Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 63

The Summer Of Finishing Things

Now that DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS is out into the world and selling briskly (thanks everyone), what’s next?

Ladies and gentlemen, the summer of 2023 will be the Summer Of Finishing Things.

Next up is SILENT ORDER: THUNDER HAND. I’m about forty percent of the way through the rough draft, and I’m hoping to have it out sometime in July.

After that, I will write DRAGONSKULL: CROWN OF THE GODS, which will be the ninth and final book in the DRAGONSKULL series.

Once that is done, I will write the fourteenth and final SILENT ORDER book. I had decided that there would be fifteen SILENT ORDER books, but I was looking at my outline for books #14 and #15 and thinking that I would need to add some subplots to them or else they would be too short.

But at that point in the series, you really need to be ending subplots, not adding new ones. Things need to start wrapping up.  So I decided if I combined the plots of #14 and #15 into a single book, I think it will work quite well. Which means that after DRAGONSKULL: CROWN OF THE GODS, I will write the final SILENT ORDER book, title to be announced.

So if all goes well, both DRAGONSKULL and SILENT ORDER will conclude over the summer and early fall.

After that, I think I will write a new Caina book called GHOST IN THE SERPENT.

-JM

 

DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS now available!

I am pleased to report that DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS is now available at all ebook stores!

You can get it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and Payhip.

A sorceress obsessed with vengeance. A priestess seeking the ultimate weapon of dark magic. Only one can prevail.

Gareth Arban seeks to destroy the Dragonskull, the ancient relic of dark magic.

The sorceress Niara desires to defeat the urdmordar Xothalaxiar, the cruel spider-devil who murdered her father.

But in Niara’s quest for vengeance, the sinister priestess Azalmora sees a way to rid herself of Gareth and his friends once and for all…

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS Table of Contents

I am finally far enough along in the process that I can share the Table of Contents for DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS! You can see them below.

If all goes well and nothing unexpected happens, the book should be out next week.

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS cover image

I am far enough along to share the cover image for DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS, which you can see below.

Meanwhile, let’s also see the book description!

###

A sorceress obsessed with vengeance. A priestess seeking the ultimate weapon of dark magic. Only one can prevail.

Gareth Arban seeks to destroy the Dragonskull, the ancient relic of dark magic.

The sorceress Niara desires to defeat the urdmordar Xothalaxiar, the ancient spider-devil who murdered her father.

But in Niara’s quest for vengeance, the sinister priestess Azalmora sees a way to rid herself of Gareth and his friends once and for all…

-JM

Ad results May 2023

I have to admit I didn’t pay very much attention to my ads this month. First I was really busy focusing on finishing DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS, then I had to travel a bunch, then I got sick, and a bunch of other stuff was going on.

So basically the ads were on auto-pilot for May, though I turned off the ads for THE GHOSTS in the third week of the month because they weren’t performing well.

So let’s see how ads did in May when my attention was elsewhere!

Facebook ads (this is what I got back for every $1 I spent):

Frostborn: $2.03

Sevenfold Sword: $2.04

The Ghosts: $7.00 (somewhat artificially inflated because I shut off the ads around the 18th).

Cloak Games: $10.31

CLOAK GAMES did stupendously well because of CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE and a Bookbub for CLOAK MAGE OMNIBUS ONE which performed way above expectation. Like, 4X above expectation. Even without CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE factored in, CLOAK GAMES still came in at $4.59.

Let’s see how the Amazon ads performed. This month I only advertised DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE with Amazon ads. Remember that for an Amazon ad to work, it needs to generate at least 1 sale for every 6 to 8 clicks.

Amazon US DRAGONSKULL: 1 sale for every 1.08 clicks, $4.98 back.

Amazon UK DRAGONSKULL: 1 sale for every 2.64 clicks, $3.94 back.

So Amazon ads, if you set them up correctly, keep functioning very well when your attention is elsewhere. I would have liked the UK ads to do better, but they’re performing quite well, and I made $3.94 for every $1 I spent on them, so I have no cause for complaint.

