He’d Never Say That!!! The Importance of Effective Dialogue

by Connie L. Smith

 

“It’s not what you said. It’s how you said it." I’ve been hearing a variation of this my whole life, and as it turns out – it’s true. A person can say the sweetest words in the world to you, but give them a sarcastic tone and they’re derogatory. Or maybe he agrees to do a kind thing, but with a bored expression, letting you know that his preferences are to do something completely different. In life, we have to consider the words, the actions, the tone, the expression… There are so many factors that sway our perception of what we’re hearing.

When reading, some of those aspects go out the window. We can pick up on the nonverbal bits of communication through description – a character places a hand on her hips, or rolls her eyes – but we don’t literally *hear* what the person is saying. There can be clues that let us infer – maybe an exclamation point – but that’s kind of the point. We’re inferring, and interpreting, and it isn’t as concrete as actually watching people go through a conversation.

Dialogue is a huge part of writing, and even without the above thoughts, it should be taken seriously. Readers can learn a good amount about characters through dialogue, and it can be a useful tool in moving the plot along. When you add in the differences between a real-life conversation and a written one, the details become all the more important.

Each author is free to choose his own method of delivery, but to me, dialogue is most effective when it mirrors conversations. This seems a little obvious, but sometimes the mark is missed by a mile. You should know your characters well enough to understand how they speak, and strive to stay as honest to that approach as possible.

There isn’t a specific formula for this. If you’re writing historical fiction, you might use language that is much more eloquent than someone who is writing a contemporary piece, and a fantasy author might have more imagery than a YA work. I’m not criticizing any of the genres. My kindle account has at least one of each that I adore. But you should get a firm grip on the era and the style you mean to represent, and hold to that as you go through your story.

A good rule of thumb, to me, is to make your characters sound like people. If you can’t imagine a person actually saying something, you probably shouldn’t force your character to. These are the pieces of your story that we identify with, and if they’re constantly throwing us for a loop with their dialogue, it takes away from the story. It’s like removing you from the plot, going “THIS ISN’T REAL,” and sending you back. Any part of your story that’s out of place can do this, and dialogue is not an exception.

As an example, let’s say that you have a couple of modern-day teenagers, discussing what movie they want to see. Now, you could make one of them say,

“Nay, lads, I’d prefer to venture forth to the telling of the story of that cowboy fellow.”

But unless he’s joking, it doesn’t work. This would be a fine line if you had a character from another time or place trying to merge with society, but not so much with the modern-day teenagers you meant to represent.

Okay, that quote was a bit of a stretch. Most authors wouldn’t put that in their work. Still, even if you are a lengthy distance from that particular boundary, you could still choose unsuited dialogue.

“I worry that the movie will continue past my curfew, and mom will be angry.”

Not one word of this statement is out of context for the time, but the order and design make it sound foreign to what a teenager would really be saying. If the teen is worried about curfew, he’d more than likely say something closer to,

“That one lasts too long. Mom’ll kill me if I’m out that late.”

It flows more easily, and it keeps you in the story, because it reads like a real life scenario. If the dialogue feels forced or abnormal, it can momentarily bring a reader out of your fictional world, which is the exact opposite of what you should be looking to do. You should want them invested in your book, and take precautions to keep them there. Dialogue can be a deciding issue on that, even if just momentarily. You probably don’t want your reader to pause to say, “Nobody talks that way!” and then have to submerge into the novel all over again. Keep them there, and use thought-out vocabulary to do so.

If you’d like to critique my work – see if I abide by my own rules – check out Essenced, scheduled to be free on December 5^th. Links are on my website.

Book Blurb:

Essenced (The Division Chronicles #1)

by Connie L. Smith (Goodreads Author)

Years ago, demons were forced out of the earth’s realm by a band of supernatural fighters, banished from the place and its people in the aftermath of a horrific war. It should’ve ended there – would’ve – if not for the final demon’s claw snagging on the open portal. What felt like victory became only a reprieve, the winning warriors understanding that the tear would spread, and the demons eventually would escape exile. It was only a matter of time, and a need for future defense – a question of genetics and essences, magic and power.

