How to revise your novel (part 4)

Originally posted: September 7, 2020

This is the fourth post in a series about novel revision. Part 1 considered characters and pace. Part two covered conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action.  Part 3 tackled beginnings, endings, and dialogue. Today it’s that old saw: show don’t tell.

SHOW NOT TELL

Here it is, the single most common weakness of every work-in-progress: too much telling, not enough showing. Sometimes we tell instead of show. Other times we show and tell, illustrating a scene in perfect detail only to explain to the reader the very thing they’ve just witnessed. That’s how worried we are that the reader won’t get it. In the case of the latter, the solution is a quick backspace. In the case of the former, the work is more difficult.

Adjectives and adverbs are telling signs. Instead of saying Mary eyed Bob suspiciously, describe what’s suspicious in her manner. What does suspicion look and feel like? Instead of the adverb, show us the feeling or action.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but: you don’t need adjectives on dialogue tags. He said furiously. She asked anxiously. They cried dolefully. STOP. Stick to he said and she asked. If dialogue is accompanied by an emotion, find a way to embody the emotion.

BE SPECIFIC

Abstraction is another telling sign. First drafts, by their nature, tend to lean heavily on words like suddenly and something. I think of these as placeholders we drop in the ground as we write toward a first draft. In second and third and seventh drafts though it’s important to return to those placeholders and fully articulate the suddenness or what the something is. Don’t tell the reader the lights went out suddenly. Make the lights flame out in a way that feels sudden for character (and by extension reader). Hot tip: most of the time you can just delete the word suddenly without doing anything else.

Ditto vague descriptions. You could tell us there were eagles in the sky and rain on the way, sure. Or you could show the eagles “beating muscled wings, threading in and out of black thunderclouds” as Valeria Luiselli does in her Lost Children Archive. You could tell us Edgar feels vulnerable or show him grasping opposite wrists as Ian Williams does in Reproduction. Weeks after finishing the novel, this visual has stuck with me, more importantly the feeling of tenderness it inspired has lingered. That’s the power of specificity.

FILTERING AND MEDIATION

Stories are most immediate and immersive when they can get right in close. But too often writers filter the story through an unnecessary lens. Compare two versions of the same scene:

“Outside, Gillian noticed two neighbours squabbling. She saw them jab their fingers at each other across their property lines and heard their voices growing louder.”

“Outside, Gillian’s neighbours squabbled. They jabbed their fingers at each other across their property lines, voices rising.”

There’s no need to tell the reader that Gillian is seeing and hearing the action. Remove the filter words notice and saw and what happens? The pace quickens and the reader is drawn closer to the action.

Here’s another telling move: mediating flashbacks. Compare two version of the same flashback:

“Jim thought of Blake with a smile, remembering how they first met on a plane to Mexico City. They were stuck in the middle aisle, sandwiched between two frat boys.”

“Jim and Blake met on a plane to Mexico City, in the middle aisle, sandwiched between two frat boys.”

IN CONCLUSION

Narration and exposition have a place in fiction but if that’s all you are doing, the reader will skim. Stick to your bones fiction is writing that reveals, that leaves room for interpretation. Let’s say you have this line: “Marty served his guests tea.” That’s fine but consider this version instead: “Marty’s mugs were a motley collection, branded freebies from conferences and radio station give-aways, the white ones stained with years of tea and coffee, most of them chipped.” The mugs show Marty’s mugs and the reader may draw further conclusions about his personality and home life from those mugs.

Writers have a tendency to worry too much about the reader. Take my hand, dear Reader, we seem to say. Allow me to be your tour guide on this journey. NO. STOP. Create the world, animate the characters, then get out of the way. Let the reader wander unchaperoned. Trust them to read between the lines and connect the dots. Be open to the narrative being understood in a different way than you intended. Your story will be stronger for a multiplicity of interpretations.

The next post (the last in the series) is a laundry list of advice.

How to revise your novel (part 3)

Originally posted: August 31, 2020

This is the third post in a series about novel revision. Part 1 considered characters and pace. Part two covered conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action. This post tackles beginnings, endings, and dialogue.

BEGINNING

If you are new to fiction, if this is your first novel, odds are good the true beginning of your story is lurking somewhere past the first few paragraphs/ scenes/ chapter. It’s very likely your prologue, beautifully written though it might be, is unnecessary. Especially if it spoilers the ending. Go find the real start of the story and then delete all the stuff that comes before.

Does your novel begin with a character waking up? (Mine does!) It might be fine but be warned that characters getting out of bed is a very, very common and cliched beginning. And now that I’ve told you this, you’ll start to notice it everywhere.

ENDING

I’ve blogged about endings before but it bears repeating: Do you need that epilogue? Really? Are you sure? Because 99.9% of the time, epilogues, like prologues, are unnecessary. In fact, the last sentence/ paragraph/ scene/ chapter of an early draft is usually redundant. Resist the urge to tie up all the loose ends. Trust the reader to get the story.

An earlier draft of Butter Tea at Starbucks had this final sentence: everything feels miraculous. Someone in my writing group suggested that last line was too on the nose so I removed it and sure enough, the ending was stronger.

DIALOGUE

A common issue in early drafts is an over-reliance on dialogue. It’s the rare, exceptional author who can successfully use direct dialogue to carry a story. Remember that there are many, many other ways to convey information to a reader including: action, narration, and scenery. And when you’re writing dialogue, don’t neglect summary and indirect dialogue.

Coming up next: show don’t tell.

How to revise your novel (part 2)

Originally posted: August 24, 2020

This is the second post in a series about novel revision. In part 1 we considered characters and pace. This post will tackle conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action.

CONFLICT

Or rather, lack thereof. After flat characters, lack of conflict is the second most common problem in manuscript after manuscript. Including my own! Being a published author doesn’t make you immune to shitty first drafts.

Are your characters too virtuous? Are they too obliging? Does every conversation end with everyone getting exactly what they want? Are you letting your characters off the hook too easily or too quickly? Put your characters in peril. Make them morally complicated and imperfect. Make the people in their lives intractable and difficult. Let bad things happen to your beloved protagonist. A common pitfall: dumping all the problems on the side-kick. That’s how hard we work to spare the protagonist! But now your sidekick has the more compelling storyline so why should the reader care about the supposed main character?

