Karen Sandler

Category: Strongly Held Beliefs

  • Subtext–When Your Characters Don’t Say What They Mean, or Mean What They Say

    There’s a concept I’ve mainly seen in screenwriting called “on the nose” dialogue. That’s dialogue in which there is no subtext, in which a character baldly says exactly what they’re feeling inside.

    What’s the problem with this? First, in the real world people almost never say what they’re really feeling. Emotions make us feel vulnerable. If we admit we like someone, we risk hearing back that the someone doesn’t feel the same way. If we tell a friend a secret, like how terrified we are of tiny little dogs, we risk being ridiculed.

    Second, in fiction, if the dialogue is “on the nose,” it deflates the tension between our characters and in the story.  We expect to be told all sorts of lies in the course of a story. Or maybe not so much lies, but we expect that the realization that a character has early in the book, or half-way through or three-quarters of the way through might not actually be true. People and characters don’t even tell themselves the truth most of the time.

    So, like real people, our characters should hide what they really feel. They should nibble around the edges of expressing their true emotions. Maybe they invite the special someone over for dinner, but make sure he knows he’s just one of several guests. Or he admires her new smart phone and asks all about it because he’s been thinking about buying one like it.

    Here’s a hastily written example of dialogue that is thoroughly on-the-nose. Boyfriend and Girlfriend are talking on the phone:

    Boyfriend: Okay if I bring Spot tonight?
    (Girlfriend smiles happily)
    Girlfriend: You know I love your dog.
    Boyfriend: And we’ll need to stop by Mom’s on the way to the restaurant.
    (Still smiling, Girlfriend nods)
    Girlfriend: Your mom is great. I’m always glad to see her.

    So here, “You know I love your dog” means “You know I love your dog.” And “Your mom is great” means “Your mom is great.” Girlfriend is saying exactly what she means. It’s pretty boring and doesn’t say much about the characters.

    Here’s an example where the action gives the dialogue a little bit of subtext:

    Boyfriend: Okay if I bring Spot tonight?
    (Girlfriend sticks a finger down her throat & mimes gagging)
    Girlfriend: You know I love your dog.
    Boyfriend: And we’ll need to stop by Mom’s on the way to the restaurant.
    (Girlfriend screams silently while pulling at her hair and kicking her feet)
    Girlfriend: Your mom is great. I’m always glad to see her.

    Now “You know I love your dog” means “Your dog disgusts me.” And “Your mom is great” means “I hate her, she drives me crazy.”

    So think about what you say to your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, parents, particularly if there are emotions at stake. Are you speaking on the nose, saying exactly what you feel? Or is there subtext?

    And as you write your characters, make sure there’s a message under the dialogue that doesn’t necessarily match what’s being said. That’s subtext. And subtext will amp up your writing.

  • Why Writing Multi-Culturally is So Much Fun

    Today, my guest blog post went up over at Ellen Oh’s blog, Hello Ello. She’s doing a series on What Diversity Means to Me. As I was brainstorming about what I wanted to write in answer to Ellen’s questions, I was inspired to compose a list of reasons why I enjoy writing a multi-cultural cast in my books. I had originally intended to use this list somehow in the blog post for Ellen, but instead I went another direction (as you’ll read if you pop on over there).

    But I thought it might be fun to post the list here on my own blog. Why I enjoy writing multi-culturally:

    • I get to use so many cool names for my characters
    • I get to write about so many different versions of beautiful
    • I learn some fascinating stuff about other cultures
    • I sometimes stumble across a fabulously delicious recipe to try
    • It gives me many new places to dream about traveling to
    • I get to give a wide range of kids a chance to see themselves within my book and on its cover
    • I get to learn about new languages
    • I get to meet some very awesome cultural experts

    Certainly not all-encompassing. So how about some more reasons? Let me know in the comments.

  • Old School Reading: On Paper

    As a Kindle devotee, I’ve been reading e-books nearly exclusively since December 2010 when my husband gave me one for my birthday. Even before that I was happily using the Kindle app on my little iPod because it was just so easy to zip through a book in e-format. I did discover that electronic is not so great for non-fiction–there’s no easy way to flip back and forth to and from the endnotes–but it’s a dream for fiction.

