Guest post: Thinking About Dialogue, by Holly Kench

English: Parallel dialogue (2008) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Today I’m thrilled to welcome back Holly Kench, who has agreed to do another guest post for me. You may remember Holly’s last guest post for this blog, and the several plugs I’ve given to her website (because it’s, well, awesome). Today she’s giving us her thoughts about dialogue, which in my experience always comes in handy when writing fiction. Take it away, Holly!

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Writing effective and convincing dialogue is difficult. Great dialogue seems to come effortlessly to some authors, but for most of us, it takes a lot of hard work and attention.

It’s important to realise, though, that even the worst dialogue writers can eventually learn to write good dialogue. Like most professions or hobbies, writing is the performance of innumerable skills, and while some of these skills might come naturally to certain writers, they are ultimately accessible to anyone who has the endurance to keep working at it. And writing is nothing if not a study in endurance. As is so often the case when working on writing, reading is the best way to improve one’s dialogue. Take note of the dialogue you read. If it’s good, what makes it good? If it’s bad, why? Read, think, learn and rewrite.

Make your dialogue great, because it is essential for making your story enjoyable and convincing. In the meantime, don’t forget to carefully consider the stylistic choices you make regarding how to contain that dialogue. The mechanics of your dialogue, the dialogue tags and beats (or action tags), that hold your dialogue together are an important part of the flow of your narrative. They pull the dialogue into a scene. Furthermore, fixing and improving your tags and beats is so much easier than working on the dialogue itself, once you know what you are doing.

As almost every writing style guide will tell you, avoid overly complicated dialogue tags. The simple “said” option is usually best because, as readers, we ignore the tag while comprehending the speaker attribution. I’m not as fussy as some readers and editors when it comes to this. Some people suggest that “said” (and possibly “asked”) should make up your only dialogue tags, that you should let your dialogue do the rest of the work. However, sometimes other tags are useful. For example, consider:

“Cute,” Lucy said.

“Cute,” Lucy squealed.

“Cute,” Lucy said, with a squeal that pierced my ear drums.

All of these can work for the same statement with a different purpose. The first would work best as part of a dialogue heavy scene, in which the statement “Cute” is the purpose, but the second contributes to Lucy’s characterisation. The third affects the characterisation of two characters, but focuses on the response of the narrator. There is nothing wrong with the second option though because it affects our understanding of the character and the development of the story. Just make sure that, if you choose to go with a more complicated tag, it has a purpose. And no, mixing it up is not a satisfactory purpose.

Of course, speaker attributions are not always necessary and sometimes they act more to disrupt the dialogue than contribute anything. A simple “Cute.” might be all you need. Equally, dialogue beats are always useful. They can act to provide speaker attribution, place dialogue within a scene, provide a rest between lengths of dialogue, contribute to characterisation, move the story forward with the assistance of and yet outside of the dialogue, etc, etc. Consider the option:

“Cute.” Lucy sprinted towards a pair of red Manolo Blahniks, before picking one up and clutching it to her chest as though it were a new born baby.

Providing movement with your dialogue mechanics is also a good way to keep your scene from feeling stale as dialogue progresses. I have to admit that, because of their clear potential, using dialogue beats can become somewhat addictive, particularly for those more comfortable writing narrative than dialogue.

However, the flow of your dialogue is the most important thing to consider. Avoid using any of the above options too frequently, and instead attempt to create a balance between tags, beats and dialogue without attribution. Mix it up so your reader doesn’t become bored with your scene.

The most beneficial process you can utilise for your dialogue is to read it aloud. This is worthwhile advice for all forms of writing. Often the words we write sound fabulous in our minds but when we read them aloud we are more able to hear the flaws. Reading dialogue aloud is all the more important as the rhythm of our dialogue attributions becomes apparent.

Rhythm, flow and variety are the keys to dialogue mechanics that will ensure your dialogue is read in the best possible light.

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Thanks Holly! For those who found this useful, Holly is planning a follow-up post on internal dialogue, to be published later in the year.

