Never use a verb

 

“Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.”

I saw Elmore Leonard’s piece about creative writing and liked the sentence so much I read the rest. (I have read it before and agree with most of it.) Other authors say similar things, and sometimes they way they say it is entertaining.

It took me a while to know when I needed to use the verb “said” at all. So many times, particularly if only two characters are in the scene, the tag is not needed. I think I’ve got it now.

Sometimes I long to go back and re-edit all my earlier titles, but will have to stay as a record of my learning process. Ten times 70k words is 7ook and to read through that lot with a correcting pen would take maybe longer than I still have on earth!

It can be easy or it can be hell

 

My characters are talking to each other. They are a team, so they have to.

Dialogue can be easy or it can be hell.

And how to make them all sound different – more like themselves and not like the other guy. It ain’t easy. The ideal is that you should be able to tell who said what without the dreaded he saids and she saids. Nice work if you can manage it, as someone once said.

I usually get the words down and then add necessary tags so that we don’t get totally lost about who said what to whom. Then I look to make it more interesting and that means adding some action. What are they doing while they have this dialogue? How are they feeling? Is that coming across in what they say, or have I got to resort to telling readers how my characters feel? Maybe I can get away with saying she is angry if I say “her anger rose until it boiled over in a splurge of boiling hot words.” (A bit wordy but you get the idea.)

I like to add northern dialect to some of my characters, but its easy to go overboard with it. I know what they’re saying, and I hear it around me most days but dialect may not carry to the far corners of the world. Sometimes I toss in a glossary at the end and leave it at that.

It’s a balancing act I find entertaining.  Once I’ve done my best shot, I leave it and go back a day or two later when I do a read through. I have to do this. This time I’m glad I did because I’ve found characters talking about something that hasn’t happened in their world. I know it’s going to, but they shouldn’t know about it yet. So easy to get confused with time lines. They almost deserve a post to themselves.

Too much dialogue?

 Ask yourself -

Do I rely overmuch on dialogue? 

There’s a trick to handling dialogue. A story needs a narrative voice to anchor us in the story, to tell us who these characters are and how they relate to each other. Without that, we lack understanding of

a) what is going on (no context)

b) where they are (no description)

c) why they are having this discussion.(motivation)

It’s good to have a description of the surroundings which may or may not be important to the conversation. Since we cannot hear the voices, we miss out on clues such as dialect, tone, emotion.

The very first literary agent I ever applied to said bluntly, “You’ve forgotten the who, why, what, where and how.” (I think those are the words she used. It was at least fifteen years ago! But if I misremembered, I’m sure you get what she meant.)

If a reader has to go back and read every word three times over to get the sense of what is unfolding, they will give up from sheer exhaustion. So remember - just dialogue may look cute, but it will not do the entire
job.

 

Winter musings on dialogue

Sometimes the words flow easily.

Other times I cannot think of anything to say.

This can be bad when you want to finish the book you are writing. It is at times like these that I go back to basics and refresh my writing muscle with the wise words of others. This morning I am contemplating a lunch table conversation between antagonistic acquaintences, so I'm  reading up about dialogue as I scoff my bacon, mushroom and black pudding sandwich. (Very tasty!)

Dialogue, they say, should sound natural. At the same time, we need to omit all the awkward pauses, poor word choices , non sequiturs and pointless repetitions. We don't alwys speak in complete sentences, we drop articles and pronouns  and sometimes we just grunt - but somehow we get our meaning across!

In novel form, dialogue is a way of changing relationships, or bringing conflict to a head

It requires direction from the author and the scene direction should change after the conversatin occurs.It is possible that the people in the dialogue do not understand themselves, or their motivations; it is also possible that they do, but are incapable of admitting this to anyone else. Some even set out to deliberately confuse an already tense situation.

By the time I get this far,   I can usually see my way more clearly! I hope you can, too.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Snippets and Jamaica Inn

Today I'm thinking Viking Magic  might be a good title, but I haven't checked to see how many books - if any - have already used it. I thought of it just before I fell asleep and it has stayed with me overnight. Most good ideas disappear into thin air while you sleep. Viking Magic can refer to so many things in the story, not least the plain old magic practiced by Karli Olafsson.

Today is a good day for getting on with some work as the clouds are so  low they're just about sitting on the lawn and Tim and I made trails in the dew as we walked across the field. We met Dan the lurcher this morning, and he seems to accept us now. Initially he chased poor Tim and wouldn't come to me in greeting. He was a rescue dog and no one knew his history, but he was scared of other dogs. We first met him at puppy school last year when no other dog could get near him. So, great strides are being made there.

