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A practical manual of screen playwriting : for theater and television films (1952)

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210 A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF SCREEN PLAYWRITING ELLEN I know, but . . . TOM (interrupting savagely) I don't want to talk about it! ELLEN But you've got to understand that . . . TOM (interrupting again) Oh! I understand— everything and I . . . ELLEN You're a stubborn mule! I'm through. Despite the fact that an interruption— and especially the double interruption of the previous example— breaks up the flow of speech, it is effective as a hook because its suddenness, coupled with an immediate flow of speech from the interrupter, serves to pick up the flow before it actually comes to a full stop and, at the same time, couples the two speeches together. Finally, there is a more subtle means of hooking together speeches. This makes use of ideas rather than words. It calls for the planting of ideas, their development, their building, and their capping, all within the compass of a number of speeches. Although it is inadvisable to do so, an idea development, from speech to speech, can be hooked together without resorting to actual dialogue hooks. But if there is an idea linkage, cemented together with dialogue hooks, the result would be that smooth flow of verbal continuity so essential to a motion picture. Speech length It can be stated dogmatically that there is almost no place in motion-picture dialogue for long speeches. A long speech impedes action. Short speeches increase it. Since action is the prime requisite of