Holly Kench is a writer and feminist, with a classics degree and a fear of spiders. She enjoys writing fantasy and humor, and is convinced we can change the world with popular culture. Holly writes about her life as a stuffed olive at www.stuffedolive.com.au and manages “Visibility Fiction” for the promotion and publication of inclusive young adult fiction at www.visibilityfiction.com. She can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

 

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How far is too far?

No Sex Please (Photo credit: Michael Jessen)

 

I write romance. Many, if not most, books have some kind of romance in their plotline, whether it be a small or large part. Overall, romance is probably one of the most overused types of plots in fiction.

The thing is, of course, that when you write romance, or at least romance between adults, then invariably sex comes into play in one form or another. And that’s where (excuse the pun) things can get sticky.

Nearly every author of romance asks themselves at one time or another, how far do I go? Do you leave it at “they closed the door behind them” or go into full, Fifty Shades of Grey detail? And this is something that a lot of people have worried about for a long time.

Me, I’ve had this conversation with myself a number of times. I have a novel up on another site, under another name, which has very strict rules about how explicit one can be, and the story I wrote had to be tempered to fit those guidelines. Some scenes never made it on there at all, as it was just too hard to tone them down enough. And to be honest, I surprised myself with how far I was willing to go with my writing. I dare say the cover of anonymity had an effect, as I didn’t have to worry about what people I knew would think when they read it, but still it was a bit of an eye-opener. The more I wrote (and the better I knew my characters), the more explicit the scenes.

With my current project, I had a few scenes that I really ummed and ahhed over. Should I include them or not? Were they too steamy? Did they fit the rest of the novel? And that was when I realised that I really had to sit down and make some decisions. What exactly was I writing? I’ve been telling people it’s chick-lit, romantic comedy, but some of the words coming from my fingers were more in the hard-core romance realm. Therefore, a line had to be drawn so I stayed consistent and kept to genre.

Eventually, I found a point I was comfortable with, which I felt kept to my stated genre yet didn’t compromise my writing at all. And what was that line? Anything I was comfortable with my dad reading, knowing I was the author, was acceptable. Anything more than that wasn’t. A simple rule, yet one that I am sure I will have no trouble keeping to.

With that in mind, my question to you all today is this: Have you ever had this conversation with yourself? If you have, how did you decide where to draw the line? And have you ever regretted that decision? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

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Guest post: To Write or Research? by MCV Egan

Today I’m thrilled to introduce MCV Egan, author of The Bridge of Deaths, a love story and mystery centred around a plane crash off Danish shores just prior to World War II. She has very kindly agreed to do a guest post for me, and even offered her blog for me to post on as well! (You can find my post here if you are interested.) Anyway, you don’t want to read me rambling on, so without further ado, here she is!

MCV Egan

To Write or Research?

Research in the 21^st century is as easy as a quick Google search, watching a film or reading a book. Is it really that easy? I personally think it is not and that many of today’s writers suffer when their work is not backed up by the key component KNOWLEDGE.

As nonsensical as it may seem knowledge is the key component to writing a fabulous and concrete piece. Knowledge comes from experience and research. Is this too absurd, too obvious? Unless you have the educational background in what you write about and stick to just that ‘one subject’ it is not.

If you create a fantasy world to make it believable you need knowledge of how the key components of your landscape and atmosphere will affect the story line, the way the characters breathe, move, feel and exist.

If you write about a certain era you need the clothing, vernacular, and setting. Was that building there in 1890? Was that expression used?

Even in a story of the day, if you have a character of a certain age, how do they speak?

As wonderful and easy as the information superhighway is at providing facts and data right at our fingertips, it has also done so for our readers. The availability of information today has made it far more difficult for a writer; any bored reader can look up a thing or two. The very reader can besmirch your name by blogging about your lack of accuracy!

I personally like to use a wide variety of sources and some are on-line and some are old-fashioned magazines, newspaper microfilm, books, movies, documentaries and interviewing or observing people.

For my WIP I am hooked on Psychology Today. I had not touched a copy in years and I find that old copies are full of fantastic articles that have helped me enhance story line and have also provided some pretty cool and quirky ideas. I also people watch a certain age group; I do so in cyberspace as well as at Starbucks. I am not writing about 53 year old menopausal women fighting hot flashes. If menopause gets any worse I probably will soon!