It is good to know that ads will continue even if your attention is elsewhere – finishing DOOM OF THE SORCERESS, for example, or traveling 2400 miles and ending up seeing the Country Music Hall of Fame in the process.  Amusingly, I had someone email to inform me that there is no Taylor Swift memorabilia at the Country Music Hall of Fame. This was amusing because 1.) I saw all this stuff with my own eyes, and while I was very tired at the time, I don’t think my brain would hallucinate Taylor Swift memorabilia because I’ve never actually purposefully chosen to listen to one of her songs, 2.) tens of thousands of people were there, that actual day, to see the Taylor Swift stuff, and if that stuff hadn’t been there, the Country Music Hall of Fame getting burned down by enraged Swifties would have made the national news.

Anyway! The point is that ads, if set up correctly, will function while your attention is elsewhere, such as bemusedly looking at country music exhibits or reading an email where someone informs you that you are Wrong On The Internet.

-JM

DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS rough draft finished!

I am very, very pleased to report that the rough draft of DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS is finally done!

Next up is the bonus short story THE FIRST LESSON, which I hope to finish today. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of THE FIRST LESSON when DOOM OF THE SORCERESS comes out, so this seems like a really good time to sign up for my newsletter.

Then it will be full-speed ahead on editing. Be sure to check back soon to see the cover image for DOOM OF THE SORCERESS.

-JM

The Country Music Hall Of Fame

I happed to be in Nashville, TN last week, so I went to the Country Music Hall Of Fame.

I have to admit I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but I had like six hours of sleep in the previous 48 hours so everything was a little fuzzy.

Anyway, the museum was extremely crowded that day, and I soon realized it was because of Taylor Swift. My Taylor Swift knowledge is very low, but apparently the crowds where there to see Ms. Swift’s sweater. This sweater featured in a 2020 album, and I expect many people latched on to that album to the emotional upheaval of that time period. (I spent 2020 writing an epic fantasy series and learning Photoshop, so I coped somewhat differently.)

However, my knowledge of country music is very low as well. No one in my immediate family listened to it when I was a kid, and I didn’t really encounter it on a regular basis until I went out into the world and started working. I routinely worked with guys who had the front seat of their pickup trucks filled with various country CDs. (For those of you born in this century, “CDs” were what people used to listen to music before MP3s and mobile streaming.) I just never connected emotionally with it, and I have an odd relationship with music in any event – I have such a hard time picking out sung lyrics from a song, and it usually sounds like warbling to me.

(Ironically, since we’re talking about country music, one of the few musicians I have no trouble understanding is Johnny Cash.)

So the museum was interesting, and it was also interesting to see the history behind the various currents and trends in the genre.

Overall, I noticed that country songs tend to break down into the following categories:

-I Got My Dog & My Truck.

-I Got My Dog, My Truck, & My Girl

-I Lost My Dog, My Truck, & My Girl

-My Girl Took My Dog And Truck, So It’s Time To Drink A Lot Of Jack Daniels

-The Boss Man Is Screwing Me Over

-The Boss Man And The Government Are Screwing Me Over, So It’s Time To Drink A Lot Of Jack Daniels

-I’m A Woman And I’m Poor

-I’m A Woman And I’m Poor, But I’ve Got A Good Man

-I’m A Woman And I Treat My Good Man Right

-I’m A Woman And I’m Poor, But My Man Is A Cheating Dog

-I’m A Woman And I’m Poor & My Man Is A Cheating Dog, But I’ve Arranged His Death In A Clever And Untraceable Way, Often Involving Pie Filling

-I’m A Woman And I’m No Longer Poor, But I Feel Very Conflicted About It

Overall, the Country Music Hall Of Fame was a very interesting museum. Though I recommend going on a less crowded day.

-JM

Why Don’t The Dragons Just Eat People?

A reader question this week requires !!!SPOILERS!!! from CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE to answer it.

So if you haven’t read CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE yet (though to judge from sales chart, a very large number of you have, thank you!) stop reading this post right now.

!!!SPOILERS!!!

Anyway, a reader asked how I came up with the idea in CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE that eating a sapient being would have an effect on a dragon similar to the consumption of methamphetamine in a human.

It came about because I was thinking about fantasy worldbuilding (one of my favorite topics), and an obvious question came up.

In the Nadiaverse, why don’t the dragons just eat people?

I mean, seriously, why not? The logical answer is that there is a cultural taboo or a legal prohibition against it. However, lots of activities are taboo or illegal, and people still partake in them all the time. The dragons, of course, don’t really want to kill humans, since that reduces their number of potential admirers, because what the dragons really want is to be surrounded by a circle of devoted admirers in awe of their magnificence. But that comes back to a cultural taboo again. Some dragon with darker inclinations like Tarthrunivor or Ferrunivar might buy a private island, stock it with a dozen people kidnapped from surrounding companies, and have themselves a hunting party like the Boyars’ Hunt in GHOST IN THE RING.

