Writers in the Storm

by Becca Puglisi

I’ve been thinking a lot about dialogue lately, because when it’s done poorly, it pulls me right out of the story. There are a lot of issues that contribute to weak dialogue: incorrect mechanics, stilted speech, characters calling each other repeatedly by name (Hi, Bob. Hey, Mary. Could you help me with this, Bob? Sure thing, Mary!)…The list goes on. But instead of talking today about the wrong parts of our characters’ conversations, I want to focus on an important element that’s often missing: tension.

Tension is that gut-curdling, oh-crap feeling you get when you realize trouble’s coming. It’s the rising emotion that emerges at the onset or even the barest hint of conflict. Tension is incredibly important because it stirs the reader’s emotion and builds their interest. It should exist in every scene, and an easy way to add it is through our characters’ verbal interactions.

Think about recent conversations—verbal or written—that have generated tension for you. They probably come to mind pretty quickly. This is because every person is different, and when these differences manifest in our communication, it can result in misunderstandings that lead to heightened emotion. The same should be true for our characters. So if you’re looking for ways to up the tension in a scene, plan any verbal exchanges thoughtfully by incorporating one or more of the following elements.

Personality Clashes. At her core, who is your character, and how does she communicate? Maybe she’s very efficient—a fixer who quickly and accurately analyzes and applies information. Now suppose she’s talking to someone with a disorganized mind and rambling conversational style. This can cause frustration for your character, who just wants her friend to get to the point already. She responds by cutting him off, or nods her head impatiently while he’s talking. This triggers the friend’s defenses, putting him on edge. When you build your cast with personality and the potential for conflict in mind, those tension landmines are easy to set.

Opposing Goals. Characters often have conflicting story and scene goals, but what about opposing goals in conversations? We do this all the time in real life—talking to people with a subconscious objective in mind. Your protagonist might be communicating with someone because they want to be heard and appreciated. But what if the other party just wants to prove they’re right? Each character will try and guide the conversation toward what they want, and someone—maybe both parties—will be thwarted. When even our small goals are threatened, our emotions kick in, so this can be a good way to add tension to a scene.

Emotions in Play. We’ve all experienced this situation: you start a conversation with someone who, out of nowhere, bites your head off. Upon closer examination, you realize that the person was upset about something that had nothing to do with you. This universal scenario can be used in our stories. Pile on the emotional baggage just before an interaction, then sit back and watch the sparks fly.

Bias. How often have you engaged in conversation with an expectation in mind for what the other person will say or how it’s going to go? Sometimes our biases are confirmed, but just as often, they taint our interactions, dooming them to failure before they even begin. We may have a chip on our shoulder that sets a negative tone for the entire exchange. Expecting certain things, we might read into what the other person is saying, misconstruing their true meaning or intent. When it comes to your character, ask yourself: Is there any bias he might bring into this conversation that could result in misunderstanding?

Insecurities. Our insecurities hobble us all the time. We’re sensitive to certain kinds of comments or tones and read unintended meaning into harmless banter. Think about how this might play out with your character. What are his insecurities—in general, but also regarding this particular person or situation? How might they impact him in an upcoming conversation?

Assumptions. Maybe you’ve heard the old saying about the word assume: it makes an ass out of you and me. How many arguments and mix-ups have come about because of incorrect assumptions? How can we apply this common occurrence in our stories? Think about what knowledge your protagonist may take for granted—something they think the other person knows or doesn’t know. Or maybe they believe that the person shares their opinion about a certain topic when they really think the opposite. How might assumptions like these cause a conversation to go south?

Small Annoyances. Your protagonist might begin a scene with great intentions, expecting to enjoy a happy chat with one of their favorite people. And everything is fine—until that person starts doing something that grates on your character’s nerves. Frequent interruptions, talking with their mouth full, listening while checking their email, consistently mispronouncing a certain word—it could be literally anything that drives your character bonkers. What might that thing be for your protagonist? What quirks can you give the other party to add an element of tension to the conversation?

