Talk is Cheap—For Great Fiction Drive the Demons to the Surface

The Road

On Monday, we talked about a major way writers can ramp up the tension in their novels. How do we do this? We externalize (or, in Corbett’s words “exteriorize”). Stuff in a character’s head has no outward consequences, thus making it impossible to generate dramatic tension.

The Road—Talk is Cheap

Many writers try to skirt externalization, because they “say” they want to write “literary works.” Yet, even in literary fiction, externalization is critical. Why?

Because 99 times out of a 100, when someone tells me their writing is “literary” this is actually code for “pages and pages of self-indulgent mind-vomit.” Hey, I’ve been guilty, too. Don’t feel badly. If we aren’t making mistakes we aren’t doing anything interesting.

Thinking does not literature make. Many writers don’t like externalizing because, as humans, we have been conditioned to shy away from conflict at all costs. Great fiction writers must do the exact opposite and generate as much (outward and inward) conflict as possible. Even “literary” writers don’t get a pass.

I have two Post-It Notes on my computer. One reads GO FOR THE GUTS and the other is THROW A ROCK IN IT. The second the characters get a breather? RUIN IT.

In Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Award-Winning book The Road, we see a similar situation to Would You Rather? (discussed Monday). It’s one thing to say we will never give up our humanity, that we will never resort to the animal state…but what about when that is tested? How long can The Man go without food? How long can he watch his son go without food before he compromises?

These tough existential questions are what drive the tension of the book because the big questions are placed into context so they can be tested—a regular guy and his boy in a world that has gone horribly wrong. Yes, there is some internalization, but the outside characters and circumstances force that existential question out of the character’s mind and into reality.

Make Them Commit 

It is not enough for The Man to think about how society has gone to hell in a hand basket and he isn’t like them (those who’ve resorted to cannibalism to survive). He and The Boy have to be placed in situations that externally test this conviction. How will we (the reader) know the characters have succeeded? They will make it to the ocean without eating other humans or die trying.

Simple.

An Exercise:

Think about whatever it is that your character is battling, then externalize this. If the person is a drug addict, don’t go on and on with backstory of cocaine binges or drag us into backstory about his abusive father. Show his buddies stopping by in a limo full of hot babes with high-dollar cocaine to offer. Make him CHOOSE and MAKE HIM SQUIRM. Give him a problem, stakes and a real opportunity to fail and face BIG CONSEQUENCES.

TORTURE YOUR CHARACTERS—IT IS GOOD FOR THEM!!!

Give him a story problem with REAL stakes. Make him scream!

If your character is shy, force her to speak in public. If your character is a sex addict, have his coworkers demand he join them at a strip club for a bachelor party. If your character is a control freak (Marlin in Finding Nemo) pair him with an ally that will make him nearly break from stress (like Dori, another fish with short-term memory issues).

What are your thoughts? Questions? What are some of the movies or books you like? Why do you like them? How did they torture their characters?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of May, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of May I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Would You Rather? An Exercise in Creating Max Conflict in Fiction

From the movie “Would You Rather?”

Last week, I was blessed to attend and teach at the DFW Writers’ Workshop Conference. Edgar-Nominated Author David Corbett taught a really excellent class about building dimensional characters. There was a particular message in his talk that stood out for me.

Force your characters to exteriorize. Thoughts and feelings can be taken back. Action makes characters commit to consequences.

Genuine Drama=Commitment

There is a newbie author mistake we all make. Thinking, feeling, more thinking but nothing happening. I’ve blogged many times that writing can be therapeutic, but it isn’t therapy. I feel that Corbett’s point really crystallized what I was trying to say, but couldn’t seem to articulate nearly as well as he did.

As Long as We are in the Character’s Head, NOTHING is at Stake

There is no push-back, no opposition, thus no conflict. This really gets to the heart of the SHOW DON’T TELL line we have all had drummed into our heads.

I LOVE good horror movies (not slasher flicks). I have two reasons. First, if I am having a really bad day, a horror movie reminds me that life can always be worse. Yes, I am warped that way. But, for me, why I gravitate to horror is that GOOD horror authors understand people.

They have this way of digging down into the primal parts of who people are, for better or worse. Good movies—even horror movies—make you want to discuss the film (or book) afterwards. They rattle you and make you think. I believe this is why Stephen King is such a genius (particularly his early works).

King gets people. He pokes at the tender parts and makes people squirm.

