Character Action and Dialogue
One of the things I’m looking at in the current revision of KotHD is the little details of interaction and action when characters are speaking.
When I first draft (and this goes for many writers), I’m in a zone to get the rough sketch of the scene in place, and one easy way for me to get across mood and tone is by using a kind of physical short hand when characters are interacting with each other. Our personal shorthands may differ, but you’ll notice they tend to be very cliched. People frowning and nodding and grinning and generally behaving like no actual person on earth. Besides these, I also tend to use tea-sipping and fork-clutching. Also people grimacing at empty wine glasses.
All this is fine. IN A FIRST DRAFT. But there comes a point in the revision process where you need to dig deeper as a writer, and convey tone and emotion with a little more complexity and subtlety. This doesn’t mean finding a diffrent way to say ‘He smiled’. A manuscript peppered with variations of ‘a smile crept across his face’ or ‘one corner of his mouth drew into a smile’ is rarely an improvement.
What it means is really thinking about your characters (all of them in the scene) and the setting and the overacing plot, and how ALL THOSE THINGS INTERACT to delicately build up a better picture; not just of the current mood you’re trying to evoke, but seeding in subtle elements of world-building and characterisation. Having your characters do something natural within a scene cements them as real people in a real world.
Are they two parents talking while doing the dishes? How you write that can tell me so much about their lives and relationship just by the use of small details. Are they loading stuff into a dishwaser or working by hand? Do they have their own “roles” in the wash up? Is one of them doing the dishes while the other yells from the lounge while helping kids with homework? Are they scrubbing some plastic kid-friendly bowls cleaning or delicately wiping Gran’s heirloom china? Is one sitting at the table lamenting over their hard life, while the other silently and brilliantly does all the work?
That’s ONE tiny scenario that gives you so many options for making your world and characters more real.
In KotHD, I have two girl friends, and one of the things I’m doing is going through the moments where they are alone together, and building a layered picture of the depth of their friendship. FREX: In one scene where Character A was originally trying to smother herself with a pillow and Character B was brushing her hair (don’t ask. It makes sense in context), I’ve shifted things so A actually helps B brush all the knots out of her hair first. The reasons for this meant I could bring up some very light description
She may have the most beautiful hair in the world, according to her mother, but it knots if you so much as look at it. There’s a reason I keep my own hair cropped. Why torture myself?
I could set up a moment where A has another vision where she is her own mother brushing her child’s (A’s) hair.
It cements the physical trust between the girls.
It affords place for double-layered dialogue.
Thalema tugs at a particularly nasty snarl and half-screams in frustration. I drop the pillow and get up to take the brush from her. “You’re going to end up bald,” I point out.
“Save me from myself, my hero.”
I snort, and set the brush far out of her reach.
(Later, there will be saving, but both girls will be heroes to each other.)
That moment of closeness makes it easier for A to confess the truth to B about who she really is.
That’s ONE small section where I’ve achieved a lot of things, with something that might look banal from the outside (hairbrushing). I could not have threaded these things in if people were simply staring and nodding at each other.
