Peggy Jaeger's Blog - Posts Tagged "dialogue"

In my never-ending desire to improve the way I write, I’m reading a fabulous little gem titled How to Write Dazzling Dialogue by James Scott Bell.

Now, I’m known for good dialogue. I make it a daily habit to listen to the conversations going on around me, and yes, that means I’m nosey! But it’s not just for nosiness’ sake.


Every conversation I eavesdrop on teaches me something new about syntax, style, word choice, personality, and character. I use all of that info into creating the best character dialogue I can.

Recently, I spent over two hours on three lines of dialogue between two characters. I wrote it every which way I could think of, making it more complex with each word I eliminated, and finally deciding it was perfect as stood.

The next day I changed it all around and you know what – it was even better!


Scott Bell’s book is filled with motes of dialogue genius like this: “Every word, every phrase that comes out of a character’s mouth is uttered because the character hopes it will further a purpose. The character has, in short, an agenda.”

WOW!

I truly have never looked at it that way. I mean, I knew it was true, and hoped I could pull it off on the page, but seeing it so succinctly and eloquently put has turned this little gem into literary gold for me!

Knowing what dialogue is supposed to convey in the scene you are writing is another important facet to think about. None of us wants to be accused of writing tired coffee-talk dialogue. You know: the kind where you write,” Hey, what’s new?” “Nothing. You?” “Same old same old.” “Yeah.”

Can you spell BORING??!! Dialogue should amp up the scene, convey what you want the characters to convey, and make the reader want to read further.

So to my writing friends out there – and you know who you are – how are you at dialogue? Good? Lousy? Always looking to improve? What are the ways you can guarantee your dialogue does what it’s supposed to? let’s discuss…..

So my new editor ( and don’t I still love saying that!!) sent me an email asking me to change a few things in my next book. No worries. Her suggestions make a ton of sense and I know I can pull them all off successfully. One of the things she asked me to do was turn up the sensuality level a little. Usually, this wouldn’t be an issue for me. I can write sensual. I like writing sensual. It pleases me to write sensual.


Here’s my problem. Without giving away the plot, the hero is someone totally forbidden to the heroine, or so she thinks. These two would never have sex. EVER, EVAH!!! Not until the revelation scene would she even consider it. So. How can I turn up the heat level without, you know, them doing sensual and sexual…. things?

Well, the best way I’ve found is to amp up the dialogue between them. Flirty, innuendo-filled speech will certainly spice up a scene or two, no? Especially when my girl is so conflicted about the whole thing. She is trying to fight her mounting feelings for the guy because she really truly believes he is forbidden fruit in every sense of the term. You will see why when you read the book!! No spoilers here AT ALL!! Words have a great deal of power and our spoken words to one another can do wonders for a scene.

Hidden meanings, hidden agendas, using terms in a different way in which they are supposed to be used can all increase the tension and the sensuality in a scene.


So, today I wrote 27 pages of mostly dialogue. I won’t use it all, heavens knows. But most of it is pretty good and serves the purpose it was intended for. At least I think so. Hope my editor does, as well.

Until this new one is released into the book reading world, here’s my newest for your enjoyment!

THE VOICES OF ANGELS


The last thing Carly Lennox is looking for as she sets out on her new book tour is love. The independent, widowed author is content with a life spent writing and in raising her daughter. When newscaster Mike Woodard suggests they work on a television magazine show based on her book, Carly’s thrilled, but guarded. His obvious desire to turn their relationship into something other than just a working one is more than she bargained for.

Mike Woodard is an ambitious man-and not only in his chosen profession. He wants Carly, maybe more than he’s ever wanted anything or anyone else, and as he tells her, he’s a patient guy. But the more they’re together, Mike realizes it isn’t simply desire beating within him. No. Carly is the missing piece in his life. Getting her to accept it-and him- may just be the toughest assignment he’s ever taken on.

