Writers in the Storm

by Amy Sue Nathan

Writing dialogue gets a character out of my head (and his or hers) and alive on the page in a conversation with other characters, and ostensibly, with the reader. It’s one of my favorite parts of novel writing.

To make sure I keep my dialogue realistic, serving my story and my reader (and not my ego), I keep a Post-It on my laptop monitor that says:

Let the dialogue do the work.

My little yellow note reminds of four things to do while I’m writing and editing dialogue. And while there’s creative license with everything we write in our stories and our books, these guidelines help me with the pace and the content of my dialogue.

Dump flowery dialogue tags

Our readers can hear and see the dialogue if it’s well-written. He or she can infer tone because the character is already real and engaging (it’s why I don’t start books with dialogue, because the reader doesn’t know who’s talking, or care, although it works for many, it’s just not for me).

So, no fancy dialogue tags needed. I subscribe to the tenet that all we need is said, asked, and the occasional whispered. No need for “he implored” when the words used show that your character is imploring.  No need for “she cried” if the words used show that your character cried out.

Try it. If you don’t think it works, rework your dialogue until it does. You know, let the dialogue do the work.

The absence of flowery dialogue tags allows the reader to listen to the conversation without distraction. It allows the readers eyes to even skip over (gasp!) the he saids and she saids.

Which means, of course, we don’t need all of those either.

Think of basic dialogue tags as mile markers. Once we’ve set up who’s talking to whom, the occasional reminder to keep the reader on track is all that’s necessary. If it’s a short dialogue run, you may not need tags at all. Adding someone new to the banter? Add dialogue tags to make the journey clear. Your characters’ voices and positions in the story should also aid in identifying who’s talking so that constant tagging (the dialogue kind, not the internet kind) won’t be necessary.

The conversation will flow and the pages will turn.

Limit stage direction

I see in my head what I then write on the page, meaning, if my characters are having a conversation I see them sitting/standing/walking/running/biking. I see them eating/drinking/flailing/eye-rolling. It plays out in front of me on the small screen of my brain.

Does that mean that everything I see should be transcribed using the coveted show don’t tell? Doesn’t that mean the reader needs to know everything so he or she can picture exactly what’s going on? No.

Just as flowery dialogue tags do, stage direction slows the pace of the dialogue. It also makes it less like, well, dialogue, by inserting bumps in the road that break up the conversation. The flow is gone.

Sure, sometimes we need to share our characters’ actions. So make it mean something. Doesn’t someone say “talk to me” but cross her arms and lean back? Does someone selfish lean in? Your characters’ actions must add to the story, contradiction something, add something, share something new, just like the word he or she speaks.

Flailing arms need not apply.

Eliminate chit chat

Face it. Sometimes our characters like to hear themselves talk. Therefore, I ask myself these questions when I am revising dialogue. What does the reader need to know? What do I want to hear the characters say? And, are these things the same?

They might not be, so be honest with yourself. You don’t want characters talking just so they, and you, can hear their voices.

Everything your characters say must be important to the story you’re telling right now. The dialogue must move the story forward, reveal something new, or a revelation about something the reader already knows. Going in for a little backstory? A chat that includes remember when? It should have a tie to the present storyline, or reveal something about the characters the reader doesn’t already know and helps her understand what’s happening right now.

Reduce repetitiveness

But, helping the reader understand what’s happening doesn’t mean beating her over the head. When writing dialogue, don’t repeat yourself. I mean it. Don’t repeat yourself. Really, don’t do it.

See? You don’t like it when a point is pushed at you when you got it the first time, do you? The same is true for your reader. You know that scene where your main character meets her sister for coffee and tells her what happened last night even though the reader was there when the protagonist danced on the table? We do that because we want the sister to know. The sister needs to know. But, no one likes hearing the same story twice. If we’re corned by Uncle Joe at a family dinner, we can’t always duck away. A reader can skim a book. Or close it.

Give your reader credit to know that your characters have had some conversations without them.

To insure that the dialogue I’m writing only has what the reader needs to know, I sometimes pretend I’m eavesdropping, but only have twenty seconds to spare. Maybe less. I hear only what I must in order to continue my day, to learn something new, to pique my curiosity, or in order to make a change in plans. I don’t have time to simply hear something that’s nice to know if it doesn’t do something for me, if it doesn’t serve any purpose. I just don’t have the time.

Neither does your reader.

