Is Fiction Dialogue Different from Plain Old Yakking?

Dialogue through verbal speech is as important to your fictional characters as it is to us flesh-and-blood folks, though for somewhat different reasons.  For both fictional and real people, speaking is the most common form of communication, and communication is, of course, not only vital but is something we humans do a lot.

However, real people engage in spoken dialogue for only a few reasons, and among them are:

  • to inform
  • to persuade
  • to establish a relationship
  • to argue
  • to direct or command

When our fictional characters talk, it is for these reasons, too, but also several more.  This is due to the difference in their situation.  For example, we often speak ‘off the cuff’ without much preparation or forethought; characters never do that, though they seem to.  Characters only exist due to the efforts of an entity called a ‘writer,’ of whom they are unaware.  They exist solely for the benefit and enjoyment of another entity called a ‘reader,’ of whom they are also unaware.  So dialogue between characters also serves these purposes:

  • to set the scene; that is, help the reader ‘see’ the scene
  • to establish a character’s personality
  • to advance the plot by introducing or heightening the conflict
  • to create suspense or add tension
  • to remind the reader of previous events or characters
  • to foreshadow future events
  • to provide easy-to-read ‘white space’ in between narration paragraphs

Most of the time, fictional dialogue is accomplishing many of these functions at once.  That might seem a daunting task for the beginning writer, and you may be wondering how you’ll ever write dialogue that does so much.  As an author not too far removed from beginner status, all I can say is, I’m told the task gets easier with practice, like any good habit.

Now that we’ve covered the differences in purpose, let’s cover the differences in form between real and fictional dialogue.

  • In the first place, fictional dialogue is less dull.  As much as we try not to be dull in real life, much of our conversation is, frankly, boring.  Fiction can’t afford to be dull, so leave out all the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ of real speech.  Cast out all the little pleasantries like ‘how are you doing?’ ‘fine,’ etc.  Ever notice fictional characters rarely say ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye?’ Now you know why.
  • Fictional characters shouldn’t have as strong an accent as real people, at least as it’s depicted in written dialogue.  Whether your character is from the deep South, New England, or speaks English with a strong foreign accent, don’t attempt to replicate every word by spelling it as your character would pronounce it.  Just do that with a couple of words per sentence at most.  Your readers’ imaginations will do the rest, and you don’t want to make it difficult for them to decipher your prose.

And that’s it.  In other words, fictional dialogue isn’t too different from everyday speaking, at least on the surface.  If it were significantly different, readers wouldn’t find it believable.  It’s only beneath the surface where fictional dialogue serves purposes beyond what’s going on in real conversation.   Here are three links to great articles giving helpful guidance about fictional dialogue:  here, here, and here.

“Hope you enjoyed my blog entry on how dialogue is different from plain old yakking.  Feel free to leave a comment whether you agree or disagree,” said—

                                                  Poseidon’s Scribe

 

 

October 8, 2012Permalink

What the Web Wrought on Writing

We still live near the dawn of the Internet Age, of course, so it’s perhaps a bit early to assess the web’s impact on writing.  But here goes, anyway…

First, it’s instructive to recall the past technological developments that aided fiction writers, or allowed them to better connect with paying readers.  Here’s a partial list:  libraries, bookbinding, printing presses, mass production of paper, mail delivery, bookstores, dictionaries, typewriters, computer word processors, and eBooks.  Each of these innovations aided storytellers in significant ways.

(By the way, I’m aware of the difference between the ‘Internet’ and the ‘World Wide Web.’  Even so, they’re intertwined enough that I’ll use the terms interchangeably.)

I would argue the Internet’s impact on writing is (and will be) as great as any of those previous technologies.  It’s true, those who created the Internet did not have authors specifically in mind.  But some of the Internet’s attributes have eased the processes involved in the writing business:

  • Span.  The Internet covers the world; and to a greater extent every day, it is spanning all of human history; and encompassing a larger fraction of all human knowledge.
  • Search and Retrieval.  Internet search engines provide a way to sift through the vastness and find desired, specific information, no matter how obscure.
  • Permanence.  To some extent, the Internet represents a permanent record.  I believe the way data is stored and backed up renders far less likely a tragedy such as the destruction of the ancient Alexandrian Library.
  • Speed.  Everything you can do on the Internet, you can do fast, much faster than using the mail, or hunting through a library.
  • Availability.  The Internet is within reach of nearly everyone, and at very low cost.

