Talking Heads (or, When Life Hands You Dialogue, Throw in Some Action )

We’ve all seen it:

“Hello, Cindy.”

“Hi, Jane.”

“How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. You?”
“Fine. Got any plans for after work?”

“Maybe go out for a drink.”

“Mm. I was gonna go for groceries.”

“Well, that, too, but I’d rather get a drink.”

Boooooooring. And how many of you had to count the lines to remember who’s talking? Or how about those passages where one person provides exposition of the plot or background, then another person presents an opposing opinion, then a third tosses in an idea that negates everything the first two said, and it starts all over. 

Booooooring.

Talking heads are boring on TV and they’re boring at a party and they’re boring in a book. (I’m not talking about the Talking Heads you still hear on FM radio. Though some people find them boring, too.) Humans are visual creatures and we like action. It’s up to you, the writer, to give your readers action.

Take a tip from director Ken Burns, for instance, in his great series on the Civil War. As in so many of his films, he has actors read from letters written during that tragic conflict. Gifted though the actors are, the readings could be a snooze. But Burns also gives us action, in the form of photos. Not static photos--he zooms in on a heartbreakingly real face, pans across fields of broken bodies, or highlights a telling detail. The spoken word blends with the pictures to create an indelible image.

So how do you emulate Ken Burns? By adding action to your dialogue. For example:

Jane stopped by her friend’s desk late on a Friday afternoon. “Hey, Cindy, whatcha doin’ after work?”

Cindy rubbed her eyes and gestured at the stack of paperwork beside her computer. “All this, then I need to get groceries.”

“Hmmph. Me, too. Wanna go for a drink?”

“Sweet Goddess, yes,” Cindy said with a laugh. Her shoulders lost some of their tension.

See the difference? Instead of just reporting what each person says, you’ve now given your characters a setting, indicated how hard they work, and shown something of their personalities. You’ve engaged your reader in the passage.

As for those long expositions, report in dialogue only what is necessary to the plot. Summarized the rest from your character’s POV or break it up into shorter bits that can be inserted into scenes where they do the most good. Show the listeners’ reactions by indicating their body movements or interior dialogue. Maybe a word from the speaker triggers memories or makes a connection:

Jason’s mind wandered while the boss droned on. He caught the phrase “binomial equation” and drifted back to his high school algebra class. He’d been far more interested in that pretty girl Vanessa What’s-her-name than in… Now the boss was sketching on the white board, a complex pattern of cross-hatching and curved lines. Jason raised his hand. “Maybe we should get Professor Martin in on this,” he suggested.

If you must include long speeches, remember Ken Burns, any televised political debate, or a good science documentary. Include visuals like the audience reaction or appropriate clips of related action.

In short, do whatever you must to engage your readers’ visual cortex. Remember, we humans are visual creatures, and we like action.

Nikki Andrews is an editor at Champagne Books and a writer of mysteries and scifi. Visit her blog here for more grammar fun.

True or false: write what you know

I’m an editor mostly now but I started as an author. I’d like to share with you something I still hear, taken literally, that I think means something else entirely.

Always, authors are told to “write what you know.”  I did some research on who first said this and while this is most frequently attributed to Mark Twain, there is a general consensus that no one really knows who first said it. Surprisingly, the general consensus is also that the saying should be banned. Or at least an author’s reliance on it.

So, what does “write what you know” mean, really?

Well, some believe it should be taken literally— writers should not write about things we have not personally experienced. This is actually the definition I heard many years ago. Now, I find it very amusing and my reaction to it can be summed up by a quote from Robert Duncan—“If I write what you know, I bore you; if I write what I know, I bore myself, therefore I write what I don’t know.”

Isn’t that great?

Here’s another by Howard Nemerov that made me laugh—“Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.”

So true. Now, I don’t consider myself uninformed. I’m smart. I know stuff. But I don’t know enough about places and things to infuse my stories with the atmosphere readers want. Because while we read about characters, we also read for places and things. If I were to write only about what I know, I’d be writing short, flat stories.

I write paranormal stories. I have yet to meet a fallen angel, demon or a shape-shifting rock (Relic Defender: Key of Solomon). I have yet to experience life in a futuristic Earth (Hit Me With Your Best Shot) or travel to another planet. I have yet to visit Egypt and see the pyramids at Giza (Children of Egypt: Blood on the Moon). I have yet to explore the Mayan ruins in South America. Yet, these are all places I have visited in my research and in my imagination.