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I’m usually not sentimental when it comes to leaving something or someplace. I’m not one of those people who take forever to say goodbye at gatherings. You know the kind I mean: just like that character from the old Saturday Night live routine The Thing That Wouldn’t leave!! So not me. When I say my goodbyes, I leave. Exit, stage right. Follow to the Egress. Jaeger, out!

But lately, it’s been a little more difficult to say goodbye to my characters when I’ve typed THE END in a manuscript. I’ve been living and breathing with them for several months and I’ve become devoted to them on so many levels, it’s maybe a little creepy. Well, maybe not creepy, but certainly unusual. They are, after all, characters, not real people I’ve forged attachments to. But I’ve been in their heads,( okay, a little creepy!) showing their emotions, giving their dialogue a platform on the page to express themselves. I’ve been their mentor, creator, best friend, bon-vivant, encourager, and chief comforter. And now they have left me…. I feel sad and restless and like an empty nester all over again.

Yeah, okay, I’ll admit it does sound like I need to get out more and be around real, live, people. You’ve got me, there.

But hear me out. These characters, my babies for lack of a better word, are as close to me right now than my actual loved ones are – maybe even closer – because I see the world through their eyes, hear their voices through my ears, and experience their crush of emotions through my limbic system. In the purest sense of written form, they are me and I am they.

Okay, so now creepy and a little too science-fictiony for my sanity. But I think all the writers out there know what I mean. Here are a few pretty literary types explaining it much better than I am.

Cartoonist Berkely Breathed put it this way: “I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn’t exist.” Writer Teresa Mummert says, “Sometimes I scare myself at how easily I slip inside my mind and live vicariously through these characters.” But my favorite quote is from G.K. Chesterton: “I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a story.”

So, that’s my rant for today. I’ll deal with saying my goodbyes to my most current characters much as Scarlett O’Hara did: “I’ll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

The newest characters I’ve had to say goodbye to live in THE VOICES OF ANGELS, available from The Wild Rose Press and my local Toadstool Bookstore.

THE VOICES OF ANGELS

Love is the last thing Carly Lennox is looking for when she sets out on her new book tour. The independent, widowed author is content with a life spent writing and in raising her daughter. When newscaster Mike Woodard suggests they work on a television magazine profile based on her book, Carly’s thrilled, but guarded. His obvious desire to turn their relationship into something other than just a working one is more than she bargained for.

Mike Woodard is ambitious, and not only in his chosen profession. He wants Carly, maybe more than he’s ever wanted anything or anyone else. As he tells her, he’s a patient man. But the more they’re together, Mike realizes it isn’t simply desire beating within him. Carly Lennox is the missing piece in his life. Getting her to accept it-and him-may just be the toughest assignment he’s ever taken on.

Available here: Amazon /// TWRP /// Kobo /// Nook

If you need to find me, you can: Tweet Me// Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me //Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//

for the full blog entry with pictures, join me at peggyjaeger.com

Everyone who knows me knows I lovelovelove words. My favorite Christmas present when I was a kid? A dictionary. When I’m writing, that old tried and true tome is never far from my side. I know it’s easier to look things up in an on-line dictionary, but in this one case, I am a purist.

words ( click on peggyjaeger.com for pix )

Words give meaning and purpose to my life. When I come up with a dynamite sentence filled with words that just sing to me – one that even I sit back and say “Well done” to – I am in word-writing nirvana.

I think my first favorite word ever came to me when I was 5 years old. Motivation.

The reason motivation was my first favorite word was because it was the theme in my very first favorite book The Little Engine that Could. That little train was so determined to get up and over the mountain he let nothing stop him. I realize he was self-motivated, but to me it’s the same thing!engine

Skip ahead a few years and I’m now 11 and reading Pride and Prejudice for the first of 45 times – and that’s a true statement. I’ve read it every year since I was 11 so that makes me….you figure it out. Anyway, the next favorite word was: Universally, as in “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Love that word because it is all–encompassing. When you read the word you feel a sense of commonality and connection with, well, everyone else! It’s…universal.