I believe there are countless fantastic writers out there. In this era of blogging and the ease of communication I see it every day. The one key component that will make anyone standout in the fierce competition of the 21^st Century wordsmith is knowledge. This goes to every aspect of a story; Characterization, setting, plot.

Get to know your characters in a level of familiarity that far supersedes what the reader will see. Understand what would make them tick even in areas that are not what you are writing about.

As a writer your awareness will guide the reader to experience the moment, the sound and the feel of it all.

When you have that feeling of eureka with the first draft be your own worst judge when you re-read and look up any fact that you could possibly question, as simple as would a 16 year old today, in the 1990s in the 1980s talk, dress or dance that way? Or as complicated as at what altitude does the thin air in a mountain make a climber hallucinate?

So what do you think? Was I that absurd and obvious?

 

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The Bridge of Deaths, by MCV Egan

MCV Egan lives in south Florida in the United States and is fluent in four languages. From a young age she was determined to solve the mystery of her grandfather’s death, which resulted in The Bridge of Deaths, the culmination of nearly twenty years of research and analysis. If you like the way she thinks, please go and follow her blog and, even better, check out The Bridge of Deaths, which can be found at Amazon and a number of other booksellers. She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

 

On disappointment – in retrospect

Lance Armstrong (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I’ve been going through old photographs, trying to put together some photo books of the kids over the years. It’s an interesting process (did they ever look that young?) and I’m enjoying it, even if it is taking away from my writing time. Hey, I’ve got a voucher that has to be used by a certain date, so I’ve prioritised. This is fine with me.

Anyway, as I was going through the files, some pictures emerged of a bike race that we attended a few years back, in which Lance Armstrong was competing. At the time we thought it was a vague point of interest but nothing else – we’re not big cycling fans and only went because it was convenient and we thought our then two-year-old would enjoy it. We were joking that every cyclist we saw on the road at that time was Lance, whether they looked anything like him or not, and it was more comical than anything. And if nothing else, we could say that we had seen Lance Armstrong ride. Something to tick off your bucket list, so to speak.

Looking at it now, though, brings completely different thoughts to mind. Was he on drugs at the time? It’s more than likely. How many other riders were using banned substances? How much of that race was actually a race of clean riders? Sure, it’s a question you could ask with every professional cycling event, but the recent revelations about the Armstrong camp and others have cast a new light on it.

Now, we haven’t talked about it much with our eldest. We want him to continue to think of sport as something that you do because you enjoy it, not because winning is the only acceptable result. The very concept of someone cheating like that is still alien to him, and we see no need to introduce him to it just yet. For him, it’s still the innocence of participating. For us, though, those memories have become somewhat tainted. That race, which we had enjoyed, now wears a more sinister air, and I’m not really comfortable with it.

You may say, well you enjoyed it at the time, so why would that change? And to a degree, that’s right. The day itself was great. There is, though, that sense of disappointment that pervades any thought about it now, kind of like thinking about the great dates with a guy (or girl) who you later learned was cheating on you. It soils the good of the memory. Which brings me to this blog.

Have you  ever had an experience which, while good enough at the time, has since become tainted due to something you found out later? How did that affect your thoughts about it at the time? And, to put a writing bent on it, have you ever done that to your characters?

I’d love to hear about it.

 

Related articles

• Disappointment – a writer’s companion? (ebarnes23.wordpress.com)
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The Friday blog-hop!

BLOG IDEAS (Photo credit: owenwbrown)

Yes, something different today – rather than feature a single author in my Friday post, I’m going to feature a number of them as a way of giving some love back to my favourite bloggers. I may have mentioned some (or indeed most) of these people before, but these are some of the the blogs I just don’t want to miss each time. Now, I’m not going to say this is a conclusive list, because it’s not – first of all, I couldn’t possibly fit all my favourite bloggers in one post and do them all justice. Secondly, I’m bound to forget someone. And thirdly, I want to leave this open so I can do it again!

