Draft 8 - Ten Tips for Getting Dialogue onto the Page

The characters we love and remember, with few exceptions, become real to us through dialogue. For many readers listening to the characters is the best part of the book -- so much so that they scan or even skip narration to get to the dialogue. The most effective dialogue moves the story forward, reveals character, and sounds distinct. It is compact, rich in subtext, and, like poetry, begs to be read out loud.

This can put a lot of pressure on the writer. How can you do all these things at once? What if the voices in your head refuse to be lyrical, on task, and engaging? What if the voices don't even show up?

Last time, I talked about preparing to write dialogue. Do that work ahead of time (and I always advocate setting things up the day before so the muse has time to get his/her act together), and your chances of having the words flow will increase. But what if they don't? Here are ten suggestions to get you going and keep you going when you have a dialogue-filled scene:

1. Depend on the rewrite - Give yourself permission to do a second rate job. All the magic of dialogue? It rarely comes through in the first draft. The good news is that it doesn't have to. You have as many chances to get it right as you want. Don't make life impossible for yourself. Have some fun.
2. Get the voices in your head - Sometimes you can't shut them up, but try to summon the voices if you don't hear them. Picture the characters. Ask a few questions out loud and have them respond out loud. Be rude to them and get under their skins.  Or lure them in. If they still don't show up, fake it. They are likely to join you after a few painful exchanges on the page that make them sound wrong.
3. Find the heart of the scene - Ideally, you already know what the characters want (or, better yet, desperately need) before you start writing, and you have some sense of why this scene is part of the overall story. If not, go ahead and work yourself into the scene with as much "Hi. How are you" and such as you need to, but watch for where a character get involved and emotional. This is the real start and gives you what you want. Then make sure the other character responds to this. As in improv, your characters need to accept what comes their way. Don't let them change the subject (or succeed in changing the subject).
4. Lean on the contrasts - The bigger the differences are between your characters, the easier it is for them to be interested in each other and come into conflict
5. Look for beats - The best dialogue changes in direction. Important information is revealed. Goals are redirected. Stakes change. A good scene has three to five of the beats. If everything is the scene is working out as expected, have a character throw a monkey wrench into it.
6. Bring it to a clear ending - Make sure, even if you have to note it down in an explicit way that won't survive rewrite, that the scene arrives somewhere. Good scenes generally answer the scene question (with the character get what she needs) with "no" or "yes, but." And, when you're drafting, don't cheat by interrupting the conversation with someone coming through the door with a gun. Finish the scene. You can always restructure it to be cut off in the rewrite.
7. Try dialogue only - Good scenes are broken up with action, body language, thoughts, and description. But these can slow you down in the drafting stage. If you suspect you can go faster by ignoring or only briefly noting these, do it. Leave the "he saids" for later.
8. Act - No part of writing is more like acting that dialogue. Do what actors do. Stand up so your body is freed. Use prompts and props to bring out the character.
9. Change your tools - If the keyboard isn't working, shift to longhand. Or dictation (my preference for dialogue).
10. Remember who's there - It is difficult to shift back and forth between different heads. But your scene may require three or more characters. That makes it all too easy for the writer to unintentionally put a character to the side for an extended period of time. He or she gets forgotten, often even in rewrites. While most scenes feature two characters, the other characters can play a vital role. They can screw things up for one or the other of the featured characters by asking a question or throwing in a fact at just the wrong time. This needs to happen "in character," of course, but make them essential to the scene.

Use these suggestions only as you need to. They are helps, not step-by-step instructions. And, though they may help you create a better first draft, the goal here is to get the words on paper. Perfecting those words is what the dialogue is about.

If any of this helps, please let me know. And, if you have your own tricks for drafting dialogue, please share them here.

Rewrite 6 - Getting Descriptions Just Right

I struggle with descriptions in rewriting. It's feast or famine. Either I have an avalanche of details that buries a reader or a scene so spare it leaves readers wandering in a void. This is such a persistent problem for me that I've created lists to help me move quickly in cutting or reimagining descriptions.

When there is a feast of description:

• Setting - Here, the biggest problem is what I call throat clearing. When I want to get going on a scene but my brain doesn't, weather becomes very important (especially clouds). Every stick of furniture in the room needs a paragraph. I worry about linoleum scuffs and pet hair on the couch. Readers don't care. Cut, cut, cut. Instead, which words anchor me in space? What does the setting tell me about the characters? What do I need to know so the plot makes sense?
• Characters - I often have something that could be used by the police to identify a suspect. This slows things down and leaves little to the imagination. I highlight telling and memorable details, the minimum needed to create interest, raise questions, and distinguish this character from the others. I also make sure that the number of words used are proportional to the character's role.
• Something unique - I get carried away here, especially in something like science fiction. You probably don't care what the exact dimensions of the time machine are and what color the paint job is. If I force ranked the elements of description, which ones would be at the top?
• Mood - Cutting to the bone can make description functional, so sometimes I need to go back and see if my trimming has destroyed the mood. Providing that mood is appropriate, I may give a reprieve to a sentence or two.
• Overall - Length is important.  White space is important. Pages in a story cannot have too many big blocks of description. I love delectable prose, but it presents dangers. Unless it is done to make the passage memorable, too many language tricks (alliteration, metaphors) can distract and weigh down your work. Kill your darlings? This is what Faulkner was talking about.

