Writers in the Storm

by Laura Drake

Okay, I admit it. I’m prejudiced against dialogue tags. Yes, I know they say, ‘He said/she said’ are invisible to the reader.

They're not to me.

Even if you don’t share my pet peeve, why settle for something so boring? You write a sparkling line of dialogue, and slap ‘he said’ on the end? Why not continue the sparkle instead?

But first, a few rules of dialog you may or may not be familiar with:

1. The ONLY time you need a tag is if the reader wouldn’t know who was speaking otherwise. I’m always surprised by how many NYT authors have tons of unnecessary tags. If there is only a man and a woman in the scene, and someone says, “Excuse me, I have to go to the ladies room.” do you really need a tag? Many times the dialogue itself cues the reader.

2. Names. I’ll bet you need them a lot less often than you think. Of course they’re essential at the beginning of the scene, because we need to know who’s in it. But unless there are more than two people, you probably never need use the names after that.

3. Tags slow the conversation. In conflict, nothing kills the tension like unneeded tags.

4. Adverbs after tags make my teeth grind. This is the worst offender, and it's seen as a newbie error. Yes, I know you could pick up a book in your library that has a line like, “How dare you?” She asked indignantly. Turn to the front of the book. I’d be willing to bet that the book was published before 1970. Nowadays, readers are much more sophisticated. Easy way to edit them out? do a ‘Find’ for ‘ly’.

Stephen King said, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Word, Steve.

You're thinking this would be a lot of work? No way!  This is where the fun is!

My favorite writing teacher, Margie Lawson, suggests using what she calls Dialogue cues. I’m not going to go into huge detail, because I want you to do your writing a favor and take her Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist, course. If you miss the class, you can always purchase the lecture packet.

You’ve heard that rich writing serves dual purposes, right? A dialogue cue does that as well. It cues the reader in as to whom is speaking, but then goes much farther, telling the reader how the line of dialogue is being said. It can add body movement - and give a glimpse into how a POV character, or better yet, a non-POV character is feeling. It adds richness.

Here are some examples of my recent release, Nothing Sweeter, before and after adding the dialogue cues. You tell me if they help:

BEFORE:  “We don’t need your boyfriend’s charity,” Max said.

AFTER: “We don’t need your boyfriend’s charity.” His voice sounded like a peach pit in a garbage disposal.

BEFORE:  “I’ve hunkered down here for years with my hard, silent Dad. I held on tight, trying to keep things from changing,” he said.

AFTER: “I’ve hunkered down here for years with my hard, silent Dad. I held on tight, trying to keep things from changing.” He looked down at his bloodless fists.

BEFORE:  “But if you don’t know all this about yourself, it doesn’t matter what I think,” He said.

AFTER:  “But if you don’t know all this about yourself, it doesn’t matter what I think.” He shut his mouth, closed his eyes, and grabbed for all the guts he had.

BEFORE:  “Oh, Bree,” Wyatt said.

AFTER:  “Oh, Bree.” His words trailed off, as if he’d run out of breath.

Do you see how the dialogue cue not only tells you whom is speaking, but shows you how they’re saying it? It’s a perfect opportunity to get the reader on a deeper level, and to write fresh at the same time.

So, what do you think? have I convinced you to weed out dialogue tags?

A WITS reader challenge:  Read over a dialogue sequence you've written. Did you find any extraneous tags? Have you thought of any way to jazz them up and write them fresh?

Share the 'before' and 'after' in the comments, so we can all learn!

Laura's debut book in her Sweet on a Cowboy series, The Sweet Spot, has just been chosen as a double RITA finalist!

Publisher's Weekly review of Nothing Sweeter:  “The second entry in Drake’s Sweet on a Cowboy series (after The Sweet Spot) is another character-driven contemporary western with more heart than heat. Rancher Max Jameson, stunned by the unexpected death of his father, is determined to keep the family spread in Steamboat Springs, Colo., despite pressure to sell to a greedy neighbor. His brother, Wyatt, tries to help out, though the sibling relationship is strained due to Max’s discomfort with the fact that Wyatt is gay.

Bree Tanner is scarred physically and mentally after being wrongfully convicted of and imprisoned for her ex-boss’s shady financial dealings; now exonerated and free, she decides to start over by helping to raise rodeo bulls on the Jameson ranch.