Refining dialogue can be tricky, even counterintuitive at times, but it’s worth the time and effort. The payoff is engaging and meaningful conversations between your characters for the benefit of your story, and readers---who I bet will say thank you.

Do you like writing dialogue? What do you find most helpful or challenging? What is your biggest dialogue pet peeve?

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About Amy

Amy Sue Nathan is a novelist, freelance editor, and blogger, but not always in that order. She is the author of The Good Neighbor and The Glass Wives, both published by St. Martin’s Griffin. She founded the Women’s Fiction Writers blog in 2011, and has been a freelance fiction editor and writer published in more than two dozen publications, including Writer’s Digest, the Chicago Tribune, and the Huffington Post. Amy teaches writing workshops online and in the real world, although the Internet is pretty real to her. You can find Amy online, often when she shouldn’t be, @AmySueNathan.

Blog: www.womensfictionwriters.com
Twitter @AmySueNathan
Instagram @AmySueNathan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmySueNathan/
Website: www.amysuenathan.com

The good news is I survived eight days of hiking in Yosemite.
The better news is I got great pictures of a setting for some important scenes in my WIP.
The best news is that I had a wide range of deeply emotional experiences that will help me write with a deeper understanding of what my characters feel.

Could I, with critiques and revisions, eventually "get there"? Sure. But by paying attention and allowing myself to fully explore my emotions on my vacation, I am better prepared to show the similar feelings of my characters.

First, I drove many hours to get to Yosemite Valley. Getting out of the car, my body probably looked like a cowboy who'd been on the trail for days. The next day, with no intention of hiking (read: no boots, no poles), I ended up hiking Vernal Falls. Four miles in, then four miles out.

I'd hiked this trail with my dad and older sister when I was six. Wow, have times changed. If I thought it took forever to get to the bridge to see the falls then, (I don't remember it like that) it was an eternity last week. And all the way I was going up, I knew I'd have to come down. My terror rose. Wet. Slippery. Steep. My dad wasn't there to catch me if I fell.

My WIP character is a young woman who leaves her planet for an education. She knows it will take three weeks, in a battleship, to arrive at the university. I had her engaged in various shipboard activities. What I didn't know (before my experiences) was how long it seems to her. She is not prepared for shipboard routine and everything-the food, the abbreviated language, the speed, and the gruffness of the ship personnel-is different from her home planet.

You know how everyone says, "Write what you know"? Well, I don't know about life onboard a galactic battlecruiser, but I do know about sliding between rock walls with other (speedier) people trying to go around me. Frustration with my fear and inability to move like the more seasoned hikers is something I can write about. In my character's POV.

Before the trip: Alarm bells ringing and lights flashing, Talia moved to the side of the crowded corridor. Uniformed bodies passed her inconvenient mass with little loss of speed, rushing to battle stations. She had no battle station, no training, no skill. Heck, she didn't know if this was a drill or if hugging the cold metal wall would be the last act  of her short life.

After the trip: Talia's ears registered the initial warning. A thready siren spiraled its wail over her head, followed by pounding of what sounded like thousands of military boots. Her back met the cold metal of the bulkhead. Uniformed bodies sprinted past her to battle stations. She spread her arms and flattened her palms against the plazsteel in an effort to give ship personnel more room.

Someone tramped on her foot then cursed. Heck with renegade missiles, she might die right here from the stampede of rushing bodies. Air gushed into lungs that had locked up tight. She wanted to drop to her knees and pray this was merely a drill. Instead, she hugged the corridor wall, inching her way to the safety of her rack. She may have no battle station and no skill, but she was not going to die in a narrow corridor surrounded by cold metal walls.

Exchange those steel bulkheads for sheer granite, the siren for thousands of gallons of water pounding over a cliff, add slippery footing from the mist off the falls and, yes, someone stepped on my foot and cussed me out! I am Talia. frozen in fear, afraid to move for what seemed like long, dragged-out hours. Crowded, narrow trail. Yep, I just wanted to be back in my bed.

Give your writing juice. If we pay attention to our feelings, the whole range of our feelings, we are better prepared to show our characters' emotions, not just tell our readers what we want them to feel. Which doesn't work, anyway.

So pay attention to your thoughts and feelings this summer. They are your own private gold mine for your characters. When those scared spitless moments you lived through make it into your WIP this summer, it will be just between us. Our secret. No one else needs to know why your characters leap off the page with emotion. Your emotion.

No matter your genre, humans are human, and we feel--sometimes very deeply. Show those emotions and your readers will thank you. And come back for more.