I’d like to leave you with another great quote on author’s writing what they know. This is from Valerie Sherwood: “Don’t write what you know—what you know may bore you, and thus bore your readers. Write about what interests you—and interests you deeply—and your readers will catch fire at your words.”

Would my writing be any better if I experienced some of these things? Maybe. I don’t know. I think what makes it great is that I haven’t been there so I can infuse my stories with the passion of discovering something new. And that’s what I try to do.

If you read my books, I hope you agree.

Cassiel Knight

http://cassielknight.net/

Dialogue - Five Tips for Natural and Realistic Flow

There are times when, reading dialogue, I both recognize and sympathize with how hard it can be to make it sound right.  Conversations can so easily come out stilted and monotone. So I came up with a few tips that can help strengthen passages with dialogue.

1.  Adverbs describing speech - get rid of those -ly words.

Example: “Get out of this house,” she said angrily.

Solution:  “Get out. Now.” Her arm shook as she pointed to the door.

Or, if you prefer to describe the voice:

“Get out. Now.” The sting in her voice bit deeper than a rattlesnake’s fangs.

2.  Don’t show me an emotion or action IN the dialogue and/or action, then tell me.

Example:  “You feeling okay? You don’t look so good,” he said, studying his friend.

            (since he’s commented on how the guy looks, we already know he’s studied him.)

Solution: “You feeling okay? You don’t look so good.”

Example: At the loud report, he raced to the garage and threw open the door. “What happened?” he asked, concerned.

Solution: Let the dialogue say it all. Leave off that  “he asked, concerned”. And “threw open the door” isn’t needed, either. It’s implied when he races to the garage. It’s much stronger and keeps the reader in the action to simply say:

At the loud report, he raced to the garage. “What happened?”

3.  Don’t use dialogue tags where they aren’t needed. He said/she said are superfluous most of the time. I’d always been taught that he said/she said are invisible and should be used over more explanatory tags, but often these aren’t needed at all, unless it’s a conversation between more than two people.

Example: “What do you want for dinner?” he asked.

Solution: “What do you want for dinner?”

4. Do use action tags, but not on every line of dialogue. Here’s a brief conversation to show how a quick action tag will do so much more than a dialogue tag:

“What’s for dinner?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know. What are you cooking?”

“Hmmm. I guess that means we’re eating out.”

“I like that idea.”

“Yeah, thought you might.” He grinned.

5.  And here’s the biggie: Does what you’ve written sound like your character would speak? There are nuances and accents we all try to infuse our characters with, but make certain it works. Read the dialogue out loud, without the tags. Does it sound like they are reading off a card or like natural conversation?

Dialogue is a huge way to show your reader what the character is thinking and to move their interactions forward (or backward, depending on what you have in store for them). So make it real, and make it count.

Laurie Temple is an editor at Champagne Books and writes under the pseudonym Laurie Ryan.

www.laurieryanauthor.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lryanauthor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurie.ryan.79

The Scene - What’s it all about, Alfie?

It's Wordy Wednesday, and that means...

...time for some reflections from the editor's desk!

Okay, who remembers that 1966 song by Dionne Warwick? And am I dating myself when I say I do?  The introductory lyrics to that song say:

“What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?”

So, let me ask you, can you answer these questions when you look at each and every scene in your story?

What’s it all about? As an author, I dread being asked this question by my critique group or partners. Yet it’s one of the most important question to ask ourselves. What is this scene all about? Is it just plunked there to fill space or does it move the story forward? Is it just Sally chatting with her girlfriends over wine at a local bar, or does it show Sally’s disgust for muscle men as one walks past and the others ogle him? (Of course, that probably means she also is about to meet the muscle man of her dreams, right?)

Is there an entrance, a focus, and an exit/cliff hanger?  Using the scenario in the paragraph above, Sally sits on the stool her friends saved for her (entrance) and the conversation they have tells us more about who Sally is (the focus). This focus can have two purposes. One, it shows us more about the character. As the friends chat, maybe we find out where Sally works and whether she’s a wine snob or prefers to drink beer out of a bottle. We certainly find out she’s not into muscle-bound men. Focus can also set up a future event (foreshadow).  For instance, I bet Sally will end up tripping over her own feet on her way out of the restaurant. Muscle man will save her from hitting the cement and she looks up into the deepest blue eyes she’s ever seen. At which point, he’ll make some sort of comment about how handy muscle men can be and leave her standing there. (And there’s your exit/cliff hanger for the scene.)