There is a scene in The Boat People where Mahindan is in a detention camp in Sri Lanka. The war is over and he’s trapped in a literal hell. In a very early draft, my writing group pointed out that in the entire scene, Mahindan was the only character who didn’t seem hungry/ in pain/ in physical discomfort/ scared. This was a huge failure of imagination on my part. I went back to the drawing board. Added hunger pains, insect bites, the ick factor of being without a bath, the hum of anxiety, the high pitch of terror. It took time to really settle into that uncomfortable difficult place with Mahindan. But writing is work. Suffer for your art.

FLASHBACKS AND OFF-STAGE

A while back I read a manuscript by a promising and talented author. Most of the scenes were framed inside a flashback. Now this framing structure can work well. The novel A Little Life is narrated in this structure and the device adds to the sense that life is happening in a circular way for the characters, blurring the lines between past and present. For that book, with its particular themes, and its excess of conflict and tension, the flashbacks worked. But that’s rare.

More often flashbacks, like minor characters, can be vestigial organs. You started writing without really knowing what was going to happen and mid-way through a scene you realized “oh, this important thing has to come first” and rather than pause the flow of your work, wrote that thing as a flashback. That’s a reasonable first draft strategy. But later, in revisions, scrutinize those flashbacks. Would the action unfold better in real time?

One sneaky way we writers avoid conflict  is by making it happen off-stage and/or in flashbacks. Flashbacks can be useful but they lack the immediacy, the heart-stopping quality, of real time events. So be sparing when you are utilizing it to relay senes of conflict. Similarly, if Banquo’s going to get knocked off, bring the action centre stage. Don’t fade to black just as the tension is rising and then have some characters recounting the big fight in the following scene. (Booooo! complains the reader)

THOUGHT VS. ACTION

Perhaps because the stories take place inside our own heads, many of us have a penchant for letting characters live too long inside their own heads too. Even if your main character is in a coma and the entire story is taking place in their dreams, there will still be action, right? The character will think they are out in the world running and jumping and having fights about the fence with the belligerent neighbour. And you have to convey those memories or dreams in such a way that it feels like it’s really happening.

Conversely, some manuscripts are all action and zero interior thought so that characters become puppets. The balance between inner and outer life will be different for every book but it is a balance. You can’t just have a character involved in a high speed car chase - say - without giving us some idea of what she’s thinking, how her heart is pounding, how her mind is racing, how her reflexes are taking over, why she’s doing this, what she hopes to gain, what she fears to lose etc.

The next post is about beginnings, endings, and dialogue.

How to revise your novel (part 1)

Originally posted: August 17, 2020

Manuscript evaluation is one of the things I do for a living. In a nutshell: I read someone’s manuscript and return detailed notes to get them started on re-writes. Every story is unique but there are several common issues that plague all our drafts (mine too). If you’re struggling to revise your manuscript, here are three things to watch for:

UNFORMED CHARACTERS

In early drafts most secondary characters are blanks and the antagonists are one-note. Protagonists might be morally complex and more fully formed but there’s often something still missing, usually motivation. What’s making them act destructive? Why are they so helpful? Why do they care so much about this issue/ person/ place/ thing? When it comes to characters, you need to interrogate them thoroughly until you know everything about them.

TOO MANY CHARACTERS

Squint at each character. Make sure they earn their place. Sometimes characters are vestigial organs. Though necessary at the start to help you understand the protagonist, you might find they’ve served their purpose by draft two or six. Thank them for their service and then let them go.

Two or more minor characters can often be merged into one. A couple of years ago I was reading my friend Jamie Fitzpatrick’s novel, The End of Music. There’s a character who appears on the first page, who sparks a nostalgic memory for the protagonist, Carter. Later, she re-appears unexpectedly as the manager at his mother’s nursing home. She’s a pretty minor character but plays a necessary role. In earlier drafts these had been two different characters but somewhere along the way Jamie’s editor advised him to merge them. The merger makes the story stronger. It gives the reader a little dopamine hit to meet the woman again and remember her from the first page. And her presence in both parts of his life strengthens the theme of nostalgia and memory (which his mother in her old age is losing).

PACE

When it comes to our own work, most of us are terrible judges of pace. But readers are very very good at sensing slow parts of the book. Does every scene advance plot and/or character (ideally both). If not, jettison the scene. Or strip it for parts to graft on elsewhere and trash the rest. Much of revising is also moving the puzzle pieces around. Swapping around scenes and chapters, shifting beats within a scene, passages of prose, action and so on. Think about arcs, not just character arcs, not just story arc, but the smaller arcs that happen within a scene or chapter or even a conversation. Are the stakes present early enough or do they arrive at the very end like a footnote. And if so, is this what you intend?

This is part one of a series on re-writing and revising. The next post covers conflict, flashback, and action.

Put the toast to work

Originally published: August 23, 2017

Dialogue is one thing but what about the stage business? Action in a scene - a character moving through a space, physically interacting with other characters - serves several functions. It enlivens the narrative while grounding it in a fictional reality. And it paints a picture, allowing the reader to visualize the story. I'm a fan of interweaving stage business with dialogue, sometimes even using it to replace dialogue tags (he said/ she said). For example, consider:

I don't know, John said. It was there this morning.
vs.
I don't know. John buttered his toast. It was there this morning.

This example came from fellow Port Authority writer, Jamie, who smartly pointed out that the toast only deserves to be in the scene if it serves a greater purpose. It's not enough for the toast to highlight the speakers.

Now consider this:

Where's the cheque book? Nora asked, searching the junk drawer.
Dunno. John buttered his toast. It was there this morning.

Better right?

I'd probably take it a little further, show John swiping a pat of butter off the block, describe the dry scrape of knife on toast. Nora, meanwhile, pulls out scissors and rubber bands and junk mail and pens. John dips his knife into the jam and spreads a thick glob of strawberry over the greasy toast. Nora slams the junk drawer shut, yanks another one open.

This is a lot of unnecessary detail and most of it would be cut back in revisions but do you smell what I'm cooking? The toast now tells us who is speaking, suggests something about motivation, and gives insight into character. It furthers the action. The toast provides subtext - something unsaid to read between the lines. The toast is multi-tasking.