Cultural Differences. A character’s culture is going to impact their communication style, determining what is acceptable and what isn’t, what’s respectful and what’s offensive. Gestures, eye contact, word choices, personal space—these things vary from one locale to another. Your character’s ignorance about these factors could result in all kinds of fallout, from busted business deals and problems at work to the death of a budding romance. This is definitely something to keep in mind in a multi-cultural cast.

Subtext. I’ve saved this one for last because it plays a very subtle part in most conversations, but it’s so understated, we don’t always pick up on it. Subtext is what you really mean, as opposed to what you say. It’s saying He seems nice when what you really mean is He is a tool of the highest order. We’re not always 100% honest with our words, and the same should be true of our characters. When we take the time to figure out what they really think or want to hide, we end up with interactions that are realistic and nuanced. And the potential for tension and conflict are huge.

These are just some of the elements that can contribute to misunderstandings and tension in our characters’ conversations. Regardless of which you choose to explore, there’s one thing they all have in common: unrealized expectations. The protagonist expects Character B to share her beliefs, want what she wants, have a base of knowledge on which to build, or communicate the same way. When these expectations are shattered, it sets her back on her heels and triggers frustration, embarrassment, hurt, and a range of other emotions. So figure out what your character expects out of a conversation, then block her, and tension is sure to follow.

Which of the nine suggestions have you used in your writing? Which one would you like to try?

ABOUT BECCA

Over the last few months, I've shared "Top 10" lists from several authors on the topics of writing and success. To close out the year, I chose Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine and The Martian Chronicles. He also wrote Zen and the Art of Writing where he says this in his opening:

[What] does writing teach us?

First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded to us. Life asks for awards back because it has favored us with animation.

So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

~ from Zen and the Art of Writing

Certainly, he pushed boundaries, which nearly every writer wishes to do. 
The New York Times called him "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream."

I call him "a writers' writer" and was blessed to see him in person several times. He spoke at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, year after year, in good health and poor, with a walker and in a wheelchair. In return, he asked the Times for only one thing: keep the Book Review section in their publication.

He knew that books need to be celebrated and that writers need to be encouraged to "do what they love."

In the beginning of this video, Bradbury shares who inspired him to start writing.

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Here are ten of my favorites Bradburyisms on success, in life and in art:

1. Do the work.

As with every successful writer, Bradbury knew that, at some point, you'd have to put your butt in the chair and do the work. "I have three rules to live by. One, get your work done. If that doesn't work, shut up and drink your gin. And when all else fails, run like hell!"

2. Jump off cliffs.

As with most Bradburyisms, this is a metaphor. "Jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."

He understood that often, especially in writing, the only way to learn things is to "just do it." Once you've learned those lessons, jump off new cliffs so you can learn some more.

Failure didn't bother him as much. Like Neil Gaiman, he knew good ideas would find their way to the page, and out into the world, if you simply sat down and brought them into being. "Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row."

3. Live life at the top of your voice.

"You must live life at the top of your voice. At the top of your lungs shout and listen to the echoes."

Almost every writer I know is a little bit lazy sometimes. Even when we're doing the work and getting the words on the page, the [fill in the blank] is so hard, we don't want to do that.

You know what I'm talking about. Writing is so hard some days, you just don't feel like you can stretch any further than from the chair to the keyboard. What Bradbury is saying is, stretch a bit farther than you think you can. And do it with abandon. This writing "shout" will bring you tremendous echoes.

4. Do what you love.

"Do what you love and love what you do."

The first time I went to the L.A. Times Festival of Books was also the first time I saw Ray Bradbury speak. My writing muscles still squeaked, I was so new. I didn't realize that the great writers I'd grown up with were actually willing to speak to me. I ran all the way across UCLA's campus to wait in the standby line because you had to get a ticket in advance in those days. 

I pinched myself when they let me in.

His warmth and excitement blew the entire audience away. "Do What You Love" was the title of his talk and every author there looked enraptured and a little bit drunk by the time he left the stage.

He gave us all permission to play. To be happy in our creativity. Here was a great writer telling us to find what we loved and embrace every day we were lucky enough to spend our time in that happy place. It was awesome.

The electricity might not come across here, as it was after he'd had a stroke and it was harder for him to articulate his thoughts, but below is a 30-second video of his cute self on the topic of doing what you love.

5. Be open to the universe of ideas.

"I don't need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me."