But what if there was a more serious reason?

Anyway, while I was writing DRAGONSKULL: WRATH OF THE WARLOCK I was thinking about this, and I happened to click over to YouTube, which for some reason was displaying a lot of official clips from BREAKING BAD that day. BREAKING BAD is about mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White who receives a fatal diagnosis, and desperate to provide for his family after his death, decides to start manufacturing and selling illegal methamphetamine. During the series, Walt descends from a man trying to provide for his family into an evil man in love with the power and money his drug dealing brings him, and in a tale as old as Ancient Greece, his hubris soon brings about his nemesis and ruinous downfall. (I have to admit that I didn’t like BREAKING BAD all that much – too dark – but it is a superbly executed example of story structure with an emotionally satisfying ending.)

Methamphetamine is very, very bad for you, and you shouldn’t use or try it. Or make it, for that matter!

Then the answer came to me – what if eating a sapient being had a same effect on a dragon as methamphetamine did on humans?

Another drug like fentanyl or heroin wouldn’t work –  a depressant drug would just make for a stoned, lassitude-prone dragon, which would hardly be a threat to characters. But dragons are more innately magical than Elves or humans in the Nadiaverse, and can change shape with ease. Their bodies are therefore more easily controlled by their minds, which means that if they knowingly choose to eat a sapient creature, it has an immediately deleterious effect on them. Addiction takes hold swiftly, usually followed by homicidal mania in a few months.

Interestingly, this only happens it the dragon knowingly consumes a sapient creature. Due to their intensely magical nature, it has to be a choice freely made without compulsion. If a dragon unknowingly ate a sapient creature, like some orcish world was making ground meat out of captured dwarves, nothing would happen.

Ferrunivar and Tarthrunivor are much darker and more ruthless dragons than Varzalshinpol, Polvimrandur, Sarrunivor, and Delaxsicoria, who are all basically pretty cheerful. But Tarthrunivor has the self-discipline to keep his ruthlessness and darker impulses in check, and would view consuming a sapient creature as an unforgiveable folly, though he has been tempted by the idea. Ferrunivor, by contrast, was much younger and much less self-controlled. He also considered himself an artist, and artists often enjoy doing avant garde things that shock their elders. Think of how many musicians, actors, and artists came to a bad end through drugs.

Which, as it happens, is how he met his downfall.

Anyway, I hope that was an interesting look into the creative process behind CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE!

-JM

Dialogue Tips

Let’s talk a little bit about writing dialogue today.

Writing dialogue is often tricky because the way people talk is frequently very, very different from clear and lucid prose. Conversations are often rambling and incoherent, even to the participants. The tricky part when writing fiction is that 1.) you’re writing a story, and you need to move things along, and 2.) you want the dialogue to be comprehensible so people don’t abandon reading your story. However, you don’t want your dialogue to sound like two computers exchanging precisely written and grammatically accurate factoids.

How to strike a balance between these points? Here are some tips and tricks for writing interesting dialogue.

1.) Speech shouldn’t sound like prose, and should reflect the character speaking.

Consider the following sentence.

“Maura parked her car at the gas station on the corner of 48th and Truman.”

Now, if she needed to convey that information in dialogue, you could just repeat that.

“I parked my car at the gas station on the corner of 48th and Truman,” said Maura. 

However, unless a character tends to speak very precisely, most people will not talk that way. It will probably sound more like this:

“Yeah, parked over at the gas station on 48th,” said Maura. “You know, the one across from that dry cleaner.”

Or, depending on Maura’s personality, it might be more like this:

“You know that gas station where Jenkins threw up in the aisle?” said Maura. “Parked the car there. Yeah, I didn’t go inside. Place is a dump. They might not have cleaned up the puke yet.”

Dialogue, as we know, is often a reflection of personality. If Maura was a law enforcement officer setting a trap for a bank robber, she might say it like this:

“Parked at the gas station on 48th and Truman,” said Maura. “Ready and in position. No sign of the suspect.” 