The teenage years brought with it new aspects of favorite words – many of them body parts and therefore unmentionable here – but two of my all time favorites were individualistic and oxymoron. Oxymoron, meaning contradictory terms appearing in conjunction, and Individualistic as in independent and self-reliant. As a writer, these two words spawn so many wonderful plot lines and character traits. Jumbo shrimp, clearly misunderstood, deafening silence, dull roar, small crowd. These are some of my favorite oxymorons. And the best part? Most people say them and don’t even realize what they are saying. Love that!

A few decades later and my favorite words are now mother and love. The mother one is easy: I became one and there has been no greater joy in my life. The Love one is also relatively easy: I write contemporary romance. The end product of every romance is a happily ever after ending with LOVE as its dominant force. So, DUH! Of course it’s my fav.

Any words you particularly like or use often? Come on… share. I love learning new words.

words2



And if you’re looking for some new words to read, here’s a book filled with good ones!
THE VOICES OF ANGELS


Love is the last thing Carly Lennox is looking for when she sets out on her new book tour. The independent, widowed author is content with a life spent writing and in raising her daughter. When newscaster Mike Woodard suggests they work on a television magazine profile based on her book, Carly’s thrilled, but guarded. His obvious desire to turn their relationship into something other than just a working one is more than she bargained for.

Mike Woodard is ambitious, and not only in his chosen profession. He wants Carly, maybe more than he’s ever wanted anything or anyone else. As he tells her, he’s a patient man. But the more they’re together, Mike realizes it isn’t simply desire beating within him. Carly Lennox is the missing piece in his life. Getting her to accept it-and him-may just be the toughest assignment he’s ever taken on.

Buy Links: Amazon /// TWRP /// Kobo /// Nook

If you need to find me, you can: Tweet Me// Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//

I thought I’d give you a little glimpse into what I do during the day, from a writing perspective. Writing’s not all rainbows and unicorns, with award winning phrases tripping from your tongue and onto the keyboard all day. Nope. It’s hard work, lots of thought, and some days you wind up with more deletions than written saves.

When I work, I already have the gist of the story plotted out. I also make a vision board now for each new book for a number of reasons. One, it helps me to remember what the characters each look like so I don’t have to continually look back at my character notes to make sure I give them the same color eyes and hair from day to day. Two, it keeps me focused on the current story I want to tell. Without the board in front of me, propelling me to keep writing the story, I have a tendency to open up other files and work on other things…or troll through pinterest…or facebook. None of those are productive. Third, it actually helps me with the character dialogue. When I see the characters in front of me, I can actually hear how they talk, see how they move their mouths, listen to the way they phrase words, how their faces contort and twist and move, and I can envision the dialogue speaking from their lips. I know that sounds…well…weird…but it’s true for me.

Here’s a glimpse of my current vision board for my newest work in progress, book 2 in my cooking series.

visionboard ( to see image go to https://peggyjaeger.com/2016/06/16/in...

If you look closely you can see pictures of my hero and heroine, and on either side of the board are images that pertain to each of them. Yes, it’s a lot of work – some may call it plain busy work – but I am a visual person. I see things in their entireties and individually much easier than having to conjure them up from my imagination. This board keeps me on track, focused, and prevents me from making character mistakes.

So, that’s a very tiny glimpse into my day.

Yeah, I know…I have a great life!

When I’m not writing -and even when I am! – you can find me here:

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There’s a running commentary of questions in my brain in any given moment on any given day.

How did we cook on the fly before microwaves? How did we keep in touch with one another before cell-phones ruled the world? How did we communicate before the internet and email and texting? Does anyone know how to parallel park anymore? Do people actually still talk to one another at meal-time?

There’s a lot going on in my head at any one time and I certainly can’t remember a life before we had all these gadgets and inconvenient conveniences. But there is one computer application that has made me a much better writer because I can tell you exactly what I used to do before it was invented: waste time looking things up!!!