All of us are not that lucky. We never will be that lucky if we aren't open to the ideas the universe floats by us. Eavesdrop in coffee shops. Walk in nature. Volunteer. Be open to your world and the people in it.

Bradbury's philosophy is simple. "Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories."

6. Embrace your emotions.

Bradbury said, "I've often been accused of being too emotional and sentimental, but I believe in honest sentiment, and the need to purge ourselves at certain times, which is ancient. Men would live at least five or six more years and not have ulcers if they could cry better."

I think this advice rings true for men and for women. Many of us, myself included, would rather do a public speech than cry in front of others. Crying and emotions are messy and ugly and private for most.

But here's what I think he's saying: even if you won't cry in public, you should let it rip in your writing. Spill those tears, gurgle with laughter and rage at the top of your lungs on the page. You will feel loads better, and so will your characters.

7. Don't take life too seriously.

"I don't believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously."

It's really hard to improve or elaborate on that quote, so I'll just leave it alone for you to ponder.

8. Mankind must save itself.

"We must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves."

Bradbury decided to become a writer at about age 12 or 13. He later said that he made the decision in hopes of emulating his heroes, and to "live forever" through his fiction.

We are writers. It is our job to expand the world we live in, and to create new worlds when our every day world sucks. Go do that!

9. READ.

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."

Bradbury believed in reading widely, across genres and time periods, and he was a particular fan of the short stories. A regimen he recommended was writing hygiene. He recommended writing short stories first so you got the immediate reinforcement of finishing a story. He also saw noveling as something you work up to, rather than a place to start your writing career.

He also recommended a nightly reading session that included reading a short story and/or a poem before bed each night. He saw it as stuffing your brain full of great works to expand your mind for your own writing.

It's fascinating to listen to him talk about "writing hygiene" and the short story writers he loved.

10. Get out of your own way.

"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together." 

The first pages of Zen and the Art of Writing offer this:

"..Writing is survival. Any art, any good work, of course, is that. Not to write, for many of us, is to die....You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." 

This advice is especially timely in today's world.

Bradbury wrote for almost seven decades, which is an amazing amount of wisdom to accumulate and share. There are many more points that I left out, but which of the ten above is your favorite? Which one is the most challenging for you?

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About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA or here at Writers In The Storm.

by Tiffany Yates Martin

Author Liz Fenton—half of the writing team, with Lisa Steinke, behind bestselling novels like The Good Widow—recently told me about her fitness regimen at Orange Theory.

“I hate working out!” she said. She dreads it every time she goes, and doesn’t enjoy it while she’s there. “But I love the way my shoulders look, and my arms. That’s what editing is like.” 

Liz and Lisa’s latest book, Girls Night Out was released earlier this year after a more than usually grueling edit process. Despite their author’s note in the book that the revisions for this one nearly broke them, “It’s a much better book,” Liz says simply—just the way she loves her body as a result of the workouts she hates. 

Genius may not be quite "one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,” as Edison famously said—but it’s at least a solid fifty-fifty, and after the thrill of creating your manuscript (especially in the breakneck rush of NaNo), much of the “perspiration” part comes in the editing process.

Editing is where the magic of a story really comes to life—but it’s often a lot of work—and not in the immediately satisfying way of first-drafting.

I liken it to sculpting: A first draft is when the figure is roughed out, and form begins to emerge from a meaningless chunk of stone. This is the thrilling, godlike process of creation in its purest form, when the artist’s imagination literally creates something from nothing, and it can be intoxicating, seductive, even deliciously reckless as the artist follows the Muse wherever she dances.

But then the detail work begins—the amorphous shape of a face must be chiseled and polished again and again and again in ever finer adjustments to create and define precise features, details, proportions. Pull up a picture of Michelangelo’s David and imagine the dedication, work, and patience that went into creating such a detailed, luminous work of art. Roughing out the initial form is merely the first step; the real work of sculpting—or of writing—often happens in the endless, minute, painstaking fine-tuning.

