I started getting into this topic a little bit yesterday, but wanted to wrap up the series with a look at how dialogue can make our characters unique and how we can use unspoken “dialogue” to deepen our characterization, tension, and plot.

In the Fun Friday post two weeks ago, I mentioned the way that the writers for the show LOST have chosen certain words/phrases/speech patterns to give unique quirks or insights into the personalities of many of the characters:

• Sawyer gives people pop-culture nicknames (and his signature phrase is “son of a b****”, so it’s funny whenever anyone else says it because that’s “Sawyer’s Line”)
• Locke is always telling people, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
• Jack is always trying to “fix” things/people.
• Desmond’s catch-phrase is “See you in another life, brother.”
• Hurley says “Dude” all the time, along with “I’m not crazy.”

Giving characters a signature phrase or turn or phrase can help create characterization—in the examples above: (1) even though Sawyer comes across as a small-town hick, the cultural references he chooses to create the nicknames show him to be widely read and have a broad knowledge of film, literature, and current events; (2) Lock grew up in foster care and then, as an adult, spent years in a wheelchair, so he was always told where to go and what to do; (3) Jack is a doctor and a natural leader who feels deeply that it’s his responsibility to fix everything; (4) Desmond’s “see you in another life” comes from his meeting Jack before either were marooned on the island and then under totally different circumstances coming to be trapped on the island, and he started calling people brother (or sister) after he spent some time in a monastery; (5) Hurley’s “dude” may stem from his father calling him “Little Dude” before he walked out, and his protestations about being crazy from the fact that he’s spent a considerable amount of time in a mental hospital.

Are you beginning to see how the choice of things your characters say can begin to deepen them by tapping into their backstory/the influences on their lives before the story began?

In writing fiction, we want to be cautious that we don’t overuse this device. Just like with revealing a major truth in a moment of conflict/crisis, these are the types of phrases that, when used judiciously, can be quite effective; if overused, they can just become repetitive and annoying. If a character in a book said “dude” as many times as Hurley does, it would get pretty annoying (though you could use that to your advantage). In this scene from Menu for Romance, Meredith has been on the phone with a contractor she thinks an acquaintance is trying to set her up with romantically, in addition to getting a bid on her house:

“I have a house I’m remodeling, but I’ve about reached the limit of what I can do on my own—and time is a factor as well.”

“Oh. If that’s the case, the sooner I come by to evaluate the property, the better, huh?”

“Yes. But I don’t have my calendar with me. Can I call you back tomorrow morning once I have it in front of me?”

“I don’t really do mornings, so why don’t I give you a holler some time tomorrow afternoon?”

A contractor who didn’t “do” mornings? “Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.”

“Later, dude.”

Meredith disconnected with a derisive huff and took the earpiece off. Had he really just called her dude? Even the college students they hired to work large events were trained better in customer service than that.

First, of course, you noticed that there isn’t much narrative with this dialogue. I did that for two reasons: (1) because it’s just coming out of a very emotional, introspection-heavy scene; and (2) it really is just a quick dialogue exchange without a lot of time for pauses for introspection or reflection. The most important part of the conversation are the “I don’t do mornings” and “dude” to start setting the stage for what’s going to happen when she finally does meet this guy.

I’ve also been watching the cooking show of the guy who’s the Real World Template for Major in this book (Tyler Florence, whose show Tyler’s Ultimate airs on Food Network at 2:30 central time on weekdays) analyzing his speech pattern (he says “cool” and “all right” a lot) to see what kinds of dialogue quirks I can give to Major (without directly copying, of course). And because Major’s a chef who’s been working in kitchens since he was fifteen years old, I’ve also included some vernacular/jargon that’s specific to that industry (like “in the weeds” when he gets behind on something, “covers” for the number of people served at a meal).

So use quirky words/phrases to deepen your characters and your story.

Working hand-in-hand with quirkiness and subtexting is the non-verbal communication: body language and facial expressions.

In the silences, in the search for the right words, in the subconscious reaction being subtexted over, there is still a lot of communicating going on. A tissue is offered; gazes flicker or drop; eyes roll; arms cross; fingers tap or drum on the table; legs cross or uncross; hair is twirled; fingers run through hair; foreheads are rubbed.

Don’t underestimate the power of silence in your fiction. At the height of an argument, one of the characters stops responding completely when accused of something she didn’t do (instead of continuing to protest her innocence); when a character says “I love you” the other character doesn’t say anything in return; when a character is betrayed by a friend and the friend wants to try to explain; a cop who knows that the guilty can’t stand silence.

Hopefully this series has been as beneficial to you as it has been for me. If you have any lingering questions about dialogue that haven’t been covered, post them and I’ll try to answer them in Monday’s post.

Yes, that’s right. Today’s topic is on dialogue tags.

Here’s a direct quote from many, many critiques/contest entries I’ve judged: “Avoid said/asked dialogue tags.” Why? Because.

Yes, back in the day when most of us started writing, the books we were reading used dialogue tags such as:

…she announced
…she stated
…he commanded
…he explained
…she muttered
…he contradicted
…he assured
…she expressed
…he said cheerfully
…he said heavily
…she echoed
…he said laughingly
…he demanded
…she whispered breathlessly
…she intoned incredulously

Remember those? Because we were so used to reading them (and yes, I pulled out two books that I took all of those from—one from the mid-1908s, the other from the early 1990s), that’s how we attributed our dialogue when we first started writing.

But times—and accepted styles—have changed.

“The only attribution (dialogue tag) you’ll normally need is ‘said,’ although there will be times when more specific verbs such as ‘whisper’ or ‘yell’ or ‘ask’ might be called for” (William G. Tapply, “Dialogue: The lifebood of the mystery story,” The Writer, October 2008, p. 31).