I’m talking- as if the title of this piece doesn’t give it away – about Pinterest. Before I had my boards all lined up on the Pinterest app, I spent a great deal of time flipping back and forth through files and notes to ensure I didn’t mess things up with my characters and storylines. I had a bad habit of not remembering that the hero had blue eyes on page 5 when I gave him green ones on page 200. I gave the heroine short curly red hair in the first introduction and then straightened it to hip length when she met the hero ten pages later. Dumb mistakes. Dumb.

For a while I tried flipping through fashion magazines so I could find pictures of what I envisioned my characters looked like, but most magazines had the same ads in each one, so nothing new was found, and all the celebrities of the moment were featured in each one, as well, in the same poses, etc, so there went the variety I needed.

When I discovered Pinterest I felt as if a dream I had never thought to ask for had somehow magically come true. I could spend hours – literally! – flipping through all the boards, categories, and other people’s boards to find what I wanted — and I did! Now, if I find a picture of what I want my character or her house, or even her pet to look like, I save that picture to whatever board I’m working on. My current favorite boards are AFTERNOON TEA and GEMMA, two new books I’m writing.

I don’t know who thought up Pinterest, but if I ever find out, I’ll be sure to write them and give them a big thank you from me. It is so much easier now to visually keep track of what my peeps, their clothes, what they eat, etc, look like. I usually print out the salient, important, pictures for my story/vision boards, so I can have an even quicker reference when I’m writing. You can see my current one for the GEMMA book ( not the real title, yet) on a previous post. All the factors of the book I need to know at a simple glance are on that board, the rest on the board on the actual Pinterest site.

If you are a visual person like I am, Pinterest is a great way for a writer to see their book come to life. And it’s not only a great application/site for writers. I know a few brides-to-be, and moms-to-be who also take advantage of the boards. But it doesn’t stop there. There are travel boards, architecture boards, pictures for refurbishing and rehabbing your house. There are boards for people who are cat obsessed ( I know a few!), book cover obsessed ( me too!), hot guys obsessed ( duh! of course!)Whatever your imagination or needs dictate, you will find pictures and boards for it on Pinterest.

Using Pinterest as a writing tool has truly made me a better writer because I am more consistent, much more descriptive in my writing, and I have more time to actually write now that I don’t need to stop and look things up!

So… do you use Pinterest? let’s discuss…..

This board has all my book covers

Here’s where you can find me, other than Pinterest!:

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Okay, this may be a rant – sorry if it sounds like one.

I’m reading the brand new release of one of my all-time favorite authors and I found a mistake a fact-checker should have caught. This is the second time in a week I’ve found this particular mistake – the other was in an older book by a different fav author.

What the heck has happened to fact checkers in the publishing industry? These are not self published books where I would expect to find errors – these are from two of the BIG 5!! Here’s the mistake – remember: it’s the same one I found in two different books: both writers used the word PRONE to denote a person lying on their back, face upward. WRONGWRONGWRONG!!! SUPINE means lying face upward, prone means lying face downward. Why does this bother me so much, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

When I was in nursing school in the late 1800’s (!) we used to write our nursing notes by hand. It’s all done electronically now. I wrote a note once on a comatose patient that read “Pt. appears comfortable and is lying prone in bed.” I got reported to the Director of Nursing by the patient’s doc and a written warning note was placed in my academic file. Why? Because the patient had a tracheostomy tube and was on a ventilator and there was no way on God’s green earth he could have or should have been laying prone ( which means on his stomach) because he wouldn’t have been able to breathe. And the reason I got written up was because if the patient’s family had ever sued, the legal chart would have gone into evidence and court and I would have looked incompetent ( as would the hospital) for placing the patient in position that obviously could have killed him. The note should have read : “Pt. appears comfortable and is lying supine in bed.”
Here’s the easiest way to remember the difference ( if you don’t have a dictionary handy) “When you are SUPINE you are looking up at the PINE trees, ergo, you are on your back. When you are PRONE you have you face pointed downward, or as I remember it: Face PLANTED downward.