Okay, here goes, in no particular order:

• Confessions of a Stuffed Olive, by Holly Kench. You may remember Holly as one of my first guest bloggers, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned her on other occasions, but Holly’s blog is one that I read every single time – and I can’t say that about everyone, I’m afraid. (Mostly that’s due to time pressures rather than a lack of interest, but it is still the unfortunate truth.) Maybe it’s her sense of humour, maybe it’s that I like the way she thinks, maybe it’s the incredibly amusing illustrations she does – or maybe it’s a combination of all of those. Regardless, Holly’s blog is one that you really should check out, if you haven’t already.
• The Monster’s Ink, by Alyson Miers. Often political, Alyson’s blog is one that always makes me think – and one that I usually agree with, despite the fact that we live in different countries and therefore different political climates. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with Alyson’s thoughts. Sure, she can be provocative (and if you’re American and voted Republican in the recent election you would probably not share her views) but if you need something to read that’s going to stay with you for a while, I recommend checking her out.
• Dy Loveday’s blog. I featured Dy a couple of weeks back to celebrate the release of her first novel, Illusion. Well, now she’s offering to give away a kindle to someone who can answer three questions on  the book. Sound enticing? I thought so. Even if you haven’t read Illusion, it’s worth checking out Dy’s site just to see the progress of someone who has recently joined the ranks of the published novelists. From idea to completion and beyond, it makes fascinating reading. And did I mention the kindle giveaway?
• The Third Sunday Blog Carnival. Not an individual blogger but instead a collection of really interesting posts, which comes out (you guessed it) on the third Sunday of each month. It’s a really good place to find new blogs to read, or if you so choose somewhere to display your own wares. Looking for something to read? Check it out. Want to expand your audience? Submit to them. Every month there is something new to whet your appetite and make you think.
• Poeta Officium, by Virginia. A blog by a fellow first-time novelist who is trying to make her way in this strange world of writing, I find myself relating to practically everything she writes about. She’s much more ambitious than me in the blogging sphere in that she tries to post almost every day (I have no idea how she finds the time!), but that doesn’t mean she runs out of things to write about. Essentially, hers is an engaging blog that most people who try to find time to write on top of their everyday life would be able to relate to.

So, that’s it for this week. I will try to do some more blog-hops every now and then in the new year (and if I missed you this time, you could well see your own blog listed in the coming months). In the meantime, do yourself a favour and go look at some of these blogs. You might find one that really appeals to you.

 

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Working with distractions

distractions and arguments (Photo credit: Will Lion)

Who, me? Distracted? Never! Oh, look, a bird ….

We’ve all been there, surrounded by distractions when we’re trying to work. It doesn’t even matter what the work is, it’s just impossible to concentrate on it. Well, that’s me at the moment.

Of course, it’s largely self-inflicted, which I suspect is the same for a lot of people. For me, it’s the start of the international cricket season in the southern hemisphere. I have a real weakness for sport, which I alluded to when the Olympic Games were on, and it’s impossible for me to sit in a room with a television or a radio without keeping an ear on the score. Heck, even if there is no television or radio, that’s what the internet is for, right? I’m far more likely to be distracted by a sporting event than I am by Facebook or Twitter, and while the white noise that is the commentary doesn’t necessarily take too much of my attention, if something happens in the game then I’m going to turn around and watch it. During the winter it’s not such an issue, as a football match is over in a couple of hours, but Test cricket goes for five days. Hence, the distractions.

Of course, that’s not the only thing that’s keeping my mind from my work. The kids are getting excited about Christmas and much of our spare time is taken up making sure that all the shopping has been done. (Thank goodness for internet shopping, let me tell you. I’ve never bought so much at 9 o’clock at night.) Plus of course there are the usual school commitments, weekend sporting commitments and the like, and of course the sanity-saving gatherings with friends. Writing time? What writing time? It’s a good thing I’ve only committed to 500 words a day.

The good news, for me at least, is that I’m keeping to my schedule. 500 words a day hasn’t proven too onerous, even with everything else going on. I may be distracted but I’m managing to stay on target, so with any luck this manuscript will be done before I know it. I started reading it from the start the other day and didn’t want to stop, so I figure that’s a good thing. Now I just need these final bits to be done – fingers crossed by the end of the month – and that all-important first hurdle will have been overcome.