But if she was a criminal who had left stolen merchandise in the car for her contact to pick up, she might say it like this:

“Car’s at the gas station across from the dry cleaner’s,” said Maura. “The one where Jenkins threw up after the fifth vodka martini, you remember. Stuff’s in the trunk.”

Dialogue will generally be less precise than clear prose, and should reflect the character’s personality whenever possible.

2.) Avoid “As You Know Bob.”

One common technique is to use dialogue to convey information about the story to the reader. This can be done well, or it can be done clumsily.

Science fiction and fantasy writers, alas, tend to fall into this trap all too often, because we have exotic concepts to explain to the audience. But you can see the problem when it’s done badly. Let’s use a modern-day example. Jenkins and Maura are about to fly on a plane departing from an American airport, and Maura has never flown before. So Jenkins needs to explain how a TSA security check works. In real life, the conversation would probably go like this:

“So what am I supposed to do here?” said Maura.

Jenkins sighed. “Didn’t you read the PDF I sent you?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” said Jenkins. “Look, you put your stuff in those plastic tubs, and then you take off your shoes and go through the scanner. Since you’re wearing that tank top and the TSA guys are usually pervs, you’re probably going to get the enhanced patdown.” He feigned groping his own chest.

“Don’t be a jerk.”

A writer succumbing to infodumping would have the conversation go like this.

“So what am I supposed to do here?” said Maura.

Jenkins turned to her. “As you know, Maura, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which created the Transportation Security Administration, which henceforth would have authority over civilian airport security on United States soil. Initially part of the Transportation Department, the TSA was moved under the authority of Homeland Security when that department was created in March of 2003…”

You see the problem. No one actually talks that way. The problem comes in when writers use infodumping in dialogue as a shortcut to worldbuilding. Fantasy and science fiction writes succumb to that temptation a lot, but we’re not the only ones. Thriller writers, mystery writers, and romance writers whose protagonists have a lot of backstory tend to fall into this shortcut as well.

The better way to deal with this is to put just enough information in the dialogue for the conversation to make sense, but to leave out enough that the reader is interested to find out what is going to happen. Humans are innately curious. This is why when someone mentions something interesting that you’ve never heard before (like, for example, your new boss is recently divorced and now engaged to his former secretary) the conversation immediately moves in that direction. But if two fictional characters mention something that the reader hasn’t heard before, they aren’t obliged to explain it to the reader immediately, which will help hold their interest.

For example, let’s go back to Jenkins and Maura:

“You’ve seriously never been on a plane before,” said Jenkins as Maura collected her stuff from the TSA’s plastic tubs.

“No,” said Maura, her frown edging towards a scowl. 

“Why not?”

“Tyler was always going to take me to LA,” said Maura. “Where are we going next?” Her expression said further questions would not receive any answers, so they continued to the gate. 

In the story, if this is the first mention of Tyler, it adds a bit of mystery. Who is Tyler and why is Maura mad at him? If this is a romance, Tyler could be her ex. If this is a mystery or thriller novel, Tyler could be a fellow criminal or another law enforcement officer. Not only is this more like the way real people talk, it provides a bit of a minor hook to keep the reader interested in the book.

3.) Subtext

One of the most incredibly annoying things about human conversation is that people rarely say what they actually mean, and the surface topic of the conversation is often unconnected with the real meaning of the conversation.

This is called subtext.

One of the most common examples is Sherlock Holmes and his archnemesis Professor Moriarty playing chess. Holmes and Moriarty are discussing the game, but that’s just the surface conversation. They’re really talking about their rivalry. Or a Mafia thug walks into a shop and tells the owner that these rickety old buildings really need to have fire insurance. The Mafia guy isn’t talking about the fire code or actually selling insurance – he’s giving a subtle warning to the owner that he needs to pay protection money or his business is going to start suffering “accidents.”

This can take place in less fraught circumstances. Like, for example, a woman is angry that a man has been promoted over her at work. Rather than address the issue directly, she might start complaining about the contents of the vending machines, or insisting that every new project is doomed to failure. The contents of the vending machine or the scope of the project are irrelevant – the subtext to her complaints is that she’s not happy she wasn’t promoted.

Communication breakdown can occur when the person speaking thinks their subtext is obvious and clear, but the person listening misses it entirely.

Let’s have some examples! Say Maura and Jenkins work for MegaCorp, and Maura thinks the current district manager is incompetent and wants the job for herself.

