Tag: dialogue

Are You Listening to What They Are Saying?

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 2 Comments


by Janis Patterson

Books are a widely varying commodity. Some are so wonderful you could live in that world forever. Some are so bad you don’t even try to finish them. Most fall somewhere in the middle. Right now we’re dealing with a new kind of book, a kind of zombie product written by the abomination of AI and released by the overwhelming hundreds. Luckily – for now, at least – they are recognizable primarily for their lifelessness.


So what is it that binds these widely varying standards together – good, bad and zombie?


There are lots of things, but I believe a lot of it is dialogue. Good books have the characters speaking as if they were real people – not interchangeable cardboard cutouts. Of course, this is occasionally a rule that can be tweaked. In a futuristic sci-fi populated with human-android characters, the speech patterns and word choices would be different than in a light-hearted Regency romance, and each choice should be congruent not only with the time and setting of the book, but with the status/occupation/ethnicity of the individual character.


For an only slightly exaggerated example, everyone is familiar with the slave Prissy’s exclamation during the battle of Atlanta sequence in Gone With The Wind – “I don’t know nothing ‘bout birthing no babies.” As offensive as some modern readers might find it, her heartfelt cry is commensurate with her time, her status and the situation of the scene. Just imagine how jarring it would be if she were to say : “Good gracious, Miss O’Hara, I am completely ignorant of the processes involved in delivering a baby.” That would pull the reader right out of the scene. To a large extent, language equals character.


And the principle doesn’t really change no matter what the genre, though the actual words probably will. In a hard-boiled detective story, a police sergeant is not going to speak the same way as a career petty thief. In a western, a wealthy rancher with political aspirations will sound different from a brow-beaten saddle tramp. In a Regency romance a high in the instep duke will have a completely different vocabulary and range of meaning than a poverty-stricken dock worker. In a contemporary romance sometimes the difference will be less blatant, mainly because of the ubiquity of books and television acting as influencers, but there will be noticeable differences.


Just to make the convoluted even more so, know that all the above can be overridden if the plot demands. Perhaps the duke is working on the docks to find out who is stealing his fortune or something. Perhaps the weary saddle tramp is really a Pinkerton man out to investigate the rancher whom he thinks is really setting himself up as a dictator. Perhaps…. you get the idea. Confustication upon confustication. But you must play fair with the reader – not by telling him from the outset what is going on, but by allowing him to listen to the various people and find out the truth for himself.


Language equals character.


And if you’re writing a hard sci-fi about three-eyed, blue-skinned Orychiks from the Dyinolive galaxy with no humans involved you’re pretty much on your own… just remember that in almost every society the ‘elites’ (for want of a better word) speak differently than the ‘hoi polloi’ (again for want of a better word) primarily as a matter of status. I think this need for distinction, for individuality (even in a herd sense) is hardwired to people’s/being’s innermost self. Even among most animal species there is a distinct pecking order.


Just remember two things – language creates and showcases character, and you must play fair – enough that the reader can follow along with you and understand, even if you do pull a few tricks along the way.

Foreshadowing

~ susanoleksiw ~ 9 Comments

I read a lot about craft issues—writing the perfect opening sentence, creating a cliff-hanger ending to a chapter, character description that reveals something more than height and taste in clothes, and the like. One area I’m working on now is foreshadowing. 

When I begin a story I rarely know exactly where the characters are going, but I follow them faithfully through the mine fields of their lives until I reach what seems to be the end. It isn’t until I’m working on the third or fourth draft that I realize instead of foreshadowing an approaching development I’ve anticipated it in a truncated scene. 

There’s a big difference between foreshadowing and getting ahead of myself, revealing too much too soon. In foreshadowing properly done, the reader doesn’t know what’s going to happen, only that something will. A character joking about her horoscope on the train into work is a hint that the unexpected is on the horizon, but her report of what the horoscope promised would be getting ahead of the story.

Foreshadowing is a device for increasing or maintaining tension, directing the reader’s attention to a particular issue or relationship, for example, hinting at where danger lies. Anticipating too much too soon or too clearly does the opposite of creating tension; it undermines the climax or twist to come. It takes the air out of the balloon.

This would seem to be an easy technique to master but in my first drafts I often slide right past what I’ve done. It’s not until a much later draft that I notice that I’ve told the reader almost exactly what’s coming, and to make the narrative work effectively I have to cut that part and rewrite. The danger, of course, is that I’ll miss it and be shocked when a Beta reader finds it. (Love my beta readers.)

Someone who has published ten mysteries with three publishers and a few self-published also could be assumed to know all the basic techniques of crafting a novel, but that would be naive. I always find something more to learn. Right now I’m focused on foreshadowing, but next month I could be focusing on dialogue. In some stories the characters emerge clearly in dialogue and I don’t doubt what I’ve written. In others I can’t seem to get them to say a single line that isn’t forced or awkward. But that’s another problem for another post. 

Say What?

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 4 Comments

by Janis Patterson

I read… a lot. Lately, however, it hasn’t been as pleasant as it used to be and more than a few books have hit the (metaphorical) wall. Without exception it’s the fault of the authors. Nearly every one was a first time author – I did verify that, but it really wasn’t necessary. Their writing said it all.

One of the most common (and worst) errors is a misuse of words. Not quite as bad as the homophonic mayhem such as broach/brooch or affect/effect or grisly/grizzly and the like, which sadly are quite common even among multi-published professionals, but I’m talking about the more egregious mis-choice of language. I’ll explain; there are two kinds of word usage – dialogue and exposition. Dialogue is what the character actually says/thinks – what actually comes out of the character himself.. Exposition is telling what is done.

I believe that dialogue should be true to the character speaking. (And in ‘dialogue’ I include written communications by the character – letters, texts, etc. – anything that is ‘spoken’ by the character, such as interior thoughts.) Is the character a crusty old fisherman who hates people? A feisty young heroine-type who prances through life cooking, talking with her cat and showing off her shoes? A silent but heroic Navy Seal with a deep sense of patriotism and a distrust of women? A culture-vulture society woman with a drive to climb higher on the social ladder? All have the potential to be great characters, but they shouldn’t sound anything like each other. They all need their own voice.

Each character has (or should have!) their own history, their own background, their own socio-economic standing, their own individuality. That means they have their own character-specific language, their own vocabulary, their own rhythm of speaking whether exterior (speaking to other characters) or interior (thoughts, letters, etc.). You can get away with almost any kind of grammar/word choice in dialogue AS LONG AS it is congruent with the character speaking and the time/location frame of the story. For example, you would not have a Regency dowager or a 1850s Plains Indian saying “Fer sure” or “You’ve got to be kidding me.” If you do have a social doyenne speaking like a dockworker or vice versa, you’d better have a very good reason for it stated in the book.

Expository writing, however, is different. This is everything that is not dialogue. This should be written by grammatical rules with correct and perhaps neutral vocabulary. Even in deep third POV expository writing is the author, not the character, and should be correct both in grammar and word choices.

That said, remember first person works have their own problem, for there the expository writing is from the viewpoint character and should reflect his age, status, attitude and general personality.

Correct use of both dialogue and expository writing can give your characters a depth and life. Done correctly, the reader should be able to determine who said what by the language they use, even if you don’t add a dialogue tag. However – both using a dialogue tag and not using one are constructions which should not be overused.

Writing is always a balancing act, but it becomes easier for both the writer and the reader when the languages choices are correct to the character.