Dialogue tips from the Port Authority

Originally posted: February 24, 2020

My writing group was exchanging emails about dialogue, why it flatlines and how it can be revived. Putting words in a character’s mouth - words that sound authentic and are compelling to read - is no easy feat. So the next few posts will be devoted to dialogue.

There are no hard and fast rules for good writing and anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or ignorant. But there are guidelines that will serve you well 75-90% of the time. Note the spread: 75-90% of the time, you can safely defer to the playbook. The other 10-25% of the time, you’re better off improvising or breaking the rules. Caveat aside, let’s begin.

To start, here are The Port Authority’s collected thoughts on good dialogue:

1: Characters should talk to each other, not the reader. Don’t use dialogue simply to convey information that you think the reader needs.

The last part of that sentence is important. Often, what you think the reader needs is quite a bit more than the reader actually needs. Restraint is part of the discipline of writing. Leave room for the reader to use their intuition.

As a manuscript evaluator, I see this a lot: Character A says something that Character B surely already knows. Can the dialogue be prefaced with the phrase “as you know”? If so, delete. 

2. Pay attention to how you and people around you speak. Rarely do we formulate our thoughts in smooth, complete sentences. We speak in fragments, double back, pause, hesitate, um, ah, jump from subject to subject, use slang, drop inside jokes and so on. If two characters are speaking too fluidly they are going to sound like sociopaths or robots. Now maybe your story is about sociopathic robots looking for love in a post-apocalyptic world. If so, as you were. Otherwise, delete.

3. Less is more. Three lines of dialogue at a time is usually plenty. I like to write lots and lots of dialogue in a first draft and then cull it back later. As someone who reads my own and other people’s drafts for a living, one thing I’ve noticed is there is often a gem of a sentence lurking in a paragraph of dialogue. Liberate the gem. Delete the rest.

4. Delete the inessentials (“Hello. Nice weather we’re having. Those Leafs, eh?”). Go straight to the juice. (See #7)

5. The best dialogue has a thrum of tension. Perhaps it’s right at the surface - characters at each other’s throats, airing pent up grievances. But often it’s an undercurrent, a frisson that electrifies some mundane chit chat. Our best teachers are stories. Pay attention to how other writers pull off this trick. Short fiction is a good place to start. The excellent ones are chock-a-block with barbed dialogue.

6. If Character A wants something from Character B (let’s say it’s the answer to an important question), Character B should not oblige. Leave things unsaid. Leave someone wanting.

7. Related: If Character A isn’t quite sure what Character B knows BINGO! Now you’re getting into the realm of subtext. The best dialogue exists on two planes: there are the words that are being said and all the unsaid stuff lurking underneath, the unspoken elephant in the room, ill will or discomfort. All of this non-verbal material is subtext. And subtext is ripe. Subtext is the juice.

8. Imagine a tool box. You’ve got a hammer, a wrench, a tape measure, a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, a drill and so on and so on. In your writing tool box you’ve got narration (a voice in first, second, or third person conveying a story), exposition (background information conveyed by the narrator), time shifts (flashback and flashforward), action and so on. Dialogue is only ONE type of tool.

Where many writers - even published, established ones - go wrong is they forget there’s a whole box and grow too reliant on a single tool. That tool is usually direct dialogue. (Groan) Listen, a Robertson screwdriver is handy but you can’t build a whole house with one. Also, there are other types of screwdrivers! There are other kinds of dialogue too: summary and indirect. Direct dialogue is the easiest tool to use poorly. Summary and indirect dialogue to the rescue.

9. Ideally, dialogue is hard working. Great dialogue does more than one thing: reveals character, advances plot, dials up tension, adds to the mood etc etc. But writing dialogue that multi-tasks is not easy. The good news is, you don’t need dialogue - especially direct dialogue - as much as you think. Circling back to the first point (Don’t use dialogue simply to convey information), sometimes you don’t need dialogue at all. Use a different tool. The reader needs to know something? Give it to them via narration or exposition.

You might have noticed that most of this advice boils down to: delete. In the next four posts, we’re going to pick up our pencils, lick the lead (gross), and get into how to actually write it well, beginning with summary dialogue.

How to write summary dialogue

Originally posted: March 2, 2020

This is the second in a series of posts about dialogue. If you missed the first post, go back. 

In my last post, I promised more practical advice on how to write dialogue. I also likened dialogue to a screwdriver and said there are three types, each with its own specific use. This post is about summary dialogue. My understanding of the three types of dialogue (summary, indirect, direct) is heavily indebted to Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. If you only read one book on how to write fiction, let it be Burroway’s.

Summary Dialogue

Summary dialogue is condensed conversation. It conveys the gist of a conversation (or a whole series of conversations) without the actual words. In Lesley Nneka Arimah’s “War Stories” the adolescent protagonist has gotten in trouble at school for humiliating a classmate at recess. At home, the protagonist is questioned by her father:

“ ‘So what is this your mother is telling me?’ he asked, giving me another change to explain myself. I had the words this time and told my father about Anita and bras and the machination of girls. He listened without interrupting, stealing my pawns as I moved them on the board. When I finished, my story dangled in the air between us. Then my father began to tell one of his own.” — Lesley Nneka Arimah “War Stories” from the collection What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky

Imagine if Lesley had instead used direct dialogue, and had her protagonist tell the entire story of this recess drama and all the action and ill will that led up to it. She’d have needed more words, for one thing. Summary dialogue moves fast. If you find your pace is flagging, consider replacing direct with summary dialogue.

Pace aside, note what else this passage does. The narrator tells us her father listens without interrupting. That reveals character. They are playing chess and he’s taking all her pawns. That bit of action animates the scene and again reveals character. This is not a man who is going to let his young daughter win at chess to artificially prop up her ego. And then of course, he has a story of his own. At this point, there is a whole lot more direct dialogue. Because guess what? This playground drama is not the main point of “War Stories”. The real story belongs to the father. With the switch to direct dialogue, Arimah slows the pace right now to indicate that this, this is the important stuff. Pay close attention now. (If you want to know the father’s story or what happened at recess, read “War Stories.” It’s great!)