As an editor, I’m looking for that. I’m looking for whether or not there is a reason...to the dialogue, the internalizations, the setting.  All of it. I want your reader to feel like they can’t turn the pages fast enough. In order to do that, even with the ebb and flow of a story, there must always be forward momentum.

And remember, when it comes to a scene, enter late and leave early. You don’t need to show her walking in to the bar. Just have her plop into that chair. And when muscle guy walks off, don’t let her think about it. Leave her with her mouth hanging open.  I guarantee you the reader will turn the page. So will your editor.

If you look at your scene and can easily tell why it’s there, then it’s done what it should. If you can’t, then take a closer look at it. Does it move the story forward? Does it have a purpose? If not, it might be time to grab those digital scissors and start cutting.

Laurie Temple is an editor at Champagne Books and writes under the pseudonym Laurie Ryan.
www.laurieryanauthor.com
Twitter: @lryanauthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurie.ryan.79

Wordy Wednesday - Reflections from the Editor's Desk: Dictionaries

The other day on NPR, Diane Rehm rebroadcast a conversation with the editors of The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). The fifth and final volume of this massive work was published in January, but I’d missed this interview. It became another “driveway moment.” You know, those shows or stories that are so interesting you sit in your car to hear the end of it. Except my husband and I weren’t in our driveway. We were at a rail trailhead, and we left the radio on and our car doors open while we hoisted our bikes down from the roof rack.

Now, I could listen to a discussion of language shifts and regional slang for hours. It’s just so fascinating to watch English evolve. What do you call meat or other fillings in bread? A sandwich, sammidge, sangwich? If the filling is in a roll, do you call it a hero, sub, hoagie, torpedo, grinder, spunky? Of course, hubby and I wanted to call in with the little quirks we’ve come across—“all” used to mean “all gone” in Pennsylvania Dutch country, or the variations of “ayuh” (yeah) in New England. My grandfather’s dramatic pronunciation of “Gawd.” Or the odd Mennonite custom of dropping “to be” in phrases like “the car needs fixed.” Even my DIL’s addition of “the” to road numbers: the 309, the 202.

Ever since My Picture Dictionary dropped into my five-year-old hands, I’ve loved dictionaries. I often get carried away when I go to look up a word, and find myself five columns down from where I started. I never throw one away, even when I buy an updated one; I still have my dad’s big old Webster’s from 1949. The gold title on the binding is nearly gone, and the dark blue fabric has faded to gray, but I won’t let it go. It carries the scents of my early home, the memory of my father’s big rough hands turning the fragile pages, and the mystery of words.

Earlier this summer, a friend gave me a wonderfully strange lexicon: The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. The version my friend found at a yard sale is a 1978 facsimile of the 1894 edition, complete with random ink blots and lacunae. Given the good reverend’s interest in religion and literature, it includes many entries on assorted heresies and often goes into detailed discussions of minor characters in classic literature. But there are also some colorful terms and phrases from ordinary life: going by the marrow-bone stage, i.e. walking. (This expression is listed under “Bayard,” a horse of incredible swiftness, and is an alternative to the ironic “ride bayard of ten toes.”)

Beyond its obvious value in deciphering outdated or archaic terms and characters, Phrase and Fable provides a fascinating insight into what constituted the world of a well-educated Englishman in the late nineteenth century—a thorough knowledge of classical Greek and Roman literature, plus Moliere, Milton, Shakespeare, Scott. The book is also invaluable for tracing the origins of words—though sometimes the origins Brewer gives are suspect. Take, for instance, London, which he claims comes from the Celtic Luandun, City of the Moon. Two lines later, he admits “it would take a page to give a list of guesses made at the derivation of the word London.” So dip into this dictionary with a box of salt (skepticism) at hand.

Above all, Phrase and Fable is a glimpse into the inquisitive, eclectic mind of a man of his times. I would love to eavesdrop on a conversation between him and another great scholar of language, J.R.R. Tolkien. Wouldn’t you?

Either DARE or Phrase and Fable would make a wonderful gift for any writer. Put them on your wishlist and see what happens.



Contributed by Nikki,
Editor with Champagne Books