Tag: dialogue

Punctuating Dialogue

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If there had been one grammar rule I wish I would have learned earlier on in my writing career, it would have been to learn how to punctuate dialogue. Where it’s possible to pick up many grammar rules without thinking about it, dialogue punctuation tends to be one of those unnoticed things that can then become very annoying to fix after the fact (especially if you’re a naturally dialogue-heavy writer as I’ve always been).

So, when writing dialogue, keep in mind:

1. Each speaker gets a new line.

This rule is simply to make it easier for the reader to see who is saying what. Every time you change a speaker, you will want to move to a new paragraph, e.g.

Correct:
“Hi,” Sally said.
“What’s up?” Jane asked.
Sally shrugged. “Not much.”

Incorrect
“Hi,” Sally said. “What’s up?” Jane asked. Sally shrugged. “Not much.”

Source: writersdock.com

Source: writersdock.com

2. Both tags and beats can be used to mark who is speaking, but they are punctuated differently.

Simply put, a tag is something connected to dialogue that is specifically how the line is said (e.g. said, asked, yelled, whispered…) and a beat (sometimes called an “action tag”) is an action that is taking place while/closely to when the line is spoken).

If you are using a tag, the tag will be treated as part of the same sentence as the dialogue and thus connected with a comma and followed by a lowercase letter (if the first word of the tag does not include a proper noun such as a name). e.g.:

Correct
“Hi,” she said.
“Howdy,” he shouted.

Incorrect
“Hi.” She said.
“Howdy.” He shouted.

If you are using a beat, however, the beat will be treated as a separate sentence and thus be separated from the dialogue with a period. The first word of the beat will be capitalized, no matter what word, much like any other sentence. e.g.:

Correct
“Hi.” She waved.
“Howdy.” He walked into the entryway.

Incorrect
“Hi,” she waved.
“Howdy,” he walked into the entryway.

Note 1: Special punctuation, such as a question mark or an exclamation point, follows the same general rule with tags/beats, acting like a comma with a tag or a period with a beat when it comes to capitalization. e.g.

Correct
“Who is she?” he asked. (tag)
“She who?” She looked around. (beat)

Incorrect
“Who is she?” He asked. (tag)
“She who?” she looked around. (beat)

Note 2: The first word inside quotation marks is always capitalized, whether it is preceded by a tag or a beat. See second example in point three.

3. A tag or beat can be used at any point in a line of dialogue.

It is possible to put a tag or beat ahead of dialogue, at the end, or even in the middle. e.g.

“Hi, Jane. When did you get here?” she said.
or
She said, “Hi, Jane. When did you get here?”
or
“Hi, Jane,” she said. “When did you get here?”

As long as it’s the same speaker, the dialogue remains on the same line no matter where the tag/beat falls. This, once again, comes down to readability. If dialogue begins to be separated from tags/beats, it can become confusing. For example, if you have:

“Hi, Jane,” she said.
“When did you get here?”

It will likely look like a new speaker (perhaps Jane replying) is saying “When did you get here?” rather than “she” continuing her line.

Note: If a line of dialogue goes on for several sentences, it is generally best to move a tag to either the start of the line or after the first or second sentence so the reader doesn’t have to get to the end of the line and then go back to attribute the line to the proper speaker.

4. If you only have two speakers going back and forth, you can drop some tags altogether.

Sometimes, if you only have two speakers in a scene, it is possible to have lines of dialogue with no tags or beats at all. For example:

“Hey,” Sally said.
“Hey.” Jane waved as she walked into the room.
“Are you staying for dinner?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Oh.” Sally frowned. “Let me know when you do?”

As there are only Sally and Jane in the scene, even though there is no tag/beat on lines three and four, the reader can assume that Sally asks another question and then Jane answers once again. Again, though, readability trumps all. You want to be careful that you don’t go for too long a stretch with no tags–as a reader might get lost as to who was speaking what line and have to backtrack to the beginning of the conversation to figure it out–and you likely don’t want to drop may tags if you have more than two people in a conversation–as you don’t want the reader to have to struggle to figure out if it is Sally, Jane, Tom, or Steve who answered the previous line.