By the way, detailed observation is your friend. In my first chemistry class, the teacher had us write down everything we could about the flame of a bunsen burner. Some people wrote down the colors they saw and the shape. I started there, but I went on to fill a couple of pages with temperature at different distances, changes over time, the heat distortions (schlieren effect), sounds, and smells. I collect observations, especially when I am in strange places or emotionally charged situations.

They are good to draw upon, but they are raw material. I would never cut and paste my observations from a visit to morgue into a detective story. Details on that level, according to Stephen King, are for instruction manuals, not stories. Writers need to be selective.

Cut, but don't erase. Save your trimmings to a notes file. They may be useful later on.

A fill-in-the-blanks approach to description will not work. I really need to put myself back into draft state with the internal editor turned off. But questions can get me going when I'm telling myself to let the reader figure it out.

When there is a famine:

• Setting - I begin with a minimum of space, light and texture, something I learned from Script Guru Max Adams. I took her Visual Writing course (highly recommended). She has a short article here.
• Characters - I make sure I have identified one distinctive feature (a suggestion from Kristan Higgins). His rough calloused hands. Her sleepy eyes. If one doesn't stand out in my mind, I choose one based on the inner state of the character. In "Chinatown," Evelyn has a flaw in the iris of her eye.
• Something unique - When I write about strange worlds (SF, fantasy, or exotic locales), there may be objects or species that readers have no reference points for. I need to provide what they need 1) to get oriented and 2) fit it into the story.
• Mood - This is always the toughest for me. It often emerges from building up the bits from scenes, characters, and objects. But sometimes I need to force myself to think about the emotional arc of the scene or to read a scene from another work and see what the mood is and how it is created.
• Overall - I need to evaluate how the description contributes to the logic, pacing and emotion of the scene and the work as a whole.

Of course, after I have released these descriptions from my brain, they are often overdone. I'm forced to go back to the feast questions to bring them back down to size. (Both of these are really different sides of the same coins, so my shuffling back and forth is unsurprising.)

With all of these, attention to audience makes a difference. Kids need an approach to description that that offers more about things that are obvious to adults and less in total. SF and fantasy readers tolerate more description than thriller readers. So keep specific readers' needs in mind. Readers are the beginning and the end of the rewrite, and this includes description.

Bigger 8 - The Essence of the Scene

All the riveting, memorable, captivating, and emotionally involving bits of fiction happen as scenes play out. While it is possible to have an image that, in isolation, hits you in the gut (think of the eye being cut in The Andalusian Dog), scenes are what really stick.

The best scenes are stories in and of themselves, with beginnings, middles, and ends. We are likely to replay them for ourselves and can take them out of the whole and tell them to our friends. In fact, if someone were to ask you what you liked best about a book, a movie, or a play, chances are good that you would relate a complete scene to them.

Writers depend on scenes to deliver plot turns and emotional payoffs. Big stories -- the ones that become popular -- have scenes that people love to tell their friends about. Look up your favorite movies on YouTube, and you will probably find your favorite scenes, carefully selected from the whole.

I got thinking about scenes and how to make them bigger when I read a wonderful blog post, "Making Every Scene Special," by Hal Croasmun. His main point is that every special scene has an essence. The example he offers is from Notting Hill, and it has as its essence humiliation. Croasmun rightly rejects a weaker description of the scene, "discovering she has a boyfriend." To get to the essence requires a single, emotionally charged word. Which of us cannot taste a past humiliation, based just on hearing that one word?

Other words have this same power: Triumph, sacrifice, revelation, and all seven of the deadly sins (lust, pride, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath, and envy). 

You can play the game with memorable scenes, and develop a sense for essence. 

• "Luke, I am your father." (revelation, betrayal)
• "Are you looking at me?" (wrath, madness)
• "Frankly, I don't give a damn. (rejection)
• "As you wish." (revelation, true love)

Then you can look at your own scenes -- especially those that are pivotal to the story you are telling. Is it easy to determine the essence? Can you carve away everything that is not contributing and enrich the scene with more that reflects the essence?

If you get the essence right in all you major scenes, people will be dying to share those scenes with others. And, chances are, your story will connect with a larger audience. 

What are your favorite scenes and how to they express essence, and how do they impact the work as a whole?