Dialogue (7 page)

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?

As I mentioned earlier, the key to releasing this fear is to simply relax and not try so hard. You've heard the old advice about how if you try really hard not to think about a banana, guess what you find yourself thinking about. The same is true when it comes to dialogue—the harder you try not to write bad dialogue, the more bad dialogue you write. By bad, I mostly mean dialogue that comes across as less than authentic for the character speaking it. The following exercise is designed to help you focus on relaxing when your characters start talking.

Take what you consider a stilted scene of dialogue from a story you're writing or have written and rewrite it, focusing not on what the characters are saying but on relaxing while you're writing. Decide that it really doesn't matter how your characters sound or what they say—you can fix it later. This could, of course, cause you to plug into one of your other fears—that of your characters sounding stupid. But what we're doing in these exercises is isolating just one of your fears at a time so you can release it and write better.

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

What we often don't understand about our characters is that they're an extension of us, and so if they're saying something we didn't expect or, didn't plan for them to say, we shouldn't try to repress them. We can release this particular fear by letting our characters express their true selves without censoring them. The important thing is to keep writing. There's always the second draft. And the third. We can later fix the dialogue of those characters who might embarrass us in front of our family and friends with dialogue that's too close to the bone, too vulnerable, too out-there.

Take an out-of-control character from a current story you're writing or develop a new one for a story you'd like to write and create a scene for him that has no boundaries. By boundaries I mean your plan for him. Let him go. Let him say whatever he wants to say— to himself or the other characters. Don't try to put words in his mouth and don't try to stop him from saying what he wants to say. Follow him. This could lead you to a completely new story idea, one that's deeper and closer to the "truth." Allowing our characters to be who they are will eliminate our fear of their running away with the scene or—God forbid—the story itself. It's not the end of the world (pay attention to how often I say this in this chapter) to be spontaneous and write the story that emerges with the character. Not only is it not the end of the world, but it indicates your growth as a writer.

enough to go by feel, don't worry about it, you will soon enough. The more you do this, the easier it becomes.

Create a scene of bare dialogue with no action, narrative, or identifying tags. When you're finished, go back through the scene and insert bits of narrative and action here and there to expand the scene and create a narrative flow. Be conscious of how much you're putting in. Is it bogging down? Is it just enough? Do you still need more to bring the reader on board with your character's intentions in the scene? When you do what depends on the needs of the story. There are no hard and fast rules.

[ the genre, mainstream, and literary story— the dialogue matters ]

Let's see, I have to get Homer from Point A to Point B by Tuesday afternoon and along the way he has to talk to Amos to see where they stashed the loot. The loot has to be moved by Tuesday evening, so we don't have much time here.

These are Mr. Writer's thoughts as he sits down to write the next scene in his novel.

I'll have him run into Amos in the 7-11.
He starts to write:

"So, Amos, hey, man, how's it goin'?" Homer picked up a carton of milk and threw it into his basket. Amos didn't immediately answer, so Homer said, "So do you use Joy or Dove? Let's see, I think I'll get me some cashews for my long evening at home tonight."

"What are you doing tonight?" Amos asked.

"Watching the game, of course. Aren't you?"

"Not sure." Amos grunted. "I met this girl. I might go over to her place. She's pretty nice."

WHO CARES?

Going back to the loot for a moment—we know this is an action/adventure or suspense thriller, so no one cares about the cashews, the game, or Amos's girl. We care about the loot and how they're going to get it moved in time and how Homer is going to get from Point A to Point B.

This chapter is about voice and making sure our voice fits the kind of story we're writing.

Every writer has a unique voice, and nowhere does this show up more than in our story dialogue because whether we want to admit it or not, and no matter how much we think we're beyond this, some part of us is in all of the dialogue we write. If I've had an unresolved fight with my partner in the

morning and sit down to write a scene of dialogue in the afternoon, guess what? Suddenly my characters are fighting away.

You've heard writers say that the characters just "ran away with the scene." Well, it doesn't work quite like that. They "run away" because we have some unresolved issues and our characters decide to play these out as we write. I always have to laugh when writers decide to "fictionalize" a true story, believing they're actually hiding the truth from readers. It's like an elephant sticking his head under the bed, thinking no one can see him.

Just like every writer has a voice, so does every story. This is one reason the publishing world has categorized all of our stories for us. The three major categories of story are genre, mainstream, and literary. The genre category includes a few subcategories: fantasy, science fiction, mystery, horror, action/adventure, suspense, thriller, romance, and young adult. These are self-explanatory, but new writers often ask about the difference between mainstream and literary stories.

Mainstream stories are contemporary stories intended for the general public rather than a specific audience. This type of story challenges the reader's belief system, suggests a new life vision, asks provocative questions, provokes introspection, and/or shakes up conventional rules.

Literary stories are avant-garde and experimental stories that incorporate unconventional and nontraditional writing style and techniques. They're often weak on plot and strong on characterization.

With the above in mind, it's only smart marketing sense to get on board and find out where our writing fits and what our category is. Once we do this, we can begin to understand what readers expect from our stories and, more specifically, from our dialogue in that kind of story. As a writing coach, I work with many new fiction writers, and it's clear to me that many of them don't "get" that different kinds of stories call for different kinds of characters, tension, pacing, themes, and dialogue. A fast-paced action adventure needs fast-paced dialogue in every scene to keep the story moving quickly forward. Likewise, a literary story needs the dialogue to match the pace of the other elements in the story—it needs to move more slowly.

Readers pick up certain kinds of stories for specific reasons. Some readers want a magical ride, while others want a scary ride with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Some read fiction because, and maybe this is on an unconscious level, they want to learn something about themselves. Some just want to kick back and read about someone else's problems for a

change. If we don't understand what our readers want, we won't be able to write stories that deeply satisfy readers in our chosen genre. Our characters' dialogue should match the rhythm of the story in every way possible. This chapter is about taking a look at all of the types of stories and the different voices we, as writers, adopt in order to tell these stories.

At the risk of being formulaic, I've put the types of stories into seven categories to help us better understand readers' expectations of our stories and especially the dialogue we create for our characters: magical, cryptic, descriptive, shadowy, breathless, provocative, and uncensored.

magical

The language of
The Hobbit, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek,
and
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
appeals to readers who are looking for the magical. "May the Force be with you" would sound ridiculous in a mainstream or literary novel. Real people just don't talk like that. Readers of mainstream and literary stories know what's real and what isn't.

When writing mainstream and literary stories, we have to go with what is real. Science fiction and fantasy writers can write about what isn't real, but it's not as easy as it sounds. Some of us have the ability to write magical dialogue, and some of us don't. Magical dialogue sounds truly authentic coming from an author like J.R.R. Tolkien. But can you imagine Holden Caulfield telling his sister, "May the Force be with you"? If he had even hinted at it, J.D. Salinger would not be the famous author he is today.

Science fiction and fantasy aren't the only genres where magical dialogue shows up. A good romance writer can also pull it off. Magical dialogue has a lyrical rhythm to it, and fantasy, science fiction, and romance authors should practice until they can write it and write it well. Sometimes magical dialogue seems inherent in writers of these genres—sometimes they even talk in magical dialogue in their everyday conversations.

I don't. I know that about myself. Part of writing dialogue for our stories is knowing who we are and where we fit as storytellers. Do you know if you're a fantasy, science fiction, or romance writer? Have you ever thought about it?