    By happenstance, I’m in the middle of reading a non-e-book, the second book in a row in paper format. In the case of the first one, I was at a fabulous indy bookstore, The Avid Reader, in Davis, California. I mentioned to the bookseller that I was a local author, and I told her about Tankborn. She promised to get at least one copy in stock. It seemed only right that I buy a book at the store, and when I spotted a trade paperback edition of Jasper Fforde’s One of Our Thursdays is Missing, I snapped it up. If you haven’t read any of Jasper Fforde’s delightful Thursday Next books, you must check them out. Start with The Eyre Affair. It’s a wacky fantasy that draws heavily on Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

    After finishing One of Our Thursdays is Missing, I moved on to a hardcover edition of Mette Ivie Harrison’s YA fantasy The Princess and the Hound. I met Mette at the Life, the Universe and Everything conference in Orem, Utah. We shared a fabulous Thai dinner one night, then she was kind enough to drive me to the airport to catch my flight home. Along the way to SLC airport, we agreed to exchange author’s copies of our books. She sent me The Princess and the Hound and I sent her a couple of my backlist romance novels. I’m loving Mette’s book with its very unique take on magic. It’s a very hard to put down story. And isn’t that a gorgeous cover?

    What I’m rediscovering about reading hardcopy is that it has some definite advantages over the electronic versions. First, it’s far easier to see where I am in the book (somehow, the percentage on the Kindle doesn’t cue me quite the same way). I think I emotionally pace myself as I read, thinking differently about the story at, say, the half-way point than I do three-quarters through. It’s easy to flip through to find how many pages to the end of the chapter so I can decide whether to keep reading or to turn out the light and go to sleep. It’s a piece of cake to turn back to some previous part of the book to recall who a character was or to refresh my memory if it’s been a day since I last read the book.

    There are downsides to paper too. A paper book is heavier than the Kindle, particularly the hardcover. I like to be able to hold a book in one hand (sometimes I’m doing something with the other, like eat lunch) and that’s easier with the Kindle. It’s easier to turn the pages on the Kindle. And if I set the Kindle down, it might timeout, but it will keep my place. A paper book will often close itself if I have to set it down quickly. If I haven’t stuffed a bookmark in there, I have to search for where I left off.

    So I suspect I’ll still be reading the bulk of my books on my Kindle. But I’ve realized I enjoy reading the occasional paper book. Particularly when it’s autographed by the author, like Mette’s, or full of clever illustrations, like Jasper Fforde’s. It’s lovely to have the option though, to go either way.

    What do you think? Die-hard reader of books on paper? Or are you loving using an e-reader? Drop me a comment and let me know.

  • Dialogue Tags–Spawn of the Devil or Useful Minion?

    On a recent #yalitchat on POV, a few of us got into a side discussion of dialogue tags. What’s a dialogue tag? The simplest is said (when using past tense) or says (in present tense). For a question, you use asked or ask. It’s used with he/she, or a character’s name, to identify the speaker. So, as an example:

    “Come with me,” he said.
    “I can’t,” she said. “They’ll punish me.”
    “I’ll protect you,” he said.
    “You can’t,” she said. “No one can.”

    Perfectly acceptable dialogue. Assuming you already know who “he” and “she” are in the scene, there’s no doubt whose dialogue is whose.

    But some people are vehemently opposed to dialogue tags. They’d much rather use action to convey who’s saying what:

    “Come with me.” He reached for her hand.
    She snatched it away from him. “I can’t. They’ll punish me.”
    He touched her cheek. “I’ll protect you.”
    She shook her head. “You can’t. No one can.”

    Each bit of character action conveys who speaks each line of dialogue. This works too. The action adds to the scene by revealing some of the inner conflict and motivation between the characters.