So tell me, is it just me, or is this just a generally distracting time of year? I’m trying to work out how I did the last two NaNos in November and won both, with all that’s going on. Of course, not everyone will have the same distractions as I do, but I’m sure that everyone has something that keeps them from being more productive, no matter what they’re trying to achieve. Sure, it comes down to priorities, but that’s something we all have to juggle all the time. It just seems, to me at least, that at the moment there are more competing priorities than usual.

No? Just me then? Oh well. I shall just keep juggling them like I always do and plod away with my 500 words. And to everyone else out there who is struggling to find time for everything, don’t worry. It’s just that time of year, and you’re not alone.

 

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Guest post: On writing Illusion, by Dy Loveday

This blog entry was first posted on Beth Cato’s blog Catch a Star as it Falls. Beth is Dy Loveday‘s critique partner, and she  (and Dy) have very kindly given permission for me to re-blog it. Dy’s first novel, Illusions, was released last week by Liquid Silver Books and is available from there and Amazon as an ebook.

In the interests of full disclosure, I will state here that I work with Dy’s partner, so I’m doing my best to give her and her book as much publicity as possible. I’ve started reading it and it’s incredible so far, so please give it a try.

Anyway, take it away Dy!

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Illusion, by Dy Loveday

I remember sending my first 50 pages of the novel to a crit buddy I’d met on the Online Writers Workshop (OWW-SFF). She gently told me I’d made some of the same mistakes she’d made when first starting out, and proceeded to show me exactly what needed to change to get the manuscript into shape.

Writing Illusion wasn’t easy. It took me around 6 months to get the first draft down and another 18 months of hard slog to revise structural problems. Writers often focus on the line edits or nits, misspelled words or agonize for hours over paragraphs of text. But the real problem usually lies in the harder to fix structural issues: boring main characters, superfluous secondary characters, a clichéd or obvious plot line, and my particular bugbear, the wrong point of view. I recently wrote a short story and it just didn’t work. Until I realized I’d been telling it from the daughter’s point of view when it was really the father’s story. Thankfully, it was only a short story, but still …. *bangs keys extra hard for emphasis*

Major revisions can also be enjoyable. During the revision of Illusion, I found myself fleshing out characters, giving them stronger goals and motivations, cutting entire scenes and adding new ones. Maya became less sarcastic and more vulnerable, more specific in her reactions as events in the scene moved her further away, or closer to her goal. I wanted the climax to be exciting, so I spent extra time foreshadowing events, creating decent causal links and giving Molokh a clear agenda. By the end of the book I hoped that even if the reader didn’t like Maya, they’d understand why she did the things she did, and find her interesting and believable.

Working with my OWW crit partners helped a lot. I think every writer needs to surround themselves with a good writing community, because let’s face it writing is a lonely existence. Writers spend so much time in their head it’s easy to forget there are others out there, trying to do the same thing. The virtual support community was essential for me and helped me to develop the skills of the craft. I say ‘develop’ because despite various workshops and writing degrees, I’m still learning. That’s the great thing about writing. It’s such a complex art, you can only get better.

I revised Illusion with the reader in mind and focused on four questions:

1. What contract with the reader did I establish on the first page?

2. What anticipation is this scene creating?

3. Is this causally related?

4. And most important of all, did I fulfill the contract with the reader? Did I deliver what I promised to deliver?

Thank you Beth for hosting me on your site and for helping me with Illusion. Your unique blend of encouragement, humour, gifted writing and ability to find the answer to plot holes was immeasurably helpful, from those first 50 pages to the final product

——————

Thanks Dy, and thanks also to Beth for allowing me to re-host this. I hope that you all check out the book, and importantly leave a review! As a first time author, Dy needs all the support she can get so please do your best and share the love a little. I promise, I’ll do the same for you.

Looking for motivation

English: Motivational Saying (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Okay, first things first. I know I didn’t do a post last Friday, so my deepest apologies. The lack of activity was due to a combination of things – a late cancellation combined with a generally crappy day meant that things just got away from me and I wasn’t able to put something together. Fear not, though, I have things lined up for this Friday so it’s only a minor blip.

Aside from my general lack of blogging, though, today I was going to talk about motivation. I’ve been sick lately so finding the motivation to get out there and write has been more difficult than usual. Sure, the ideas are there, but the thought of actually opening that Word document and writing just hasn’t appealed.