Max’s tough exterior masks relatable fear, his relationship with Wyatt is handled gracefully, and Bree’s genuine shame about her past makes her sympathetic. While Max and Bree’s romantic relationship is secondary to their internal and interpersonal struggles, complex characters and some fun full-riding scenes balance out the seriousness.”

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliatenney/3281242614/">juliatenney</a> via <ahref="http://photopin.com">photopin</a><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">cc</a>

Hot News Flash!  Multi multi Margie Grad, Laura Drake, has just been announced as a double RITA Finalist (for those who don't know, that's the Oscars for Romance)!  See what a little Margie can do?

 By Margie Lawson

A big THANK YOU to Laura Drake and Fae Rowen for inviting me on WITS , and hugs to Sharla for loading it on the blog.

Do you watch NCIS?

I love giving my brain a weekly dose of NCIS. Millions of others love the show too. The stories are intriguing. The characters are deep and quirky. And Jethro Gibbs, aka Mark Harmon, has rules.

Gibbs has lots of rules. Over 50 rules.

I’m spinning-off Margie-Rules from Gibbs’ rules. My next fifteen (or fifty) blogs will feature a different Margie-Rule.

I appreciate the NCIS writers for their award-winning writing, and for giving Gibbs rules.

Gibbs’ Rule # 8: Never take anything for granted.

Today’s Blog: Margie-Rule #1: Never Take Any Word for Granted.

Writers like words. Writers like how words sound, how they look, how they roll. They select words for their connotations, their subliminal messages, their power. They choose words that fit their characters like “that ain’t no matter” fits Huck Finn.

Writers also play with word-play.

Snicker, snicker. That last sentence was a SHOW and TELL sentence. I played with words in my word-play sentence.

Yep. I’m playing with you.

I just talked to you. Talking to the reader is what I call Intentional Authorial Intrusion.

I’ll share an example of Harlan Coben playing with words, and playing with the reader, in an Intentional Authorial Intrusion.

Long Lost, Harlan Coben, NYT Bestseller

From Page 1:

Terese Collins. Imagery flooded in—her Class-B-felony bikini, that private island, the sun-kissed beach, her gaze that could melt teeth, her Class-B-felony bikini.

It’s worth mentioning the bikini twice.

Hear Harlan talking to you?

Harlan Coben shared two Humor Hits too.

• Gaze that could melt teeth
• It’s worth mentioning the bikini twice.

Now that we’ve had some fun, we’ll dig deeper into never taking any word for granted and we’ll have more fun.

These authors used just the right words to make their writing strong.

Nothing Sweeter, Laura Drake, Immersion Grad

1. The shiny, pink baby-doll dress hit her upper thigh, and her clunky heels made her feet look like canapés on the ends of toothpicks—tattooed toothpicks.

Fresh writing! Humor Hit! Strong visual!

The Sweet Spot, Laura Drake, Immersion Grad

2. Disaster had hit them like a Kansas cyclone, and instead of her and Jimmy hunkering down together to weather the storm, it tore them apart. She’d poked her head in a Valium bottle, and Jimmy’d lit out for another woman’s bed. Worse yet, a girl’s bed.Frozen frame pictures of Jimmy, knocking boots with the little blonde shot through Char’s brain like machine gun fire.

Deep Editing Analysis:

Laura loaded that paragraph with psychologically powered words and phrases: disaster, cyclone, tore, apart, Valium, another woman’s bed, worse, girl’s bed, knocking boots, shot machine gun fire.

She contrasted what could have happened, hunkering down together, to what really happened, it tore them apart.

She used three rhetorical devices:

1.  Simile: like a Kansas cyclone 2.
2.  Simile: like machine gun fire
3.  Parallelism: She’d poked her head in a Valium bottle, and Jimmy’d lit out for another woman’s bed.

She used story-themed words:hunkering down, poked, lit out,knocking boots

Compelling cadence.

 Dirty Magic, Jaye Wells, 2-time Immersion Grad 

1.  The lightning-fast change in topic nearly gave me whiplash.

 Jaye could have written something predictable like:

He changed the topic too fast.

 But she gave the reader a line that carries a Humor Hit and lots of energy.