DH is busy making sourdough bread. Paul told us about it when he came at Christmas, and since then we have been eating it instead of "ordinary" bread. The big Kilner starter jar stands on the bench above the radiator, and every couple of days dh takes some of the yeastless dough and makes bread with it. Then he feeds the dough left in the jar and it grows and expands until there's enough to make another loaf. Suits us perfectly. Tastes good, and is so much more filling than bought bread. He's also promised to make some Florentines. We both adore those. Yum.

I am one of those people who sat down ready to watch Jamaica Inn, episode 1, and gave up 3/4 of the way through. I'm not surprised it attracted 2,182 complaints about mumbled dialogue by the end of the third episode. I'm amazed that 4.1 million people tuned in to watch the third and final episode.Two million decided they had something better to do.

The sound engineers came in for some stick, but really, there was nothing wrong with the sound levels. I could even hear the wind blowing around the house. Perhaps they relied on microphones within cameras? Perhaps actors think that turning aside and speaking into someone's pocket is real life - it may be so, but in real life we get the chance to  say What Did you Say?? In drama, actors should speak to be heard. The actors mumbled - that was the problem. Especially the vile uncle Joss.

Ben Stephenson of the BBC, later said the problem was partly down to the actors.
"Actors not being clear is obviously one part of it but my understanding about the complaints about Jamaica Inn was more complex than that," he said. "I think it's probably not right to just single out that, but clearly we want actors to speak clearly. Of course we want them to give brilliant performances and you've got to respect that but if no-one can understand what they're saying then there is a problem."

The pic? The Hebridean Princess turning up outside the Crinan Hotel. Possibly the ship the Queen hired for her 80th birthday trip.

Eating my words

Once again I have to eat my words. I thought reading a manuscript aloud was a daft way to go on, and that reading it in my head would do very nicely, thank you. Well, my better half was out the other day and I decided to try it. There was no one to hear me but the dog, and he didn't care. Snored right through it. But I did make changes to Chapter One because of reading aloud.

Awkward phrases showed up right away, and strangely, something I had not expected - I found small patches of unnecessary dialogue. Chapter Two wasn't so rewarding, if that's how I should look at the exercise. That writing seemed to flow much better, and was much easier to read, so far fewer changes resulted. It will be on to chapter Three today, if all stays right with the world. (And after I've walked the dog and watched Rafa at Roland Garros this afternoon, naturally. So little time these days!)

Skies are grey today, but the forecast is for more of the wonderful weather of the last few days. Spring has suddenly morphed into summer and the riverside walks are glorious with wild flowers and trees in their freshest shades of green. The thorn trees are boasting masses of white flowers and nettles are flourishing three feet high, something I noticed yesterday when I went walking in cropped jeans. Luckily dock leaves grew nearby and soon soothed the stings.

Dialogue can be tricky

No doubt about it, Dialogue is tricky. Some people have the happy knack of getting it just right first time. Others struggle.

If you don’t notice dialogue, but zip through the story with great enjoyment, chances are the dialogue is good. If you spend a lot of time grimacing while reading, chances are the dialogue is poor.

My personal hates are when authors use dialogue tags such as “he gritted, he spat, he opined” – don’t ask me why, I just hate them.  OK then, I hate them because they sound forced. Also, you cannot easily speak through gritted teeth. Nor do I want to read of heroes, or heroines, for that matter, who spit at people.  As for opined – well, really, it just sounds so false. If you are going to give an opinion, then get on with it and give it.

The best and simplest dialogue tags are "he said," and "she said." Sometimes they’re not needed at all, especially in a two-part dialogue. At other times, an Action Tag will identify the speaker.  (Putting the chicken on the table, she glared at her husband. ‘Where were you last night?’

There’s no doubt who is speaking. 

 

OK, so that’s the simple stuff. But there’s a lot more to dialogue and I can’t do better than point you to Freda Lightfoot’s blog in which she discusses this very topic. Find Freda here:

http://fredalightfoot.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/what-should-dialogue-do.html?showComment=1369470043627#c478218133802999811

When I started my historical novel (Matho, to those of you who know him!) I had him speak in our local dialect. Now while I'm happy that everyone within a hundred miles of me would be perfectly happy with phrases  such as "Gan off hame. Ah dinna want out to dee wi' ye!" the sentence brought my American critiquers out in hives. They didn't understand. Stubbornly, I pointed out that it was usually only a vowel sound change, and that it was really easy to understand. (What I actually wrote translates as Go home, I want nothing to do with you.) See? Really easy. But they were not convinced. In fact they finally convinced me and my hero now speaks much more er, properly.