That’s not the romantic vision of being a writer that may have first lit the fire in us (although that glowing illusion is probably a long way in your rearview mirror if you’ve been at this for any time at all). It’s more the quotidian reality of a master craftsman. If you want to be a concert violinist, an opera singer, a ballerina, a brilliant actor, you practice over and over and over—often on the same piece of work. You are exploring, honing, fleshing out, developing your craft along with this particular piece of art.

What separates artists from hobbyists is the willingness to do that work, to persist in a project past the immediately gratifying part of inspiration and creation. It’s easy to head to the gym right after your New Year’s resolution, or at the beginning of your weight-loss program, or starting a fitness regimen with a group of friends. But the people who grow strong and healthy and fit are those who show up—day after day, lap after lap, lift after lift, till their muscles tremble and ache. They may hate working out—but they love the effects of having worked out.

I do think there’s joy in editing—and even a great deal of that same creative fire that draws most writers into the craft in the first place. I work with a number of authors who tell me that they are “editing” or “process” writers—the first draft is almost a glorified outline for them; the revision process is where they dive deep and immerse themselves in the story, and much of the delight they take in their craft comes from that in-depth exploration and figuring out all the options, like the thrill of those locked-room games where participants have to use their imaginations, determination, and resourcefulness to find the way out. (These may be the literary equivalent of those “feel the burn,” endorphin-high crazy people who actually love working out.)

But if you’re not one of those folks—if editing (or working out…) feels like the specter of Death before you, how can you find the positives in the necessary editing and revision process?

• Try to enjoy the process: I recently started doing yoga again, and even when I am holding a pose that’s making one group of muscles scream in agony, I like the mindfulness part of practice that also lets me notice the pleasure of a gorgeous stretch across others; or enjoy the newfound ease of a posture that was impossible for me to sustain when I started; or even relish the effort I’m putting forth into holding a side plank and the way it works underemployed muscles (and the ache the next day that makes me feel like a workout badass). Even in the midst of a hard revision, there’s pleasure to be found in working parts of your craft and your mind that you may not use in first-drafting.
• Find the “workout” that works for you: A few weeks ago I accompanied my husband to his gym on a guest pass, and realized why I joined a yoga studio—I’m not comfortable in a gym atmosphere; it makes me feel inadequate, self-judgy, and overwhelmed in a way yoga never does. Gyms are not for me—but I’ve found a way to achieve my fitness goals that does work for me. There are lots of approaches to editing—find the one that resonates with you.
• Use the pain: Liz Fenton also told me that the worst of the edit process for Girls Night Out, when she lost faith in her own ability to get her story where it needed to go, wound up informing and deepening the main characters’ struggles, bringing them more fully to life in a way readers and reviewers have called out as among the most impactful and authentic parts of the book.
• Explore the unexpected: Despite the lack of coordination that’s been a hallmark of my six-foot-tall existence, it turns out I love balancing poses. I would never have thought, but I’ve found that tree pose or eagle or warrior three sharpen my focus and make me feel more centered, and lately I notice I am developing an equilibrium and grace I never thought I’d lay claim to. I’ve worked with countless authors who discover unexpected storylines, character arcs, and plot developments in editing that wind up forming the heart of their story.
• Revel in your progress: I’ve been at this yoga thing now for about six months—time enough to notice that I have much greater flexibility and strength, more energy and balance, and I love the way I look. I also know that it’s a process: I’ll continue to reap these benefits—but only if I stick with my practice. Mastering edits and revisions for one manuscript doesn’t necessarily guarantee the next ones will spring from your mind fully formed and beautifully polished. You will likely always have to plow through edits and revisions—but like working out, the more you do it the stronger you become—and the easier it gets. And just like working out, with each edit you push yourself a little further, making yourself capable of more with every subsequent story you write.

You may never be one of those authors who honestly loves editing—but you’ll appreciate the benefits when you parade your tight, lean, hot-body manuscript in front of agents, editors, and readers. 

What is your favorite part of the editing process? Your least favorite?

Tiffany Yates Martin is privileged to help authors tell their stories as effectively, compellingly, and truthfully as possible. In more than 25 years in the publishing industry she’s worked both with major publishing houses and directly with authors (through her company FoxPrint Editorial), on titles by New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. She presents editing and writing workshops for writers’ groups, organizations, and conferences and writes for numerous writers’ sites and publications.