The Higher the Stakes, the Better the Story

There’s one particular movie we watched recently (and I will do my best not to ruin it), but Hubby and I talked for at least an hour after the film was over. In the film Would You Rather? the protagonist is a young woman whose parents have died, leaving her the sole caretaker of her brother who has cancer. It’s a bit more gruesome of a film than I care for, but the character dynamics were fascinating.

Essentially, a sadistic aristocrat seeks out people who are in dire straits, seemingly willing to do anything to solve their current plight. It could be an ill family member who needs an organ donation (the protag’s brother needs a bone marrow transplant), crushing debt, whatever. Play the game. One winner. Winner takes all and the aristocrat has the power to solve all “the winner’s” problems in an instant.

The players are invited to dinner. They chat, get to know each other as people…and then the nightmare begins.

Slowly at first…just a taste.

The crux of the movie is that everyone has a price…or do they? The participants are toyed with through dinner. For instance, the alcoholic who’s been sober ten years is given a bottle of scotch. How much money can coerce him to drink the bottle of scotch? What amount of money will make him compromise all he’s worked for?

Movies are great for studying the show don’t tell rule because it is a purely visual medium—everything is externalized. We see the former alcoholic swear he will never drink again. He’s worked too hard to kick the habit that has landed him in his current desperate situation.

The host has his butler set $5000 in cash right next to the drunk. A dare. Five thousand dollars for just one sip. The alcoholic sweats. He pulls at his collar. He refuses to make eye contact and focuses on the meal. Then $10,000 is stacked next to him and on and on until he finally breaks…proving the aristocrat’s point that anyone can be bought.

The participants are all given an opportunity to leave. Last chance. Ah, but these are people with big things at stake. They stay…and probably wished they hadn’t. The doors are locked and anyone who tries to leave will be shot.

The game is afoot.

Would You Rather?

Take ten lashes with an rattan (a cane that slices flesh) or choose for someone else to take the beating in your stead? Will you endure ten seconds of electric shock? Or give it to someone else? Early on we start seeing the true character of the players revealed. Why? Because everything is exteriorized and has a consequence.

It is one thing to say or believe I am a good person, but will we stick to that when put to the test? When demons are externalized, we see who people really are. Talk is cheap. What will that character do when the heat turns up? Will they sell their soul (the inner man) to solve their problems (outer man)? In case you hadn’t guessed, the game doesn’t reward those with sound moral fiber.

Understanding Your Character’s Weakness Will Help Plotting

Your story problem should be your trial by fire that forces the inside angst to the surface. The plot should change the protagonist leaving a better version at the end (unless it’s horror or a French film and then everyone can die at the end).

An Exercise to Help You Externalize (and, yes, I’m being indulgent and using my novel to give you examples):

What is your character’s greatest strength? Now look to the shadow side and that is likely his/her greatest weakness.

In the novel I just finished, my protagonist is kind and loyal. The shadow side is that she is naive. Predators can smell this. They use her proclivity to believe the best in people against her.

What is his/her greatest fear?

She grew up as white trash in a trailer park. She sacrificed everything to go to college to escape. Her family despises her because of her education, yet she finds herself equally disdained by the rich. They feel she’s nothing but gold-digging trailer trash who doesn’t have the sense to “know her place.”

Her biggest fear is she will always be viewed as trailer trash no matter what she achieves and she will never “belong” anywhere.

What problem can make this character struggle the most?

The story antagonist used my protagonist to build his corporation then, in an scheme of ENRON-like proportions, took off with over a half a billion dollars. He was her fiancé (to add insult to injury). He has left her penniless, broken-hearted, and blackballed. She’s unable to find a job anywhere. Additionally, she owes money to the IRS (also stolen) and she’s the FBI’s favorite suspect.

What problem will force tough moral choices?

Being without options, she must return to the trailer park and rely on the family she abandoned in order to solve the mystery of her mother’s murder and find the missing money and regain her reputation.

What problem has the highest stakes? The most to win or lose?

If she fails, she could die, but that’s not the thing she REALLY fears. She is terrified she’ll be stuck back in the trailer park, working as a maid and taking care of her abusive, angry father and kleptomaniac grandmother.

Will she have to sacrifice the best part of her (her view of humanity) in order to conquer the problem? Will “winning” cost her good heart?

What are your thoughts? What books or movies really made you squirm? Why?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of May, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of May I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Will announce April’s winner later this week. Scrambling to catch up .