 2.  A quickening began in my middle and expanded outward, heating my limbs and hardening my resolve.

 Deep Editing Analysis:

Jaye opened that sentence with a fresh visceral response: A quickening began in my middle

 She amplified that basic visceral three times:

 1.  Made the visceral larger: expanded outward
 2.  Added another visceral response: heating my limbs
 3.  Added what I call a Power Internalization: hardening my resolve

Jaye Wells used three rhetorical devices:

Parallelism:   heating my limbs and hardening my resolve.
Alliteration: heating, hardening
Zeugma: heating my limbs and hardening my resolve

 Compelling cadence.

 Crash Into You, Katie McGarry, Multi-Margie-Grad

1.  My throat tightens and I ignore it. Nausea is not welcome in my car. Nor are shallow breaths and sweaty palms and disoriented thoughts.

 The reader knows the POV character feels like she’s going to throw up.

 Katie McGarry uses the key words, but she structures her sentences in an unexpected way. Fresh writing!

2.  Most people underestimate the bleached-blond, skinny son of a bitch, but that mistake could prove lethal for your billfold and your health.

Deep Editing Analysis:

Shares a character description in a character assassination.

I played with a play on words again. ;-)

Psychologically Powerful Words: bitch, mistake, lethal, billfold

Rhetorical Devices:

Alliteration: bleached-blond, bitch, but, billfold
Zeugma: for your billfold and your health

 Find Me, Romily Bernard, Multi-Margie-Grad

 1.  Now that Carson is gone, my skin is trying to shiver loose from my bones.

 Fresh, fresh, fresh writing.

Romily could have written lines like:

I shivered.
Goose bumps covered my arms.
I pulled my sweater around me, but I kept shivering.

We’ve all read those clichéd lines dozens of times.

Romily gave the reader a fresh line that carries interest and power and a fresh visceral response that could make them shiver.

2.  Weird how my voice sounds flat and confident while my insides are churning and liquid.

 Deep Editing Analysis:

 Romily included a visceral response: my insides are churning and liquid.

 She used Double Parallelism: the first half of sentence to the last half of sentence, and flat and confident to churning and liquid.

She also showed the incongruence in her body language (dialogue cue) to her visceral response.

Wick kept her voice strong. She was scared but she didn’t want her little sister to know.

 Enjoy the examples below from Christa Allan and Joan Swan. They don’t take any words for granted. They select words that add power.

 Test of Faith, Christa Allan, Multi-Margie-Grad

1.  One of those emotions must have busted past my logical self because, in the corner of my brain, it jumped and clapped its hands at the notion of “get together soon.”

2.  He mirrored his mother’s one-size-fits-all face, and between the two of them, I could have been on a tour through the wax museum.

 3.  My mother and her attitude arrived close to ten o’clock as expected. She must have asked Cam what to wear because she looked uncharacteristically unfrumpy.

 4.  My anxiety elevator went to the tenth floor, but left my stomach on the ground floor.

 Four paragraphs later:

My heart constricted and the elevator swooshed to the penthouse, leaving me in the basement. Her news torched the hopeful future I’d built and placed under my pillow every night. I was collateral damage, and no one was going to come to my rescue.

 Rush, Joan Swan, NYT Bestseller, 3-time Immersion Grad

1.  That damn fire had destroyed everything good in her life—stolen her husband, split her team, annihilated her sense of security and purpose.

2.  His voice curled around her, as soft and warm as the room.

3.  A hole pricked in the bubble of her serenity. Her peaceful inner world pulled away from the walls of her mind like ripping wallpaper.

4.  Whether dream, alternate universe, or reality, he wasn’t in it alone. And his gut told him he wasn’t safe. His team wasn’t safe. Jessica wasn’t safe.

5.  Q didn’t know if it was the words or the emotion behind the words, but something reached in to his gut and yanked hard. Then something else swept in. Overwhelming affection. Crushing gratitude. An awesome sense of brotherhood.

Wow. Talented writers.

 I recommend reading all those examples again, out loud. The cadence in every example is incredibly compelling.

 BLOG GUESTS: NOW IT’S YOUR TURN!

Post a comment and you could win an online course from Lawson Writer’s Academy!

Check out the courses we’re offering in April:

1. Story Structure Safari -- Instructor: Lisa Miller

2. Taming Twitter and Facebook Too! -- Instructor: Julie Rowe

3. From blah to beats: Giving Your Chapter a Pulse -- Instructor: Rhay Christou

In May, I’m teaching A Deep Editing Guide to Make Your Openings Pop.