In short, the web eases the way people connect to information and to other people.  The sudden ease of those connections has been a boon to writers.

Here are some ways the web has improved several steps of the writing process:

  • Research.  It is far easier for writers to research specific topics using the Internet.  There are gaps in the web, of course, and problems with accuracy of information, so trips to the library remain necessary on occasion.
  • Co-authorship.  E-mail makes it easier to collaborate with another writer when both are contributing to a book.
  • Critiquing.  It’s no longer necessary to find other writers in your local area to get your manuscripts critiqued.
  • Market searches.  Websites like Duotrope, Ralan, and Doug Smith’s Foreign Market List make it much easier to compile a prioritized list of ideal markets for each of your stories.
  • Submitting.  Most markets take online submissions, either through e-mail or their own online form.  Much faster and less costly than mailing.
  • Publishing.  As with many other businesses, the Internet has allowed people to quickly form small businesses operating out of their homes.  This has resulted in a proliferation of publishers.
  • Advertising.  The advent of websites, blogging, and social networking has opened up new ways for authors to reach readers.
  • Book-shopping.  For readers, the Internet’s search features and various online booksellers have eased the process of browsing for the next book to read, no matter how obscure the reader’s interests.
  • Reviewing.  Online bookselling sites have made it easy for anyone to post a book review.  These reviews help other readers make their purchasing decisions.

The Internet has helped writers in every way except one.  It won’t write your book for you!  And maybe that’s a good thing.  Still writing my own stories, I’m—

                                                          Poseidon’s Scribe

 

September 30, 2012Permalink

Writin’ for Nuttin’

Should you always write to be paid, or should you (at least sometimes) write for free?  Here I’m talking about complete fictional stories, not blog articles or story excerpts.

The answer for you will depend on your situation.  I’ll offer some guidance, some basis on which you can make your decision.

There are those who say you should never write for free, and their reasons are compelling.

  • Writing is effort, and you deserve to get paid for it.  In one sense it does look like writers are producing something from nothing, but the product is something, after all.  Considerable effort went into the product, and work should have its compensations.  Of course, payment is more related to value as perceived by the purchaser than to the effort expended by the author.
  • You have to eat.  How much of your life’s precious time do you really have to expend on doing stuff that has no return?
  • Other authors get paid; why shouldn’t you?  Let’s face it—all else being equal, getting paid for your work beats not getting paid.  Since there are readers willing to pay for well-written stories, why shouldn’t you be one to meet that need, and reap the benefits?
  • Readers perceive free fiction must be inferior.  You get what you pay for, the old saying goes.  If you give away your stuff, they’ll think it can’t be any good.  No matter your personal reasons for writing for free, you can’t directly control this aspect, since it’s a reader perception issue.  Perhaps slowly over time you’ll build an audience as readers realize your stories are high quality despite being free, and tell their friends.

Still, there are valid reasons for giving away your stories, and some of these may apply in your case.

  • Name recognition.  Given that today’s readers rarely choose stories from authors they don’t know, you need to give an incentive for them to know you.  From there you can build an audience willing to pay for your work.
  • Writing as a hobby.  Some folks associate income with work, and work with drudgery.  They associate the word ‘hobby’ with fun, and don’t want to contaminate their fun hobby by turning it into a chore.
  • Less chance of rejection.  I think the so-called “for the love” markets are easier to break into.  However, this reason for giving away fiction is starting to become obsolete in an age when writers can skip the editor/publisher route entirely and publish eBooks directly, and charge for them.
  • Writing as a favor.  Perhaps you’ve become friends with an editor or publisher, and perhaps you owe them a favor for some kindness they’ve shown you.  Nothing wrong with sending them a story for which you ask no payment.
  • For charity.  Here the reader still pays to read your stuff but proceeds go to some deserving assistance organization rather than to you.  Nothing wrong with that.