Now, centuries later, a new army must bind together – one of teenagers with inhuman potentials and abilities…

AJ went to bed Sunday night an average teenage girl, clumsy and athletically lacking. So when she wakes up Monday morning with super-strength, she does what any rational person would do: She goes into denial. When a smoking hot guy in a suit shows up, rambling about the end of the war and demons spilling through some kind of rift, she refuses to listen, telling herself he’s insane. Except weird things just won’t quit happening, and the guy keeps popping up in her life, trying to explain the changes suddenly happening within her. Is she crazy, or is this guy… not so crazy after all?

Author Bio:

Connie L. Smith spends far too much time with her mind wandering in fictional places. She reads too much, likes to bake, and will be forever sad that she doesn’t have fairy wings. And that she can’t swing dance. When she isn’t reading or writing, there’s a good chance she’s goofing off with her amazing, wonderful, incredible, fabulous nieces and nephew, or listening to music that is severely outdated. She has her BA from Northern KentuckyUniversity in Speech Communication and History (she doesn’t totally get the connection either) and likes to snap photos. Oh, and she likes apples a whole big bunch.Found out more about Connie L. Smith, A GOODREADS Author at:

 

WEBSITE      BLOG 

  

Conquering Fight Scenes (Part 1) with K. M. Fawcett

If you have a fight scene in your romance story, ask yourself the following questions. Why is it there? Is it essential to the plot?

Fight scenes, like love scenes, must drive the story forward. They must serve a purpose. They must create change either by resolving something or by complicating something. Change advances the story. If your fight is gratuitous, cut it.

Keep these points in mind when creating your believable and exciting fight scenes.
Pacing: Fights are dynamic and fast, so the action should be conveyed quickly. You want the reader to feel they are a part of the fight or at least watching it. Taking too long to describe an action slows down the visual image in the mind’s eye, therefore, slows the pacing. Using short and medium length sentences rather than long, complex ones gives the illusion that the action is unfolding in real time. Be careful not to structure all sentences the same, though, as a lack of variation could lead to choppy, robotic and monotonous prose.

Action – Reaction: Action comes before reaction. Cause is followed by effect.
Ex. 1 (Reaction first)  Blood gushed from his nose when she decked him.
Ex. 2 (Action first)   She decked him. Blood gushed from his nose.
In example 2, the reader experiences the action as it’s unfolding, and will have an emotional response to it right along with the characters.

Clarity/ Word Choice: Be straightforward and to the point. Describing your fight choreography in minute detail also slows pacing. Avoid getting too technical so your fight scene doesn’t read like a training manual.

If you want to showcase a particular technique in the final battle scene, explain it or refer to it earlier in the story, perhaps in a training session. For example, in the original Karate Kid movie, we saw Mr. Miyagi practicing the crane technique. Daniel asked him about it, and we learned that, “If do right, no can defend.” Daniel practiced it, and when he got into the crane stance in the final scene, we knew this awesome move would make him a winner. Another example is the five-point palm exploding heart technique in Kill Bill. If these techniques weren’t explained until they were used in the story, the pacing would halt and/ or their significance would be lost.
Use expressive words and strong action verbs to paint a clear image and to evoke an emotional response in the reader. A fight should create reader urgency so they keep turning pages to find out what happens next. The reader should feel the excitement and energy of the action, not confusion over the words used to describe it.

Emotion: Be sure to include your character’s emotional response. What’s at stake? What will it mean if she wins the fight? What will it mean if she loses? Emotion creates suspense. It connects the reader to the characters. It makes the reader root for a character’s success or demise. Emotion can be demonstrated thru dialog, physical action, internal sensations, and thoughts. Warning: Too much introspection can slow your pacing.

Dialog: Combatants are not going to engage in a long discussion while fighting. That can come pre-fight when they are gearing up for the confrontation (sizing each other up and down, posturing, etc) or post-fight when the opponent is no longer in a position to attack. There is room for terse dialog in a heated battle. However, no fighter will waste precious energy and breath by waxing poetic.

Climatic Battle: The main fight against the villain should come at the climax, and should be the biggest, most difficult fight in the story. If the most exciting fight is with a minion earlier in the book, it makes the climax appear dull in comparison. Many times the hero has to fight the villain earlier in the book, but at that point the hero hasn’t grown yet. He shouldn’t be able to defeat the villain until he has completed his character arc.