When dropping tags, you also want to be careful that you don’t end up with talking heads–that is, so many lines with no tags (or only quick “said” tags) that the characters are no longer grounded to the scene. Dialogue should be able to carry a lot of emotion, but don’t forget to put in tone of voice or body language when needed–or show how a character is moving around in general–or it can quickly become like reading a script without actors to deliver the lines.

All in all, when writing dialogue, making it simple for the reader to keep track of who is saying what is the most important thing. There is nothing quite like having to jump away from a line of dialogue to find out who speaking (or having to go back to re-attribute a line to a different speaker) to take a reader out of a flow of conversation. After all, in writing prose, the author needs to provide both the lines and actors–if you prefer just dialogue, consider if your story might be better off as a play.

They’re Really More Like Guidelines

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Happy Day 1 of NaNoWriMo! October just flew by this year. Hopefully everyone had a great Halloween/NaNo’s Eve and are now furiously typing away.

For today’s blog post, there’s really just a quick reminder that seems to be far too often forgotten when people start to argue about “writing rules.” Where there is a ton of really good advice out there about how to make writing better/stronger, but it really is just that: advice.

When people begin to argue whether alternatives to “said” should be avoided or if adverbs are best to be avoided, the go to response tends to be “well, find a book with no adverbs” or similar. That is, of course, taking the arguments to an extreme. Any standard advice you might read is a general guideline that tends to make for stronger writing. It is not an absolute that “you can’t write a good book without taking this as cardinal law.” You don’t need to hold witch hunts for telling, adverbs, or anything else people will generally tell you to avoid. You can even do the exact opposite of the advice if that is what works for you. The important thing, when it comes to creative writing, is you’re allowed to be creative. If you can make something work, then it works. Certain things are just easier to make work than others.

And that is where the advice comes in. Adverbs can be great. Much of the time, they become a crutch for weaker word use. Other tags rather than “said” can work well, as well, but often times they can be distracting.

So, while you’re writing, do what’s best for your story. You are the author and need to decide if an adverb is what is needed or not. Just keep advice in the back of your mind so you don’t fall back on things that are damaging rather than helpful.

Happy NaNo and happy writing!

Guest Post – Laura E. Koons: Strengthening Your Dialogue

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Last week, I posted a blog about identifying your strengths and weaknesses as an author as a step to becoming a better writer. Since most authors tend to either start out having problems either with narrative or dialogue, I asked Laura E. Koons, author of He Said, She Said: Writing Effective Dialogue, to share a few of her tips on becoming a better dialogue writer. If you’re currently working on moving from being narrative-strong to more well rounded, here are Laura’s suggestions:

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Dialogue, like any aspect of writing, can be strengthened and improved with practice. While it may seem like some writers were gifted with “an ear for dialogue” and can effortlessly put the right words into their characters’ mouths, the art of producing good dialogue can be studied, and practice and attention can help any writer appear to have the gift of that “good ear.”

Perhaps the most useful general guiding principle to keep in mind when trying to strengthen your dialogue is the concept of fiction as a balance between the realistic and the artful. Realistic dialogue mimics the way people really talk. But while it is often a writer’s goal to make her dialogue sound “real,” dialogue which mimics precisely the way most people talk may come across as boring, clunky, or repetitious. Real people often do not speak elegantly; listen to any conversation and you are likely to hear a lot of oral crutches (um, ah, er, and so on), repeated words, pauses, and sentences that don’t come out quite right. While there may occasionally be times when a scene requires that kind of realism, most of the time you will want to make your characters speak more proficiently or more efficiently than real people usually do. This is where the balance between the realistic and the artful comes in. Use your artistic license to “clean up” dialogue of the oral crutches, repetitions, and the like that pepper most real conversations in order to present dialogue that reads like the best version of the way people really talk.

In order to strike this balance between realism and the artful in your dialogue, consider the following tips.

