Technique

Is this too much like how people talk?

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This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Dialogue

All too often, it seems, I hear something that isn’t working in fiction justified because “that’s how it is in real life.” That may be, but fiction is not real life. Fiction has to be believable, consistent and have a point. Oh, and be interesting. I don’t think my life has ever felt like all four of those things at once.

Dialogue in fiction has to be all of those things, too—and dialogue in real life seldom is.

“Hi. How are you?”

“Good. You?”

“Fine. Really coming down out there, isn’t it?”

“Yep. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Nah, I’m good. What have you been up to this week?”

“Not much. Cleaned the basement.”

Is it boring? Let’s face it—we all have conversations like the one above, probably several times a day. And yet there’s almost never a place for something like this in fiction.

Much of the time, we can skip to the heart of the conversation. We don’t need the warm-up parts—and including them may be a sign we’re starting the scene in the wrong place.

[27 pages of the above . . . aaaaaaaaaaand scene]

Boring multiplied, yes—but more importantly, there’s no point, no conflict here. Conflict is necessary—something most of us try to avoid in real life conversations. As Nathan Bransford says:

A good conversation is an escalation. The dialogue is about something and builds toward something. If things stay even and neutral, the dialogue just feels empty.

Dialogue in fiction is like a symphony or a theorem. (Sounds appealing, eh?) A symphony will develop musical themes and work to a climactic point (often with a literal crescendo). Similarly, a theorem builds on each previous fact to reach its apex, the conclusion. Extraneous arguments and points aren’t included. Well-known theories can be summarized (AAS for triangle congruity) (oh, come on, you remember eighth grade math, right?).

“Vanessa, you drive me crazy!”

“Shut up, Jerica! Or should I say Jerk-ica?”

“I swear, if you ever pull that kind of stunt again, so help me, Vanessa—”

Okay, that looks ridiculous, doesn’t it? And yet when we’re really upset in real life, we do use the other person’s name surprisingly often. (Or maybe it’s just me; I’m pretty sure I’ve argued with my husband by only saying his name.)

These jump out when we read fiction. I read a book six months ago where the author apparently didn’t know this (though it wasn’t his first book). Entire scenes of dialogue had the characters calling each other by name in literally every line of dialogue—sometimes up to three times in a mini-speech. Even non-writers commented on this in the online reviews.

What do you think? What else doesn’t belong between the quotation marks?

Photo by Adam Bindslev

Technique

Is this how people talk?

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This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Dialogue

If you don’t have a natural “eye” for dialogue—and, let’s face it, even if you do—reading your dialogue aloud is the best way to tell if your dialogue sounds natural. In her EDITS system, Margie Lawson suggests reading all of the dialogue in a chapter—and nothing else (on that pass).

As you read, ask yourself: is this how people talk?

The following examples have been exaggerated to protect the imaginary.

“At this juncture, I firmly believe, from the bottom of my heart, that it would be most beneficial for us if you would open the door, proceed down the hall, and retrieve beverages of your choice for our consumption.”

Is it too formal? Tone down the formal language, use contractions, and/or cut out some phrases. In fact, we use elliptic speech most of the time in conversation—sentence fragments that are easy to understand in context. Do your characters use too many complete sentences? (“Why, yes, yes they do.”)

[in chapter 2]
“Did you steal the diamonds?”
“You know, I just think we shouldn’t go assigning blame for stuff like that.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go for a walk.”
“I like walking.”

Is this too direct—or not direct enough (see #1 above)? Real dialogue doesn’t always follow quid pro quo. Sometimes we’re evasive, sometimes we try to be pithy or clever, and sometimes we spent more of our time formulating our response than listening. (Of course, that last one doesn’t come across so well in fiction…)

“As everyone in this room knows, if the timer reaches zero, we’ll all die.”
“Yes, Jenny the doctor, we will.”

Do they discuss things that they wouldn’t really have to talk about? If everyone in the room already knows something—from the time on the timer to the characters’ relationships to their shared histories—dialogue isn’t going to be a natural way to clue the reader in.

“What do you think of irrigation reform?”

