Writers in the Storm

by Fae Rowen

This post isn't just for romance writers.

As a genre fiction writer you know that to be drawn into your story, your readers have to care about your characters. This is true of all genres-women's fiction, historical, mystery, thriller, science fiction and all the rest, including the new "hybrid genres." As authors, we set the stage for our readers to fall for our characters. True, they don't have to fall in love with our fictional heros and villains, but it sure helps us sell books when our public connects with our characters.

However, when the reader doesn’t believe the transformation process, your book may get set aside unfinished or, worse yet, be tossed against the wall. In this second of a three part series (you can find Part One here), I’ve got more tips for tying backstory to your plot and characters to create difficulties that can be realistically resolved for a satisfying ending.

Today we’ll deal with a character with any combination of the following traits:

• Lack of awareness of her own needs
• Experiences chronic anxiety, frustration and despair regarding his relationships
• Lives with depression
• Feels undeserving, inadequate or unlovable
• Disruption in relationships
• Futility at work
• Obsessive thoughts
• Insecure about whether her needs will be met
• Fear that having his needs met will result in abandonment
• Accepts what is given instead of asking for what she truly wants
• Anxious to please, to the detriment of herself
• May “give to get” and feel resentful that others don’t give as much

Select four (or more if you're diabolical) that fit with your story. Now imagine your primary character arriving with this baggage.

I don't want to be that person any more than you do, but the truth is, we all have some of this stuff in our suitcases and so do our readers. They'll recognize and connect because of our common human experience–and you won't have to work that hard because these traits are psychologically connected.

By Shannon Donnelly

Great dialogue can make or break a novel.

This view may stem from growing up watching a lot of 1930’s screwball comedies. Zingers fly with rapid fire and everyone talks. A lot. But the importance of dialogue really sank in when I wrote A Proper Mistress. I went for a lot of dialogue in that book and it went on to be one of my best selling romances.

We all know great dialogue when we read it—and the best dialogue seems effortless. But good dialogue takes work, sometimes needing multiple edits and thinking it over and totally revising a scene. It also takes a few key ingredients.

1) Give Your Characters Unique Voices.

Can you tell who is talking without any tags to make this obvious?

You have to get your characters talking in order to find their voices. And each character needs a distinct voice.

That means some folks use contractions, some don’t. Some have specific phrases they like, some use colorful slang, some swear. Some characters show up right away, and others are shy.

In the Regency, Proper Conduct, I didn’t get the heroine’s voice until about page one hundred! Once I had it, I had to go back and revise the first hundred pages to put her voice back in as it should be. Before that, it was just putting in any old dialogue and faking it (you can do that in early drafts).

2) Make Your Dialogue Better Than Reality.

Readers do not want chit-chat. We get plenty of that in real life. Fiction has to be better—that means bigger, too.

You need to dramatize without going over the top to melodrama, or if you go over the top, pull it back. Study movies with great dialogue.

Study the dialogue of your favorite writers. Take the dialogue apart and see what it is you love—and use that in your own writing.

3) Layer Meaning.

Subtext is where we say one thing but mean another. There’s more going than is readily apparent.

A wife may say: “Darling, do you think we should paint the kitchen?”

But she really means, “I’m tired of living in a pig stye and I’m one step away from killing you with the butcher knife.”

• Let your characters avoid answering questions
• Change topics, and let them meander.
• Above all know how each character lies to themselves and to others. And trust your reader to be smart enough to pick up on the subtext.

4) Beware Accents, Ye Olde English, and Slang.

Watch these, and make sure you opt for clarity over everything else. This is where a reader can help you find out if you have just enough, or too much and need to pull back, or not enough flavor.

One to many “mayhaps” can throw me right out of a story. Same goes for cliché Scottish accents. When in doubt, go for telling the reader, “She had a lovely Scottish burr.” And leave it at that.

Do your research for local dialect and slang. A guy from Georgia will swear differently from a Jersey girl. Nail this. There are readers who know these things.

5) Overthinking Internal Dialogue.

 Remember to give great lines to your characters to “say” (not just to think).

Internal dialogue can be a wonderful thing. Writers like Mary Balogh are masters at it. But a lot of thinking can slow your story’s pace, particularly if a character thinks and thinks and thinks about the same thing. Know the type of story you’re writing and what works best for your characters and your story.

6) Make your Tags Invisible.

 Don’t trip a reader with awkward tags that clunk. Things like “he shouted miserably” and “she wailed” need cutting. This is a sure sign you’re trying to prop up weak dialogue with tags that hit the reader over the head.

Instead make the dialogue stronger. Or give your characters stronger actions. Show your characters expressing emotion through their words and actions.

7) Give every named character a star turn.

 Too often characters are put in the story just to make the plot work. Turn this around. Think about how every character can have a wonderful moment in the story.

In A Proper Mistress the hero’s dad gets a terrific little speech to give his son after the hero has lost his girl—dad doesn’t want his son to make the same mistake he did. In Burn Baby Burn, a secondary character, Marion, gets to verbally kick the heroine’s ass to get her head straight that her working partner needs to be something more. These star turns round out the characters and make the overall story stronger.

8) Use Clean Punctuation.