Summary dialogue is especially useful in a scene with three or more characters all speaking to each other, say at a party or a dinner. Here’s an example from Jamie Fitzpatrick’s The End of Music:

“They switch to red for dinner. Carter breaks the cork and has to push the rest of it in to pour. They drink and spit flecks of cork. Soon he is finding out things he never knew. His wife hates her hair and has never found a style that can minimize the expansive of her forehead and the impossible thick bridge of her nose. Also, even her most carefully selected shoes look absurd, big banks at the end of each leg.” — Jamie Fitzpatrick, The End of Music

This summary dialogue is multi-tasking. First, it reveals mood and setting. They have switched to red for dinner which suggests they were drinking white or something else before this. He’s broken the cork but they continue drinking. So they are not snobs but also the wine is not the key thing here so much as the company and the conversation. The line “Soon he is finding out things he never knew” suggests a level of inebriation, of letting loose. And then of course we learn some particular and quirky things about the wife. She’s not a point of view character. But in this summarized conversation, her inner life is revealed through her preoccupations.

Next up: indirect dialogue.

How to write indirect dialogue

Originally posted: March 9, 2020

This is the third post in a series about dialogue. Start here, if you’ve missed the others. This post focuses on indirect dialogue (my personal favourite).

Indirect Dialogue

Indirect dialogue is reported in the third person so you get the feel of the exchange, without the actual words. In Susan Sinnott’s novel Catching the Light, Cathy is having trouble reading and is working with a tutor called Sarah who thinks she has dyslexia:

“Cathy had asked her father about her mother’s reading difficulties: were they really that much worse than Cathy’s? And he said yes, definitely. So she asked Sarah about that brain mix-up thing, dyslexia, and afterwards Dad said yes, Betty had all those problems too. So how did mom cover it up better than Cathy had? Dad said he wasn’t getting in to that, better ask mom.” — Susan Sinnott, Catching the Light

Like summary dialogue, indirect cuts to the chase without any tedious back and forth. It also allows you to speed through time and cover multiple conversations very quickly. In this one paragraph we are shown three distinct conversations. You can almost imagine Cathy zinging back and forth between a tete-a-tete with her father in their living room to a chat with her tutor the next day, back home with her dad later that evening. Efficient.

What differentiates this passage from summary dialogue? With indirect, unlike summary, you get a hint of the actual words characters say. You can hear them a little more clearly and as a result, have a better sense of their personalities.

Dad saying: yes, definitely. Betty had all those problems too. Then later, resisting Cathy’s questions, refusing to get into it, deferring to mom. All of that is very nearly direct dialogue. The reader can extrapolate body language, relationship dynamics and so much more from these short fragments. Now the author could have put these words inside quotation marks to indicate direct dialogue. But she’s chosen not to, presumably because she wants us to know that this is Cathy’s version of what her father has said. We’re getting her father’s words through her, not from his own mouth. It’s not 100% reliable.

Psychic Distance

Direct dialogue (which we will explore next) gives you a character’s exact words. You are right there with them as they speak. But with summary and indirect dialogue, a character’s words are mediated through the narrator. There is a psychic distance inherent with summary and indirect dialogue that doesn’t exist with direct dialogue.

Imagine a friend is telling you about a fight with their partner. Your friend is the narrator and you are getting the story (and any words that were exchanged) second hand. Summary and indirect dialogue are like that. The reader is kept at a remove. I’d argue the remove is greatest with summary dialogue. Indirect can be almost indistinguishable from direct dialogue (Dad said he wasn’t getting into that. Better ask mom). Summary and indirect dialogue have their uses. But to get in close, to close the psychic distance, there’s no replacement for direct dialogue.

How to write direct dialogue

Originally posted: March 18, 2020

This is the fourth in a series of posts about writing dialogue. If you’ve missed the previous posts, start here.

Direct Dialogue 

Direct dialogue is the one we all know and tend to overuse. It’s word-for-word what the characters are saying. It’s useful when you want to get in real close, write from within the scene, at a moment of crisis, discovery, decision, or climax. Direct dialogue not only ups the drama, it is more precise at revealing character because we have their exact words.

Character

Word choice indicates education, class, age, familiarity with language, ethnicity. When you are writing direct dialogue, think about this: who is this character? What life do they live? What’s their background? The more you know your characters, the easier it will be to put words in their mouths. Where so much dialogue falls down, I think, is when characters are skeletons without flesh, when they haven’t been fully imagined by their authors. As a result, their dialogue comes off as a poor ventriloquist act and the reader only hears the author saying all the words. You want the dialogue to sound authentic, like something this character would legitimately say.

An Example

In Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion, a young woman called Zee talks about her hero Faith Frank:

“I know she represents this kind of outdated idea of feminism,” said Zee, “with more of a narrow focus on issues that mostly affect privileged women. I totally see that. But you know what? She’s done a lot of good, and I think she’s amazing. Also, the thing about Faith Frank,” she went on, “is that while she’s this famous, iconic person, she also seems approachable.” — Meg Wolitzer, The Female Persuasion

Normally, I’d be skeptical of such a long passage of dialogue. Long passages of dialogue have a habit of being information dumps, which is why one tip is to pare it all back. But overall, I think Wolitzer’s dialogue here is pretty good. It’s doing more than just conveying information about Faith, who becomes a central figure in the book. Look at what is revealed about the speaker, Zee. Hers is a millennial and current take on feminism. It’s woke. It’s mature. But lines like “I totally see that” and “But you know what?” signal that the speaker is still young, in that liminal space between girl and woman. (Zee is a first year in college). Also, note the change in register. “Narrow focus on issues that mostly affect privileged women” sounds like something that could be in an essay. But then Zee switches to simple language when she gets earnest and speaks from the heart: “She’s done a lot of good, and I think she’s amazing.” See that? Head and heart. The dialogue is working hard and multi-tasking and it’s sounds real.

Advice

1. Don’t forget about body language. Gestures and ticks reveal character. A character who constantly rubs their nose as they speak is indicating something. A penchant for cocaine, a lie, nerves, a pimple.

2. The way a character speaks is revealing too. Is she loud? Are they quiet? Are his sentences choppy and short or long and convoluted? Remember: if you’re stuck on dialogue, the problem is you don’t know the character well enough.

3. When you are revising a scene, read all the dialogue out loud. Every single word. Read it all slowly. If you get bored, have the urge to skip sections, if you are squicked out by how awkward and false it sounds, those are strong clues something’s wrong.

