The “Gilmore Girls” revival dropped on Netflix this past November, and while I didn’t exactly binge-watch it in the way I’m sure other more intense fans did (one a day), I did finish the four ninety-minute episodes pretty quickly. I’m not here to comment on the crash-boom-bang ending because even though it’s been almost three months, I still haven’t made up my mind about what’s happening to the character in question. Instead, I’m here because the older I get, the more I realize that my writing style is a product of this show.
As I’ve said before, I didn’t really watch “Gilmore Girls” when it was actually airing. However, I did catch a few scenes when my mother watched it. I was always drawn in by the fast-paced dialogue and how much the characters seemed to get each other. Stars Hollow, for me, was a dream town. Not because of the smallness. I don’t think I could survive in a town meeting where Taylor Doose yelled at me for not wanting to live on “Sores and Boils Alley.” For me, the best thing about Stars Hollow was that you could say anything, and the people around you wouldn’t think it was weird. Because everyone was in on your joke. How awesome would that be?
Obviously, I’m a writer of sorts. (“I’m a writer” is not a sentence I like to use very often.). I’ve written a number of stories and teleplays, and every time a new person sits down to read my work, the number-one compliment is always the same: “You’re really good at dialogue.”
I heard it so often I started to believe it. I’m really good at dialogue. I would read my lines over and over again, trying to figure out why people said that. And then I realized. Somewhere along the line, my brain absorbed the Amy Sherman-Palladino-style of writing dialogue.
In my junior year of college, a professor called me “Lorelai Gilmore on steroids.” He didn’t mean it kindly, but I decided to take it that way, anyway. After all, more people like my dialogue than not. So, without further ado, here are four things I learned about writing dialogue from the queen herself.
1. The Faster the Better
Come on. There’s a reason Lauren Graham’s autobiography is titled “Talking As Fast As I Can.” If you’re on “Gilmore Girls,” you’re talking a mile a minute, or whatever the speech equivalent of running a mile is (If there is such a thing, I’d like to go back to 2009 and opt for that in my ninth-grade gym class. Then maybe I wouldn’t have come in last place. See what my professor meant? Lorelai Gilmore on steroids.). I’ve read that an average script for “Gilmore Girls” was made up of eighty pages. Putting that into network-TV-time, that’s a page of dialogue delivered in thirty seconds. Some people might say that’s bad. They’ll tell you to show and not tell. I think Sherman-Palladino and her cast of characters gave us the perfect mix of show and tell. They make us do both in kindergarten for a reason, don’t they? Plus, that’s what we do in real life. We talk to each other. At least, I hope so.
2. Obscure Pop Culture References Are a Girl's Best Friend
Okay, so maybe the reference above wasn’t super obscure (But in case it is, it’s a reference to Marilyn Monroe’s song in the 1953 musical, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Monroe plays Lorelei Lee, which is Rory Gilmore’s legal name, just spelled differently.). Now that I’m a big “Gilmore Girls” fan, I absolutely love the pop culture references on the show. I think that the incorporation of such references reveals the complexity in the eponymous characters—after all, they live in between small-town-basket-weaving-country and high-society-several-forks-with-dinner-estate. Lorelai and Rory are both very intellectual (regardless of education status), but they’re able to quote “Billy Jack” like some people are able to quote “The Divine Comedy” in its original Italian (And that’s a reference to “How I Met Your Mother.” It’s like I was secretly a Gilmore all along.).
By comparison, I have a scene in which my two lead characters sit on pins and needles, waiting to see if CBS will cut the number from “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” in which Jessica, the future Mrs. Santa Claus, sings a song that looks a little like an acid trip. They’re both highly educated literary scholars. References like these humanize your characters, and when your audience gets the joke, they feel like they’re part of a community. In case you’re curious, the number in question is below.
3. Don't Dumb down Your Character... or Your Audience
The characters on “Gilmore Girls” are all unapologetically bright and witty (except for maybe Jared Padalecki’s Dean, but even he had his moments). Most of them, especially Alexis Bledel’s Rory, Milo Ventimiglia’s Jess, and the late Edward Hermann’s Richard, are incredibly well read. Perhaps another series would have been too afraid to write characters who were so familiar with canonized literature. After all, it wasn’t all “Harry Potter” for Rory. Instead, we saw these characters reading mostly complex modern and postmodern texts. Sherman-Palladino’s production company is even named after modernist writer and critic, Dorothy Parker.
Characters don’t just have to sit around and worry about each other all day. They can worry about each other through the lens of other fiction. For example, in a season-three episode, Rory warns Lane (Keiko Agena) that “there’s cute jealous, and then there’s ‘Othello’” when Lane is flattered that her boyfriend is jealous that she is spending time with someone else. And Lane just got it. I’ve always thought that was really interesting and something I could do with my own characters.
4. You Can Still Find a Way to Make Your Character Vulnerable in the Midst of All the Quickness
That’s right. Even when your character is emotionally melting down like a July Popsicle in the back of your mom’s minivan, you can be quick and witty. “Gilmore Girls” perfected this complexity, particularly through Lauren Graham’s Lorelai. I’m especially thinking about a season-five episode in which she leaves a message on Luke’s (Scott Patterson) answering machine about how she misses him, detailing the plot of “The Way We Were” to convey her feelings. There are very few moments of the series where Lorelai is more vulnerable than this one. And she still manages to be clever in the midst of all her tears. This scene really struck a chord with me after I saw it. Eventually, I was able to write a voice message from father-to-daughter in which he broke down but was still able to relate “The Virgin Suicides” to the problem she might be having. Vulnerability and inability to craft language are not mutually exclusive.
So, some people don’t like “Gilmore Girls.” They think it’s alienating or boring or not nearly nuanced enough. I couldn’t disagree more, but that’s another series of essays waiting to happen. I’m thankful to a lot of shows, especially this one. Amy Sherman-Palladino helped me to craft my dialogue and my complex characters the way I wanted them to be crafted. Because she could do it, I don’t even feel the need to apologize for it.
Maybe I could buy her a coffee in gratitude.
