Over the last two weeks an anonymous soul took pity on my emerging writing skills. Anon dissected my writing sample and offered up invaluable expertise for which I’m very grateful. Anon criticized my dialogue this way.
“It needs to be natural. This is not natural:
‘We like to entertain, and it’s nice to have formal place settings.’
This is more natural:
‘Parties. You know. We like to have people over.’ Sean reached for two large boxes in the back of the Escalade.”
You will all likely agree that Anon’s rendering flows better, sounds better. This is not the first time I’ve received this criticism. However, it’s the first time the critiquer’s example sounded better to me than my own. Previously, I considered the advice and kept an ear out only to discover that I write my dialogue the way my mom. sisters and I talk when we’re together. I decided my dialogue was perfectly normal and continued on my way until Anon. Now I’m rethinking. It’s difficult for a formal speaking person like me to do these revisions, but I’m determined to make my manuscript better.
Last week my daughter typed and posted rules for the girls’ room. Here is rule number eight from her sign: Do not rummage through our possessions. Perhaps formal diction runs in the genes.
Very funny. Look. You can do dialogue however you want. Its your book. Really it is.
BUT….if you want your characters to have their own voice, what better way to begin doing that than when they actually speak.
Think about your characters. Is this guy charming? Macho? Educated? Earthy? Uneducated? Immature? Refined? Dignified? Creepy?
Then find the dialogue that fits his character and use it. All the time. What you will likely find is that there is a very close tie to HOW people say what they say AND WHAT PEOPLE THINK. You see, a character’s voice is the sum total of their being. Its how the think. How they percieve. How they solve problems. How they view the world. And part of that voice comes through in their voiced dialogue as well as ACTIONS, ID, etc.
So, get your characters speaking like themselves, not like you. Is she witty? Is she kind? Is she bright? Is she ditzy? Is she a push over? Is she a lazy bum?
Find out who she is and then have her speak like herself.
It takes a lot of work to develop GOOD dialogue. But its worth it. It is the foundation for learning how to bring out the voice of your charcters in you ID, your descriptions, your narration, your exposition, your actions, and pretty much everything that serves to characterize your actors.
So how is everything going anyway?
I can’t do much with your stuff this week. I have to:
1. Write a novel
2. Tear out a bunch of floors and paint some rooms for my dear sweet mother who has parkinson’s disease and who desperately needs LOTS OF remodeling done.
3. Prepare for a huge large Relief Society lecture on the Book of Mormon for Saturday.
And
4. Get a Gospel Doctrine lesson together.
This is a nightmare week. I’ll check in, but I probably won’t linger on your writing. At all.
Good luck with your writing and stuff.
If your character is a college student, listen to college student language. (your daughters DO NOT COUNT). You need a general dialogue sample, not people who live with you and who have learned their language skills FROM YOU.
If your character is a teenager, listen to teenagers (again, NONE WHO ARE RELATED).
If a profession, go to a law office or doctors office or watch some tv.
If a truck driver, go to a truck stop.
If a teller, hang out near the teller window for a few minutes.
If a grocer, stalk a few grocers down the isle.
If a city person, go to a big city.
If a country person, go to the general store.
You get the idea…
And listen to some TV dialogue. You know you’re getting good at it when you’re correcting the dialogue in Movies and shows on TV. Pulling your hair out and saying, duh, they should have said anything there, or they should have said this, or it would be more natural if they said it this way.
Good luck
That’s why it’s so important for the writer to get inside the characters’ skin, and be able to write with different voices. Your daughter’s rule is a delight. If a character in a book wrote her rules that way, it would be a charming way to tell a lot about that character and about her family.
Karen is right. You really have to “become” your character, knowing her background and quirks. But I understand completely. When my son was 4 and we were riding in the car with my sister and her kids, he piped up, “Oh, I recognize this tune.” My sister carefully cracked up, and I had to laugh, too. But it’s what he picked up from us!
I think once you realize you are free to take on any character’s voice, it is really fun to explore dialogue!
@Dialogue Guru, Thanks again for your very helpful comments. It’s been a struggle for me to make my characters sound different. One does. Everyone else is the same, or rather has my voice.
Good luck with your to do list this week–it looks a little overwhelming. Unfortunately, I won’t have much writing time either this week. It seems PTA, Community Council and church calling responsibilities are all colliding this week and next. I’m hoping to squeeze in some writing time where I can.
@Karen, That would be a fun way to use my daughter’s rules.
@Krista, I think that’s what I need to do–be free to take on any character. It’s like when I wish I could redecorate other people’s houses because it would be fun to do something in their style, but I know I couldn’t live with it day in and day out. That’s the perspective I need to have with dialogue, becoming different people, make it fun instead of the English teacher in me coming out. Love your son’s statement.
I have been struggling with this in my own writing. Making people sound different just by the way they string their words together.