    So which is preferable? Dialogue tags or action? Neither. It depends on the scene. Using strictly “he said/she said” in a dialogue-heavy scene can result in “floating head syndrome” where the reader isn’t quite sure where the characters are or what they’re doing. In the above example, you only get a hint of what the relationship might be between these characters. The action example shows that intimacy more clearly.

    But over-using action to identify the speaker can bog down the dialogue. If you want a fast-paced dialogue exchange, you don’t want to insert character action every time the speaker changes. In the above example, the use of action gets a bit clunky.

    The solution is to vary your use of dialogue tags and action. You can even omit both when it’s clear from the context and dialogue who’s speaking. Here’s an example from Tankborn. To give it some context, Devak has just told Kayla that it was his brother who was supposed to take his father’s place, not him:

    “Why didn’t he?” Kayla asked.
    “He’s dead,” Devak said. “The lowborn Sheffold riots.”
    A dim fact surfaced now. “Azad Sharma.”
    Devak nodded. “My half-brother.”
    “Then you—”
    “I’m the child he gave his life to save.”
    “But they never meant to kill him.”
    His gaze narrowed on her. “Of course they did. He went in as a peacemaker. He’d befriended some of the lowborns, but they betrayed him.”
    “That’s how the trueborns tell the story,” Kayla said.

    The point is not to get caught up in using only one method of identifying the speaker in dialogue. You wouldn’t want every paragraph in your book to be the exact same length, or have the same number of words in every sentence. You wouldn’t use the same adjectives over and over. You vary your language so that the reader finds your work engaging. And in the case of dialogue tags and action, you use them to clarify the speaker, to describe action, and reveal conflict or motivation.

  • RTW – Best January Read…and a Dilemma

    I can dispense with YA Highway‘s Road Trip Wednesday prompt, What was the best book you read in January? pretty quickly: a tie between John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Neal Shusterman’s Bruiser. I read them in close succession, which is probably why I can’t seem to pick one over the other. Bruiser surprised me because I’d forgotten the book description and thought for the first quarter or so of the book that it was just a wonderful contemporary YA (then we got to the really cool stuff). My misapprehension was partly the consequence of having just read the very real-life The Fault in Our Stars and also because I’d spaced the fact that Neal Shusterman doesn’t really do non-spec-fic books (if he has, someone please point that out).

    With John Green’s incredible book, the timing of my reading it could have been better. I’d just lost my dad (on January 9th). So reading about doomed teenagers just tore the grief right out of me in a flood of copious tears. I can point up no “fault” in Fault. It was hilariously funny and heartbreaking in turns.

    On to the dilemma. Book reviews. I’m a published author, and someone who works hard getting my book, Tankborn, and my name out there. Like many of you, I’m also a member of Goodreads. When I remember, I put up the book I’m currently reading, although more often than not, I either don’t put it up until I’m partway through a new book or I never add it to my list at all.

    But when I have put a book up, then finished it, Goodreads of course wants my rating and a review. If I loved the book, no problem. I give it four or five stars, sometimes write a few lines of a review, then go on my merry way.

    But what happens if I really didn’t like a book? It could be that it was just not my cup of tea. It might have started out great for me (love those Kindle samples), but then I realized it wasn’t what I thought it would be.

    In other cases I end up reading a book that really sucks. To my author eye, it’s lacking in basic craft, the voice is blah, the plot turns are silly, the ending is kinda stupid.

    If a book just wasn’t to my taste, if it was otherwise good but went in a direction I just didn’t like, I try to be fair. I’ll rate it maybe a 3-star, then state in my review that it’s a personal thing, no real judgement of the book. But if the book is in my view really dreadful, I don’t say a thing. I don’t rate the book, I don’t review it at all. Why? Because I know as an author how awful a scathing review can be. Why should I contribute to another author’s angst? Why risk having readers come across that review and thinking, Man, this Karen Sandler is a real witch?

    So I hold my tongue. It’s not like the world is waiting with bated breath for my opinion. There are plenty more people out there willing to review the books I don’t like. Let them speak their mind.

    So, am I being prudent? Or cowardly? Should published authors review other authors’ books on sites like Goodreads?

    Or should we just keep our mouths shut?