4. A common problem with direct dialogue - which you can hear when you read it out loud - is that it comes out inert (aka boring). Rule of thumb: dialogue must do more than one thing. It can reveal character, advance plot, create tension, enhance mystery etc. etc. Writing instructors talk a good game about multi-tasking but I haven’t yet heard anyone articulate HOW to perform this sleight of pen. Listen, I don’t have a good answer for this either. For me, it’s more like, if the dialogue is weak, I ask myself is it multi-tasking? If not, maybe I just do the easy thing and erase it. Fall back on summary or indirect or try to write the scene without dialogue at all.

5. Direct dialogue is the most difficult type to master because it’s slower and more precise than summary or indirect. My advice is to use it sparingly and in passages with lots of talking, combine it summary and/or indirect.

In my final post in this series, we will look at how to do this - take summary and indirect and direct and put it altogether.

Mastering dialogue

Originally posted: March 23, 2020

This is the fifth and last in a series of posts about writing dialogue. If you’ve missed the previous posts, start here.

Putting it altogether

So now you’ve got your three screwdrivers. You know how to use them. Let’s get to work. I’ve already beat this dead horse but  one more smack for good measure: direct dialogue is the most over-used, slow moving, and difficult type of speech to write well. On trick is to use it sparingly and nestle a few sparse sentences inside a passage of summary and/or indirect.

Here’s an example from The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: 

“Ammu asked for the Station House Officer, and when she was shown into his office she told him that there had been a terrible mistake and that she wanted to make a statement. She asked to see Velutha. Inspector Thomas Matthew’s moustache bustled like the friendly Air India Maharajah’s, but his eyes were sly and greedy. ‘It’s a little too late for all this, don’t you think?’ he said. He spoke the coarse Kottayam dialect of Malayalam. He stared at Ammu’s breasts as he spoke. He said the police knew all they needed to know and that the Kottayam Police didn’t take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate children Ammu said she’d see about that. Inspector Thomas Matthew came around his desk and approached Ammu with his baton. ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d go home quietly.’ Then he tapped her breasts with his baton. Gently. Tap tap. As though he was choosing mangoes from a basket. Pointing out the ones he wanted packed and delivered.” — The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This scene is an important one. An innocent man is facing execution and Ammu must stop it. Here we have the highest stakes possible. Still, if the Inspector was polite and simply said: ‘Ma’am I can’t help you’ the scene would have fallen flat. Remember what I said in the first post: if Character A wants something, the tension is higher if Character B refuses the request.

This pace is quick here because the dialogue is mostly indirect. There are only two lines of direct dialogue and as a result they stand out. Can’t you hear the Inspector saying these words? The condescension drips. It makes the reader feel protective of Ammu and nervous for the innocent man on death row. The reader is stressed. Roy has saved up her direct dialogue for the lines that count, the ones that will elicit emotion.

In the first post, I said that the best dialogue is multi-tasking. Here, the dialogue is creating tension, evoking emotion, and conveying character. The Inspector’s dialect marks him out as lower class. But Roy isn’t just wielding the screwdrivers here. She’s reaching for other tools in her box. Through narration she reveals the Inspector’s bustling moustache, his greedy eyes (note the disconnect - this man pretends to be friendly but really he’s a snake in the grass). Through body language we see his eyes on Ammu’s breasts. Through action she shows the weaponized the baton.

When you are reading, pay attention to which tools the author is using and how they are being used. Then apply what you’ve learned to your own work.

But first!

Dialogue is the single most difficult thing to write well. Even experienced authors who write books full of beautiful prose and compelling drama, fall flat on dialogue. I’ve asked authors who do the job well for their secrets and they always say some version of the same unhelpful thing: it just comes to me/ I hear the characters in my head. To be honest, this is my experience too. In fact, I don’t like to write direct dialogue until it flows free and easy, until it strikes like lightning.

My theory is that poor dialogue is a symptom of a bigger issue, which is incomplete character development. You must do the work of building your character, of knowing them better than you know yourself. And once you have done this, created a Pinocchio so realistic he could be a real boy, he will come alive of his own volition and surprise you with what he says.

If that fails and you’re stuck and think the dialogue (and anything else) in your manuscript could benefit from professional feedback, I’m available for hire and taking bookings for the summer. Meantime, here’s a handy dialogue exercise and eight more technical tips.

Trick for dialogue

Originally posted: August 27, 2019

Recently, I was having trouble writing a scene. In this scene a man and a woman are having an argument. The scene is third person, past tense, from the woman’s point of view. So I knew more or less what she was going to say, her motivations, her fears, her desires, but I had no clue how the man would respond. Or, more specifically, I knew how he would respond but his exact dialogue and body language, all of that was a question mark.

I don’t like to write passages of dialogue unless I’m in the zone and the characters’ words are flowing freely. In my experience, forced dialogue comes out stilted and false. At the same time, this scene is pivotal and I didn’t feel I could move on until I’d gotten some kind of rough draft down. (Which is another way of saying I’ve been procrastinating on writing the difficult scenes for too long and now it’s high time).

Then one morning as I lay in bed, circling around the characters in my mind, wondering how I was going to get into the scene, I had an epiphany. Why not write the argument from his point of view? So that’s what I did. And just to break myself out of the rut I was in, I decided to write it first person, present tense. Immediately his words and body language, his inner life, appeared. Once I was in his head, I understood his motivations, his desires, his fears. And after I knew all of those things, it was obvious exactly what he would say and do.

Exercise complete, I took another stab at the scene. From her perspective again, third person, past tense. Viola.

ps. Have you got a completed draft of a novel that could benefit from another pair or eyes? I moonlight as a manuscript evaluator which means I give constructive feedback on works-in-progress. Character and dialogue, plot and pacing, it’s all in my wheelhouse. I’m taking bookings for the summer so get in touch for more info or a quote.

The voices in your head

Originally posted: February 10, 2017

Characters come into their own when I first hear them speak. And that's how I primarily write dialogue - it bubbles up from the unconscious part of my brain that is always at work. I may have trouble with story arcs and pace but putting words in characters' mouths has always felt natural.

But like any other part of the craft, there is some element of science here too. Here are some technical suggestions:

1. Don't rely too heavily on dialogue to carry plot or develop character.

2. Less is more. Three lines of dialogue? Odds are you need only one. Remember: what is left unsaid is often more powerful than what is said.