You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons depending on your particular situation.  In my own case, I have written a couple of stories and submitted them to a “for the love” market.  I hope to include them in an anthology that I’ll charge for, so maybe I’ll make some money from them.  I wrote a story intended to go into a different anthology for which proceeds would go to charity.  That anthology fell through, though, so I will attempt to market that one and get paid for it.  Generally, now, I write for money.

Please let me know what you think about writing for free, and what your experiences have been.  Of course, you can always read—for free—the blog entries of—

                                               Poseidon’s Scribe

September 23, 2012Permalink

A Format for Every Market

You prepared your manuscript with care, followed the market’s submission guidelines, and sent your story along.  Sad to say, it got rejected, but you got over that and decided to send it to the next market on your list.  Now you’ve found the new market requires stories submitted in a different format.  In fact, it appears there are almost as many manuscript formats as there are markets!  What’s the deal?

In truth, there are some standards shared by a few markets.  These include William Shunn’s “Proper Manuscript Format,” Vonda N. McIntyre’s “Manuscript Preparation — Introduction,” and, for ebooks, Mark Coker’s Smashwords Style Guide.  But in general each market has its own quirks and differences.  Some markets (bless ‘em!) don’t really care; they just want to read your story!

In what ways are the formats different?  Some markets like a single space between sentences. Some prefer two.  Some take submissions in MicroSoft Word only, some in Rich Text Format (rtf), and there are still a few taking only mailed submissions (that’s snail-mail, with the stamps and envelopes).  Some want lines double-spaced, others single-spaced.  Then there the various ways to indicate you want a word italicized in the final text; some markets say that underlining indicates italics; some say_underlining before and after_indicates italicizing the words between, and some say italics means italics.

Why so many formats?  Because there are so many editors, each with his or her own pet peeves and preferences.  None of them want to be bothered to reformat most incoming manuscripts to suit their preferences.  Would you?  It’s easier to just mandate that writers do that before submitting.

From a writer’s standpoint, it would be desirable if all markets agreed on one standard format.  What’s keeping that from happening?  After all, we have standards for all kinds of things, from the spacing of railroad tracks to the shape of electrical outlets.  Unlike the cases of train tracks and electric sockets, there’s little incentive for standardizing on a single manuscript format.  In the first place, the only entity in the entire writer-editor-publisher-reader chain who is inconvenienced is the writer.  And writers aren’t the ones paying into the process.  Nor do they tend to complain enough about the problem to band together to take any kind of concerted action.  Moreover, that level of inconvenience to writers has (so far) not exactly resulted in a shortage of submitted manuscripts.

So the problem persists.  What is the solution?  As I see it, there will only be one standard format when the incentives in the system change someday.  A writer shortage would do it, though that seems unlikely.  More probable is the emergence of a dominant standard that gains more and more acceptance until pressure mounts on the few markets that don’t change.  If writers then shunned those non-compliant markets, those markets would have to change to survive.

In the meantime, get used to creating multiple versions of your stories as you send them to various markets.  Sorry, just the way it is.  Remember your Dad telling you life ain’t fair?  He was right.  You can leave a comment and complain about it to me if you want; I’ll sympathize.  In your experience, what’s the market with the strangest format?  Always curious about such things, I’m—

                                                       Poseidon’s Scribe

 

September 16, 2012Permalink

Gypsy Shadow Publishing – 3rd Anniversay Celebration

You should enter to win the prizes being offered by Gypsy Shadow Publishing as part of the celebration of their 3rd anniversary.  I’ve never promoted something like this on my blog, but I’m very grateful to GSP for publishing five of my stories so far, with possibly more to come.  Also, the prizes are great!  There are two gift baskets being given away.  In addition, they’re offering a whole bunch of free e-books.

Did I say free e-books?  Yes, and they include books written by yours truly.

Are you still reading this?  Stop now and go enter to win!  If you do win, there will be plenty of time later to thank–
                                                     Poseidon’s Scribe

 

September 9, 2012Permalink

How Well Do You Really Know Your Characters?

In a previous blog post, I wrote about creating characters.  One bullet point I made was that you, as author, should get to know your major characters.  Let me expand on that today.