My way of getting past this is, oddly enough, NaNo. Yes, I know that last week I said loud and clear that I wasn’t going to do NaNo this year as I wanted to get my WIP out of the way first. However, what I’ve decided to do is my own mini NaNo, in that rather than aiming for 50,000 words during November, I’m heading for 15,000. That’s 500 words a day, and if I get that done then I’ll be, if not finished, then very close to. I’m doing okay, too – today (in my part of the world) is the 5th of November, so that means I need to have 2500 words done by the end of today. Well, I’m not there yet, but it’s not yet midday so I’ve got time, and I’m over 2000 to start with. That means less than 500 words and I’m on track.

I know that personal NaNos don’t work for everyone, though, so I’ve come up with a few other methods that might help with motivation.

1. Carrots, as in carrot-and-stick methods. In this case, reward yourself. I’ve promised that I’ll get myself a manicure when the manuscript is finally done – or, at least, the first draft is. This isn’t necessarily because I’m huge fan of getting my nails done, but it feels like a good reward for my fingers, which are what has been doing the bulk of the work in typing this story out. In other words, set up a reward system for significant milestones, like some personal pampering, or a night out with friends, or a fancy lunch, or whatever. Not a huge reward (I don’t condone celebrating every chapter finish with a weekend away, for example), but something that fits the task at hand.

2. Sticks. This is punishing yourself if you don’t meet certain milestones. This doesn’t work nearly so well as people respond so much better to positive than negative rewards, but sometimes it just works to do it this way. This has worked for me in the past when I denied myself chocolate until I’d written 1000 words in a day. (This was especially effective when I had the chocolate just sitting there, looking at me, and I was forcing myself not to have it.) Stick methods are probably better for short term goals than long term ones, or at least they are for me.

3. Competition/social deadlines. This is where something like NaNo comes in, though it’s not necessary; it could be an agreement with a friend or something at your writers’ group. It’s where you agree to have a chapter finished by X date, or try to write more than someone else in  a given time. The widgets on the NaNo website are great because you can track your progress against that of a friend or even a region (averaged out), but really any sort of arrangement will work. The idea is that you will write, even if it’s rubbish, because someone else is relying on you to do it. There’s nothing like a bit of social guilt to make you get stuck into it.

You will notice that I’m employing a combination of (1) and (3) this month – the promise of a manicure to reward my fingers when the draft is finished, along with the pressure to meet a NaNoWriMo-like deadline. Only time will tell if I’m disciplined enough to do it, but if I don’t try I’ll never know.

So, what works best for you when you’re not feeling motivated? How do you make yourself write? Or do you just take a break and wait for the inspiration to come back again? I’d love to hear about it.

 

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NaNoWri-NO

 

Image: NaNoWriMo.org

 

That’s right. I’m not doing it.

This year, for the first time in three years, I’ve made the decision not to do NaNoWriMo.

It has nothing to do with dissatisfaction with the NaNo people or process. I’ve done it two Novembers in a row and won each time, though I admit I failed dismally at Camp NaNo this July. The thing is, though, that with my current story, I don’t have 50,o00 words left to write. Sure, I could write something else, but my priority at the moment is really to get this first draft finished. I’m already three months overdue and, with my new deadline being Christmas, I just want to get it over with.

I toyed with the idea of trying to finish it by the end of October and doing something completely different in November with NaNo. Unfortunately, I’ve been unwell and a number of other things have been coming back to bite me, and the time (and, frankly, inclination) just haven’t been there. I’m working my way through these final scenes and I’m getting there, but it’s a long, drawn out process. Perhaps if I was one of those people who writes in order it would be different, because I’d be building up to the dramatic end of the story, but I’m a non-linear writer and the end has been written since, well, two NaNos ago. No, what I’m doing now is doing a couple of sub-plots and some filler scenes that lead onto the next bit of drama. No wonder it’s taking me forever.

