Karen Sandler

Tag: dialogue

  • Dialogue vs. Scene

    When does dialogue constitute a scene? If two or more characters are talking to one another about elements of the story they’re featured in, is that a scene? And if it is a scene, how much of it can we include on the page without interspersing it with action?

    To me, a scene is where something is happening. It’s a visual depiction of that something. It must be pertinent to the story and move it forward, but if there’s something important to your story, I fervently believe it should be shown and not talked about.

    Of course, dialogue does have its place. I recall learning (back in the Dark Ages when I first started writing) three rules about dialogue. Dialogue should do one or more of the following:

    •     Convey character
    •     Reveal information
    •     Move the story forward

    So, yes, you could have some number of characters in a room talking, characterizing themselves with their word choices or tone (e.g., using plenty of slang & f-bombs, or more erudite language), revealing information (e.g., that they saw Col. Mustard in the library with a hammer), and moving the story forward (e.g., I’m pregnant, and you’re the father). But if it’s just folks talking in a room, is that really the best way to use dialogue?

    The issue is really how much of your book is dialogue in a static place and how much is action that either leads into that dialogue, or action that follows that dialogue. If your story is fast-paced, with your characters constantly in peril, it’s great to have scenes in which they can take a breather, to sit together and just talk and regroup. James Rollins Map of Bones is a good example of that. Rollins places his characters in one dire situation after another, but there are revelations that they have to have time to chew over. So they get to safety and work out what those revelations mean, providing the reader with information, characterizing the characters, and moving the story forward.

    Here’s a dialogue example from my book, Tankborn. I’ve taken most of the action out of the exchange between Kayla and her nurture brother, Jal:

    “Tala’s out,” Jal said, “cleaning Spil and Zeva’s flat.”
    “Then we have time to change and get the river sludge out of our clothes.”
    “What about this?”
    “I’ll doctor it. If she asks, you slipped climbing down the riverbank.”
    “If she’s tired enough,” Jal pointed out, “she might not even
    notice the scratch.”
    “She’ll notice. She just might not have the energy to push it.”
    “Tala shouldn’t have to work so hard.”
    “You volunteering to stop eating? We could save plenty of dhans not paying for the kel-grain you inhale.”
    “I mean, the trueborns should give her a new baby so she won’t have to clean flats.”

    As written above, it’s not really a scene at all. It’s just two talking heads. Here’s the same excerpt with the action included:

        When Kayla slipped into the twenty-ninth warren, Jal was waiting for her by the stairs. “Tala’s out,” Jal said, “cleaning Spil and Zeva’s flat.”
    Kayla brushed past Jal and up the stairs. “Then we have time to change and get the river sludge out of our clothes.”
    “What about this?” Jal tapped the scratch on his cheek.
    “I’ll doctor it. If she asks, you slipped climbing down the riverbank.”
    “If she’s tired enough,” Jal pointed out, “she might not even notice the scratch.”
    “She’ll notice. She just might not have the energy to push it.”
    Jal crowded up past Kayla and walked backward up the stairs. “Tala shouldn’t have to work so hard.”
    Kayla slanted a look up at him. “You volunteering to stop eating? We could save plenty of dhans not paying for the kel-grain you inhale.”
    Jal gave Kayla a poke. “I mean, the trueborns should give her a new baby so she won’t have to clean flats.”

    With the interspersed action, the dialogue becomes a scene. Not so much a whizbang high-action scene, but we get a sense of place, and a sense of the relationship between Kayla and Jal, as well as revealing information about their nurture mother, Tala.

    If you’re a writer, how do you handle dialogue to avoid the dreaded Talking Heads Syndrome? If you’re a reader, what do you think of dialogue that’s independent from action? I’d love to hear others’ opinions.

     

  • 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.

  • 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 – Sayin’ It

    I had to leave early this morning, so I didn’t have a chance to check out YA Highway‘s Road Trip Wednesday until now. The prompt for this RTW is “Write a dialogue between two of your favorite YA characters.” Since it’s so late in the day, I’m going to cop-out a bit and write some dialogue between Kayla and Mishalla, characters from my own book, Tankborn. They definitely qualify as two of my favorite YA characters.

    This exchange is based on something mentioned in passing in Tankborn. It’s from Kayla’s and Mishalla’s past, when they were ten years old.

    Mishalla: Kayla! KAYLA!
    (Kayla runs along the riverbank toward Mishalla)
    Kayla: What? What’s wrong?
    Mishalla: (almost crying) I stepped on a sewer toad. It’s all squished between my toes. Don’t you dare laugh at me!
    Kayla: I wouldn’t, not ever.
    Mishalla: Is it going to poison my foot? Why’d you tell me to take off my shoes?
    Kayla: Better muddy feet than muddy shoes. Your nurture mother hasn’t the dhans to buy you a new pair.
    Mishalla: Better muddy shoes than poisoned toes. I think my foot is numb.
    Kayla: Can you walk?
    (Mishalla shakes her head. Now she’s really crying)
    Kayla: Maybe if you wash your foot off in the river?
    Mishalla: Maybe…Oh, no. The Brigade is coming. Across the river. Two of them.
    (Kayla looks)
    Kayla: We have to go. Now!
    Mishalla: I can’t. I can’t feel my foot.
    Kayla: Then I’ll carry you.
    (she starts to pick up Mishalla)
    Mishalla: Wait! Get the sewer toad.
    Kayla: What? Why?
    Mishalla: I want to hide it under my brother’s pillow.
    (Kayla grabs the dead sewer toad and Mishalla wraps it in her skirt. Kayla picks up Mishalla and runs with her back home).