In order to keep your dialogue realistic:

  • DO use contractions as real people of similar backgrounds to your characters might. Dialogue without contractions will sound stilted.
  • DO use widely understood (or easily deciphered) slang and/or regionalisms appropriate to your characters. This will help them sound like real people from real places.
  • DO keep the scene going during dialogue exchanges. People don’t usually drop everything and stand still to talk to one another. They keep making dinner, or fidget, or try to fix the dishwasher to avoid the conversation, or carry on working on their report. At the very least, they gesture or make facial expressions. Having your characters do something while they have a conversation will make the conversation itself seem more realistic.
  • DO NOT overuse direct address. Most people don’t refer to one another very often by name in conversation, so having your characters do so may sound inauthentic and will become tedious.

And in order to keep your dialogue artful:

  • DO avoid distracting dialogue tags. Consider using “asked” and “said” as your default dialogue tags, as these will fade into the background and allow readers to concentrate on the dialogue itself. Reserve other tags (such as lied, interrupted, shouted, whispered) for those times when it is necessary to tell the reader how the dialogue was said.
  • DO vary character gestures and use unique rather than generic gestures whenever possible during dialogue exchanges. Real people likely do a lot of generic things like smiling, frowning, nodding, and shrugging in the course of their conversations, but in a dialogue exchange on the page, these generic gestures can become tedious and—worse—make your characters seem boring or cookie-cutter. Keep generic gestures to a minimum (they are certainly necessary sometimes) and give your characters gestures, habits, and tics that are unique to them that they can engage in during dialogue exchanges.
  • DO NOT overemphasize characters’ dialects through phonetic spellings and dropped letters. If a character’s dialect is important, suggest it through the use of slang, regionalisms, and occasional nonstandard grammar rather than trying to reproduce its exact sound through nonstandard or phonetic spellings. The resultant “apostrophe jungle” on the page can be very distracting to readers.
  • DO NOT overuse clichés in dialogue. Real people use clichés frequently, but clichés are phrases that have become commonplace and as such are usually uninteresting. Err on the side of having your characters speak with original language to keep your dialogue interesting and fresh.
  • DO summarize commonplace exchanges in dialogue. Commonplace exchanges such as the pleasantries exchanged at the beginning of a phone call (“Hello?” “Hi, Jim.” “Oh, hi, Sam.”) do not need to appear in full in dialogue if nothing but that commonplace exchange occurs. This kind of over-representation of characters’ exact words can be dull. Summarize instead: Jim answered the phone. It was Sam.
  • DO NOT overuse oral crutches in dialogue. Use oral crutches only when absolutely necessary to show that a character is at a loss for words or is otherwise stumbling over his speech. Real people use oral crutches to let their brains catch-up with their mouths—generally the reader doesn’t need to see that process for fictional characters.

In order to fine tune your ear for realistic dialogue, listen carefully to conversations going on around you. Make note of interesting turns of phrase, regionalisms, and the cadences of real speech. You might even record (with permission) some real conversations so you can study at your leisure the way real people’s speech sounds.

To ensure that your dialogue comes off as artful as well, make it a habit to read your dialogue out loud to yourself. Note any places where you trip over the words, where you hear repetitions, or where the exchange becomes dull. Ask yourself what you might remove or change (even if you think doing so will tip your dialogue away from strict realism) to make it read more smoothly.

Following these tips should help you develop your own “ear for dialogue.”

Happy writing!

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Find more dialogue writing tips and full exercises in Laura’s book, He Said, She Said: Writing Effective Dialogue, available exclusively on Amazon.

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Dialogue-Strong vs. Narrative-Strong

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As far as art forms go, creative writing is a bit of an interesting one. Just like painting or sculpting it can take a while to become skilled at it, but not everyone seems to expect that. I can’t say I have looked into any psychological studies about it, but what I am always reminded of is one school trip I made to a arts/theater festival in high school. While at dinner that night, I was complaining to a friend that I didn’t seem to be as good at acting as some of the other classmates we had come with, and at 15, I had determined that obviously I wasn’t “naturally” as talented as they were. A teacher nearby asked how long I had been practicing–not just my scene, but acting in general stating, “You wouldn’t expect to pick up a brush for the first time and be a brilliant painter, would you? Why would you expect to be a brilliant actor?”

It didn’t fully make sense to me at the time (what was acting, really? Standing in front of people and talking! I talked in front of people all the time!) but it always stuck with me. And it’s true. Art forms, even ones that seem easy in their simplest form (talking to people, writing words down) still require a certain skill set to progress from novice to professional.