Got it??

I’ve got more writing pet peeves, but this is enough negativity for one day. Do you have any? Let’s discuss, because I know there are thousands!!!!

So this is a totally ridiculous, narcissistic blog post today. I’m going full honesty here and tell you how I stay motivated to write so much during the NANOWRIMO challenge. Be prepared…you may learn something that clouds your opinion of me forever.

Okay…Taking a huge, cleansing breath…Here goes.

I bribe myself to keep writing.

I know! How awful is that?? I should be writing because I want to, not because I’ll get a reward if I do. The 50,000+ word book SHOULD be the reward. The ONLY reward.

But no, it’s not.

I start off with a mountain of motivation each morning as I sit at my laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard, giving full vent to all the thoughts and scenes and dialogue that have been running through my brain for the previous 8 hours – the time I should be sleeping but, well, you know. Chronic Insomnia. The brain that never shuts down. That’s me.

Anyhooooo….

I start off like a speeding train and about hour 2-3 I start to get a little fatigued, a little distracted, a little, well, bored. I know I have many more words to write – can feel them jumping out of my fingertips in their efforts to break free from my mind – but I start to wane. To keep myself glued to my chair ( figuratively, folks) I’ve developed little bribery rewards for my diligence. Here are just a few of the things I pamper myself with for my perseverance at the laptop:

If I get another 1000 words down, I’ll have a cup of tea and a Peppermint Patty
If I finish this chapter I’ll troll thru Amazon and look for new books to read
If I hit my 2500 minimum daily word count, I’ll schedule a facial this afternoon
If I can get this dialogue perfect in the next 20 minutes, I’ll go get lunch at Panera.
If I exceed my daily goal I’ll go shopping for makeup/skin care products/perfume, in other words, I’ll go to Sephora.
See how this works???

And isn’t it ridiculous? I didn’t raise my child to do what’s right in life by bribing her. I would have never even thought of that. Her father and I taught her to do what is correct simply for the reward of getting it right. We didn’t say, “do you your homework and you’ll get a cookie. Get an A on a report and I’ll take you shopping.” We never even gave cash for good report cards. The end result – the good grades – was its own reward. None other was needed.

Why can’t I, then, as a fully formed and functioning adult, heed that wisdom?

See? I told you your opinion of me would get clouded.

Le sigh….

When I’m not ruminating on my hapless state or bribing myself to go on, you can find me here:

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to see images, click on this link:
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Today I’m channeling Jan Brady!

The reason? Because I need to whine a little and Jan’s iconic “Marcia, Marcia, Marica!” just resonates so well for that.

The other evening, as I was plugging in my iPod, cell Phone, laptop and Kindle to charge, my husband was brushing his teeth with his electric toothbrush. When he was finished, he looked at me–struggling to get everything plugged in for the night in one little over loaded outlet– and then down at his brush and said, “How many extraneous electrical devices do you think we own?”

“Define extraneous?” I said.

“Something we use that we could use something non-electric for. Like our toothbrushes.”

I thought about it for a moment, counting everything I used on a daily basis that needed to be charged or plugged in to work, and then said, “None. Everything we use we need.”

“Really? Do you actually need all that”–he pointed to the overloaded outlet–“all day, every day?”

“Yes.” No hesitation on my part at all.

And I’m being truthful.

“What about all the other things, like the microwave, your hair stuff, your lighted makeup mirror, the fans you keep blowing all day and night? Those aren’t superfluous?”

“No.” I should have known he wouldn’t leave it at that. Dog, meet bone. The definition of my husband.

“Why not?” he asked.

Ticking all the items off on my fingers, I gave my best argument ( debate club alum, remember?).