Fictional dialogue has to seem realistic without actually being realistic.
- me

3. Dialogue gets good when it isn't straight forward. When characters lie or hold back or speak at cross purposes. This is how you bake in irony, double meanings, and conflict, thereby making the scene more layered and interesting.

4. Don't underestimate the power of indirect speech. It proceeds at a swifter pace - helpful if your characters have a lot of talking to do - and is easier to nail than direct dialogue.

5. Dialogue should multi-task. If dialogue reveals character and ratchets up tension, if it propels the plot forward and makes you laugh, then it's all much more interesting.

6. Read the work of other writers and see how they go about it.

7. Listen closely to how real people speak. Listen to rhythm and cadence, how thoughts are phrased, the way people of different ages and backgrounds sound. Pay enough attention and you'll develop an ear for dialogue and an instinct for crafting it. Also, you can straight up just steal things you overheard friends and strangers saying.

8. Which is not to say that your characters should speak the way real people do. For one thing, we talk way too much in real life. Fictional dialogue has to seem realistic without actually being realistic. Allow a sentence to stand in for a monologue. Sure, in the first draft, write all the pauses and ums and uhs and verbal ticks and quirks of accent into a character's speech. But then later, when you're revising, delete, delete, delete and just leave a few things behind, a little bit of seasoning to give the reader a taste.

TSN turning point

Originally posted: November 27, 2019

One day in July 1984 biathelete Kari Swenson was abducted in the mountains. I heard her story the other night while making dinner and listening to the podcast Criminal. I was struck by Kari’s ordeal but also left thinking about craft because there is a lot we can learn about storytelling by paying attention to the facts of this story and its construction.

If you haven’t heard this episode yet, please have a listen because the rest of this post is one long spoiler. Then come back and we’ll take the thing apart like a clock and figure out what makes it tick so well.

Preface

Kari Swenson is bravery personified. To say nothing of tenacity and grit. She was shot point blank in the chest and had the presence of mind to save herself by slowing her heart down. And then, after it was all said and done, she threw herself into training and returned to competition. And Alan Goldstein was a hero. I was moved first and foremost by their courage and humanity.

But as a writer there’s a mercenary instinct that kicks in any time I encounter a well constructed narrative.

Three Act Structure

First, note the classic three act structure.

Act one introduces Kari and Alan and establishes setting. The action begins when Kari, the protagonist, heads off for a cross country run alone in the mountains. Next, comes the inciting event: meeting two terrifying men.

Act two is focused on the abduction and the search crew’s efforts to find her. The tension is rising, climbing toward the peak of Aristotle’s arc. Kari is chained to a tree. Alan, introduced in act one, bursts in to save her. Alan is shot and killed. Kari is shot in the chest. This is the climax.

Act three takes us through the aftermath. Kari is rescued and survives. Moreover, she trains hard and returns to competing in biathlons. The abductors are caught and sentenced to jail.

So far, so conventional right? As a story this one is perfectly satisfying.

The TSN Turning Point

But then comes the sleight of hand, that moment when the story surprises us with an unexpected turn of events that, in hindsight, was predictable.

In this story, the WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW moment, comes when we realize that a whole bunch of people have got the heroes and villains mixed up.

At first, I was outraged. A young woman is abducted and shot in the chest and a man is shot dead in the face and the murderers are valourized by the media and people all around the world. How is this possible?

But then as I thought about it more, as I remembered gender politics, and the Rape of the Sabines, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Freemen on the Land, libertarians, and the Cult of Cheeto Jesus, well in hindsight the public’s love affair with a couple of unwashed white male terrorists is par for the course. CAN I GET AN AMEN?

Conventional stories (Red is stalked by a wolf in granny’s clothing, then saved by a passing woodcutter and lives happily ever after) are fine. But the stand-out stories, the ones that stay with us, that we re-tell to our friends, and dissect in long shouty blog posts, those stories have something more happening. Which brings us to…

Stakes

Most stories have external stakes (will the protagonist get out of this alive?) and emotional stakes (will she thrive?). In Act Two the external stakes are front and centre. In Act Three the external stakes are resolved and now the emotional stakes become important. Eventually those stakes are resolved as well and we share that moment of elation when Kari gets pulled up to the podium by the third place competitor.

But exceptional stories, those ones that resonate far longer and make us really think (or in my case silent scream in my kitchen and now here on the internet) are the ones that have philosophical stakes.

What does society value - a young woman’s life or that of her abductors? Do we care more about the man who died to save his friend or the outlaws on the run? All through acts one and two, going into act three, I didn’t think basic morals (the philosophical stakes) in peril. I assumed Kari and Alan were the heroes and the two psychos who shot them were the villains. Bet you did too.

Then: surprise! Society is immoral. Oh wait…we already knew that.

If the abductors were black do we think for a second they’d have been valourized? What is broken in human nature that makes us root for certain evil men? What about the narrative of the wild west and the whole long arc of the western canon and pop culture and Barbara Walters? Who is to blame and also how and when are we going to put an end to this bullshit? One reason this story is so powerful is that we are left with more questions than answers.

Framing

There’s more architectural detail that I noticed in this story. Note that the story is framed by the present. The episode is bookended by present-day Kari looking back on this one episode of her life. That was a conscious structural choice the storytellers made. In one way, it deflates some of the tension. We know from the jump that she’s going to live.

But go back and listen to the first beats of the story. What do you hear? Breathing. Kari breathing. And shooting. Lovely foreshadowing. This is an intimate opening too, one that puts us right into her body as she talks about the athleticism involved in her sport, the importance of breathing. If this was a fictional story, I would say: note the attention to detail. Remember: character is king.

At the climax of the story, what was foreshadowed takes place. She’s in agony from the gun shot wound and realizes death is close. Here at the crucial moment, she returns to her training and slows down her heart beat. This ability to control her breathing, combined with her athleticism, is what ends up saving her life.

In conclusion

Three act structure + external and internal stakes = perfectly fine conventional story. Philosophical stakes + turn of events that is simultaneously unexpected and predictable = exceptional story.

