Writing A Good Monologue

     Before I can flesh out my exact shots, I need to know what my dad will be saying in his monologue. This has to be good, because it's going to be the main focus of the first part of the opening, and it's also the only thing giving the audience context, so it's very important that I do this right. I also want to avoid cliches and cheesy writing like the PLAGUE. 

    So, I sat down with my dad and asked him a few questions to see his natural reactions, the way he tended to word things, and what things he would realistically tell his daughter in a situation like this. I thought I should model the monologue as closely as possible by my dad's natural idiolect for two reasons. 

A) This character practically IS my dad, attitudes, occupation, and all, so it makes sense that whatever he would realistically say is also something my character would be saying.

B) My dad is not a professional actor, and the film is kind of riding on this performance. The whole production will strike the audience as so much more genuine and powerful if this monologue is delivered well, and I could make it a whole lot easier for my dad to deliver it well if it's already based on what he actually sounds like.

    Next, I made an outline of all the important timestamps within the song and made note of how much time I had for this monologue to play out. I gave myself a rough estimate of how many words I'd be writing, and I put that 49 seconds of the song on loop over and over and over again. I rambled on incorporating important plot details and phrases I knew my dad would gravitate towards based on our interview and of course the last 16 years of my life. When I had a rough draft, I even whipped out the best impression of my dad I could muster to gauge how his timing would be over the song. Right now, this is the writing I've landed on. My dad liked it when I showed him so that's a big win.