How Do Screenwriters Justify Scenes Where Characters Talk Nonsense?

I get a kick out of how what looks like nonsense can actually be a secret shorthand in a script. Sometimes characters jabber on about odd, half-baked things and it seems like the writer lost the plot, but more often it's deliberate: the dialogue is doing work beneath the surface — showing a character's brainstorms, deflections, or emotional spillover. In films or shows where people are nervous or trying to hide something, speech fragments, tangents, and non sequiturs feel authentic because that's literally how we talk when we’re uneasy. I’ve sat in cafes eavesdropping on conversations that went nowhere and realized that same scattershot quality is gold for making scenes feel lived-in.

Another reason is rhythm and tone. A string of bizarre lines can set a mood — comic, eerie, or surreal — in ways tidy exposition cannot. Think of the odd talk in 'Twin Peaks' or the aimless banter in 'Seinfeld'; those moments create texture and let the audience breathe instead of hitting them with information. Sometimes writers use nonsense to mask exposition: characters talk in circles while the camera reveals clues, or the gibberish itself becomes a red herring. There’s also stream-of-consciousness and poetic approaches where literal meaning is less important than emotional truth.

Finally, technical choices matter. If a line seems nonsensical on the page but lands in the actor’s delivery or the edit, it can become iconic. Table reads, rehearsal, and trusting actors to shape the gibberish into subtext are all part of the justification. If I had one tip from my own scribbles and late-night script swaps, it’s this: keep the nonsense that reveals something — a fear, a lie, a relationship — and kill the rest. The weird lines that survive tend to be the ones that make you sit up, not just scratch your head.

Oddly enough, I often find that nonsense exists because life itself is messy and speech is messy, and good writers mimic that. When someone talks nonsense in a scene it can signal distraction, grief, intoxication, or a messed-up memory — all legitimate human states that tidy exposition would sterilize. I tend to read those moments as emotional maps rather than literal information: the words point to an interior landscape.

At the same time, nonsense can be a stylistic device — dream logic that invites the audience to feel rather than be told. The risk is that you lose clarity, so the best uses are those that fracture meaning intentionally, leaving room for interpretation. My practical take is simple: keep the nonsense if it deepens character or mood; cut it if it merely confuses. In the end, I’m happiest when a line that sounds like gibberish actually makes me feel something strange and specific.

Sitting down with a script I’m always asking: what is this strange chatter trying to hide or reveal? For me, nonsense dialogue is often a disguise. People don’t speak in neat paragraphs during tension; they pivot, dodge, and clatter out fragments. I like to treat those fragments as clues to psychology. A character babbling about an irrelevant childhood fact could be avoiding a present hurt. That’s why a lot of seemingly pointless lines exist — to create realistic avoidance patterns, or to buy time while another character processes something big.

On the craft side, I use a few practical checks before keeping gibberish. Read it aloud—if it produces a rhythm or comic cadence, it has value. Ask whether it changes the power dynamic in the scene, reveals a quirk, or echoes a theme later. Sometimes the nonsense is a deliberate stylistic choice: dream logic conversations in 'BoJack Horseman' or absurd finds in 'The Office' can be expressive and funny. Other times it’s filler that needs trimming. My rule of thumb is: if the nonsense provokes an image, a beat, or a response from another character, it earns its place. If it just fills space, it goes. I love dialogue that sounds messy because life is messy, but I also love lean scripts that make every line pull its weight.