Dialogue (4 page)

Sets the mood in the story. Place two characters in a setting that will enhance the story's mood. A dark, creepy alley in a horror story, a bright island beach in a romance, or you might want to reverse these for something different—a dark alley in a romance or an island beach in a horror story. Write a scene of dialogue focusing on the mood/emotion you want to convey in the overall story.

Intensifies the story conflict. Two characters are arguing about the moral issues concerning abortion, or the death penalty, or assisted suicide, or another hot topic of your choosing. Write a scene of dialogue that intensifies the conflict between these two characters. Show the conflict escalating as they continue to argue.

Creates tension and suspense. Two characters are in a fender bender. One, the antagonist, has yet to get a learner's permit and was taking the family car out for a joyride without insurance. Write a scene of dialogue that's full of tension and suspense for what's ahead for both characters.

Speeds up your scenes. Find a bit of ponderous narrative in one of your own story scenes and transition into dialogue, using it to speed up the scene. Resist using much narrative or action; try to create most of the scene using just dialogue so you can discover how dialogue quickly speeds up the pace in a scene. If you're not far enough into a story of your own, complete this exercise with a novel on your bookshelf.

Adds bits of setting/background. Find a line of dialogue, either in something you've written or in a novel you've read, that reveals the story's setting. If it's out of another author's novel, study how the writer managed to insert bits of the setting into the dialogue to make it seem like a natural part of the discussion between the characters.

Communicates the theme. Pull at least three novels off your bookshelf and see if you can find a line or two of dialogue that communicates the story's theme. If you can't find anything, create a line of dialogue that clearly conveys what you believe the story to be
about.

[ mute characters and stories-abolishing your fears ]

"Are you planning to use any dialogue in your novel?" As a writing coach, this is the first time I'd ever had to ask a writer this question. New writers often use too much dialogue, but seldom none at all.

"Well, sure." Carol shifted uncomfortably as she studied her manuscript.

"We're into the third chapter and all of the characters are passing each other without speaking." I'd already noticed this in previous readings of the first couple of Carol's novel chapters, but we were working on other things and I hadn't gotten around to mentioning it.

"Yeah, well, I know I have to get it in there pretty soon." She flipped a few pages over. "I have a question about where the comma goes in this one sentence on page five."

I'm not a therapist, but I knew Carol was avoiding the subject of dialogue—again. She never wanted to talk about it. Turns out when I finally did make her talk about it that she was scared of dialogue. Afraid that when her characters started talking, they would sound stupid, not at all profound and mysterious as she imagined them to be in her mind. She didn't want to dispel their mysteriousness by letting them open their mouths and make fools out of themselves and especially out of her. This is the first time I got anyone to admit this, but I have a feeling it's a common problem with both nonfiction and fiction writers. I've noticed that nonfiction writers avoid dialogue most of the time because they don't feel like they have to use it. Fiction writers know at some point they have to use it, but they do so with great trepidation.

Writing dialogue happens to be something I've always enjoyed. Part of the reason for this, I suspect, is that I tend to create and write about characters

much like myself. I haven't taken a lot of risks in my fiction—creating stories I couldn't live, creating characters I couldn't be. I can appreciate the fear around dialogue, especially if you have to work with characters with dialect or speech impediments or who live in another world you've never experienced, whether real as in another part of the planet or on another planet altogether as in science fiction or fantasy.

Since the premise of this book is to learn to release the voice within us and create dialogue that delivers our story to the reader, no matter what kind of character we're creating, we have to first begin to understand the hindrances, conscious and unconscious, that keep us from plunging right in and doing it. We have fears about dialogue that handicap us and keep us from relaxing while we're writing, misconceptions that create pressure to do it "right." And that's where the paralysis comes in that Carol experienced. The good news is that bringing these fears and misconceptions out into the open allows us to see them for what they are and determine to not be driven by them any longer. Good writing of any kind, whether we're writing dialogue, exposition, action, or description, can happen only when we're relaxed and not worrying about the mechanics. That's the purpose of this book—to help you relax by showing you how you can become more comfortable with your voice and to teach you the mechanics so you can practice and make them automatic.

Natalie Goldberg tells us in
Writing Down the Bones,
"Don't think. Don't get logical." She goes on to say that ".. .the aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing about what your mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel."

Our fears and misconceptions prevent us from burning through to first thoughts. When we're full of fear, we have no choice but to write out of what our fear brings up. The flow of energy Natalie is talking about is blocked, so we can't write about what our mind "actually sees and feels." The only way to defuse our fears is to bring them out into the open—so let's get started.

identifying your fears

Following is a list of our most common fears concerning dialogue.

• What if I let my character talk and he sounds stupid, not at all how I

want my reader to perceive him?

• What if my characters start talking and they all sound the same?

• What if my characters don't sound like my reader expects them to?

• What if my dialogue sounds flat and boring and doesn't do anything to move the story forward?

• What if my dialogue sounds stilted and formal, and the reader can tell I'm trying to write dialogue rather than just letting my characters talk?

• What if I let my characters start talking and they run away with the scene?

• What if I don't put enough narrative in and the reader can't follow the dialogue? Worse yet, what if I put too much in and slow the dialogue way down?

You'll notice that all of the above fears start with "What if..." That's the nature of fear. It's always about something that might, that could happen, never what necessarily
will
happen.