While you ponder the delights of dialect, I’m off to ready the house for guests this evening. I have to have a flying start because we have – wait for it – a play date for Tim this afternoon at three o'clock. The neighbours have a Jack Russell staying, and the two dogs got on so well last night that we have decided to take them both out to the Allendale Estates at Stocksfield were they can run and play together. Puppy socialisation is so important!

Dreaded dialogue

Dialogue should bear information that moves the plot forward, and hopefully creates conflict, tension and suspense. It should be written with one character in mind and that character alone.

I'm sure I've said all this this before, but I need reminding every now and then.

Dialogue may explain what happened in the past; good dialogue conveys the emotions and thoughts of characters. Until a character speaks, their thoughts and emotions are portrayed either through the narrator’s eyes or those of another character. This allows a split to develop between a character's "perceived" personality and his "true" personality.

Realistic dialogue allows the reader to make up their own mind as to the kind of person they might be. Subconsciously we take note of how a character speaks, and when they speak. Are they terse and clipped, or verbose and boring? Do they push forward or hang back, preferring to be out of the limelight?

In real life, status usually shows in dialogue. We listen, and take a guess at someone's origins, education and how they view life. When reading we can make an educated guess at the appearance and expression of the speaker's words on the page. A person in authority, or someone used to subservience? Chief Executive of Shell, or Chairman of the Village Association?
The How To books tell us dialogue does not imitate real life – too uncomfortable since we are not prone to be articulate in everyday conversation. But they do insist that each character must have his or her own voice.
In short passages with only two speakers, dialogue does not need action tags or attributions. Action tags are rapidly becoming as irritating as attributions, and I have to curb myself from using too many. I especially hate - and I don't know if I'm alone in this - the modern habit of attributions such as - "she husked, he gritted, he bit out." Depending on my mood, they either make my blood pressure rise or they make me laugh.

I noticed these expressions first in books coming across the Atlantic but now they are appearing in books published here in the UK. "To husk" is to shred the outer covering from a nut or seed - it has nothing to do with husky and that word, oddly enough refers only to a breed of dog in my dictionary. But enough of my pet peeves...

A dialogue passage of any length requires some action to make it more interesting and keep track of the speakers. Action in this capacity can be made to serve as a descriptive element and is useful to both writer and reader. But limited the use, or they overrun the dialogue.

Dialect can be conveyed to the reader, but a long tract littered with apostrophes is unattractive and often unreadable. Accepted advice is to use the rhythm, turn the words around and throw in the odd colloquialism. Turning the words around works when doing a French accent, but it is impossible to get the intonation of a sentence down on paper, and many dialects use words that, translated, convey no dialect at all. It is difficult, but fun. Onward and upward. Perhaps my character will be upwardly mobile, and he will gradually lose that accent....

Curse words

Tea break for Viking soldiers - a picture from my collection taken at Bamburgh. It may strike you that the smaller Viking in pale green looks rather feminine - well, yes. She was indeed of the feminine persuasion, but seemed to be having a great time with the warriors.

It is typical that when I find a Re-enactment taking place near me I'm no longer working on Viking stories - though I may come back to them - I probably will come back to them - but for the moment I am knee deep in Regencies and Victorians. I split my time between them, and so far I haven't come unstuck. All my characters are of the social class that speaks in well constructed English sentences, and the great danger, as one critiquer pointed out to me, is that all my Regency characters sound the same.

Argh!

That made me think. If I took out the dialogue and studied them, would I be able to tell them apart? Perhaps not (apart from content) But...they are from the same station in life, and most dialogue takes place in the drawing room rather than the battlefield, so the gentlemen speak politely (for want of a better word). I tried adding little verbal habits early on in my first draft, but several critiquers smartly told me "repetition, repetition - no, no!"

Silly me that I am, I took the verbal mannerisms OUT! when I should have stuck to my guns. So now I am looking with narrowed eyes at my dialogue. Anybody know any really good Regency curse words? Off to the internet to check!

I finished Run Among Thorns this morning and thoroughly enjoyed it. Since I'm proud to say the author is a member as the same Border Reivers Writers' group as me, I thought I could see glimpses of Anna showing through every now and then. She certainly has that mysterious thing called "voice," and a lovely way with landscape descriptions. Anna, I think I went by those grain silos you mention when I went to Bamburgh last weekend! I loved the proverb that gave her the title: A man does not run among thorns for no reason: either he is chasing a snake, or a snake is chasing him.