David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "characterization"
How to write dialogue
Dialogue
1. Write like people talk. They use fragments, run-ons sentences, they interrupt each other, they change the subject. A possible field trip for you would be to go to a place where there are a lot of people and listen: a football game, the mall, a bar. Bring along a notebook and try to get a sense of how they talk.
2. Warning: Most conversation is stultifying boring; remember you’re writing fiction. Use the technique, but not the content: “How are you?” “I’m fine; how are you?” “I’m good, got a new leaf blower.” Establishing a conflict or a goal for your character early on in your scene will help your dialogue. A wife will give her husband the needle; a friend will tease his buddy about his lack of success with women.
3. Avoid long speeches. Try to write in rhythm. Robert B. Parker is really good at this. See his Jesse Stone novels. It works like this. One, two: a character talks, the other responds or at least nods his head. Save long speeches for scenes where they are absolutely necessary. Dialogue sequences should also be fairly short to avoid boring the reader.
4. I had a critique partner once who thought she was breaking new ground by using dialogue at the expense of narration. If that’s your thing, write a play. Mix it up with sequences of narration, active description (lots of action verbs and imagery) dialogue and action. Action should be on the heavy side.
Move your main character through the scene. He can be driving a car or just walking down the street, but move him through the scene as much as possible. You don’t want any talking heads.
5. Tag lines (he said, she said). Use “said” rather than synonyms for it; occasionally you can use something like “responded” but don’t make a habit of it. Readers don’t notice “said” but they sure do notice when something else is used, like “rebutted.” Fiction is a dream state of sorts and any fancy work wakes your reader up.
6. Beats: This is the action that goes with the tag lone. “Hi,” she said, turning in her chair to look at him. Don’t overdo the beats; they become monotonous if you use them with every snatch of dialogue; they also slow the pace.
7. Avoid using too many participial phrases (“ing” words that follow the tag line.) One every now and then is okay, but avoid using them on the same page.
8. Pace. For a past pace don’t use tag lines. Your reader will be able to figure out who’s talking by what the various characters say. For a slower pace use more tags and beats, maybe lengthen your sentences a bit.
9. Summary dialogue (Used to quicken pace. Be sure you have a good reason to use it, like avoiding boring the reader with mundane conversation.
Some editors don’t like to see summary dialogue at all.
10. Avoid dialect unless you’re really good at it. I’ve been driving myself crazy lately with Irish dialect. I found a site on the Internet that translates English into Irish, but it sounds awfully British to me. Anyway, odd spelling bugs your readers. You can tell your readers the character spoke with an Irish brogue or use the occasional Irish word like “paypul” instead of people.
11. Interior monologue. Your character is talking to himself in his head. Editors don’t like it. It’s kind of hard not to use this, especially if you’re writing in author limited point of view, but avoid it as much as possible.
Dave Schwinghammer's novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available
on Amazon.com.
1. Write like people talk. They use fragments, run-ons sentences, they interrupt each other, they change the subject. A possible field trip for you would be to go to a place where there are a lot of people and listen: a football game, the mall, a bar. Bring along a notebook and try to get a sense of how they talk.
2. Warning: Most conversation is stultifying boring; remember you’re writing fiction. Use the technique, but not the content: “How are you?” “I’m fine; how are you?” “I’m good, got a new leaf blower.” Establishing a conflict or a goal for your character early on in your scene will help your dialogue. A wife will give her husband the needle; a friend will tease his buddy about his lack of success with women.
3. Avoid long speeches. Try to write in rhythm. Robert B. Parker is really good at this. See his Jesse Stone novels. It works like this. One, two: a character talks, the other responds or at least nods his head. Save long speeches for scenes where they are absolutely necessary. Dialogue sequences should also be fairly short to avoid boring the reader.
4. I had a critique partner once who thought she was breaking new ground by using dialogue at the expense of narration. If that’s your thing, write a play. Mix it up with sequences of narration, active description (lots of action verbs and imagery) dialogue and action. Action should be on the heavy side.
Move your main character through the scene. He can be driving a car or just walking down the street, but move him through the scene as much as possible. You don’t want any talking heads.
5. Tag lines (he said, she said). Use “said” rather than synonyms for it; occasionally you can use something like “responded” but don’t make a habit of it. Readers don’t notice “said” but they sure do notice when something else is used, like “rebutted.” Fiction is a dream state of sorts and any fancy work wakes your reader up.
