Three Stages of Dialogue

One of the things I’ve been doing as I finish up MAGIC STUD is to remove a lot of dialogue tags and action tags that are with dialogue.  So the more I think about it, the more I think there’s three stages of dialogue that a writer goes through:

Stage 1:

They’re just writing the story.  When there’s a line of dialogue, it’s “Mary said” or “he said.”

Stage 2:

Suddenly they realize that they’re using said too much.  Despite advice to use said because it’s invisible, if it’s after every line of dialogue, it ain’t going to be invisible–it’s going to stand out.

At which point, one of two things happens:

1.  The writer starts using other dialogue tags or said bookisms (no idea where this phrase came from.  It’s a very strange phrase).  These people sometimes pop up on message boards looking for more words to replace said with.  Some even collect the words!  Sites like this make me wince because collecting the words is one of those time wasters that look productive.  It feels like it’s part of writing, though no actual writing is taking place.

2.  The writer starts using action tags.  This was what I did.  I always thought the said bookisms were silly (honestly, ejaculated as a dialogue tag?  And yes, I’ve seen that in a children’s book, of all places).   So I ended up with characters nodding, looking, smiling, etc.

Stage 3

This is when the writer realizes that either the said bookisms are too much or the action tags are repetitive.   Sometimes I’ll see someone pop on a message board looking for other ways to show a character is angry besides pounding a fist because they’ve run out of action tags!

For me, the first step was trying to rephase the action tags to make them less repetitive.  That’s pretty hard, actually.  If I’ve written, ‘he nodded,’ I can only rephrase it so many ways.  And I certainly don’t want to get into silly territory.  I don’t want to see ‘eyes darting around the room.’  Every time I see something that, I think of Harry Potter.  In the book, after hearing about what happens when people teleport improperly, Harry imagines an eyeball lying on the ground!

So instead of revising the tag, I’m starting to look the dialogue and see if I actually need the tag.  But it’s not quite as easy as hitting the delete key.  Some need to stay in because the story will flow better.  Others need to stay in because the context might be confusing.

Writing Dialogue

A lot of times, when I crit a manuscript, I see a problem that seems like it should be simple, but it often points to another, bigger (and likely harder to fix) problem.  Dialogue, for example.  If the dialogue sounds forced, is it just because the writer is having trouble with the dialogue?

Or, is it because they’re having trouble with another element in the story?

Jennifer Jensen’s article Four Purposes of Dialogue hits on some of these issues.   What I really like about the article is that she hits one of the major issues that can ripple through any element in a story, including dialogue: Plot.  If the story doesn’t have a plot, then it’s entirely possible that the lack of things to do will make dialogue sound forced, or that the characters will tend to do a lot of meaningless chit-chat.  After all, there’s nothing for the characters to talk about!

She also talks about how to bring backstory in through dialogue without turning it into the dreaded “As you know, Bob …”

A Little Salt Please

If you’ve looked any writing books or magazines, you’re likely to see an article with a rule stating that adverbs and adjectives should be eliminated.  I don’t like it when things are stated as absolutes like this.  It makes it sound like adverbs and adjective should never be used instead of making suggestions on how to eliminate the fluff and keep the best.

Adverbs and adjectives are like salting your food:

No salt – bland food/bland story.  We had a writer in our critique group who believed in zero-tolerance of adverbs and adjectives.  He took a weed whacker to his story to remove every single one.  Critters actually told him to put some back in because his story was very bland.

Too much – overseasoned food/overseasoned story.  Several of us were trying to crit this one writer who kept coming back and asking for critique.  In every sentence, she didn’t just describe something; she added several adjectives and adverbs.   We got stuff like “The reluctant yellow sun dipped slowly and languidly behind the dome-shaped rock nestled comfortably as an anchor point between two thin patches of brown sand finely ground by a tempermental green sea.”

So just the right amount of seasoning is important for a story.  And it’s not as simple as counting how many adverbs or adjectives to use.  Just like in cooking, it depends on the individual dish.  Some things that can be done:

If you see a word qualifying a verb, take a moment to look the verb up in the dictionary.  I found that I sometimes had phrases like “slammed hard” or “carressed gently.” When I looked these particular examples, I discovered that the verb meant the same thing as the adverb.  Repetition alert! It’s an easy edit that makes the sentence sound better and the book a smidgeon shorter.