The Secret Recipe for Writing a Perfect Pitch

All the right ingredients can make magic…

Today, I am preparing to teach this weekend at the DFW Writers Workshop Conference, so I asked Marcy to guest post on an important topic. Conference season is upon us. Many of you will be talking to agents and editors soon. Or, you might be wracking your brain trying to nail down the hook for a query letter. Marcy is a master at teaching how to refine those tens of thousands of words into something coherent and interesting….

Take it away, Marcy!

***

Writing a book is easy…at least when compared to what we need to do after we finish. We had 50,000 to 100,000 words to write our novel, and now we have to condense that down into a couple of paragraphs for an agent pitch, query letter, Amazon description, or back cover copy.

It feels unfair. Mean really. After all, if we’d wanted to write something short, we would have written a short story.

But it’s not as scary as you might think if you break it down into a formula. If formula sounds too scientific, then think of it as baking cookies and this is your secret recipe to cookies a pitch that will make anyone’s mouth water.

Hook + Character Introduction + First Plot Point + (Optional) Closing Sentence

Start with a hook.

There are a few ways to do this.

You could start with your tagline or with a couple of catchy sentences written specifically for the description.

It wasn’t that she wanted to live forever. She just didn’t want to die – from the description of Stealing Time by Elisa Paige.

I call these the “ooo” openings because the whole point is to make you go “ooo” and keep reading.

You could also just jump right in with a really interesting fact about your main character or about the setting.

Most everyone thinks Ward of Hurog is a simple-minded fool—and that’s just fine by him – from Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs

It tells you a lot about a character when they don’t mind letting people think they’re stupid. You immediately want to know if he’s really a simple-minded fool. And if he’s not, why doesn’t he mind being thought of as stupid? In other words, curiosity drives you to read the rest.

Introduce your main character.

All you really need is their name and a descriptor. Try to stick to one sentence or less.

Indiana Jones, a professor of archeology…

Young hobbit Frodo Baggins…

Go to the First Plot Point.

The point in the story that I want you to aim for goes by a lot of different names. James Scott Bell talks about it as the point of no return, a door closes forever behind the character, taking them out of Act 1 and into Act 2.

Some people will call this the inciting incident.

In his fantastic book Story Engineering, Larry Brooks calls it the First Plot Point. I like this term best because the First Plot Point and the inciting incident can be the same, but they can also be different. Don’t worry. I’m going to explain it all.

When we talk about the inciting incident, we usually mean the event that changes everything for our protagonist. It disrupts their normal world. In the movie The Fugitive, this is when Richard Kimball is convicted of his wife’s murder and sentenced to death. The inciting incident leads to the decision your main character is going to need to make at the First Plot Point.

The First Plot Point is the point from which your main character can no longer turn back. The main conflict of the story is introduced, and your protagonist commits to their goal. If we go back to our example in The Fugitive, while Richard Kimball is being transported to death row, his bus crashes.

In the confusion, the prisoners on the bus escape. Kimball has to make a choice that sets his goal for the rest of the story. He can wait around for the police to arrive and haul him off to prison, maybe appeal his conviction. Or he can make a run for it and hunt down the man who really killed his wife.

If your book is structured correctly, the First Plot Point is going to be at about the 20-25% mark.

And that’s as much plot as you should be covering in your pitch. No more than the first 20-25%.

This works because you don’t give away any spoilers, you don’t have to get into any twists and turns that might lose your listener/reader, you highlight the main conflict, and most importantly, you leave your listener or reader wanting to know more. And after all, making them want more is the whole point of a pitch.

After the first plot point, you can add one more sentence. No more than one. And keep it simple. The end.

I’m serious. If you don’t have them by that point, neither will your book, and then you have bigger problems.

Let me show you how all this looks when it comes together. This is the Amazon description for Sandra Brown’s Mirror Image.

The crash of a Dallas-bound jet wasn’t just a tragedy to TV reporter Avery Daniels; it was an act of fate that handed her a golden opportunity to further her career. (Hook & Character Introduction) Mistaken for a glamorous, selfish woman named Carole Rutledge, the badly injured Avery would find that plastic surgery had given her Carole’s face, the famous senatorial candidate Tate Rutledge for a husband, and a powerful Texas dynasty for in-laws. And as she lay helpless in the hospital, she would make a shattering discovery: Someone close to Tate planned to assassinate him. (First Plot Point) Now, to save Tate’s life, Avery must live another woman’s life — and risk her own… (+1 Sentence)

Want to learn more about creating loglines, taglines, and pitches?

