Karen Sandler

Tag: karen sandler

  • 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.

     

  • RTW – Best Book Read in September

    As it’s the last Wednesday of September, YA Highway asks what’s the best book we’ve read this month. It’s a bit of a blur as to what books I read in September. I might have finished a Lois McMaster Bujold SF book early on. Part of the month I’ve been doing a beta read on an urban fantasy for another writer in exchange for her beta reading my YA paranormal. I’ve also been busy working on the synopsis for Revolution, the third book in the Tankborn trilogy. Plus I was a little under the weather so I didn’t read as much this month.

    But I did make time to read James Rollins excellent thriller/adventure novel, Map of Bones, which is part of his Sigma Force series. While I’ve read a number of other books by James, this is the first Sigma Force book I picked up, and it wasn’t the first in the series. But he doesn’t leave new readers of the series confused about who is who and what Sigma Force is. Although he jumps right into the action, he introduces the characters in a nice balanced way so that new readers can get to know them, and returning readers aren’t overwhelmed by a data dump they don’t need.

    For those who love intriguing twists and turns, who like learning about arcane bits of history (in this case, of the Vatican and the Catholic Church) made fascinating by a breakneck plot, who like cool gadgets and clever characters, you’ll love this book. His ensemble of characters get into some dire fixes, are surely doomed, can’t possibly succeed, but a new twist and their quick wits pull them out of disaster.

    If you’re squeamish about violence, fair warning–this book has its fair share. Map of Bones doesn’t contain nearly as much on-the-page gore as say, Lee Child’s books. But it opens with a pretty hard-to-take scene for a wimp like me. I kept reading and I’m glad I did. It’s a great read.

    How about you? What did you read this month?

  • RTW – Fairy Tale Remake

    This week, YA Highway‘s blog prompt is to name a fable or story we’d like to see a retelling of. We’re also encouraged to be creative and come up with our own version.

    I have always been fascinated with fairy tales and fables. I even played around with an updated retelling of Cinderella in one of my romance novels (His Make-Believe Wife, under my pen name, Kayla Russo).

    I’d actually intended to write a few more fairy tale-based romances, and had even started one based on one of my favorite fairy tales, Rumpelstiltskin. It was to take place in a modern-day wrecking yard (where old cars go to die). The woman who owned the wrecking yard would discover an odd little man wandering around the yard. I don’t remember the details, but likely it was something like the woman would have to figure out his name to find love.

    I ended up completely jettisoning that version of the idea. I did go on to write the book, which was originally published by Berkley as Unforgettable, but is now available as The In-Between (again using my pen name Kayla Russo). The little old man was replaced by teen ghosts, Laura and Johnny. Rather than figuring out their names, the heroine (and hero) have to figure out how Laura and Johnny died to free the dead lovers from their bondage on earth.

    I’ve had another idea cooking for a long while that likely will never see the light of day. In that story, a fairy godmother appears in the apartment of a hard-driven, type-A woman. But before the fairy godmother can grant any wishes, she has a heart attack and drops to the floor. Just before she dies, she transfers the mantle of fairy-godmotherness to the type A woman. Now the woman has to be fairy godmother, which of course ruins her life.

    So, what are your favorite fairy tales and fables? What would you like to see retold?

  • RTW – My Favorite Book I Had to Read for School

    Today YA Highway‘s blog prompt for Road Trip Wednesday is What’s your favorite book you had to read for a class? First of all, school of any kind was a mighty long time ago for me. We did have books back then. Yes, they were paper bound between covers, not on papyrus scrolls. But it’s a little hard for me to remember which books I read for pleasure, and which ones I might have been assigned to read.

    But I did happen to read quite a wide range of books in 10th grade. We had the best English teacher ever, Mrs. Luckensmeyer. She was definitely a factor in me becoming a writer. One of our weekly assignments was to fill two pages in our composition books (front and back of the two pages), which really inspired my creativity.

    I also loved how she had us do book reports. We were free to pick any book we liked from the school library. After reading it, we would hand it over to her in a one-on-one session. She would then flip through it and ask random questions about the book.

    Okay, this would probably be terrifying for those students who never actually read the book. You couldn’t fake one of Mrs. Luckensmeyer’s book reports, like you could if you did it in written format and referred to Cliff’s Notes. But I thought her book reports were great. (Did I mention I was kind of a teacher’s pet?)

    So I read some pretty interesting books. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, for instance. And the one that I think was my favorite of the ones I read in her class because it was just so darn weird.

    Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I remember it being a little horrifying (a guy wakes up transformed into a cockroach!), a little gross (the guy is injured and starts turning all gooey and pus-filled!), and a little (a lot) bizarre (who turns into a cockroach anyway?).

    Not the usual kind of book a 14-year-old reads. But at that point in my life, I was choosing books by their title. The title was cool, so I grabbed it off the shelf.

    I later read plenty of classics–Dracula and Frankenstein, most of Mark Twain, plenty of science fiction and fantasy. But Kafka’s Metamorphosis has stuck with me all these years. It still gives me a chill just thinking about that man-to-cockroach transformation.

    So how about you? What favorite books do you remember fromschool? Creepy, wonderful, heart-wrenching? Have you read them since, and do they hold up? Let me know in the comments.

  • RTW – Best Book in August

    Yikes! August is nearly over, so YA Highway‘s blog prompt asks, What was the best book you read in August? I say Yikes! because this being August 29th, I only have three more days until a book deadline. Remember that giant, evil Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters? Imagine him as August 31st, and you’ll get an idea of how that deadline is starting to feel to me. Minus the sticky-sweet white stuff.

    Anyway, I digress (I digress a lot in my blog, don’t I?). My favorite book in August is a bit of a challenge since it’s really more a series I’ve been reading. That is, a certain subset of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series. Back in July, my son and daughter-in-law stayed with us a week between when they moved out of their apartment and when we all went back east to help them move into their new home. Near the end of that week, my son recommended this particular set of Vokosigan books. He knows what I like in SF/fantasy (great characters), and I think Bujold is da bomb, so I started downloading the sub-series to my Kindle, starting with Memory.

    As I read Memory, I quickly figured out that I really ought to read another book, Mirror Dance, before reading Memory. So I put Memory aside, and started reading Mirror Dance. Then, partway into Mirror Dance, I realized that, strictly speaking, I should read Brothers in Arms before reading Mirror Dance. Ack! I consulted my son, who said he’d never read Brothers in Arms, but enjoyed the rest of the sub-series anyway. So I forged ahead, deciding that I’d go back at some point and pick up Brothers in Arms.

    So, in the latter half of July and all through August, I’ve read (in this order), Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr, and am just about to finish A Civil Campaign. Apparently, a novella which I’d read some time ago, “Winterfair Gifts,” follows A Civil Campaign, so I guess I was already out of order. Roberts would frown.

    So, favorite book? Although I’ve loved all of these (and am really glad my son recommended them), I’d say Komarr is my favorite. It features a very cool mystery subplot within a fantastically well-developed science fiction setting. And it sets up the final book, A Civil Campaign, splendidly.

    If you haven’t checked out Lois McMaster Bujold, I highly recommend her. She’s a master of character, complex world-building, and intricate plot. She handles science fiction and fantasy with equal skill. Her Sharing Knife and Chalion series are simply wonderful.

    Sigh. I guess I better get back to work. Stay Puft is leering at me from the corner of my office. Is that a whip in his hand?