Thank you FF&P for hosting me on the blog today. I’ll be back on July 8th with more on fight scenes, including the use of setting, characterization, choreography and improvised weapons.
~K.M Fawcett

CAPTIVE (The Survival Race #1)

AN IMPOSSIBLE JOURNEY
The last thing Addy Dawson remembers is a blazing inferno and freezing river water overtaking her lungs. When she awakens, Addy finds herself on a strange, alien planet, trapped in a cell with no doors, no windows-- and to her horror-- a naked warrior who claims to be her mate.

AN UNDENIABLE PASSION
An alpha gladiator, Max is forced to breed and produce the finest specimens for the Survival Race, a deadly blood sport created by the alien rulers of Hyborea. To rebel means torture-or worse-yet Max refuses to become the animal his captors want him to be. But their jailors will not be denied, and soon Addy and Max find themselves unwilling players in this cruel game. Pushed to the limit, they will risk everything for the chance at a life free from captivity. And though fate brought them together as adversaries, Max and Addy will discover that when they're together, there's nothing in the universe that can stop them.

K.M. Fawcett writes sci-fi/ paranormal romances, and enjoys stories filled with adventure and strong, kick butt heroes and heroines. She holds the rank of Sandan (3rd degree black belt) in both Isshinryu Karate and in Ryukonkai (Okinawan weapons). She and her husband own Tenchi Isshinryu Karate Dojo in NJ. When not writing or working out at the dojo, K.M. is home with her two children and two cats.  

How to use Real Police Techniques to enhance your Fiction Writing by Lucinda D. Schroeder

    
As a retired federal agent, turned-writer I am amazed at how many law enforcement techniques there are that can make fiction writing really POP!  Here are some examples.

Dialog

Federal agents and detectives usually receive advanced training in lie detection. One of the techniques is to look or listen for how a bad guy uses pronouns.  For example, if he says, “I don’t where the wife is” as opposed to the more normal response of “I don’t know where my wife went,” the police may have a reason to suspect the husband.  “My wife” suggests a close relationship whereas “the wife” suggests a more distant relationship. This little trick can be used in fiction dialog and may be the one thing that keeps Det. Colombo suspicious of the husband while he digs around for solid evidence.

This same technique can be used of objects. Let’s say that before a crime is committed the bad guy says, “I’m taking my gun with me.”  When he returns he says, “I don’t have the gun anymore.”  The fact that the gun was “my gun” and then changed to “the gun” suggests that something (bad) happened during the time the two statements were made. “The” suggests distance whereas “my” suggests closeness.  

Body Language  

Deceptive body language is another area the police watch for. For example, an officer asks a suspect “Where were you this morning around ten?” and the response is “I don’t remember exactly.” The officer will view the verbal answer as a deceptive one because it lacks commitment and is vague. But if the suspect folds his arms, crosses his legs, or breaks eye contact while he’s making a statement like this one, the suspect’s response will be viewed as being even more deceptive. Deceptive body language used while the suspect is making a false statement is considered a huge red flag indicating deception.

Special Operations

A character deeply planted inside a criminal enterprise probably got there because of a confidential informant. Informants always seem to cause trouble in real investigations.  Informants are usually motivated by money and sometimes will make up intelligence information to keep getting paid.  Let’s say a search warrant is served based on the informant’s information and the supposed evidence is nowhere to be found.  This is an opportunity for major conflict and your readers will never see it coming.

Some informants are motivated by their desire to “play cop.”  In this case they’ll try to take over the case and will eventually start making decisions on how the case should be run.  I knew an informant who did this and ended up stealing property to prove to the case agent that he was “in” with a theft ring.

Informants can work their way into an agents’ life making her miserable. An informant like this will call at all hours of the day and night just to talk about personal problems.  Informants sometimes constantly ask his agent handler for all manner of favors.  The case agent tries to accommodate the informant as much as she can to keep him on the case.  Eventually the informant turns in a parasite that won’t go away.

If you put your female informant in bed with the male agent, the sparks will really fly.  Let’s say the agent confides in her with information he doesn’t want out?  Let’s say the informant now feels that the agent can’t be trusted.  So, she slips a recorder under the pillow and records the agent as he calls his boss and the prosecutors’ ignorant idiots.  Before noon the next day, she drops the incriminating tape off at the prosecutor’s office and leaves town.  Now the agent is in REAL trouble!  Let’s say he gets fired and loses his badge and service weapon.  What happens next?