On Saturday, May 11, I’ll be teaching a 90-minute webinar where I give even more tips on crafting awesome loglines, taglines, and pitches. You can sign up or learn more by clicking here. If you can’t make it at the time it’s scheduled but still want to attend, sign up anyway. The webinar will be recorded and sent to registrants along with a PDF of the slides.

I’ve also put together something special as a thank you to people who sign up for my newsletter where I let you know about my upcoming classes and books. I’m offering a free PDF called Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Hiring a Freelance Editor But Were Too Confused to Ask. Click here to sign up for your copy.

What do you struggle with most when it comes to writing your pitch?

****

About Marcy Kennedy

Marcy is a fantasy writer who believes there’s always hope—sometimes you just have to dig a little harder to find it. Alongside her own writing, Marcy works as a freelance editor for both fiction and non-fiction. You can find her blogging about writing on Wednesdays/Thursdays and about the place where real life meets science fiction, fantasy, and myth on Mondays and Fridays Because Fantasy Is More Real Than You Think…

Marcy Kennedy, WANA Instructor Extraordinaire

Great Fiction Goes for the GUTS

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, contributed by Ano Lobb.

I think it’s fair to say that writing a novel is no easy task. There is a lot to balance at the same time—narrative, setting, dialogue, POV, plot points, turning points, scenes, sequels, character arc, etc. It can be very challenging for even the best of us. Yet, I believe the hardest part of writing fiction is that, for most of us who aren’t crazy, conflict is something we avoid at all costs during our daily lives.

In fiction? We must go for the guts.

Today, I’d like to offer you a simple way to make your stories and characters three-dimensional and grab hold of great fiction’s throbbing heart. I learned this from the fabulous Les Edgerton who cornered me with this same question:

What is your character’s true story problem?

I gave Les a rundown of my carefully researched mystery thriller and he pressed again.

That’s surface, Kristen. What is the real story problem?

Fortunately, I was able to answer the question. Aside from the embezzlement, fraud, gun-running and drug-dealing, my character’s problem is she longs to be accepted, yet doesn’t fit in anywhere.

She began as small town trailer trash and ran away from home to go to college and pursue a better life. She naively assumed a fancy college degree would be her keys to acceptance, her ticket to become part of the high-class society she’d always envied. Yet, once she “made it” she found herself worse off than before. No matter how hard she worked, she was still, in the eyes of high society, gold-digging trailer trash who didn’t know her place.

In one world (home) she’s regarded as an uppity b!#$@ too good to be blue-collar working class. Yet, once part of “society” her problem was just as bad. The rich assume she must have slept her way into her high-paying job and that her sole goal is to marry money. She soon finds she’s regarded with equal disdain.

The story problem (the mystery) is only there to answer my protagonist’s deep, driving personal questions: Where do I fit in? Why do I need to fit in? Who am I?

The plot problem—a major embezzlement (Enron-style) leaves her penniless and blackballed and she has to go home to the trailer park she thought she’d left for good. This is where the story begins.

Now she is forced back into the lion’s den of her soul. Now she is torn between worlds. To solve the mystery and find the missing money (and a murderer killing to keep the secret) she must take on the wealthy and powerful. But in order to succeed, she must rely on a crazy-dysfunctional family who resents her and feels betrayed and judged.

Eventually, the plot will force her to face her greatest weakness—the need to be accepted—and she will have to make the tough choices.

If we look to all the great stories, the questions are bigger than the story. Minority Report has all kinds of cool technology, but the big question is, “Are we predestined, bound by FATE, or do humans possess free will?” In The Joy Luck Club the question is, “Can generational curses be broken?” In Winter’s Bone “Is blood really thicker than water?” In Mystic River “What is the nature of good and evil? Are people really who they appear to be?”

Thus, I challenge you to pan back from your story and ask What is the BIG question here? What is my character REALLY after? What will my story problem CHANGE about this character? What will it answer? 

As you guys know, I run a regular contest for free edit of sample pages. One of the biggest issues I see in new writing is it is very surface (Hey, I’ve been there, too. It’s all part of the learning curve ). Yet, to take that writing to the next level, we have to dig into the dark and dirty places. I actually have a sticky note on my computer that reads GO FOR THE GUTS. 