Look for a verb-adverb combination that can be replaced by one word that does the same thing (also a great help for tightening the novel).  Example: “walked quickly.”  How about dashed instead?  A thesaurus will help identify similar words, then look in the dictionary to see if that’s the right one for what you want to convey.

Finally, look for this bit of overseasoning that’s common: Describing the obvious.  Particularly with dialogue, ‘it’s easy to say “he said angrily” when it might be obvious reading the conversation.

But again, everything is a judgement call based on the individual sentence and even the sentences around it.  A chef tastes his dish as he cooks it and makes adjustments accordingly.

Said, The Invisible Word

One of the guidelines for writing is to use ’said’ as a dialogue tag because it’s invisible to the reader.  Yet, there are people out there who collect dialogue tags like ”ejaculated” or “burbled” because they think said is boring. 

I’ve always thought that using a dialogue tag like “he pontificated” is telling instead of showing.  The dialogue tag is telling or explaining to the reader how the dialogue was said.  Shouldn’t the dialogue do that?  Why should it need the help?  Look at the following:

“What do you think happened?” he questioned.
“What do you think happened?” he queried.

It’s pretty obvious he asked a question from the context, so why do we need to repeat what the reader already knows?  Repetitions are tough to chase out in the first place (trust me, I know ), so why make more intentionally?

Then there’s time aspect of these dialogue tags.  People come to writing message boards and talk about collecting them and ask for more ideas.  I’m sitting here thinking, “Why aren’t you writing?”  Collecting dialogue tags isn’t writing.  Searching through lists for a single word to replace said isn’t writing.  Writing is writing, and frankly, a dialogue tag just isn’t important enough to spend much time on.  It’s one word.  Thre are far more important aspects of a book, like story, that need the time and are a lot harder to work with.

But, I also think there’s a place for an occasional different dialogue tag.  When I write, I don’t spend any time coming up with the tags. It’s whatever comes to mind first–usually said, but also asked, suggested, hissed, and a couple of others.  It’s not a lot, and I also use action beats or other aspects of the narrative to convey who is speaking.

Description Through Dialogue

Not too long ago, I did a workshop on description.  Everyone tends to focus on visual descriptions in the exposition.  But I’m also doing my urban fantasy in omniscient viewpoint, and that brings its own challenges to description.  It’s very easy to do a lot of “The building was …”; “The palace was …”; “The island was …”  Sometimes I can rework the sentences to get rid of the numerous mentions of ‘was,’ but I’ve also had to come up with other more unconventional methods.

One of the them was using dialogue to do description.  The idea was suggested at the viewpoint workshop I took (in the omni section, of course).  It doesn’t work for everything, but when it can be done, it can be used for great effect. 

I have one scene where the characters go down into a very narrow underground tunnel.  I could describe the width of the tunnel and what it looks like, but instead, I have the characters react to it in their dialogue.  One of the other characters also notices the structural integrity of the tunnel (translation: it ain’t too good), and there’s some meaningful dialogue about it–again, without having to use exposition to describe aging stone and crumbling mortar.  The best thing is that it both heightens the danger and gives me a chance to slide a little of the backstory in.  A little humor, too.

J.A. Konrath uses the same technique with great effect with his latest book Fuzzy Navel.  There’s a single line of dialogue that occurs in the beginning of the book, and it made me go “Eeww!  Eeww!” because it delivered a powerful instant image.  With that description, it wouldn’t have nearly been as effectively in a chunk of narrative.

Best and Worst Writing Advice

Worst Writing Advice

“Narrative tells the story.  Get rid of all your dialogue.”

This came from a critique I received.  Sometimes, with critiques, I have to read into them a little to get why the person is making the comment.  In this case, the individual read only non-fiction, and his one recent fiction experience was Cold Mountain.  If you haven’t read Cold Mountain, the dialogue is conveyed with dashes, not quotation marks.  It made me feel like the characters were communicating telepathically!

Best Writing Advice

“Write only the stories you can write.” 

– From the book Write Faster, Write Better by David Fryxell.  I probably could have read this book several years ago and passed the above right by without thinking about it.  But it was what I needed when I found it.  I’d been trying to show an important aspect of the story by including a crime, the murder of a celebrity.  But crime isn’t me; I just can’t write anything even tied to crime, and this made me realize I’d gone in the wrong direction.