Dialogue (17 page)

Situation: Carolyn is stuck in traffic and wants to call home to tell her husband that she'll be late, but she can't get a signal on her cell phone. Dialogue sentence: "Stupid phone!" Carolyn muttered.

Situation: Alison has agreed to go out for dinner with her new coworker, Kyle, but moments before he arrives she receives a call from a reliable source telling her that Kyle is married. Kyle is ringing the doorbell. Narrative sentence: I told myself I'd never go out with a married man.

Situation: Ryan and his wife are getting a divorce. Ryan is throwing a few clothes in his suitcase. His six-year-old son, Aaron, is watching him. Action sentence: I grabbed my golf balls out of my dresser and placed them carefully in the corner of my suitcase.

Situation: Colin has just learned that he has to fire a guy at work, David, who has become a good friend over the last few months. Dialogue sentence: "Janis, would you send David into my office, please?"

Situation: Megan and her friend have just left the mall and are walking to their car when Megan sees a woman repeatedly hitting her small son on the back and then shoving him into her SUV. Narrative sentence: I always wondered what I'd do if I ever encountered an adult abusing a child.

[ in their own words-delivering the characters and their motivations to the reader ]

I'd been coaching fiction writers for many years when I happened to tune into
Inside the Actors Studio
on Bravo one evening to find host James Lipton interviewing Johnny Depp. When asked who influenced him the most as a young actor, Depp named an acting teacher, now passed on, named Stella.

"She emphasized over and over and over again that we head into every single scene with one thing foremost in our character's mind—what that character wants in that scene. What does my character want? A lot?"

I almost jumped out of my chair. This is what I'd been teaching writers for years, what I'd read so many times in how-to-write books. The most important thing to know about any character is what he wants. A lot. More than a lot—desperately.

If we know our characters well, we know what they want, both in the story and in every scene. There has to be a goal. This is the stuff of fiction. Our task is to let our reader in on what our characters want, as naturally as possible, even when what our characters want is on an unconscious level and they don't even know they want it. We must still let our readers in on it so the story moves forward. Sometimes what the character thinks he wants is the complete opposite of what he really wants, and the plot brings this out.

How does it work? How do we let the reader in on what the character wants, especially if the character is a minor one and we can't go into her thoughts? Well, we have the character's actions, of course, but we also have her words. Human beings always give themselves away with their mouths. Most of us just can't keep our mouths shut, even when we really try. If others are listening closely—and don't worry, they probably aren't because most

people are doing more talking than they are listening—they'll tune into what motivates us the minute we open our mouths. The same is true of our characters. So much of writing fiction is just observing human interaction.

The key is dialogue—what a wonderful tool for revealing our characters and their motivations. There are so many ways you can reveal to the reader who these characters are—all through dialogue.

For the last few years, I've been using a tool in conjunction with dialogue to reveal the characters in my stories. It's called the Enneagram, and it has revolutionized my strategy for developing characters. This is how Renee Baron and Elizabeth Wagele define it in their book
The Enneagram Made Easy:

The Enneagram is a study of the nine basic types of people. It explains why we behave the way we do, and it points to specific directions for individual growth. It is an important tool for improving relationships with family, friends, and co-workers.

The roots of the Enneagram go back many centuries. Its exact origin is not known, but it is believed to have been taught orally in secret Sufi brotherhoods in the Middle East. The Russian mystical teacher G.I. Gurdjieff introduced it to Europe in the 1920s, and it arrived in the United States in the 1960s.

This is all we really know about the origin of the Enneagram. Personally, I don't need to know any more because since I've been studying it and watching how it works, I really don't need to know anything else. I've tried it and found it to be true every single time I've used it as a tool when wanting to understand where another person—or even myself—is coming from. So many times, when I don't understand my own motivations, I remember that, oh yes, of course, I'm an Enneagram #4, the artist. That explains so much.

I offer the Enneagram as a tool to help you develop your characters. The scope of this particular chapter is to show how using the Enneagram within the context of dialogue can be used to reveal our characters and their motivations to the reader. While there are many ways to develop charac-ters—and I've tried most of them—I've found the Enneagram to be a lot more fun than filling out those ten-page-long character charts to get to who my characters are. Once you learn to identify the different numbers of the Enneagram, you can throw away those character charts forever. All you have to decide is which type of personality you need for a particular character, then go to the Enneagram and find the number. Bingo! You know your character and where he comes from. Your character's dialogue will then

come straight from his authentic personality and you can stop wondering if it sounds real or not.

In this chapter, I want to give you a brief overview of each of the nine Enneagram personality types and show how you can create dialogue that fits each of them, thus developing authentic characters who will be true to themselves every time they speak. Each personality type has a label and a number. The definitions after each number are from Baron and Wagele's
The Enneagram Made Easy.