“When you work late and come home hungry but don’t want a full dinner, the microwave is the perfect thing for either reheating something, or making something small and quick for you. You’re hungry and you want to eat NOW not in 30 minutes after the oven has preheated. I need my blowdryer and all my straightening hair devices and tools because you know I look like I have a bird’s nest on my head if I don’t straighten my hair. There’s no other safe way to do it if I want to avoid the myriad of chemicals needed to attain non-pubic hair-looking status. Since I am in the throes of menopause and we don’t have robots or droids to fan me all day long to keep the heat at bay, I need those fans on or else I am in a perpetual state of sweat. Not attractive. And as for the lighted makeup mirror, I have two words to say on that subject: cataract surgery.”

A little disclaimer here so you get where I’m coming from: When I had cataract surgery it killed my near vision – I have perfect distance, but can’t see anything 5 feet or closer to me. I need, absolutely NEED that lighted, magnified makeup mirror or else I’d never feel confident in what I looked like to go out of the house and not scare children, the elderly, or small pets.

“And your computer, phone, kindle, iPod and Ipad? Those are necessary to your health and well being every single day?”

“Yes on all counts. I need the Ipod when I go to the gym ( 5-6 days a week) or else I’d be bored out of my gourd, and if I’m bored and not distracted enough, I won’t finish my workout, so that would be a waste of time. I need the iPad to watch my tv shows when we travel. I need the Kindle to, you know, save trees. I read so many books every week. Just think of all those poor trees I’d be killing. It’s actually an act of Christian Kindness and Mercy to use the Kindle. Do I really have to explain the necessity of the phone? And as for my computer, well, my editor is not going to accept a handwritten manuscript.”

I took a breath. “And as for the toothbrushes, the dentist said our teeth are healthier since we started using them. Do you want gum disease? Excess plaque? Halitosis?”

He stood there, staring at me, while I prepared some other reasons why I needed every electrical device known to man to survive on a daily basis. I truly hoped he wouldn’t get me started on the necessity of dishwashers and vacuums. There’s a reason we life in modern times. If I’d been born in the dark ages ( aka the time before electricity when it was, truly, dark!) I wouldn’t have survived. In even older times? I would have been one of the ones eaten for the others to stay alive. And I would have been happy to make the ultimate sacrifice just to get away from the dark and cold and tedious.

There’s a reason I don’t camp, peeps ( aside from the going to the bathroom in the woods – never gonna happen!) All that wilderness living? Yeah, not for me. I’m like the character in Private Benjamin who said she joined the army for the condos and travel vouchers, not the marching and tents.

After a few seconds of staring, my husband shook his head and got into bed without another word on the subject.

Score!

When I’m not using every electrical device know to man you can find me here:Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//

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and by friends, I mean books!

Every year I like to share the list of reference tools and books that keep me sane as a writer. Since I spend sosososososososos much time alone, writing and thinking about writing, I sometimes need tools to help me figure out plots, people, motivations, and dialogue subtexts. Here’s a list of my absolute favorites and the books that keep me sane when I’m trying to swim through the quagmire that is my imagination. Maybe if you haven’t finished making your Christmas and Holiday wish list yet, you’ll consider asking for one of these valuable tools. Believe me, it is money well spent and worth the cost.

1-4 The Emotional Thesaurus ( and amplifier) , The Postive Trait Thesaurus and the Negative Trait Thesaurus

5.Goal, Motivation and Conflict by Debra Dixon. This is like a bible to most writers!

6.The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book. Little snippets, words, and descriptions to tweak your dialogue and writing


7. Master Lists. Every conceivable list you need for character, description, setting. Also fabulous as a reference when you play Trivial pursuit!

8. The title says it all. Rated Triple H for hothothot!


9.Nothing better for getting into the mind of your character and their inner conflicts and struggles

And if you’re looking for a great little romantic fiction read for yourself or as a Holiday gift, well, here’s my newest ( shameful plug) A KISS UNDER THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

When I’m not doing research I can usually be found in one ( or more!) of these places:

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