I’ll post the name of the winner on the blog on Thursday, 8:00 PM Mountain Time.

About Margie

Margie Lawson —psychotherapist, editor, and international presenter – teaches writers how to use her psychologically-based editing systems and deep editing techniques to create page turners. Margie has presented over eighty full day master classes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Writers credit her innovative deep editing approaches with taking their writing several levels higher—to publication, awards, and bestseller lists.

To learn about Lawson Writer’s Academy, Margie’s 4-day Immersion Master Classes (in Colorado, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, San Antonio, Houston, and on Whidbey Island), her full day Master Class presentations, keynote speeches, on-line courses, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit www.MargieLawson.com.

by Kathryn Craft
Turning Whine into Gold

In response to a tweet promoting a recent Twitter submission event, I received the following response:

 “To put it delicately, f*** the agents and editors. Never pander to what they're looking for.” (Asterisks mine.)

 I would like to thank this “delicate” tweeter. His 92-character comment is so chock full of negativity and cynicism that it will easily power three blog posts here. I delight in the opportunity to turn this kind of whine into gold.

Since it is conference season, this month I’d like to address this tweeter’s obvious assumption that agents and editors are “those who are trying to keep him from publication.”

If you suspect this is true, yet are still planning to pitch to these individuals at upcoming conferences, your hidden thoughts are simply abrading twitchy nerve endings in a way that could result in hives the moment you offer your sweaty hand in greeting. It is to you I would like to address my comments.

It is my stalwart belief that before you f*** anyone, you should get to know them. (I’m old fashioned that way.) Although I haven’t f***ed a single one (sorry, that would be another column altogether), I have worked with agents and editors for more than a decade in a variety of capacities as a writing conference organizer, and since 2011 I’ve been lucky enough to develop longer working relationships with a literary agent and two book editors.

This is what I know to be true about agents and editors.

 • They are often…wait for it…friendly. They work in a people-oriented industry, they love hanging out with writers and other avid readers, and they love building interpersonal relationships within their professional networks.

 • They are often young and idealistic—but not necessarily. Some are middle-aged and idealistic, some old and idealistic. Agents come in all sort of idealistic ages. But the constant is that they are believers—and they are willing to go to the wall for what they believe in.

 • They are gamblers. They love that rush that comes with personal discovery; anteing up on a new writer or project is hope renewed. The agent gambles with her time, the editor with her house’s resources—but both are playing with a deck stacked with their industry experience and gut instincts, and are eager to see how their bet plays out.

 • They are underpaid. Think about it—they are making money off of the income of writers, who may only be next to dancers in the least amount of money paid per hour of preparation and professional effort…which means that much of what they do is done for love.

 • They are smart minds and sensitive souls, highly attuned to story and the human condition. They are avid readers who are so eager to find their next great read that they are willing to spend their nights and weekends slogging through any number of queries to find the one that touches them in some important way.

 • They are negotiators and peacemakers who are willing to take on the day-to-day business of creating a good book so that you can do what only you can do best—which is to write and promote the work you love.

• They are all of these things, yet no two are alike. They are individuals, with highly developed tastes and interests. They own the notion of subjectivity, which allows them to do business in a range of genres and to acquire like-minded clients.

• And yes, they are gatekeepers. Agents may close the gate for so many reasons, all of which should inspire gratitude in the writer: the submission isn’t aligned with their interests, they think it’s great but don’t know how to sell it, the writer isn’t ready for prime time, or they just don’t have time to take on a new client right now. But once all of those aspects align, the agent or acquiring editor is the one who can be counted on to be at that gate to open it—for you!—and see you through the maze of traditional publishing.

Because an agent or editor’s success is dependent on yours, you will find no greater advocate.

If you are pitching this conference season, or are cold-querying, imagine that the person on the other end of your pitch is eager to read, hoping to fall in love, and wanting to work with you.

It’s probably true. And how could it hurt?

About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks: The Art of Falling, which was released on January 28 and has already gone back for a second printing, and While the Leaves Stood Still (due Spring 2015). Her work as a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft, follows a nineteen-year career as a dance critic. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, she now serves on the board of the Philadelphia Writers Conference and as book club liaison for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She hosts lakeside writing retreats for women in northern New York State, leads Craftwriting workshops, and speaks often about writing. She lives with her husband in Bucks County, PA. Although a member of The Liars Club, she swears that everything in this bio is true.