Every scene, every bit of dialogue must be uncomfortable. Fiction is the opposite of our human nature. Human nature is to avoid conflict at all costs. To write fiction? We must dive into the Miserable Messy head-first. Create problems at every turn (not mere “bad situations” but conflict).

Conflict turns pages. We have to be careful that our dialogue isn’t so busy being clever that it loses it’s teeth. Pretty description and scene-setting doesn’t turn pages and hook readers. CONFLICT does. Humans have a need to avoid conflict, but when we are faced with it? We want it resolved. THAT is why readers will turn pages. We make them shift in their seats and squirm and seek resolution.

What are your thoughts? What movies can you think of that have amazing BIG questions? Do you find that you have to revise places you are being “too nice?”

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of April, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of April I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

A Final Word from Les Edgerton–Fortune Favors the Prepared

Les Edgerton

Today, is Les Edgerton’s last post in this series. We’ve been extraordinarily blessed to learn from him, so I hope y’all will give him a digital hug or round of applause. Les will soon be teaching on-line classes for WANA, so I’ll let you know when those are available.

Take it away, Les!

All of the points we’ve covered in this dialogue series are intended for one purpose only—to help writers avoid the red flags that improper dialogue can create for agents and editors… and readers.

And that’s what they are—red flags. That doesn’t mean that breaking any of these “rules” or conventions will doom your mss from being taken, but it does mean the presence of them can cast a negative light on your work. And, I imagine we all want to avoid that!

Also, there will be a great many examples of novels that break these precepts. There are many reasons for that. Contrary to popular opinion, novels don’t make it into print simply because they’re quality writing. There are many other factors at work. Factors that the writer may or may not have control over.

For instance, novels are published because the author has made a personal connection with a publisher. When an editor knows someone and likes that person, it’s not uncommon for that person’s book to be taken over another more worthy one. Happens all the time.

Or, an author may have had one or more successful novels already published and the current one may not be as good as the mss lying on the same desk as an unknown author, but the lesser quality novel will be taken. Again, happens all the time.

Sometimes, even though the novel breaks all kinds of rules, something in a novel like this may simply appeal to an individual editor. Maybe it’s the voice. Maybe it’s the setting—my first novel was taken by accident because of its setting. The Death of Tarpons had been rejected 86 times before I sent it to the University of North Texas Press.

That’s EIGHTY-SIX times!

That was in the days of snail mail submissions, where you had to pay the postage for the mss to the editor and also provide return postage. That was during a time when my family ate a lot of beans and really couldn’t afford to buy the tons of stamps I needed. I had made my mind up that once I reached 100 rejections, I would “retire” the manuscript.

What happened was that it landed on the desk of UNT’s publisher, Fran Vick. Unbeknownst to me at the time, UNT had never before published fiction. If I’d known that, I never would have sent it. Anyway, Fran’s secretary had unwrapped the day’s mail and as it by chance happened, mine was the first mss on Fran’s desk. Her normal routine when presented with a fiction mss, was for her to not even read it, but just stick a standard rejection notice in it and have her secretary send it back.

Luck was on my side!

As Fran related to me later (I’ve just revealed a happy ending and taken all the tension out of this, haven’t I!), her secretary was bringing her her morning cup of coffee and something happened where she had to remake the pot. That gave Fran an extra five minutes or so before she began her “official” day, so, for want of anything else to do, she picked up the first page of my novel and began idly to read it. If it wasn’t for her secretary’s failing to deliver her that cup of coffee, none of what happened next would have ever happened.

It’s what she read on that first page that induced her to keep reading. The novel was set in Freeport, Texas, the town I grew up in. Like most first novels, it was an autobiographical, “coming-of-age” novel (there’s a cliché for ya!). The thing is… Freeport was Fran’s hometown!

What editor can resist reading about their own hometown, especially when that town is a tiny burg like Freeport? A New York City editor, glancing at the first page of a mss and seeing it’s set in NYC isn’t going to be nearly as intrigued as an editor from Freeport, Texas reading a novel set in… Freeport, Texas!

As it turned out, Fran also knew my grandmother who was prominently on the page immediately and was instantly drawn into the story and read it all the way through, got on the phone, and offered to buy it.

So, there’s luck involved sometimes. Although, the book was well-written, so it also pays to be ready for luck when it appears. Fortune favors the prepared! The book went on to be well-reviewed and sold very well and earned a Special Mention from the Violet Crown Book Awards.

