matt and Maria. He’s quite adept with computers and hacking. But he’s also able to maintain weapon functionality, craft bullets in abundant quantities, and repairing robotic devices like aerial drones. In a way, he’s like both Matt and Maria. Because he’s a non-violent vigilante when he exposed his school admins for fraud which resulted him in being expelled but he also worked for the FBI as a commuted sentence for career fraud and underage laboring. His commuted sentence being a cybercrime specialist due to his skills with computers and hacking. I love this trope more than the five-man band because of its use of three main characters instead of five. However this trope can overlap with the five-man band if executed well. TL; DR: Currently writing a book set in a post-apocalyptic world called “The Road Ranger.” Main characters are Matt Santos/The Road Ranger (The Id), Maria Garcia (The Superego), and Miz (The Ego).
While I fuckin appreciated the fuckin artistic creativity of the fuckin dialogue in Deadwood, I found I couldn’t fuckin understand what the fuck those fuckers were talking about much of the fucking time. Also I just gotta believe the people of that time knew more than one fuckin linguistic modifier.
I just started watching Succession. I'm still on episode 2. I decided to come back to this video because to this day I was not able to wrap my head around this concept.
Instead of overstaying your welcome with too much deviation from the main idea, you covered it from many angles to get your ideas across perfectly. You're a great teacher. Great video. Subbed.
Thank you so much for this. Honestly can't express how valuable and informative this video has been. There are some core writing lessons in here delivered with clarity and fun. This is honestly one of the best video essays I've seen on RU-vid overall. Amazing work; I'm subscribed and eager to see more!
Ooh, what is gonna happen next? Will the author of this fantastic video give up, crushed by criminal lack of views? Or will he persevere, bravely fighting algorithms and apathy to realise his dream of having a successful RU-vid channel?
This is a wildly different example but throughout the video all I could think of was the line, "You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons" where the initial phrase is reframed twice in ways that don't add anything, then one more time, much more dramatically, for comedic effect.
That’s a wildly great example! There’s some rapid fire ones in the previous lines too. All to reframe unrealistic ways how the town might welcome Bart: “What did you expect? Welcome, sonny? Make yourself at home? Marry my daughter?” Good, serviceable writing that communicates more than the sum of its words, but the end bit you point out is what it’s all leading to: the line TURN to the punchline. All the reframes are the stepping stones that lead us to that rhetorical twist. Thanks for sharing! Hadn’t watched that scene in some time.