6. Beats: This is the action that goes with the tag lone. “Hi,” she said, turning in her chair to look at him. Don’t overdo the beats; they become monotonous if you use them with every snatch of dialogue; they also slow the pace.
7. Avoid using too many participial phrases (“ing” words that follow the tag line.) One every now and then is okay, but avoid using them on the same page.
8. Pace. For a past pace don’t use tag lines. Your reader will be able to figure out who’s talking by what the various characters say. For a slower pace use more tags and beats, maybe lengthen your sentences a bit.
9. Summary dialogue (Used to quicken pace. Be sure you have a good reason to use it, like avoiding boring the reader with mundane conversation.
Some editors don’t like to see summary dialogue at all.
10. Avoid dialect unless you’re really good at it. I’ve been driving myself crazy lately with Irish dialect. I found a site on the Internet that translates English into Irish, but it sounds awfully British to me. Anyway, odd spelling bugs your readers. You can tell your readers the character spoke with an Irish brogue or use the occasional Irish word like “paypul” instead of people.
11. Interior monologue. Your character is talking to himself in his head. Editors don’t like it. It’s kind of hard not to use this, especially if you’re writing in author limited point of view, but avoid it as much as possible.
Dave Schwinghammer's novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available
on Amazon.com.
SOUTH OF SUPERIOR
I'm from central Minnesota but the Upper Peninsula of Michigan reminds me a lot of Minnesota because of its mining and logging heritage, along with the Ojibwa Indians and the Finnish miners and their descendents who live there. Then of course there's Lake Superior, which we also have in common. The North Shore is some of the most beautiful country in the United States. I also read a book entitled Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers (think Tony Hillerman's Skinwalkers) about the characters who roam the northern woods of the Upper Peninsula. Believe me, they are some of the most unique people I've ever read about.
Ellen Airgood's SOUTH OF SUPERIOR is about Madeline Stone a young woman who returns to McAllaster, Michigan, to help take care of her great aunt Arubutus who lives with her cranky sister Gladys. She goes to work at a local pizza parlor to help pay her way, where she falls in love with Paul the owner who also works at a nearby prison as a guard to make ends meet. Trouble is, he's in love with another woman. Some would say he really loves Randi's Hopkins' son Greyson.
Madeline also loves the hotel Gladys used to own, which is so run down it would take a fortune to remodel.
Obviously this story is about the characters rather than plot, and there are lots of them. There's Madeline's great uncle Walter, whom she didn't even know was still alive. There are the Bensons who are trying to buy the hotel and turn it into a parking lot. There is Mary Feather, a former cook for the lumberjacks, Emil a nonagenarian who drinks too much but is much loved by almost everyone in town.
Madeline is also a painter; she sneaks up to the attic of the hotel as often as possible to paint the landscape. The hotel soon becomes an obsession.
There's not much plot here, but if you like novels based on characterization you'll love this. Besides, the author looks just like I imagined Madeline would.
Comment |
Ellen Airgood's SOUTH OF SUPERIOR is about Madeline Stone a young woman who returns to McAllaster, Michigan, to help take care of her great aunt Arubutus who lives with her cranky sister Gladys. She goes to work at a local pizza parlor to help pay her way, where she falls in love with Paul the owner who also works at a nearby prison as a guard to make ends meet. Trouble is, he's in love with another woman. Some would say he really loves Randi's Hopkins' son Greyson.
Madeline also loves the hotel Gladys used to own, which is so run down it would take a fortune to remodel.
Obviously this story is about the characters rather than plot, and there are lots of them. There's Madeline's great uncle Walter, whom she didn't even know was still alive. There are the Bensons who are trying to buy the hotel and turn it into a parking lot. There is Mary Feather, a former cook for the lumberjacks, Emil a nonagenarian who drinks too much but is much loved by almost everyone in town.
Madeline is also a painter; she sneaks up to the attic of the hotel as often as possible to paint the landscape. The hotel soon becomes an obsession.
There's not much plot here, but if you like novels based on characterization you'll love this. Besides, the author looks just like I imagined Madeline would.
Comment |
Why Read SOLDIER'S GAP?
1. It’s mystical. Lots of stuff in there about the Mescalero Indians (who believe in ghosts), although it’s set in Minnesota.