Commas go inside quote marks and are used when the tag is part of the same sentence (action modifies the dialogue). He said, “I know how to use a comma.” And not: He said. “I know how to use a comma.”

Put in a period when the action is its own sentence. He gave a sigh. “I wish more folks knew how to use commas.” And not: He gave a sigh, “I wish more folks knew how to use commas.”

Cut the double punctuation!? It’s the mark of a writer who is still learning. And get a copy of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style so you know exactly how to write dialogue and internal dialogue so the reader gets into the story instead of being stopped by clumsy writing techniques.

9) Punch it!

 This is more than dramatizing—this is going for great lines. Let your characters express their emotions in words. Let them pour their frustrations out, their anger, their fears, their happiness, but do it in character.

Do not just put plot exposition into a character’s mouth. If it takes all day, come up with wonderful lines for your characters. This means you want to KNOW your characters—know the type of words they would use, and how they would use them. Think of every character as being played by a favorite actor. What great line can you give that character which would make that actor come over and kiss you?

10) Never stop developing your writer’s ear.

Pay attention to conversations around you, to how people talk, to local accents, to phrases used. Read widely and watch lots of different types of movies. Look for the words that sing in dialogue, and words that clunk. All that will help you write better dialogue.

Do you like to write dialogue? What gives you the most trouble? Is there a trick you use that isn't mention here?

About Shannon

Shannon Donnelly’s writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written."

She’s at work on her next Regency romance, a sequel to Lady Scandal, and will be bringing out the next book in the Mackenzie Solomon Demons & Warders Series, following up on Burn Baby Burn and Riding in on a Burning Tire.

photo credit: Marc Wathieu via photopin cc

By Laura Drake

I don’t know about you, but I can’t write a book without secondary characters. Yes, I’ve read books without them (or ones where they had tiny roles), but I can’t write that way.

I mean, where would The Lion King be without the hyenas? Where would Westley be without Fezzik? (or Billy Crystal as Miracle Max - Love him), or, for that matter,  Hamlet without Yorik?

You get the idea.

Yes, secondary characters can be enjoyed for their comedy, their loyalty, or their stupidity…but other than entertainment and to fill word count, why include them?

As Outlets

A secondary character can allow your protagonist to talk. You know that dialog is waaay more compelling than thoughts, right? It also allows you to slip in backstory in an interesting way, because it’s natural to talk about your history with a new friend. The reader gets filled in at the same time as the secondary character, and hopefully it deepens the relationship between your protagonist and your readers!

I’ve written forty pages of a Women’s Fiction novel, and I’m stuck. I’ve written myself into a corner. My heroine is awesome. She’s independent, loyal, stubborn and isolated; trusting no one. Seriously kick-ass.

But.

She can’t spend the rest of the book, thinking. Even doing and thinking is Boooring. It would help for her to have a friend, or a sidekick to talk to, to reveal her backstory, to show her personality. But she’s too closed off to do that!

Since I haven’t solved that puzzle, the book sits unfinished (well,  that and other book deadlines). If anyone has any insight into this dilemma, I’d love to see it in the comments!

As Mirrors

An easy way to show more about the protagonist is to have a sidekick who contrasts; someone pretty much the opposite.  In The Sweet Spot, Charla is an old-fashioned ranch wife who wins blue ribbons at the county fair for her peach pies, only wants to care for her family, and what is within the four walls of her home.

Bella, a brassy transplanted New Yorker with a chip on her shoulder and a closet full of badass black, becomes her friend.

At first, they clash (conflict is good, no?) But it turns out that, under the surface, they have a lot in common. They become friends, teaming up against the judgment of the narrow-minded women of the town.

As Depth Charges

Secondary characters add depth to the book. In Nothing Sweeter , the hero is an old fashioned rancher, set in his ways, who has a moral compass chipped out of stone. Think Marlboro Man with an attitude.

His brother, Wyatt, is gay. He left home at eighteen and never has never returned to Colorado, until his father dies at the opening of the book.

Trying to show the brothers’ intricate relationship was a real challenge. Max loves his younger brother. But his lifestyle is so foreign – so opposite his experience and values - he’s also been glad not to have to deal with Wyatt in his face all those years. That’s no longer an option, since they both inherited the land and all the bills that came with it. They have to work together.

It was an intricate dance, to show them as humans. To show Wyatt without stereotype, and Max without making him look like an ignorant hick. Only my readers can tell me if I succeeded, but you can see how a relationship like this could deepen a story.

As Reader Glue

Secondary characters are great sequel/series fodder! In my small town Widow’s Grove series, the only character to appear in all four books will be the owner of the Farmhouse Café, Jesse. She’s the town matchmaker who looks like a ditzy blonde, until you find she’s a math whiz who gave up an MIT education to marry her childhood sweetheart.

I just finished book #2, The Reasons to Stay, and a Delta Force Sniper with jail time in his backstory who befriended a ten year old gangster wannabe is going to be the hero in book # 4. Yeah, there’s an easy arc.

The point is, readers fall in love with those secondary characters, and would run out to buy a book that starred those characters.

So what do you think? Do you use secondary characters in your writing? Why? Who are your faves?

The second in Laura's Sweet on a Cowboy series is out! Here's the Publisher's Weekly review:

“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.”