“Profits are down, production is down, and turnover is way up,” said Maura. “This can’t keep going on.”

“Uh huh,” said Jenkins. “And I suppose you have a bright idea about how to fix it?”

Maura put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Well, what if I do? Someone needs to step up and fix things.”

In this conversation, Maura isn’t flat-out saying “I want to be district manager.” She’s just saying that things aren’t going well and they needed to be fixed. Indeed, she doesn’t mention the district manager at all. But it’s immediately obvious to Jenkins (and, hopefully, to the reader) that Maura wants the job.

If Jenkins misses the subtext, it might cause a conflict with Maura:

“Profits are down, production is down, and turnover is way up,” said Maura. “This can’t keep going on.”

Jenkins shrugged. “The economy’s bad. Inflation’s up. Can’t do much about that.”

Maura folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “Maybe we need some new leadership.”

Jenkins groaned. “From where? We would need another search committee.”

“An internal hire would be a better choice.”

Jenkins laughed. “The people who already work here are idiots. If we did an internal search for a district manager, we’d probably end up with one even dumber than the one we already have.”

Maura scoffed, shook her head, and stalked off. Jenkins watched her go, wondering what had annoyed her so much. Maybe those high heels were pinching her toes. Made her legs look good, though. 

So subtext can be a way to make dialogue more interesting. Which leads us to the opposite of this technique:

4.) The Character Is Imagining A Subtext That Doesn’t Actually Exist.

This happens all the time in Real Life, when people impute meanings to your speech that you didn’t actually intend. Examples are myriad, and you can no doubt think of several off the top of your head. For example, someone invites you to a movie, and you decline to go, saying that you don’t feel up to it. Your stomach is upset, you have a headache, your knees hurt, or you’re simply exhausted and you don’t feel like going, but if you felt better, you would go to the movie. Except the person who invited you takes it as a personal insult, even though that wasn’t your intent and not the subtext at all. The person who invited you imagined a subtext to your words and actions that did not exist.

This also happens a lot on social media, where a lot of the visual and auditory cues that usually accompany conversation are absent.

A great example is from J.R.R. Tolkien’s UNFINISHED TALES, which is a collection of side stuff and alternate drafts from when he was working on THE LORD OF THE RINGS. In one section, Gandalf the Grey is speaking with Saruman the White , and they’re discussing the problem of the One Ring. As they talk, Gandalf is smoking a pipe and blowing smoke rings, and Saruman (who by this time has fallen to evil and is seeking the Ring for himself) thinks that Gandalf is taunting him with the smoke rings. But Gandalf is doing no such thing – he still thinks Saruman is a friend and a trustworthy ally, and he just wants to smoke a pipe as they discuss the problem. The smoke rings are just to tease Saruman a little since Saruman has been giving Gandalf a hard time about smoking. At this point, Gandalf doesn’t even know that Bilbo Baggins’ magic ring actually is the One Ring. In his pride and paranoia, Saruman is imagining a subtext to the conversation that doesn’t exist.

Imaginary subtext often occurs when one character knows something that the other does not, but is unaware that the other character doesn’t have that information.

Let’s have an example! In this version, Maura has arranged for the district manager of MegaCorp to get fired so she can get the job, but feels guilty about it. Jenkins is unaware of her machinations:

“So we’re getting a new district manager?” said Jenkins.

“Well, security just escorted the old one out the door, so yeah,” said Maura. “I wonder who the new one will be.”

“An absolute moron,” said Jenkins. She glared at him, but he didn’t notice. “Only a complete idiot would take over that job. Someone with more ambition than brain cells.”

“Oh, very clever,” said Maura. “You’ve just been waiting to say that. Why don’t you let me know how you really feel?”

“What?” said Jenkins, surprised at her irritation. “What did I say?”

As we can see, Maura felt insulted, but Jenkins’ intent wasn’t to insult her, merely to observe that anyone stepping into the thankless job of district manager would regret it. But Maura thought Jenkins was talking about her, and took it personally.

5.) Profanity is overrated.

Everyone swears all the time in modern fiction, but it happens so often that profanity has become stale and overused. It’s like garlic salt or maybe cayenne peppers – a little bit goes a long way, and it’s usually less than you think. Like, profanity might have been shocking thirty years ago, but most people swear constantly now, and writers tend to use it as a crutch. So it’s best to go against the current and dial back the profanity. If you use a lot of profanity in your books, you’re not being shocking or subversive, you’re just being boring like everybody else.