Last night the BF was telling me some of his childhood memories, and knowing I might not hear these again, grabbed my laptop and tried writing the memories down word for word. (Not actually because that is extremely difficult and I am not that fast.) But mostly word for word, and I noticed the rolling way he talks comes out in his language, even when it is written.
So if you have a character who is slow and thoughtful you could express that in his language without actually saying, “He was slow and thoughtful.”
It was amazing! Just copying the BF’s wording created an impression of him.
By the way, what is a BF?
Part of what forms dialogue is HOW PEOPLE process information. How they think. And their personality is also embedded in how they respond to questions, what they ignore, if they hedge, what cuases them to lie or consider lying, if they change the subject, obfiscate, misinform, interrupt, answer with a question, answer with a joke, cajole, beg, use sarcasm, use timid words, use bold words, use aggressive language, use passive language, etc. etc. etc…
When you form the dialogue, you are communicating MUCH more than information. You’re getting across a point of view, an emotion, a personality. And all of the above mentioned considerations will help you form your dilaogue. You could ignore these points, but then your dialogue won’t be nearly as effective. And yes, that’s a lot to consider, but consider it you must. It will slow down your dialogue creative initially until you get good at it, but then it will open up a whole new world of dialoguing that brings your characters to life…and you’ll do it fairly quicly…
Unless you’re me, who takes forever to write anything. I have way too many technical considerations going on in my head to write quickly. Or I could just jump off a cliff.
Good luck with your he said, she said…
I love your daughter’s rule.
I’d say that yes, the new dialogue flows well, but the first does indeed portray your character as the somewhat stilted grandstander he is.
Thanks Jenni! That’s what I was going for. You and Shandrae are in agreement.
BF = Best Friend
Argh! It appeared, it seemed like, it was like …
I hate it when I read these phrases in books and there I went and used one.
You’re right about the point of the paragraph. I was pretty pleased when I arrived at this phrase: created the apperance of a cozy…. A little too pleased since I didn’t catch the weak writing.
Yes, yes, I need to work on Eva’s voice. I’ve got to find it first. Any suggestions on how to do that?
You called me a good writer so now I will float on my little cloud for a bit before coming back to reality. That’s high praise coming from you. Thank you.
I once had an author tell me that YOU MAY NEED TO GET TO KNOW THE BACKSTORY OF YOUR CHARACTERS BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE ANY OF IT.
I wish he would have been just a little more explicit. I will be. While trying to capture and KNOW your characters so that you can create an authentic voice you may, in your creative little mind, begin devling in their past. Their childdood, their adolecence, their education, a host of experiences, some of their form jobs, their relationship to their parents, their relationship with sibblings, with aunts and uncles and cousins and dogs and cats.
All of the devling may be important FOR you because it may finally help you decide WHO your character is and give you some ideas about how to present your character. You may give them a scare below their left eye, gotten in a bar room brawl. You may give them a lisp from a childhood scare or a stuttering problem. You may have them be overly verbal and talk too much because they were always a domineering child. BUT NONE OF THAT IS YOUR STORY. And that’s where authors get into trouble
They find the voice of their character, finally, through exploring possibilities that they THINK come from their character’s past. It doesn’t. It came from your brain. From your inventive self. A bad author believes that in order to authentice and present a believable character WITH THE VOICE INCLUDED, they must now present all the backstory. Sometimes its just a paragraph. Other times its pages or chapters of backstory.
DO NOT FOLLOW THIS ERRANT VOICE IN YOUR HEAD THAT FOOLS YOU INTO presenting all that backstory under the illusion that it is necessary in order to achieve the voice of the character. It is not. All you need to do is present a compelling story in the present and your readers will fill in the BACKSTORY with their own imaginations.
Like my author-friend said: you may need to know all the backstory, but you DO NOT NEED TO WRITE IT.
Too bad he didn’t explain himself. He could have made millions. Just like me.
I just read through my comment. Wow. I really need to slow down when I type something. Maybe I should read it after I write it. Ya think?
Naw. Who has time to re-read a post? Or even go back and correct known misspellings.
Life is to short.
Sorry for the deciphering moment. But, you do understand don’t you? Words are such a hassle when you’re trying to communicate ideas. Ha!
Words are such a hassle when you’re trying to communicate ideas.
That’s precisely my predicament right now!
I know I’m showing my ignorance, but what is an “ID”?
ID = Interior Dialogue
Shandrae:
We made it up. We were writing interior dialogue so often we just started use ID instead. You’ll likely not see it written like that ANY WHERE ELSE. It’s a Kate Palmer blog thing.
Isn’t it nice to be an original?
I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you make
this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you?
Plz respond as I’m looking to design my own blog and would like to know where u got this from.
appreciate it
My husband is a web designer. He set everything up.