“Well, I hadn’t ever really considered it, but now that you mention it, I can see that irrigation reform is not only necessary but beneficial to all parties. I mean, so many farmers hog all the water—pardon the pun—and we have to use that same water supply for all the farms as well as the rest of us. Not to mention the frequency of farm-related spills and water contamination.”

“Yeah, but considering that water rights are used for political ends so often, I think there’s an even more important argument for irrigation reform that you’ve missed. Let me explicate it for you over the course of the next seven pages. You may speak, but only in single sentences, preferably phrased as questions perfectly timed to introduce the next tenet of my argument. And please wait for me to finish my sentence before you attempt to speak.”

“Yes, of course. How are water rights used for political ends?”

Is it realistic? Real people seldom spout off prepared speeches—or let other people make them.

Next time: Is this how people talk part deux, in which I totally contradict myself sort of.

What do you think? What kind of things do you see included in dialogue that shouldn’t be?

Photos by Akuppa John Wigham and Gillie, respectively.

Mechanics, Technique

Dialogue: the bare essentials

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This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Dialogue

Cool note: this is my 300th published post on this blog!

There’s so much to be said about dialogue. (Oh, wow—totally unintentional pun!) Some of us do it well naturally—we have an “eye” for dialogue. (And it drives us CAH-RAZY to see bad dialogue in published books.) But we all have different strengths—and we all have things to work on and learn.

The barest basics of dialogue are the simple mechanics, in no particular order. (Because, hey, we all have to start somewhere!)

  1. Make it clear who’s speaking.
  2. As a corollary for #1, change paragraphs when changing speakers. (Not necessarily every time someone begins speaking—see #4.)
  3. Use actual speech attributions (verbs like “said”) sparingly, and default to the near-invisible said and/or asked as often as possible.*
  4. Use action beats to help identify the speaker (among other important purposes). Keep those action beats in the same paragraph as the speaker, and if you involve more than one character in the thoughts or beats, make sure it’s clear who’s speaking.
  5. Do not use action beats as speech attributions. Or, as Annette Lyon put it in a guest post here, “Stop smiling words.”
  6. Punctuate thusly (American style): “I can’t do this,” she said. [comma, followed by a lower-case letter for the speech attribution]

    “But you have to.” He rubbed his hands together. [Always a period there! Always a capital next! This is an action, not a way to speak.]

    “Really?” she asked. [question mark, lower case for the attribution]

    He nodded. “Really, truly, Johnny Lion.” [Again, use a period for the action.]

    “But—” [Em dash, no comma or period—but if this was a question, you would put the question mark in. Just to make it hard on you.]

    “No buts. I know—” he glanced around furtively—“you wish you weren’t here.” [Although this one may vary depending on the house style.]

*This is actually one I don’t particularly follow. A couple weeks ago, I read something I wrote ten years ago, and I found almost no speech attributions. In fact, I only used speech attributions if the way someone spoke was important—and couldn’t be conveyed through the dialogue (i.e. whispering, sarcasm, etc.). But I’ve also taken that too far, and sometimes it’s hard for my readers to tell who’s speaking. So I’m slowly learning to slip in those little invisible saids without twitching. Too much.

Tomorrow: what goes between the quotes!

Is dialogue one of your strengths? If so, share your best technique, trick or advice—in a guest post!

Photos by Leo Reynolds

Works

In ardua tendit

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You know, I forgot. Between granting myself some maternity (and morning sickness) leave, having a baby, and grueling months of editing/reworking/rewriting, it’s now been almost a year since I’ve started a new writing project.

I forgot how hard it is.

Even when you’ve done it, it can be so easy to catch yourself thinking “Easy peasy! I can slam this out in six weeks!” when you open up a new document. I mean, I’m not intimidated by a blank page. (It’s the words that are hard 😉 .)

maccallum crestWriting is one of those forms of art that the pinnacle of achievement can be looking effortless. Like dance or gymnastics. Except few people sit through a competition or performance and walk away thinking “I can do that. I’ll start tomorrow.”