#1 — the reformer

Reformers are motivated by the need to live their lives the right way, including improving themselves and the world around them.

I recently watched a movie that included a young preteen character who was definitely a reformer. She sat in the front row of her classroom, which would be typical of a #1, as this personality type likes to influence others and likes to be seen. In the movie she would be the first to raise her hand every time a question was asked. This character's dialogue clearly showed us where she was coming from—every single time she spoke. Following are just a few sentences of dialogue addressed to her substitute teacher.

"What do you mean you're not grading that assignment? How do we know if we've done it right without a grade?"

"Your unconventional way of teaching is not contributing to a maximum learning situation."

"I've decided I'll need to speak with the principal about what's going on in this classroom."

She's clearly a smart-ass, but also clearly a #1. She knows the
right
way to do something and feels compelled to tell her teacher that his way is definitely
not
the
right
way.

In a scene of dialogue, a reformer is never afraid to speak up for what she believes to be right. Never bashful or shy, this is a character who likes confrontation and sees it as her job to correct the other characters whenever they're doing anything she doesn't agree with. When this character comes onstage in your story, the dialogue you put in her mouth comes from a deep place inside of knowing the right thing to do and making sure she and everyone else around her is doing it.

#2 — the giver

Givers are motivated by the need to be loved and valued and to express their positive feelings toward others. Traditionally society has encouraged #2 qualities in females more than in males.

I have a friend, Jerry, who is always giving me advice. Over the years he's given me many other things, like money and gifts when I was raising my five kids as a single parent, but when we're in conversation, he can't help but give me input, whether or not I ask for it. This is what makes him feel valued and loved. It's what
drives
him because he's a giver. As soon as I figured that out, the unsolicited advice didn't bother me as much.

In fiction, this is what the #2 is doing, whether in action or dialogue. He's
giving.
Sometimes this comes from a pure place, but sometimes this comes as a way to get love and attention from others.

Typical dialogue for a #2 goes something like this:

"Of course, I'll be happy to watch your kids" (even while thinking
Oh, I can't believe she's asking me to watch those brats again).

Givers are often indirect, finding it difficult to say what it is they really want. They can take on the role of a martyr when doing something they don't want to do and resenting it.

"Sure, I'll be happy to bake cookies for the bake sale."
I'm the only one who really cares about our women's group anyway.

In dialogue, the giver can often be seductive, using whatever he has to draw another character close to him. This could be sex, money, possessions, counsel, or whatever. When this character appears in your story, he's coming from a place of needing love and attention and the willingness to give whatever he has to get his needs met. This kind of character, when in a desperate place, could sacrifice his soul. Whenever he speaks, whether consciously or unconsciously, he's about giving and receiving. Often,
whether
he's giving or receiving depends on how good he's feeling about himself in the scene of dialogue in which you put him.

#3 — the achiever

Achievers are motivated by the need to be productive, achieve success, and avoid failure.

My #3 friends are movers and shakers. They get a lot done. These are the story characters who set goals, schedule their lives tightly, have full calendars, and live their lives by their long to-do lists. Even when engaged in conversation, they're thinking about all of the things they have to do. It's sometimes difficult for the achiever to live in the moment.

In this scene from Sandra Brown's novel
Breakfast in Bed,
Carter and Sloan, a mutually attracted couple who are just getting to know each other, are on the wharf together in San Francisco. Carter is questioning Sloan about exactly how much time she spends working at her bed and breakfast.

"How often do you get out? I mean, for fun and relaxation, not on an errand for Fairchild House." He was unselfconsciously slurping a gooey sundae as they sat at a small round table in the atrium room of the ice cream parlor.

"Not too often," she said dismissively.

"How often?" he persisted.

She fiddled with her candy wrapper. "I'm the sole owner and manager of Fairchild House. Housekeeper, hostess, accountant, chief cook and bottle washer. That doesn't leave much time for fun and relaxation as you put it."

"You mean you never take a day off? An evening off? Never go to a movie? Nothing?"

"You're depressing me," she said, trying desperately to tease him away from the subject. Her life was far from a carnival, she just didn't want him to know how very dull it was.

"Sloan, that's ridiculous." He lay his spoon aside and studied her with embarrassing intentness.

"It's not ridiculous if there's not help for it."

"Hire some help."

"I can't afford it," she snapped. "I told you that earlier."

"You can't afford to hole up in that house and never come out, either," he flared back. When he saw her stricken expression, he lowered his voice. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business, of course, it's just that I can't understand why a beautiful woman like you would hide herself from the rest of the human race."

A beautiful woman like Sloan would hide herself from the rest of the human race because she's a #3, and she's busy working while others are playing. Not only does the above show that she's a #3 because she's obsessed about work but also because she doesn't want Carter to find out just how dull her life really is. Achievers are concerned about their image and how they look to others. What would Carter think of her if he knew she had such a boring life?