A good example might be the AVENGERS ENDGAME movie. In the final movie, at a climactic moment, Tony Stark says “And I am Iron Man.” However, in the original script, the line was apparently “F$ck you, Thanos.” Wouldn’t that have been so much more boring? It sounds like something someone would say in a minor traffic accident or in an argument about the building’s shared dumpster. (“Stop putting your f$cking recycling in with the trash, Thanos!”) But apparently one of the producers thought up the line at the absolute last minute, convinced the directors and the actor, and they shot it as a reshoot. It was a good decision, because the line is so much better – it perfectly fits how Stark’s character always needs to have the last word, and is an excellent callback to the first IRON MAN movie back in 2008.

So, it’s best to be to intentional with the use of profanity, and not use it as a crutch. An otherwise straight-laced character swearing in a moment of crisis could demonstrate the seriousness of the situation. Alternatively, you could have a character who swears a lot, except when he gets really angry, when he calms down and stops swearing entirely – it’s the people who get calm and focused when they get angry that you really have to watch out for.

An observation after 12 years of self-publishing: no matter the level of profanity you have in your books, someone will be annoyed. If you have no profanity at all, people will complain that it’s unrealistic, especially if you’re writing about soldiers and workmen and other people who traditionally curse a lot. Alternatively, if you have any level of profanity, people will complain about this as well. Like, I just got an email from a reader expressing gentle disappointment that Nadia swears so much in CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE. But here’s the thing – I tone it way done for the book. In my head, Nadia swears like an angry drill sergeant or maybe a roofer who just accidentally shot himself in the foot with his nail gun, especially when she gets angry. But for the reasons I listed above, I don’t like to overdo it.

So that’s a good reminder that no matter what you write, someone will be annoyed, so you might as well write as you think best. But overusing profanity is just lazy, in my opinion.

6.) People very often don’t answer direct questions.

If you listen carefully to Real Life conversations, you will notice that people rarely answer questions directly, and often go off on tangents.

There’s a quote from THE LORD OF THE RINGS that illustrates this point perfectly:

“Are we riding far tonight, Gandalf?” asked Merry after a while. “I don’t know how you feel with small rag-tag dangling behind you; but the rag-tag is tired and will be glad to stop dangling and lie down.”

“So you heard that?” said Gandalf. “Don’t let it rankle! Be thankful no longer words were aimed at you. He had his eyes on you. If it is any comfort to your pride, I should say that, at the moment, you and Pippin are more in his thoughts than the rest of us. Who you are; how you came here, and why; what you know; whether you were captured, and if so, how you escaped when all the orcs perished—it is with those little riddles that the great mind of Saruman is troubled. A sneer from him, Meriadoc, is a compliment, if you feel honoured by his concern.”

“Thank you!” said Merry. “But it is a greater honour to dangle at your tail, Gandalf. For one thing, in that position one has a chance of putting a question a second time. Are we riding far tonight?”

Gandalf laughed. “A most unquenchable hobbit! All wizards should have a hobbit or two in their care—to teach them the meaning of the world, and to correct them.”

In this conversation, Merry wanted to know how much farther they were riding tonight. Gandalf, his mind still occupied by the recent defeat of Saruman at Orthanc, ends up talking about that, which Merry mentioned as a joke. But Merry points out that Gandalf failed to answer the question, and Gandalf laughs and concedes the point.

Here’s another example with Maura and Jenkins. In this example, Maura has just become the new district manager of MegaCorp, and is very pleased with herself. Jenkins needs her to sign off on the Busywork Reports for the month, but Maura is still too happy with her new job and is going off on tangents.

“Since you’re district manager now, mind signing off on these Busywork Reports?” said Jenkins, dropping the sheaf of papers on Maura’s desk. Which was entirely too large and expensive, he thought, given that it held only a laptop computer and Maura’s new nameplate. “Assuming you’re not too busy rewriting the dress code.”

“Oh, that’s just the start,” said Maura. She rose to her feet and paced to her windows. They looked impressive, but they faced the western parking lot, and Jenkins knew for a fact it got unpleasantly hot in here during the afternoon. “There are going to be big changes around her. Big changes. First thing, we’re getting rid of all the deadwood. No more two hour lunches. No more days off so people can have mental health days with their dogs or whatever.”