To review, your goal is to create believable, interesting, and memorable characters.  Also, to some degree, your characters should be representative, or recognizable; readers should be able to identify with at least some aspect of the characters, having that aspect themselves or having witnessed it in other real people.

With that as your goal, you understand why you shouldn’t use stereotypes as your main characters.  You want to convey a degree of complexity or depth, mimicking the complexity of real people.  To achieve that, try to create characters that aren’t entirely consistent; they can’t be described in one word or phrase.  They may be mostly consistent, but they have a quirk or two.

So, why must you, as the author, spend time getting to know your main characters?  Think about it this way—your readers can’t know your characters before you do, or any better than you do.  Phrased positively, after you start loving your characters, and to the degree you do, your readers have a good chance of loving them too.

Every author employs a technique of choice to gain an understanding of his or her characters.  Mine is to use a character chart.  The chart takes me through the following aspects of a character:

  • Biographical.  This includes such things as name, date of birth, back-story, talents or skills, nationality, race, finances, religion, employer and occupation, marital status, etc.
  • Physical.  This category asks questions about age, weight, height, health, body type, eye color, hair color and style, disabilities, illnesses, self-image, etc.
  • Psychological.  In this section I specify the Myers-Briggs personality category, the character’s main motivation, worst fear, biggest regret, etc.

If you send me an e-mail at steven-at-stevenrsouthard-dot-com, I’ll send you the character chart I use.  However, I urge you to modify it so it suits you.

Here’s the interesting and non-intuitive part about using these character charts.  You won’t end up using all that filled-out chart information in your story.  In fact, after filling out the chart, you may never look at it again.  And that’s okay.  The point of filling out the chart wasn’t only (or even mainly) to generate a ready reference.  The point was for you to get introduced to your character, to really understand your character well.

After completing the chart, you should still think of it as dynamic and changeable.  It’s on paper or electronic form, after all, not chiseled on a stone tablet.  If you find some aspect of the character not really working in the story, feel free to change the character.  You’re aiming to have the story and characters intertwined so that only these characters could experience these events and behave in ways that advance that particular plot.

Aside from the chart method, here are two other ways to get to know your characters:

  • You could take some scene or event from your own life (not something in your story), and describe it as your character would.  That helps keep your characters from getting too autobiographical and forces you to see through their eyes.
  • You could write down (or speak aloud) an imaginary dialogue between yourself and your character.  Again, this separates the character from you, highlights how distinct and unique the character is, and helps bring the character “alive” in a way.

Did this blog entry help you, or not?  Either way, feel free to leave a comment and let me know.  Meanwhile, there are several characters waiting to become better known by—

                                                 Poseidon’s Scribe

 

September 9, 2012Permalink

Novels-in-Verse

If writing prose is getting boring,

If each new tale keeps getting worse,

To send your reader’s thoughts a’soaring,

Just try a novel writ in verse.

Verse novel it is called quite often.

Your muse’s heart you’ll have to soften,

For writing thus will take more time,

To work in meters, feet, and rhyme.

Free verse or Onegin-type stanza,

(Much like the blog you’re reading now.)

Done right, your readers will say “Wow!”

Your novel’s sales, a big bonanza.

Do other authors do it? Yes!

Like Margaret Wild and Karen Hesse.

 

When is Verse Novel form most useful?

When characters are more than few,

And besides—to be quite truthful—

When tale’s got many points of view.

When characters stir up commotion,

And in their heads is much emotion,

When using prose would seem far worst,

Each scene a momentary burst.

It’s quite in style for younger readers;

Verse Novels now are catching on;

For poetry, another dawn?

So, you might join this movement’s leaders,

Craft verse among that happy tribe!

Rhythmically Yours—

                                                 Poseidon’s Scribe

 

 

September 2, 2012Permalink

Do the Objective Correlative

No, the Objective Correlative isn’t a dance step, so far as I know.  It’s a literary term that can be hard to comprehend.  Let’s see if I can explain it in words even I can understand.