2. Theme: There are lots of them, unusual for a mystery novel, but I guess the main one is that good kids fall through the cracks and often seek advice from people they consider cool rather than their parents or their teachers.
3. Characterization: Some editors recommend keeping the number down to around a dozen or so, but I’d say I must have over a hundred in SOLDIER’S GAP, if you want to count the dogs and other animals.
4. The reviewers say it's really funny. A murder mystery shouldn’t be funny? Who says? Donald Westlake is funny. Ed McBain is funny. Even Stephen King is funny. Anyway, that’s the compliment I get most often in Amazon reviews. The relationship between protagonist Dave Jenkins and Mingo Jones, the Mescalero night deputy is especially droll.
5. There are some strong women characters for you ladies. The mayor of the town is a woman, and when she says jump, the men say, “How high?” Dave Jenkins’s girlfriend plays shortstop for his softball team, and she’s the best player on the team. She's also a member of the volunteer fire department.
6. There’s a boy genius for you Harry Potter fans; he helps Dave Jenkins solve the murder of the local high school principal. He's also in love with one of the murder suspects.
7. Unless you’re really quick, you won’t be able to figure out who done it until the murderer is actually apprehended, and there are at least a dozen suspects, including the school superintendent who was having an affair with the principal’s wife.
8. Lots of sub plots. The sheriff, Harry Kline, can’t do his job anymore and he tells terrible jokes and smokes too much. His main competition is Dave Jenkins, who, as I said, dates his daughter. Dave is also still in love with his high school sweetheart.
9. The story is set in the Red River Valley, sugar beet country for those of you who know Minnesota. The river also runs north which is even stranger. The town also has an odd name, SOLDIER, named after the civil war soldiers, including Colonel Colvill, hero of the Battle of Gettysburg (poetic license) who settled the town. There’s a weird statue of him in the town square whose eyes seems to follow you around.
10. Lots of Minnesota curiosities. We have 10,000 lakes, an Indian heritage (Ojibwas and Sioux), lots of Germans and Scandinavians and weird accents. The stuff in “Fargo” isn’t too far wrong.
Anyway, thanks for tolerating my self promotion, and if you’ve got the time, please read the reviews at Amazon.com.
2. Theme: There are lots of them, unusual for a mystery novel, but I guess the main one is that good kids fall through the cracks and often seek advice from people they consider cool rather than their parents or their teachers.
3. Characterization: Some editors recommend keeping the number down to around a dozen or so, but I’d say I must have over a hundred in SOLDIER’S GAP, if you want to count the dogs and other animals.
4. The reviewers say it's really funny. A murder mystery shouldn’t be funny? Who says? Donald Westlake is funny. Ed McBain is funny. Even Stephen King is funny. Anyway, that’s the compliment I get most often in Amazon reviews. The relationship between protagonist Dave Jenkins and Mingo Jones, the Mescalero night deputy is especially droll.
5. There are some strong women characters for you ladies. The mayor of the town is a woman, and when she says jump, the men say, “How high?” Dave Jenkins’s girlfriend plays shortstop for his softball team, and she’s the best player on the team. She's also a member of the volunteer fire department.
6. There’s a boy genius for you Harry Potter fans; he helps Dave Jenkins solve the murder of the local high school principal. He's also in love with one of the murder suspects.
7. Unless you’re really quick, you won’t be able to figure out who done it until the murderer is actually apprehended, and there are at least a dozen suspects, including the school superintendent who was having an affair with the principal’s wife.
8. Lots of sub plots. The sheriff, Harry Kline, can’t do his job anymore and he tells terrible jokes and smokes too much. His main competition is Dave Jenkins, who, as I said, dates his daughter. Dave is also still in love with his high school sweetheart.
9. The story is set in the Red River Valley, sugar beet country for those of you who know Minnesota. The river also runs north which is even stranger. The town also has an odd name, SOLDIER, named after the civil war soldiers, including Colonel Colvill, hero of the Battle of Gettysburg (poetic license) who settled the town. There’s a weird statue of him in the town square whose eyes seems to follow you around.
10. Lots of Minnesota curiosities. We have 10,000 lakes, an Indian heritage (Ojibwas and Sioux), lots of Germans and Scandinavians and weird accents. The stuff in “Fargo” isn’t too far wrong.
Anyway, thanks for tolerating my self promotion, and if you’ve got the time, please read the reviews at Amazon.com.
