As any good screenwriter knows, the key to writing explanatory dialog that doesn’t sound forced is to avoid it as long as humanly possible.
You can’t just shoehorn information into a scene because you want the reader to know it. You have to wait until there’s absolutely no way to withhold it any longer.
In “Right of Way,” that time is now, which Eric Volkman figured out in this week’s pages, 67-70.
“I wanted to start tying up a few loose ends without giving away the whole gig,” Eric said. “We've had a lot of questions so far, but few answers.”
That’s because no one was around to supply them. But now, with Celeste and Napolitano reunited for the first time since her kidnapping, it’s only natural for him to demand the whole story.
Whether or not he can believe what she tells him is another matter entirely.
“Celeste is a fun character to play around with,” Eric said. She's slippery and a good actress -- a great foil for Napolitano. But Our Hero, though he has a weakness for this woman, is a quick learner and is rapidly starting to figure her out.”
Celeste’s story isn’t pretty. Faced with Napolitano's angry barrage of questions, she eventually admits she and Omar set up her kidnapping in order to squeeze some money out of the mayor. Before she can explain why the plan capsized, they’re pulled over by Detective Deland, who’s tired of serving as Napolitano’s errand boy and is bringing some new attitude to the party.
It would seem Napolitano’s quest to keep this whole extended fiasco out of the public eye is about to fall apart, and his career quite possibly along with it. But we won’t know until at least next week because, with Deland’s interruption, Eric has found a way to postpone the inevitable a little longer.
Eric’s own story is similarly circuitous. A native New Yorker, he spent the past 13 years in Prague, Czech Republic, where, among other things, he published what he calls “a pan-ex-Soviet-Satellite-States business magazine.”
He also played rock and roll bass, wrote screenplays, attended a summer film school and made a memorable visit to the set of "Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" in the Barrandov hills. Prague was booming for Hollywood productions a few years ago, but when the dollar went south, Eric headed west -- to Los Angeles, where he hopes to write TV comedy.
“If Mohammed won't come to the mountain,” he said, “the mountain must go to Mohammed. So I packed up my bags, hopped a plane, and here I am.”