The point is, there are so many factors out of your control that can lead to or prevent publication. But, there are factors that you can control and among them are adhering to contemporary writing styles and conventions. And that is the impetus behind these precepts. To help you avoid many of the red flags that may prevent your mss from getting a fair and thorough reading.

Okay? Best of luck to all of you and your writing endeavors!

Blue skies,

Les

Les, THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH. We really appreciate you taking so much time from your packed schedule.

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of April, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of April I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Les Edgerton is the author of HOOKED, THE RAPIST, THE BITCH and others.

Les Edgerton Shows How to Write Amazing Dialogue–Part 2 AN EXERCISE

Les Edgerton

I hope you guys enjoyed Les’s guest post yesterday. Today, Les is offering a bonus…an EXERCISE to help you develop your skills for writing killer dialogue.

Take it away, Les!

Exercise on Subtext

This exercise is primarily for the teacher teaching basic writing principles, although perhaps even more advanced writers may get something out of it. It’s an exercise I use in my “on-ground” classes when I’m teaching at a college.

It represents a very basic example of dialogue that’s not “on-the-nose” or a Q&A exchange, to show students a very easy to understand example of how off-the-nose dialogue works and how subtext informs the dialogue more than the actual dialogue.

I usually have two students come to the front of the room and read the following script. Then, I ask the questions that follow. It’s a simple exercise, but I’m happy to report that most of the students really enjoy coming up with their own exchanges, which is part of the assignment.

If anyone uses this in an actual class, I’d love to hear your feedback. (Also, you may want to write your own example—I admit this isn’t deathless prose, but hey! I wrote it in about five minutes. Gimme a break…)

DIALOGUE EXERCISE

She: The Bentley’s baby was cute, wasn’t it?

He: I don’t think I saw it. I was in the kitchen with the guys all night.

She: Well, she was a cute little baby.

He: Great. Women think all babies are cute. Ever heard a woman say someone’s kid was ugly? I mean, except for Shrek’s parents’ friends?

She: Brad and Gena seem so happy.

He: They should be. He just got a promotion.

She: Silly! I mean the baby.

He: There goes the promotion. The raise part of it, anyway.

She: I think they’ll manage. Babies are worth a sacrifice or two.

He: If you say so.

She: Look at it practically. Their little girl will probably take care of them in their old age.

He: That’s a great tradeoff. Let’s see… take care of a kid for 22 years—I’m including college—and they stick you in a home for your final three years. Probably use your own money to fund your own old folks’ home. Sounds like a good deal.

She: It’s not like that.

He: Yeah. Whatever.

Silence for a few seconds.

She: Samantha.

He: Huh?

She: Samantha. They named her Samantha. I think that’s cute. I wonder if they’ll call her “Sam.”

He: They ought to call her “Stinky.”

She: What?

He: You heard me. “Stinky.” The kid smells.

She: All kids smell when they make a mess. You smelled. Besides, how would you know if she smelled? You said you stayed in the kitchen.

He: All kids smell.

She: Then you change their diaper.

He: Yeah. There goes the entertainment budget.

She: You mean the beer budget.

He: So?

She: So is if you cut out a few beers, you’d have plenty of diapers… and lose a few pounds…

He: You sayin’ I’m fat?

She: I’m saying diapers don’t cost that much. A six-pack or two.

He: Maybe. But how many six-packs does it cost to send a kid to college?

She (laughing): About what you go through in a week!

He (mutters): Must be a cheap school. All the classes on the Internet? The school’s in the Caribbean?

She: She’ll probably get scholarships anyway.

He: That’s cool. That means she’ll spend all her time partyin’. End up pregnant.

She: She’ll be way too smart for that.

He: Like her mom was?

Who were this man and woman really talking about? What did the woman want? What did the man want? Did either of them come right out and say what they were really talking about?

This is dialogue that isn’t “on the nose.” It’s one way good dialogue is written. What’s important is what isn’t said–the subtext. The subtext is the real message that’s under the surface of the actual dialogue spoken.

This is what I want you to write (in teams). Two people talking about something that is really being expressed in subtext—dialogue that’s not “on the nose.” You can pick any subject you want for them to discuss (within reason!). Whatever they’re really talking about can’t be mentioned. After you deliver your dialogue, the class will attempt to guess what it is you’ve really been talking about.

Time: 2-3 minutes performance time per person. I’d rehearse this so your team falls within the time limit. That’s where I’ll take the most points off, for being short of the minimum.