Now that I’ve revealed some clever, but true law enforcement tactics I’ll have to shoot you! Speaking of shooting…..I’ll be teaching a class on Firearms for Writers in October 2012. The class will show you how to choose a weapon that fits your character; help you describe your weapon of choice and teach you how the brain reacts during a shooting when the rubber meets the road. I’ll also cover when a shooter in a gunfight is most vulnerable—creating a solid tension builder. I promise that you’ll never write about a gun in the same again. You’ll go from: “She grabbed her gun and ran towards the house,” to “What she didn’t tell them was that her 9mm Smith and Wesson laid perfectly in the small of her back. She’d fired it so many times that sometimes she wondered if it hadn’t been born in her hand. She carried it hot and ready for Mexicans.”

I hope you’re already fired up to take this class!

Lucinda

BIOGRAPHY FOR LUCINDA D. SCHROEDER

Author Lucinda Schroeder holds a BA degree in criminology from the University of Maryland. In 1974, she became one of the first women hired in federal law enforcement and went to work as a special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She quickly learned how to develop innovative schemes designed to catch the bad guys who were duped by a woman.

Lucinda Schroeder is the author of “A Hunt for Justice” that takes her readers inside a criminal world they never thought existed.  Her book is a gripping story of how she posed as a big-game hunter inside a ruthless ring of international poachers in Alaska. These poachers used low-flying bush planes and fat check books to get and pay for the opportunity to kill the biggest Grizzly Bear and sheep with the trophy-sized horns.  They would have kept going until the wildlife they were after were gone.

CONTACT HER at   www.ahuntforjustice.com
 

In her book Schroeder reveals how she set her hooks to catch these crooks that never saw her coming. Her readers travel with her the through the never-ending trials and tribulations she endures to save what is most important to her—wild creatures of the earth.

Lucinda is also a crack shot and has won numerous shooting competitions.  She is a former firearms instructor who taught firearm tactics to other federal agents and to Native Americans in South Dakota.  Her October workshop “Firearms for Writers” is a must for any story that features a gun.    

Lucinda is now retired and is working on her second book entitled “Monster Slayer—An agent goes undercover to rescue sacred Native American artifacts only to find demons out to destroy her. 

I hope you will join my class

FIREARMS FOR WRITERS

Hosted by

Fantasy-Futuristic & Paranormal

Romance Writers

This 4 WEEK class starts October 1st

 for more information click HERE

PACING with Shannon Donnelly

PACING...

What speeds up a story or slows it down? There are actually gas pedals and brakes in story telling that help you control the story’s pace. Why do you need pace control?

Too slow a start and you never really hook the reader into the story—it’s boring before it’s even begun. Same goes for slowing things down in the middle—the reader may put down the book and never go back to it. And if the ending is slow, that reader may end up thinking the story was weak, even if you had a killer beginning and middle.

Too fast a pace and you can wear out your reader—or, worse, lose them with confusion and a lack of caring. The biggest danger of this is at the beginning of the story. But this can happen any pace where the story takes off like a rocket, leaving readers behind.

Now getting the just right pace is a unique task for each story.

Some stories need a little more leisurely opening because they are relaxed, intimate character studies—the pace needs to tell the reader to slow down and enjoy the world.

Other books need more speed. Thrillers or action stories have to sweep readers away.

To carry off the pace you need, you have to know the tools to control pace.

What slows a story:

• Backstory
• Flashbacks
• Narrative Description
• Lyrical Prose

Notice that the words “backstory” and “flashback” both have the same word within—BACK.  That tells you these techniques take the story backwards—to do that, they stop the forward pace of the main story. Put a flashback in too early and you risk losing a reader who is not yet fully engaged. Put in too long a flashback and you may also lose the reader—or you could end up with a reader more interested in the flashback than in your main story.

Backstory also stops a story’s forward pace—but you can use a little backstory (at the right place, which means not in the middle of a critical scene) to slow the pace just a touch. Backstory generally fits more comfortably into just before or after a scene—or in places where you need a sentence or two to give the reader vital information to clarify action/events, but not so much that you completely stop the forward momentum. If you think of backstory like brakes, you want to tap lightly instead of slamming the pedal to the floor and holding it there.