There is an architecture to every narrative, an unobtrusive but vital structure that holds the whole story together. Learn how to spot it and your writing will improve. If you’ve got a story that could use some architectural assistance, I can help. I moonlight as a manuscript evaluator which means I give constructive feedback on works-in-progress. Character and dialogue, plot and structure, it’s all my jam. I’m taking bookings for the summer so get in touch for more info or a quote.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Originally posted: June 20, 2016

Here's some writing advice I got a few years ago about plot and structure: banish the words "and then" and replace them with "but", "therefore", and "meanwhile."

But is the idea of conflict and opposition. The good guy wants something but the bad guy stands in the way.

Therefore there must be an escalation of action and tension. The good guy does something to get around the bad guy but he hits a roadblock he must overcome.

Meanwhile suggests a parallel narrative, two plots happening in tandem. When one story hits a climactic peak, you cut away ("Meanwhile, back at the Ranch...") to the other.

Editor Tony Zhou explains in this video and if you still don't get it, check out his post on Vox.

Cathedral

Originally posted: February 15, 2016

And then there's Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries, a book with more than its fair share of plot, "a gothic cathedral of plot!" At 800+ pages, maybe plot, erected on such an intricately designed scale with flying buttresses and gargoyles and stained glass, is necessity more than extravagance.

The Luminaries sat on my shelf for some time, sitting there like a door stop screaming "commitment." Then one January day, I was looking for a new read, something dense and hearty that might also help me break my online habit, and there was The Luminaries waving its hands, calling out: "pick me."

January seems tailor-made for mammoth reads. This is when - if you live in the northern hemisphere, at least - you want to crack open Middlemarch or The Byatt’s The Children's Book or the complete Sherlock Holmes. Cuddle up by the fire, tuck in to something substantial, and try to tune out the internet's siren song.

The Luminaries is set in gold-rush 19th-century New Zealand. A dead man is found in a cabin. A prostitute lies collapsed on the road. The richest man in town has gone missing. And on a night of torrential rain, a council of twelve convene a secret meeting. What is the thread that binds these things together? Eight hundred and thirty two pages later, you find out.

Catton adopts the 19th century Gothic as her style. Her narrator is all-knowing and arch, moving freely in and out of different characters' points of view. Everything is explained and very little is submerged. There are cliff hangers galore. In the role of the villain: an enigmatic man with a scar. It's the kind of page-turner that might have been written by a 21st century Wilkie Collins. All the suspense and classic story-telling of an earlier age with modern-day good sense (which is to say you find any simpering Angels in the House).

But perhaps this all sounds hopelessly outmoded. Haven't we moved beyond conventional plot and story-telling, evolved past the need for narratorial hand-holding? This reader has not! I found The Luminaries completely refreshing.

And make no mistake, Catton's characters are well-drawn and complex with flawed motives and inconsistent, deeply human, actions. Her scene-setting is on point. Themes of land appropriation and colonial entitlement, racism and inequality are handled with intelligence and empathy. Agency is found in unexpected places. (At one point a villain casts aspersions on the local prostitute, only to be reminded that as many men bare him a grudge, there are twice as many who love and would protect her.)

The Luminaries - which won a slew of prizes including the Man-Booker and the Governor General's - is immersive and sustaining. After a while I forgot the internet existed.

Lost the plot

Originally posted: February 10, 2016

Tessa Hadley has perfected a magic trick. And I want to know her secret.

She writes these novels - the most recent one is the excellent The Past - that break the rules of plot. Specifically the main rule that plot should progress in an Aristotelian arc. Characters are introduced. The scene is set. There is pressing conflict and tensions mount toward a peak. The handgun is shot, secrets are revealed, the story blows wide open. Then, climax discharged with, characters settle into a new normal and denouement eases into conclusion.

That is the formula. It's what readers expect, what keeps pages turning. But then along comes Tessa Hadley. And she's got no truck with any of that.

In The Past four middle aged siblings gather in the country home of their grandparents. Hadley tells the story through the eyes of the grown children and then, rewinding a few decades, from the point of view of their mother. Secrets are revealed, sure. There is a mystery, yes (the decaying carcass of a dog is found in an abandoned cottage) but it doesn't feel very pressing. There is a romance, yes. But it isn't very urgent. Doesn't this sound like the world's most boring book?

And yet, The Past is a compulsive read. I finished it in just a few days and then was sorry it wasn't longer (this, incidentally, is how I devour all her books and stories). What is it about Hadley? Her prose is faultless. She has a way of finding words for the things that are indescribable; her writing thrums with arresting moments of insight. And in her stories, character is queen. Her imaginary people - so flawed, so foolish, so endearing - continue to resonate long after the last page is read.

Is this the secret? Can conventional plot be replaced by insightful, well-crafted prose and pitch perfect characters? Are those three ingredients sufficient to propel a story forward? Somehow, I don't think it's as simple as following a formula. My suspicion is it's the exceptional writer who can pull this off, conjure story without plot. And those rare birds aren't giving away any of their secrets.

Upcoming events

Heads up about two upcoming events that I’m taking part in: one this Sunday and the next on Monday. Writers at Woody Point is re-broadcasting the conversation I had last August with Ian Williams about his Giller-winning novel Reproduction. It’ll be available on Facebook for 24 hours only, beginning Sunday at 7pm NDT. This session is free and open to the public. You don’t need a Facebook account to watch. This conversation was originally broadcast live in August 2020, during Writers at Woody Point 2020.

On Monday, I’ll be live on CBC Radio’s Cross Talk taking questions about writing from callers. There’s always a small possibility breaking news could bump me off to Tuesday but barring that, you can call in to have your craft questions answered at 709-722-7111 // 1-800-563-8255

Cure your writer’s block

Sometimes writing is a challenge. We sit at our desks, pens in hand or fingers poised over the keyboard and….[drum roll]…… NOTHING. I had a spell like this during lock down last June. With no where to go and no one to see, I had plenty of time to write but every day, I sat in the garden, and laboured away with limited success and much frustration. Finally, I remembered something important (the cure for writer’s block!). Writing is not the only work.

Reading is also the work

No book exists in a vacuum. A book is always in conversation with others on the shelf. Books that share similar sensibilities, books with overlapping locales and themes. Books that influenced yours whether because of plot or character or prose or narrative style. One thing I’ve learned to do at the start of a new project is to brainstorm a reading list. Books I need for research purposes and ones that might offer inspiration. So I gave myself a break, write very little and read a whole lot, coming up for air in between to put more books on hold at the library (ours had just opened for curbside pick up). Bliss.