Imagine you’re an author writing a scene in which a boy encounters a rather scary bear.  You want to convey to the reader the emotion felt by the boy when he senses the bear is watching him from somewhere, but he can’t see the animal.  You could simply state the boy was scared.  That would violate the principle of show, don’t tell we’ve discussed before, and it’s rather on the amateurish side. You could instead paint a word picture of the scene, as William Faulkner did in his story, “The Bear.”

He heard no dogs at all.  He never did hear them.  He only heard the drumming of the woodpecker stop short off and knew that the bear was looking at him.  He never saw it.  He did not know whether it was in front of him or behind him.  He did not move, holding the useless gun, which he had not even had warning to cock and which even now he did not cock, tasting in his saliva that taint as of brass which he knew now because he had smelled it when he peered under the kitchen at the huddled dogs.

First we have the sudden silence of normally noisy animals–dogs and a woodpecker.  We have the sense of “blindness” in that the boy cannot see the bear.  Faulkner describes the boy’s only potential weapon in countering the situation as “useless” and not even cocked.  There’s a cold, metallic taste in his mouth.  Finally we find the dogs huddled, hiding.

In a few sentences, Faulkner shows us that terror of being watched, vulnerable, unable to even confront the danger.  Never once does he mention the boy’s emotion, and yet we feel it nonetheless because of the situation, the chain of events, the details chosen in the passage.  Moreover, a single one of the details wouldn’t have sufficed; the combination of several details completes the effect of evoking the emotion.

That is the Objective Correlative.  The artist Washington Allston coined the term around 1840 and meant it to be applied to painting.  T.S. Eliot later revived the term and applied it to literature.  I came across the concept while surfing the web one day when I came across this site.

T.S. Eliot said there are ways to fall short of having the right objective correlative.  The details in a scene might not leave readers with any particular emotion, or maybe with the wrong one.

You can use common literary symbols as part of an objective correlative.  Some of the many symbols used to represent an emotion include the color blue to mean calm, darkness to mean fear, rain to mean sadness, and a mouse to represent shyness.

Of course, readers vary by culture and background and some words do not convey the same emotions to all.  Still, the objective correlative is an effective tool for maximizing the emotional impact of your writing.  I encourage you to ‘do the objective correlative’ even if it isn’t a dance.  Did this blog entry help you understand the term?  Leave a comment and let me know.  Dancing here in this little corner of the Internet you’ll find–

                                                  Poseidon’s Scribe

 

 

August 26, 2012Permalink

Writing “Against All Gods”

In a previous blog post I’ve explored how writers take a basic idea and build it into a story.  Here I thought I’d show you that process at work in the development of one of my tales.

Recently, Gypsy Shadow Publishing launched my story “Against All Gods.”  It’s the latest tale in a series called What Man Hath Wrought.

How did I come to write that story?  I’ve long been fascinated with ships, ship design, and the beautiful vessels of the past.  Among these is the trireme of Ancient Greece and Rome.  Well suited for naval warfare in the Mediterranean, triremes sailed and fought for hundreds of years using a basic design that changed little during that time.  If Hollywood made a movie featuring the adventures of a trireme crew, I’d stand in line when it opened.  Can’t you just see the deadly ram; the painted eyes; the jutting prow; the churning rows of oars; that single rectangular sail; and the graceful, upward curve of the stern?

As an engineer, I’ve also been enthralled by the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Using only the simple materials available to them, Bronze Age people of the Mediterranean constructed architectural marvels whose memory lingers across the millennia.  Six of the seven are gone, but that only heightens their grandeur, for our imaginations build them anew to a magnificence the originals probably lacked.

How, I thought, could I write a story featuring a trireme and the Seven Wonders?  Clearly a sea voyage to each of the Wonders seemed in order.  Moreover, it must have some appeal, some relevance, to modern readers who might not share my interests.  As to that, it had not escaped my notice that my only previous romance story, “Within Victorian Mists,” had been selling rather well.

Could I manage, then, a tale involving a trireme, the Wonders, and a romance?  Time for a mind map to brainstorm various plot ideas.  First, all seven Wonders had to be in existence, and since that was only true between 280 B.C. (when the Alexandria Lighthouse was built) and 226 B.C. (when the Colossus of Rhodes collapsed), those dates roughly fixed the story’s timeframe.  Early on I abandoned the notion of bringing the woman character along on the voyage as being too far-fetched.  That meant my two lovers would be separated for most of the story.  And what should the woman do at home while the man voyages on his sea adventure—strum her lyre and pine for him?  No.  Today’s readers seek strong and independent female characters.