If you want a challenge, here's one: Take a paragraph from something you wrote last week. Add an emotion that you felt this week, showing how that emotion affected you, via what is happening to your character.

Have you ever used your characters to work through a situation that was unresolved in your life? Were you able to show the range of your emotions, or did you get "stuck"? (It's okay for your characters to get stuck!)

About Fae:

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak. Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes  that she can live anywhere but the present.  As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than the horrors of calculus lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight, and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now shares her brain with characters who demand their stories be told.  Amazing, gifted critique partners keep her on the straight and narrow. Feedback from readers keeps her fingers on the keyboard.

When she’s not hanging out at Writers in the Storm, you can visit Fae at http://faerowen.com  or www.facebook.com/fae.rowen.

Weina Dai Randel

When I was pitching my novel to agents, I didn't think of what would happen after you signed a contract with a publisher. To me, the process after the contract was like a grand party locked behind a door – I didn't have an invitation, so I would not get to see what the fun of the party was. But after ten years of writing and eighty two rejection letters, to my uttermost joy, I received the invitation – I signed the contract with Sourcebooks, and my two novels about Empress Wu, The Moon in the Palace and The Empress of Bright Moon, were finally published in March and April this year. I would love to share my experience of the process with you.

After the signing, I received a heart-warming welcome letter from my editor, with whom I would work for the next two years. The letter was thrilling to read, and it contained all the important dates: such as the due date for the developmental edits, the due date for the copyedits, the date when it was likely I would receive the book cover design, the date when I would receive the back cover copy, and finally the date when I absolutely couldn't make any changes to the manuscript, when it was closed for ARC.

I read the letter at least five times to get familiarized with the terms such as ARC, advance reader copy, and the back cover copy, the paragraphs printed at the back of a book – I didn't know my editor would write that, not me. The letter, I believe, was very important for a new writer to understand the steps of the process.

The real work began when I received the edits, which contained a list of bigger-picture problems – the opening chapters of the book, for example. Yes, the most important chapters I spent years writing. My editor thought they were too long and asked to get into the main character's journey faster. I considered the comments, clarified some questions, and dove into revision. I cut some scenes, adding more clues and descriptions to a few important characters, and revised them on Track Changes, as my editor had requested. Then I submitted the revision before the deadline. And I thought, now what?

More revisions. The editor was pleased and sent me another list with more edits. There were about ten questions again, more detailed, such as concerns to a specific scene. For example, in the chaos scene where the horse bolted into a hall, did the lady committed suicide or was it only an accident? These edits were easier to fix as I only needed to work on the descriptive language. I was sure after two rounds of editing and many hours of perusing and corrections, the manuscript was ready.

I was proven wrong again, of course, when I received the copyedits.

If you think the developmental edits question your storytelling skill, then copyedits take out the thrill and challenge your writing mechanism. All of a sudden, I found myself staring at sentences replete with errors typed by my own fingers. There were some blatantly wrong usages of words, awkward sentences the editor caught, and many “nows”, “thens”, and “ands.” By the time I finished going over the manuscript, I was so embarrassed I felt like covering my head with a trash bag.

But the beautiful part of the copyedits was to see the manuscript set in the book format. I got a peek of important book data that appeared in the front of a book, and soon enough, I received the design from the format setter. There were discussions as to what font to use, where to place the time maker, etc., all very exciting topics. Around this time, I also received the book cover design, which made everything real.

Holding the ARC of The Moon In The Palace was most thrilling, but to my horror, I found more typos the copyeditors overlooked. My editor calmed me down, saying a proofreader will review the ARC before it goes to printer.

So followed the 2^nd edits – another game of catch and correct, just before the book went to printing! Next came another deadline, another review, until my edits were accepted.

Were there 3^rd edits or 4^th edits? Yes. Indeed there was. I didn't need to do that for The Moon in the Palace, but I went into the 3^rd edits with The Empress of Bright Moon.

So I suppose the process, in a way, is truly like a party – it's exciting, exhausting, but once you went, you'll want to go there again.

So what do you think? If you've reached this point in your career, are these the steps you took?

If not, do any of these surprise you?

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Weina Dai Randel was born and raised in China. She came to the U.S. when she was 24, and English is her second language. She has worked as a journalist, a magazine editor, and an adjunct professor. She received an M.A. in English from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. THE MOON IN THE PALACE is her debut novel. Interviews of Weina have appeared on The Wall Street Journal China Real Time, Library Journal, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, New Books Network, and Tall Poppies.org.