Notes: You don’t need to memorize the exchange but can read off your script.

Bonus points: Your team can gain bonus points if you use props and/or costumes. (I’ve had some really original costumes and props show up…)

Hope this helps understand better what subtext is and what off-the-nose dialogue is. Write solid subtext dialogue and you’ll draw comparisons to folks like Elmore Leonard!

Bonus tips: Nothing to do with dialogue but just two tips to becoming a better writer.

1. Don’t show a “single tear coursing down the cheek” of a character. It isn’t dramatic; it’s a cliché. It’s a moronic cliché. Plus, it makes the reader wonder if the other tear duct is clogged or if only one tear shows a person with some kind of half-ass control over their emotion where they can control one eye but not both at the same time…

2. Don’t ever write a sentence like: I wonder if he’ll like me, she thought to herself. I mean… who else does a person think to other than themselves? Unless it’s a sci-fi novel and people can think to others…

These two things are my personal bugaboos in writing. I throw up in my mouth whenever I encounter these puppies! Sometimes, I do more than just choke up a bit of bile. At times, I’ve hurled chunks when encountering these in a student’s work… Just sayin’…

Thank you Les for this wonderful exercise. I am trying to twist Les’s arm for a Part Three on Monday, so here’s hoping .

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of April, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of April I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Les Edgerton is the author of HOOKED, THE RAPIST, THE BITCH and others.

Winner for March is Daniel Occento. Please send your 5000 word WORD document to kristen at wana intl dot com. You can also choose to send a one-page query letter of five-page synopsis (limit 1250 words).

The Clock is Ticking—5 Tips for Tighter, Cleaner Writing

Image via CellarDoorFilms WANA Commons

Time is our enemy. Most people don’t have enough. This is why our writing must be tight, direct and hook early. Modern audiences have the attention span of a toddler hopped up on 2 liters of Coke. We can’t afford to let them drift.

Drift=Bad juju

I’ve edited countless books, many from new authors. I see a lot of the same errors, and this is to give you a basic guide of what to look for in your writing. Be your own Death Star. Blast away this weak writing so that, once you do hire an editor, it won’t cost nearly as much because the editor won’t spend precious time (charged often by the hour) to note or remove these basic offenses.

Tip #1—Use Other Senses. BTW, Sight is the Weakest

A lot of writers (new ones especially) rely on a lot of description regarding what a character sees, and while this isn’t, per se, wrong it can be overdone. Also, of all the senses, sight is one of the weakest, thus it lacks the power to pull your reader into deep POV (point of view).

Smells are very powerful.

Jane pushed through the heavy steel doors, plunging into the dark hallway of a school no one had stepped foot in since the city shut it down after the fire. The blackened walls and peeling paint testified to the tragedy that took twenty young lives.

Okay, maybe this.

When Jane pushed through the heavy steel doors, an acrid cloud of old smoke mixed with the sickening sweet of cooked flesh met her in the hall. Burned mildew pulsed from the crumbling walls of the ruined school, clear testimony of where the firefighters began their assault on the blaze. Instead of the familiar aroma of cafeteria food and drying finger paint, all Jane could smell was death. It invaded her mouth and clung to her clothes and skin.

Taste is very powerful.

Fifi tucked and rolled as shoe dove out of her captor’s van. The ground came up hard, harder than she expected.

Okay, not bad, but maybe try…

Fifi tucked and rolled as she dove out of her captor’s van. Her face met the ground, hard. At first, all she noticed was the bitterness of grass mixed with sand that crunched against her teeth. A moment later? The taste of old copper pennies gushed into her mouth, making her gag. Blood.

Try to use a combination of all of the senses. To rely solely on what a character sees will keep the reader at a distance. It will make her a mere observer and not a participant.

Tip #2 Don’t Coach the Reader

When we are new, we tend to think through stage direction, and that’s fine, but it doesn’t mean it should end up on the page. Readers aren’t dumb, so we don’t need all the details.

He raised his hand and struck her across the cheek.

Um, duh. We know he raised his hand to strike her. Otherwise, that would be a serious trick. Jedi mind powers, maybe?

He struck her across the cheek. Hard. Stars exploded in her vision.

We don’t need the character to step up on the curb or reach for the door handle. If a character makes it from one room to another, we fill in the missing (and boring) details. We also don’t need cues for emotion.

Tip #3 Don’t State the Obvious

She slammed the door and cursed in anger.