When I was in graduate school it was explained this way: readers see “said” or “asked” much like a period or comma. It’s more like punctuation than anything else, therefore those are unobtrusive.

Sometimes, when dialogue is moving quickly and you need to pepper in an attribution here and there to make sure the reader knows who’s speaking (especially when there are more than two characters “on stage”), a good said dialogue tag can be particularly useful. Embellished dialogue tags—those using more descriptive verbs or, even worse, adverbs—come across as author intrusion. If your character has just explained something in dialogue, the reader knows it and doesn’t need a “she explained” tag. Same thing with “argued,” “elaborated,” or “confirmed.”

But better an embellished verb than an adverb! Elmore Leonard wrote: “Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’ . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb in this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange” (qtd. Tapply, p. 32)

Why are adverbs bad? Because, even more than the descriptive verbs, adverbs tell rather than show:

“Say what?” she asked incredulously.
“Say what?” Her eyes widened and jaw went slack.

If you feel you need to emphasize the incredulity or quickness or cheerfulness with which your character has said something, instead of adding an adverb, look at the dialogue and the surrounding narrative/introspection and do whatever you can to show the emotion/speed/whatever through the dialogue/narrative than through an adverb. If your character asks something “nervously,” show the nervousness through her body language or through the creepy-crawly feeling on the inside of her skin.

So how can you get rid of dialogue tags and use action/introspection to indicate who’s speaking and the emotion and action going on in a scene?

“Are you all right, ma’am?” the police officer asked as he came around the vehicle.

“I think so,” Kelly answered hoarsely, coughing from the powder the airbag had released.

This can be changed to:

“Are you all right, ma’am?” A police officer came into view in the passenger-side window.

“I think so.” Kelly’s throat stung and scratched, and she coughed, unable to get the nasty, metallic-tasting powder from the airbag out of her windpipe.

See the difference? Not only does it get rid of the attribution tag, but it takes us deeper into Kelly’s POV—showing what she’s experiencing instead of just telling what she’s doing.

What’s your experience with using dialogue tags? Any that you’re fond of using that you’ve been dinged on by editors or in contests?

Last week, we talked a little about balancing narrative with dialogue, and this continues along in that vein.

In Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York’s Acclaimed Creative Writing School by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, Allison Amend poses the question: “How do you know if a moment should be translated into dialogue or not?”

Last week, I started to answer this when I said, “Don’t write the small stuff.” In “Dialogue: The Lifeblood of the Mystery Story” (The Writer, October 2008, pp. 30–33), William G. Tapply puts it this way: “Don’t be afraid to summarize any hunk of dialogue that you think readers may be tempted to skip.”

This is one area in which having critique partners can be very helpful—because they’ll let you know whether something is dialogue-worthy or not. But if you don’t have that outlet, or if you want to try to “get it right” before sending it to your critique partners, here are some guidelines to apply to your scenes to try to figure out if something needs to be summarized or if it needs to be shown through dialogue:

1. Dialogue draws attention to itself. Going back to what I said about the psychological effect of a page full of narrative and a page broken up with lots of white-space due to dialogue, as readers, our eye is more naturally drawn to the passage of dialogue because subconsciously, we’ve been conditioned to think that means we are going to get more important information/story movement from the dialogue than we are from the narrative. So is your scene important enough that you need to draw attention to it?

2. “Make sure you are dialoguing moments of real significance, be it character development, plot advancement, or a moment of extreme drama” (Amend, 128). A six page passage of two characters on the phone discussing carpool arrangements or details of a work project, while they may give a little insight into how your POV character’s mind works, are most likely not going to be conversations that advance the plot or increase the conflict of the story, especially if this is then followed by a six-page scene in which the character has another conversation with someone else and reveals a deep-dark secret, learns a secret, or something radically changes in their relationship—because both scenes are shown in dialogue, it’s the first scene (the mundane, everyday discussion) that is going to be more impactful to the reader. “The wise writer would relate only what was necessary about the carpool, perhaps not even using dialogue, then save the dialogue for the good part” (Amend, 128).

3. Dialogue shows, summary tells. “If a moment is of real significance, the reader likes to be there, sitting front and center, watching and hearing” (Amend, 129). Dialogue is immediate and therefore draws the reader even further into what’s happening in your story.

4. Much of the time, dialogue is about confrontation. This doesn’t mean that every time we have dialogue it has to be an argument between two characters. The confrontation can be something going on in the POV character’s head. In Growing the Novel, Stein wrote: “What counts in dialogue is not what is said but what is meant. . . . Characters reveal themselves best in dialogue when they lose their cool and start blurting things out.” (106–107). Confrontation builds—emotions along with the stakes increase as the confrontation continues. Again, this doesn’t have to be an argument. Think about the verbal sparring matches in movies like When Harry Met Sally or You’ve Got Mail. While, yes, many of those are actual “fights,” even in the calmer moments, the romantic moments, the dialogue is still charged with emotion and confrontation.

5. Dialogue needs to give the reader an increased understanding of the story. Like every other aspect of the story, dialogue needs to be revelatory and honed in on the goals, motivations, and conflicts of the characters involved and the direction of the plot.

So is your scene dialogue worthy? How do you choose what you convey in dialogue and what you summarize?

Sorry this post went up so late–I thought I’d set the “post ahead” time for 2 a.m. instead of 2 p.m.!

It’s time to play with dialogue a little bit. I’ll give a scenario and ask you to write a quick dialogue exchange. Actually, if you have something like it in your WIP that works, feel free to use that.

The scenario:
Two people have been becoming friends for a while. One of them needs to tell the other a secret (can be good or bad), but knows she/he can’t just blurt it out. So what do they say?

Remember, this is a dialogue challenge—so while you should include some dialogue tags, focus on what they’re actually saying and not necessarily what’s going on under the surface.