Writing? Pfft. Everyone writes. All the time. Emails, notes, shopping list. How hard could a book be?

Hard. And long. Especially when your time is limited.

But it isn’t impossible. It’s work—but we’re not trying to cure cancer, here!

I’ve married into the MacCallum clan*. The clan motto is In ardua tendit. Translations include “he attempts hard things” and “I strive for the heights” (and various combinations).

Because I can do hard things. And so can you! (But first, a little more research….)

Where do you find yourself getting discouraged in the writing process?

Starting Friday: the dialogue series! Guest post volunteers?

Picture from this site

*At least, we think we’re part of the MacCallum clan. As far as records go, our McCollum ancestors apparently sprang out of the ground in 18th century Tennessee, so we can’t tell what part of Scotland they came from.

Technique

Dialogue series?

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A while back I took a class on dialogue. While the instructor did give feedback on the dialogue itself in our assignments, it seemed like the things we were really learning wasn’t how to write actual dialogue, but how to paragraph (which is apparently all science, no art) and incorporate everything that’s not dialogue into a conversation. Useful skills, yes, but not what I expected from a class about dialogue. Oddly enough, I kind of thought things would focus more on what goes inside the quotation marks.

I know a lot of people already consider dialogue one of their strengths. But even if it’s one of your best skills (as I consider it to be), we can always learn more (as I am even now).

We could look at the basics of creating realistic and readable dialogue, more intermediate things like skipping the boring parts, and advanced techniques like “indirect” dialogue. And naturally, since I know so many of you guys are good at dialogue, I’d love to have guest posts with your favorite lessons, tips and techniques.

What do you think? Would you like a series on dialogue? Maybe an “advanced” series?

Photo by Peter Patau

Technique

Personal, timely stakes for suspense and immediacy

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This entry is part 26 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

One of my writing friends, Marnee, is working on digging deeper and raising the stakes on her WIP. I loved the way she described this:

I wanted all my characters to have a stake in the outcome of their actions. And, I wanted that “stake” to be something immediate. It couldn’t be something without a timeframe. My hero only has a certain time to catch the villain because once the villain realizes he’s on to him, he’ll disappear and my hero will lose his chance. My heroine needs to take the “job” my hero has offered because she needs the money—fast. My villain can’t run and hide even when he’s foiled because of . . . well, something I haven’t figured out yet.

Their needs have to be immediate and volatile and in complete opposition. And they have to be completely invested. No turning back.

I like the combination of personal stakes and a deadline—a great way to create suspense and immediacy, as Marnee points out.

I also like that she’s taking the time to do this for the villain (even if she hasn’t gotten the answer yet). “To be evil” is not a sufficient motivation for the villain’s heinous action. We want our villains to be rounded characters with believable motivations, not just amorphous evil that our hero’s got to defeat. They have to have a dog in this fight or they’ll cash in their chips and go home. So why this person? Why this (despicable) action? It could be something as simple as money—but there are lots of ways to make money. Why this way?

What do you think? How do you do this in your works?

Photo by Dayna Mason

Technique

What keeps you going?

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Writing a book can be a long process. It’s easy to get discouraged or just plain bored before you reach “The End.”

For me, one of the big things that keeps me going is what Holly Lisle calls “candy bar” scenes:

First, let me define a “candy-bar” scene. It’s one that you’re just itching to write — something sweet enough that you can dangle it on a stick in front of yourself so that you can say, “When I’ve done these next three chapters, I’ll get to write that one.” . . .

Make sure your candy-bar scenes are spread out through the book, not all clumped together. Write down a single sentence for each of them. Don’t allow yourself to do anymore than that, or you’ll lose the impetus to move through the intervening scenes.

Holly Lisle also advises writing the ending first (so you have the goal in mind), writing about people you want to spend time with (because, hey, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with them in the writing process, and you want your readers to want to spend time with them, too), using an outline, and allowing yourself to be surprised. I’ve tried and loved all of those things except writing the ending first (meaning I haven’t tried it, though I might).

What do you think? How do you keep going until you reach “The End”?

Image by Emily Hoyer