Stages of revision 9: dialogue

Consider the following:

It should not be too natural

If you listen to a conversation and transcribe it you’ll soon realise that people often go round in circles, they insert a lot of small talk and sometimes it’s even that two parallel monologues take place rather than an actual conversation. 

 

It should only say important things

So, you actually need to condense it to what is actually about. It must have a purpose. 

 

It should differentiate characters' voices

Each speech must be in the voice of the character that is speaking. Always consider: would your character say such things or use words like that? If you printed your section of dialogue and cut it up would you or anybody else be able to work out who says what?

 

When angry, becomes childish

Oh yes. This happens to the best of us.

 

It should take 2/3 of popular book

This isn’t of course a hard and fast rule. But it may be a useful tool for checking that you have enough dialogue in your book. It may also help you to identify where you are telling instead of showing. Dialogue is very much part of showing. 

 

It should convey mood, character, reaction

Look at every single piece of dialogue.  Is it doing all of the things?  

 

Every speech should give information

Again check to see if your dialogue is doing this.  Is it pushing the plot forward? It’s great also if your dialogue can multitask

 

Is it set out correctly?

The easiest way to check this is to have a book by reputable author and publisher open at your side. See how they’ve done it.

 

Take care with how you tag dialogue

Can you actually avoid tagging it at all? Often with an exchange of just two people you don’t need to tag. If you have the voice right for each character you may not need to tag. However, if the dialogue goes on for a page or more, there are more than two speakers, or if you are writing for young readers you may need to remind the reader who is saying what. Hopefully each speaker’s voice will be very clear.  You can add a little body language if you wish. If none of this is effective and you really have to use a tag word use “said”. The readers will hardly notice it. At a push you can use asked, shouted or whispered.      

   
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Ingredients for a story

We crash towards the end of our writing short fiction course. We have almost all of the ingredients now.
We have looked at where stories come from. We have found out how to hook the reader. We have discussed how to keep the drama going. We have constructed endings. We have examined different narrative techniques. We have considered points of view. We have looked at how character is created. We have seen how the textual ingredients – dialogue, exposition, description and action are mixed in differing amounts and in differing combinations, at the whim of and according to the skill of the writer. And you then need to sculpt and tinker. Finally next week we shall look at how to achieve the high dramatic spot. Then we’re done.
All there is left to do then is to write.

Common Mistakes

I get to read a lot of scripts. There are my own, the ones I see as an editor, the ones my students have written and the ones I see in various critique groups to which I belong. You begin to see a pattern. There are, in fact, four major faults that people make, and if they could do away with these mistakes, their work would improve vastly.

First, and this is undoubtedly the one that needs to be put right first, is that a story or a non-fiction piece lacks structure. The resolution may be unconvincing and too quickly exposed because clues haven’t been left throughout the text. Often, the story takes too long to get going. Sometimes, there is a jump straight from opening to climax.

Then there is all that telling instead of showing. This probably comes from a need to get the story down. This is fine – but it should only happen in the first draft. Just so that you know, I actually do fourteen drafts of my novels. In each draft I check for one thing. I have one check which involves seeing whether I am telling instead of showing. To show, you need to write with the senses, have dialogue, inner thoughts of characters – but not too many, and actions, and certainly no moralising.

A third fault is shifting point of view. Omniscient author is currently unfashionable, unless you actually make him / her another character, but even when it was in vogue, good writers stuck with that point of view. It really does prevent reader engagement if one flits around from consciousness to consciousness. Slightly more skilled writers do attempt to stay with one point of view, but sometimes slip into a neutral stance, which makes the narrative distance clunky.

The fourth fault is poorly constructed dialogue. Dialogue should sound natural but not actually be too natural. It should always show character or move the plot forward. Many novices produce cliché-ridden dialogue. Sometimes, also, a slightly more experienced writer will produce very good dialogue but which takes us nowhere. The writer has enjoyed themselves. Whilst this is a good exercise for the writing muscles, that particular piece of dialogue may have no place in that text. This is possibly a darling which needs killing.

Get those four faults under control and you’re a step nearer being published.

Creative Writing Workshop

I had just two students turn up in my workshop today. They are in heir final year of a BA in English and Creative Writing. I only had work to give to one of them. The normal pattern is that two students out of four email work to me and the rest of the group each week. We all read before the meeting and then give the person who has submitted verbal and written feedback. However, we’ve been beset recently with having to change times and emails and their attachments not getting through.
The other student made some really useful comments. She has come on. I was quite pleased to hear her quoting some ideas from the module she did with me last year. Is there an inciting incident? Are there complications leading to a climax? Is there a structure in this? The work we were discussing is a section of a 30 minute sit-com script. I asked whether every piece of dialogue is either revealing character or pushing the plot forward. We also talked about editing processes. We did manage to fill the 50 minutes.
To think I used to do this as a hobby, often paying for the privilege. It is great, having a day job which pays you for doing things which writers do anyway. And we remind our students that in Reading (Writing?) Week, they are perfectly justified in watching television and reading … as long as they’re thinking about how the writers have grabbed and retained our interest.

Editing processes

Veiled or Behind the Veil or Beyond the Veil - or whatever I end up calling it, is almost finished. It's a YA novel. Just two more read throughs, probably in hard copy, and it will start going out into the wide world.
I have a list for editing, which goes from the general, to the precise. The first check is to see that the structure works, the last is a general copy edit. All sorts of things come in between: character, dialogue, showing not telling, pace, emotional closeness and then there are some genre-specific items. Like do the characters look like young adults in a YA novel?
I normally print out the first, the last and the last but one draft, unless I'm going on a train journey, and then it's hard copy to go with me, whichever editing stage I'm at.
I find it best to look for one thing at a time. However, I'll often notice something form a category other than the one I'm currently editing. I've got up a list of fourteen criteria now, and I'm thinking of cutting back a bit, or maybe doing a couple of things in one go.
Then the comes the problem of starting something new and sending this one out.