Narrative description and lyrical prose are also tools that can help ease a reader into scenes or smooth transitions. But they slow things down. Long sentences do the same thing. So you want to be careful with these. Put a lot of this into a scene and you’re dragging down your pace. But, if you don’t have enough, or leave them out, you can end up with incredible fast pace and utter reader confusion. I see this a lot with fledgling writers who are striving for a fast opening—they get that, but there’s so little description that the reader doesn’t get a chance to meet the characters or settle into the world. There’s not enough for the reader to have reason to care about the characters, and not enough information to start buying into and seeing the world.

Both narrative description and lyrical prose also can be a great way not just to ease readers into a world—particularly into a historical or alternate reality setting—but to also set the mood. If used wisely, they can help you slowly build tension and set the tone of the entire book.

What speeds up the pace:

• Dialogue
• Conflict/Tension
• Showing (Action)
• Clean, tight sentences

As you can see, all the things that speed up pace also create strong scenes. The trick here is not to weave in things that will drag your scene’s pace down. And this means:

* Action needs to have emotion. If you just show a character doing stuff without any emotions underneath, it tends to fall flat and leave readers not really understanding why the characters are doing what they’re doing.

* Conflict needs to matter. Tension in conflict comes from either the reader having more information than the characters have, from an uncertain outcome, or from the suspicion of a bad outcome pending. This is why misunderstandings offer such weak conflict—the reader knows the misunderstanding will be cleared up so there’s no tension. The best conflict always carries within it dire consequences that really matter to the main characters.

* Dialogue has to be punched. Fictional dialogue has to be better than the way folks really speak—you need those lines that we all wish we’d said but only thought, or only thought about later. Instead of watching your favorite movies, turn up the sound, look away from the picture and listen. Better still, go to some plays where dialogue matters more than anything else. Or listen to some great radio dramas. Listen for how the dialogue is dramatized—how every word is made to count. Snappy dialogue with layers of subtext under the words, with wit and strong characterization, takes a lot of work—but nothing moves a story faster.

The biggest danger to beware is putting backstory into any character’s mouth—you can do it, but remember you’re risking slowing a scene. (You also risk the character sounding stiff and awkward since very few folks go around talking backstory in real life.)

Some backstory in dialogue may not be a problem if it’s crafted to fit the character’s voice, mood, and comes with emotions attached. Also, if you’re at a place in the story where the reader needs a little bit of a breather, or if you’ve made the reader wait so long that the reader is ready to kill to finally get that backstory. But do this too early in your story and you could kill your story’s pacing.

This is obviously a lot to think about, and you can’t really manage all of this in first draft. This is why I do an edit to read the story aloud and look at the pacing (of every scene and of the overall story).

Am I moving too slow, too fast? Am I pushing too much detail in (too much lyrical prose or narrative description)? Are there too many characters around (meaning more description to introduce them to readers, which slows things down)?

It's easy to tell a sagging story—it gets boring and my attention wanders. If I’m bored, it’s going to be worse for a reader. I flag scenes and spots that need work—the pacing read is not the time to fix things or I’ll lose the sense of pace that I have for the overall story.

If the pace is too fast, the reader can't follow events and characters—it becomes a confused mess. That becomes another spot to flag (I also have early readers and if they flag spots as confusing, I know I need to look not just at the words, but at the overall pace in that scene).

When the pace is right, the story clicks.  The reader can follow with enough interest to keep going, and it all has an inevitable feel to it.

Shannon Donnelly's writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written." 

Her work has been on the top seller list of Amazon.com and she recently published Paths of Desire, a Historical Regency romance, of which Romantic Historical Lovers notes: “a story where in an actress meets an adventurer wouldn’t normally be at the top of my TBR pile; but I’ve read and enjoyed other books by this author and so I thought I’d give this one a go. I’m glad I did. I was hooked and pulled right into the world of the story from the very beginning…Highly recommended.” Paths of Desire and her other Regency romances can be found as ebooks with on all ebook formats, and with Cool Gus Publishing.

She has had novellas published in several anthologies, has had young adult horror stories published and is the author of several computer games. She lives in New Mexico with two horses, two donkeys, two dogs, and only one love of her life. Shannon can be found online at:

sd-writer.com

facebook.com/sdwriter

Twitter/sdwriter

I hope you will join my class

POV: It’s Not Just a Point of View

Hosted by

Fantasy-Futuristic & Paranormal

Romance Writers

This 4 WEEK class starts Sept. 3rd

For more information click HERE