As such, I’m giving NaNo a miss this year. Instead, I’ll use November to (hopefully) kill off these last 15,000 or so words that need writing, and get this draft done once and for all. My character biographies are helping dramatically, I might add; that little writing exercise is clearly one that works really well for me. (Actually, there seem to be a lot of similarities between my writing habits and those of the lecturer in this course I’m doing, which is incredibly helpful.)  Then, once my draft is done I’ll take some time off over Christmas and attack it with the red editor’s pen in the new year, refreshed and, with any luck, able to look at it with a new set of eyes.

Then next November I’ll do NaNo again, with the next story. At least, that’s the plan as it stands now. Wish me luck! :)

 

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Tag, you’re it!

English: Parallel dialogue (2008) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today I’m going to talk about dialogue tagging. You know, the “John said” bit of “I can’t understand it,” John said. (Okay, that was probably a little basic, but please stick with me.)

There has been a lot said about dialogue tagging, and how to do it best. Get rid of all the adverbs. Take away all the descriptive tags and replace them with “said”. Ignore them entirely. Naturally the whole thing is terribly confusing and novices like me have no idea which advice to take.

Take adverb reduction, for example. Look, I get where this is coming from. The dialogue should speak for itself without the writer having to explain the tone of voice. “What are you doing?” Mary asked sharply could be replaced with “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mary asked, enriching the dialogue itself and eliminating the need for the description.

But the thing is, I think there is room for the occasional adverb. Not all the time, and not at the expense of better written conversation, but description can sometimes add to the whole experience. Besides, I am yet to read a book completely devoid of adverbs. So maybe, I’m thinking, it’s not a case of cutting them out entirely, but instead thinking about each one and whether it’s really needed. Most won’t be, but some will.

Okay, onto the “said” brigade. This is replacing the likes of “Speak for yourself,” Andrew muttered with “Speak for yourself,” Andrew said. The idea behind this is that again, the dialogue should speak for itself without the author having to explain things. Again, though, I’m less than convinced. Sure, it makes the text neater and simpler, but then again I think you lose some of the texture and feel of the scene. Perhaps again it’s a case of selective application. I’m just not sure.

Finally, there’s the idea of removing tags altogether. Now don’t get me wrong, no one does this exclusively, but it can work pretty well with conversations. It doesn’t necessarily mean not tagging the dialogue at all, just removing the “he said”, “she said” type of thing. For example:

Sarah frowned. “I just don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“Are you kidding? It’s as clear as day!” Mark got up and walked to the window, looking out. His frustration was obvious.
“It’s as clear as mud. What exactly to you hope to achieve?”
“World peace. Power over the universe. Or, failing that, I’d settle for getting that prick fired.”

I quite like this. It’s clean, it’s neat and it doesn’t detract from the conversation. However, what it can do is make the reader lose track of who is speaking. To use the example above, at this stage of the dialogue it’s clear whose voice is being used, but if it went on for two or more paragraphs I would find myself counting back to work out who is saying what. Maybe I’m alone in this – just about every book I’ve read this year has had this in several places, with me getting confused as to which words belong with which character. But then again, maybe I’m not alone, and authors (or editors) are inadvertently sacrificing clarity for the sake of brevity. I don’t know. So, while I quite like the technique, I think it should be used wisely so there is as little reader confusion as possible.

So where am I going with this post? Well, I don’t have advice to offer or an argument to make; instead, it’s really just a train of thought about how best to write dialogue. I don’t know that there are any right or wrong answers, but as I inch ever closer to the editing stage of my manuscript, I find myself thinking more and more about this sort of thing.

In the end, I think it’s down to personal tastes. Sure, there are some rules, like don’t go over the top with your descriptions – after all, isn’t it better when the reader has to make their own picture? It gets them so much more engaged – but really, do what you think feels right. Sure, some people won’t agree, but there are others who will … and if you get it horribly wrong, your editor will point it out anyway, right?*

 

*Unless, of course, I have it horribly wrong, in which case feel free to correct me. Thank you!

 

Related articles

• Writing Effective Dialogue (nancyjcohen.wordpress.com)
• Editing Tip – Adverbs (fallsintowriting.com)
• He Said, She Said: The Art of Dialogue Tags (andyswordsandpictures.wordpress.com)
• How To Edit Before You Submit Your Manuscript To An Editor (aknifeandaquill.wordpress.com)