Learning is also the work

Controversial opinion: MFAs are overrated. Certainly they are expensive. You know what’s free? Live recordings of Tin House Craft Talks. Writing is a difficult thing to teach well so on those occasions when an author perfectly enunciates some aspect of craft, it’s worthwhile to pay close attention. This lecture by writer Alexander Chee, on character and plot and early draft woes, was good enough that I listened to it three times, the last time with a pen in hand.

Chee, like me, is firmly in the character first, plot second camp. For him, character is destiny and he offers concrete suggestions on how to interrogate your characters until you discover (I’m paraphrasing here) the specific things that could only happen to them, because of a combination of who they are (fate) and the decisions they make (free will). In this way, you arrive at your plot.

When I’m advising other authors, I say you have to know two big things: what does your character want more than anything? How far will they go to get it? But you can’t jump to these questions first and expect immediate answers (trust me, I’ve tried). You work toward the big questions by figuring out all the other stuff. What family was this character born into or raised in? How many siblings? Was money tight? What about religion? First love? First heart break? Vocation? How do they portray themselves to the world? What are they blind to in themselves? How would their employer describe them? Their best friend? Their lover? Their parent? Who do they envy? Who do they pity? What about themselves do they hate most? Hide most? Chee recommends a number of exercises including subjecting your characters to the questions in a Tarot Reading. He shares Zola’s cue card exercise.

Chee’s lecture was also a timely reminder to slow down. To cultivate patience. Characters are a little like very good friends. Relationships are built over long stretches of time. No one shows you their skeleton closet right away and even if they do, it takes a while before you know them well enough to intuit the secrets they are reluctant to reveal.

And anyway, “the story of a life is not a novel,” says Chee. You dream up a life story, yes. But then, you must be intentional, picking and choosing what to reveal and in what order. Without intentional shape, there’s no propulsive drive, no taut rope leading the reader from first page to last. Chee’s craft talk got my mind whirling. Afterward, I managed to eke out something approximating a scene. Turns out this is also where inspiration comes from: other books, other authors.

ps. Was this post helpful? If you’d like more feedback, specific to your project, you can hire my services. Get in touch for more info or a quote.

Character is king

Like everyone else with a Netflix account, I was obsessed with the first season of Stranger Things. The Stephen King font and creepy opening music, the retro 80s vibe, that nerdy kid with no teeth....all of it hooked me.

Lit Reactor were also fans and Max Booth III wrote a great column about what the show can teach us about characterization. Without giving away any spoilers, let me summarize a couple of the key points:

1. Don't introduce a character with a massive exposition dump, unless you want to bore your reader. Reveal your characters gradually; allow the reader to meet them over time through the course of the story. Think about how we get to know people in our lives...bit by bit over time, through what they say and do and how they look and how others interact with them. Why should characters we meet on the page be any different?

“Think of exposition as narrative calories. You’re only allowed 2000 of them per book, so you better spread that shit out or you’re going to get hungry awfully fast.”

— Max Booth III

2. Create nuanced characters. You can write a scene - as the writers of Stranger Things do - where two characters are in conflict but no one is really the bad guy. This, I think, is more often than not how conflict works in the real world. Both people act poorly. Or there is a misunderstanding and each person acts according to their narrow understanding of the situation. Heroes and villains are boring. Anti-heros are compelling. Villains who have endearing qualities, who can evoke even a bit of empathy, are more interesting.

3. Play around with stereotypes. Everyone expects the highschool Queen Bee to be a one-note bully. But what if she's not? What if she's deeply insecure about her dyslexia? Or is revealed to be heroic?

4. Character is King. Above plot and setting and scene, there is character first and foremost. Nothing makes me more perplexed than a character who acts in an inauthentic way; this is what happens when characters act in service to the plot. Ask yourself: is this really what this person would do, how they would feel? And be honest! Sometimes the plot as you originally envisioned it has to change. My advice: Create complex interesting characters and then follow where they lead.

Character, first. Then: plot

Character is foundational to stories. If you’ve hit a road block in the plot and aren’t sure what happens next, the solution can be found in your characters. Over at Glimmer Train (RIP) MFA director Josh Henkin explores the link between plot and character. Like me, he argues that plot is discovered by interrogating character: "My graduate students often tell me they have trouble with plot, but what they're really telling me is they have trouble with character. I remind my students to ask themselves a hundred questions about their characters. Better yet, they should ask themselves a thousand questions, because in the answers to those questions lie the seeds of a narrative." This is a truth I know and yet somehow often forget. When you're stuck on something, go back to character.

An important caveat when it comes to characters: beware accidentally writing a rotten egg.

ps. I offer a manuscript evaluation service. If you have a draft that is in need of feedback, you can hire my services. Get in touch for more info or a quote.

Character alignment

Originally posted: March 18, 2016

A podcast I love is Imaginary Worlds, a show about "how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief." Even though I'm not a sci fi/ fantasy nut, I'm  hooked on this show. Mainly because it gets at what I am interested in: story telling and fiction-making.

The most recent episode, on the topic of character, is especially instructive. Good versus evil and all the shades (six, to be exact) in between.

The Three Types of Evil

1. Evil but law-abiding: a character like Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter books whose uses rules as a way to enact her cruelty but would never act outside of the law. Remember: Umbridge was never a Death Eater. But maybe only because that was "illegal."

2. Evil but neutral about the law: a character like Voldemort who cares nothing for laws and institutions and definitely does not mind killing even loyal followers when they cease to be of use.

3. Chaotic Evil: an anarchist villain whose only motivation is upheaval. The Joker!

It's a valuable exercise to think about character in this more in-depth way. Beyond morality, how do your imaginary friends interact with the law? Kirk and Spock are both good but one is law-abiding and the other will happily bend the rules. And that difference is where the conflict in their relationship lies, it's what makes the dynamic between them rich. Or consider Marvel heroine Jessica Jones who is actually good but wants so desperately to be neutral, a lone wolf. The conflict in the show then becomes Jessica Jones versus herself. Of course there's also a dastardly villain but this internal battle of woman vs. herself is the true emotional heart of the story.

Go listen to Imaginary Worlds to hear about the rest. The episode is called "Why they fight" and it runs 23 minutes.