“That’s great,” said Jenkins, “but can you do that after you sign the Busywork Reports?”

Maura gave him an irritated glance.

You can use this technique in a couple different ways. It could show what someone is intending to do, as Maura’s example indicates above. You can also use it to show if someone doesn’t actually want to answer the question, since the person being asked will keep locking onto new tangents and changing the topic to avoid the question.

6.) Avoid phonetic dialects.

This might be a personal preference, but I strongly dislike when writers use phonetic dialects in dialogue.

This is when the writer mutilates spelling to create an illusion of a dialect or an accent. For example, let’s say Jenkins was about to say this:

“Well, I reckon it’s time that my dog is hankering for his dinner,” said Jenkins.

A phonetic dialect would make it look like this:

“Well, Ayuh reckin it’s a-time fer me dahg to be hankerin’ fer his dinnuh,” said Jenkins, his voice colored with the accent of a writer attempting to create an illusion of a dialect and failing miserably. 

I find that very annoying, and I’m not the only one. It’s lazy writing. It borders on indulging in stereotyping, which is another kind of lazy writing, since a “stereotype” is just a symbol used to represent a person so you don’t have to do the hard work of describing that person.

It’s also really hard to read, since your brain has to interpret the odd spellings. H.P. Lovecraft had a bad habit of doing this, and perhaps the single worst example I’ve ever read is at the end of THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE, an otherwise excellent story, when the farmer attempts to explain the sinister alien force that invaded his farm and Lovecraft does his best attempt at Rural New England Farmer Accent and fails miserably. J.K. Rowling writes the excellent CORMORAN STRIKE private investigator novels, but she occasionally uses phonetic dialect to represent the various different regional UK accents, and it’s just annoying.

If you want to represent a regional accent, it’s better to do it with patterns of speech, vocabulary, and perhaps regional slang than with phonetic spellings.

7.) Oh, one more thing.

One curious feature of human conversation is that the main point often doesn’t come until the conversation is nearly over.

Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals notice this a lot. During an interaction with a patient, the main point – the actual reason for the visit – won’t come until the end of the conversation, usually presaged with a “oh, just one more thing.” This is especially true if the ailment in question is sensitive or somehow embarrassing.

You also see this in police procedurals and mystery novels quite a bit. The detective will be talking with a suspect or witness about something else entirely, getting them into a conversational rhythm, and then drop the main question – when was the last time you saw Maura & Jenkins talking together, and what were they doing?

In this example, newly promoted district manager Maura is asking Jenkins about MegaCorp’s most important account, which the company is in danger of losing:

“So,” said Maura, fiddling the the paperclip holder on her oversized desk. “How are things in your department?”

Jenkins shrugged. “About the same. No one really misses the old manager. Though people are just loving all the new dress code memos.”

“Right, right,” said Maura, still sorting through the paperclips. “It’s important that we present a professional appearance. No more showing up to work in jeans or cargo shorts.”

Jenkins smirked. “Yes, that will increase profits, won’t it? Good to know that we are prioritizing the important things.”

The sarcasm went right over her head. 

“Look, um,” said Maura, and she stopped playing with the paperclips and folded her hands on the desk. “The GovOrg account. We need to talk about that.”

“Ah,” said Jenkins. “I suppose you didn’t call me in here to talk about the dress code after all.”

In this example, Maura is worried about the big account, but can’t bring herself to ask Jenkins about it right away.

Hopefully, these tips and tricks will help you right more realistic and entertaining dialogue!

And since Maura and Jenkins are fake characters who aren’t actually in any of my books, it seemed amusing to use Adobe Firefly to generate fake images for this post.

-JM

Iron Drive

CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE was my main focus for most of April, but I also wrote IRON DRIVE, a short story I gave away for free to my newsletter subscribers.

I’m pleased that IRON DRIVE has gotten a positive reaction – it was fun to write a story from a “normal person’s” perspective in Nadia’s world. Like, in the past couple of books, Nadia has been dealing with weirder and more dangerous stuff. By contrast, Cas, the protagonist of IRON DRIVE, just wants to save up enough money so he can retire, afford to travel more, and see his grandchildren more often.

So it was interesting to write his interaction with Nadia from his perspective, and I am glad people found the story compelling!

-JM