Think, for a moment, about the story you might have written given those constraints.  As for me, I explored a few options in my mind map, considering pros and cons of each, rejecting ideas with unsolvable flaws, weighing the remaining notions, and finally selecting the one I believed held the most promise.

As it says in the book blurb, “In ancient Athens, trireme commander Theron and the woman he loves, Galene, have each earned the wrath of jealous gods.  To marry Galene, Theron must voyage to all seven Wonders of the World.  At every stage the immortal gods test their love with all the power and magic at their command.  While Galene suffers anguishing torment in Athens, Theron faces overwhelming challenges at every Wonder from Ephesus to Rhodes to Babylon.  Theron and Galene may be devoted to each other, but how can mere mortal love survive…against all gods?”

There it is…a glimpse into the mind of a creative writer at work.  Comment if you found it helpful.  Or unhelpful.  It’s all part of the service provided by—

                                                     Poseidon’s Scribe

 

August 20, 2012Permalink

Those Maddening Editors!

Good news!  You just heard from an editor who will be happy to accept the story you sent…except for the Bad News, which is the acceptance is contingent on your agreeing to some changes in the manuscript.  The question is:  will you accept the changes or not?

The decision is personal, and different in every case.  It depends on how you weigh many factors, including the following.  These are not listed in any priority order:

  • How desperate are you to make the sale?  Early in your writing career, the degree of desperation might be greater.
  • How likely is the story to be accepted elsewhere?  You can measure this, to some extent, by the number of rejections the story has garnered so far.
  • To what degree do you find the changes acceptable?  I advise you to take a little time to determine this, since there’s an initial negative reaction to suggested alterations.  Sometimes the editor’s ideas start to sound better after a few days.
  • How extensive and explicit are the recommended revisions?  This is a measure of the amount of work you’re going to have to do before you can resubmit.  By ‘explicit’ I mean whether the changes are the change-this-word-to-that variety or the ‘make the tone lighter’ variety.
  • How much would the changes affect a significant aspect of the story?  You might have poured sweat and soul into this tale and now the editor proposes cutting a section packed with important symbolism and deep meaning.  That scene is the heart of the story!  In effect, the editor is suggesting you turn your story into something else.
  • How much is this particular market paying?  Yeah, let’s admit it–that’s a factor.  If it’s a pro market, you’re much more likely to accept any changes.

You ought to give editors some credit and at least consider the changes they propose.  They may not know your particular story as well as you do, but they read a lot and, in general, have a good sense of what works in today’s marketplace.

Often the editor’s suggested changes are negotiable.  You might accept some, but hold the line on others.  When doing this, state your case about why you think your version is better (without belittling the editor, of course!).  The editor may still disagree, and then you’ll have another decision to make.  When you get as well-known as John Champlin Gardner, then you can negotiate as he did when an editor told him his novel The Sunlight Dialogues was too long and needed to be cut by one third.  Gardner is said to have asked, “Which third?”

Let’s say you aren’t crazy about the editor’s ideas, but you are anxious to make the sale, so you decide to agree to the changes.  I recommend you keep your original version saved.  Later, when your rights to the story revert back to you, you can market that original version and perhaps get it published.  In that reprint version, you’ll need to cite the earlier publication with a statement such as, “Previously published in a different form in <market> in <year>.”

Ultimately it is your decision whether to make the suggested revisions.  After all, it is your good name that goes on the story.  If you feel very strongly, then don’t alter a line; keep on sending the manuscript to other markets.  Your story may find an editor who likes it as is.  These days, you can also publish the story without getting it accepted by an editor at all.

Leave a comment and let me know what your experience has been in this situation.  Did you make the change, negotiate, or refuse and submit elsewhere?  What were the reasons for your choice?  Did you regret it later?  Always willing to at least consider an editor’s suggestions, I’m–

                                                                               Poseidon’s Scribe

August 12, 2012Permalink