Okay, unless this character has spacial issues and Tourette’s? We know she’s angry. We don’t “need” the “in anger” part. We’re sharp. We get it. Really.

Tip #4 Don’t Introduce Too Many Characters Too Quickly

I can’t tell you how many writing samples I’ve received that make this mistake. If you have ten named characters by page two? I’m done. In life, we can’t keep up with that many names all at once, and, in writing, that doesn’t change. Too many names will confuse us and muddle who the protagonist is. We get lost, so we’re frustrated and we put the book down…or toss it across the room.

Tip #5 No Secret Agents

This error usually goes hand-in-hand with the previous error. We are introduced to who we assume is the protagonist. Also, unless something cues us otherwise, we assume she’s alone. When another character suddenly starts talking?

Jarring.

Also, tell us who this person is in relation to the character. Yes, you (the writer) know who this character is, but we don’t.

Gertrude awoke with a start. Her alarm clock hadn’t gone off, and panic gripped her. This was her first day at the new job, and being late could get her fired before she even started. She nearly fell as she scrambled out of the bed sheets and bolted for the coffee maker.

“I thought you’d be gone by now,” Ted said as he watered his Bonsai trees.

“Me, too. Hey, why didn’t you come wake me up?”

Okay, who is Ted? Brother? Husband? Boyfriend? Friendly home invader? We need to know. Maybe not right away but at least on the same page.

Yet, I see this all the time. A name, some dialogue but no introduction, so no sense of who that character is. We are book-readers not mind-readers.

There are a lot of other ways to tighten the writing, but these are common offenders and a great start. We all do this no matter how many books we write. It’s why we need revision. We can spot this stuff and clean it up and make it presentable for the public.

What are some of your pet peeves? What loses you as a reader? What tips or advice can you share?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Writing Tip #1–How Much Detail Should Writers Use?

Lesson

When it comes to writing great fiction, less is often more. Think of modifiers and detail like perfume. Perfume can be lovely, sexy, attractive, and make one irresistible. It can also give others a headache or an asthma attack and have them looking for the closest bookmark exit.

Action

Comb through your prose and look for adverbs. When possible, replace them with stronger verbs.

She stood quickly out of the chair.

She bolted from her chair.

Look for redundant adverbs.

He yelled loudly.

Um…no, duh. How else would he yell? Softly?

Not all adverbs are evil. Adverbs are fine when they denote some quality that is not inherent in the definition of the verb.

She whispered conspiratorially.

Describing Characters

When it comes to character descriptions, you aren’t talking to a police sketch artist. Give the basics and let the reader fill in the rest. Trust your reader’s imagination to be far better than anything you can supply. Think of it this way, when your book is one day made into a movie, casting will be far easier .

Adjectives—Handle with Care

Like adverbs, try to use adjectives sparingly and only when they are truly going to punch up a sentence. Avoid adjectives your reader would automatically supply on her own.

It was a dark night.

Ok. Glad you told us that night was DARK. Our brain doesn’t need holding, really. We are not stupid.

It was an evil night, a night of reckoning.

Oooooh, oh. I can go with this. See how the adjectives hint at the story instead of stating the obvious?

Details Can Negatively Affect Pacing

We do need some details. Few things annoy me more than having no idea about the setting, or what people look like, but…

If we spend three paragraphs describing the weather and the setting, this gives readers a chance to see something shiny and then you are OOH! SQUIRREL!

We are in an increasingly ADD world and need to appreciate the reader of the Digital Age. Yes, use detail, but spread it throughout the story. Big chunks of detail get boring very quickly to everyone but the writer.

Imagine this scenario. You can’t wait to watch a movie. The opening scene is of a breathtaking sunrise, the most beautiful sunrise you’ve ever witnessed in the history of sunrises, but the camera just focuses on the sun rising over the mountains, and rising, and *yawn* more rising…for the next FIFTEEN minutes. You would be throwing popcorn at the screen.

Loads of detail heaped together have the same affect.

When We Modify Everything, We Modify Nothing

Too much detail/too many modifiers are like a person speaking/shouting in monotone. Remember Billy Mays, the Oxy Clean guy, and EVERYTHING WAS EQUALLY LOUD AND IMPORTANT?

When we modify everything, we modify nothing. Use detail/modifiers sparingly and purposefully so that readers can more easily enjoy why they bought your book in the first place…for the story.

Happy writing!