As I hinted to above, writing is very similar. With most people learning to write in some way or another by first grade, putting words on paper isn’t difficult. We are taught how to form letters, go through spelling tests, and are forced to write hundreds of school papers by the time we graduate high school or college. Therefore, many people think of writing creatively as just another part of that progression. They could write good papers in high school so this is just doing that but while also telling an awesome story. At its heart, the skills that seem necessary to write a novel don’t seem very hard at all.

Of course, if writing (or writing well) were as simple as that, I wouldn’t have this blog. There really wouldn’t be much to discuss. You’d think of a story idea, write it down in your native language, and move on with your life. After over a decade of writing, and editing, and learning it as a craft, however, I’ve realized it isn’t quite that simple. Different people have different levels of natural talent when it comes to any art form. There might be someone who has never held a pen before who can draw or write at professional levels straight off the bat. There are Mozarts of every generation. If that doesn’t happen to be you, however, that doesn’t mean that you will never write or draw (or act) at the same level as them. It just means that you need to practice. Because for all the ways you could learn to go from being an okay writer to a great writer, the best is to read and write as much as possible.

The other part to going from okay to great is to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are as a writer.

If you don’t happen to be a literary Mozart who comes to the table with all your writing skills sharply developed (I know I wasn’t) I find that writers tend to start out as either dialogue-strong or narrative-strong. It’s generally pretty simple to pick this out looking over your writing based on what you end up writing the most of in your first novel, but as a general outline:

Dialogue-Strong Authors tend to:

  • Prefer “discussion” scenes to “movement/action” scenes
  • Have long stretches of conversation, often either without tags or with very short tags (he said, he nodded, he asked, etc.)
  • Introduce characters with very little or no description but have well-developed “voices”
  • “get into a flow” when writing dialogue/not have to think too much as to how characters would naturally respond to each other

Narrative-Strong Authors tend to:

  • Prefer “movement/action” scenes to “discussion” scenes
  • May have long stretches of description without any dialogue or summaries of dialogue rather than actual discussion.
  • Provide great descriptions of characters but not feel comfortable with unique “voices”
  • “get into a flow” when writing narrative/develop brilliant action, but struggle to make conversations sound “natural”

These lists aren’t exact or all inclusive, of course, but they at least give a quick snapshot if you aren’t sure what your strength might be. If you still aren’t sure, look over whatever you’re writing and see if you are defaulting to one or the other.

I, personally, have always been a dialogue-strong writer. My struggle, therefore, has been figuring out how to insert narrative in a way that doesn’t feel clunky in the middle of dialogue. I know several authors who started out narrative-strong and have had to figure out how to make their dialogue sound natural. It doesn’t matter which your strength is, part of going from “okay” to “great” is learning how to do your weakness just as well as your strength. And that means practicing even if those parts seem awful and strained compared to what you’re naturally good at. Furthermore, when reading, pay careful attention to dialogue/narrative that you find well written and critically try to determine what about it works and what doesn’t. By identifying your weaknesses, you can become better as a writer overall, rather than just making what you’re already good at better.

Beat Changes

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Those who knew me back in high school or college know that, while I did do creative writing groups back then, I was really more of a drama kid. Fall semester always meant the school play, and Spring the musical. While acting and writing are certainly different art forms, I do thank that experience for helping with one very important part of creative writing: Dialogue. You might be speaking someone else’s words when reciting a script, but you certainly develop an ear for how conversations flow.

The other very important lesson I picked up was beat changes.

You see, unlike a novel or short story, plays tend to give very little direction. You might see something like:

John: (sarcastic) No. Really?

Which would tell the actor how the line is meant to be read, but, for the most part, the script allows the actors to make roles their own without any sort of narration that says how each line is meant to be delivered.

Because of this lack of direction, it also is up to the actor to figure out where there are natural pauses, emotional changes, or just separate thoughts all crammed into one line. These breaks are–as my college drama professor was always prone to yelling at us–beat changes. And they are very important to acting. By picking out where there are natural shifts, it is possible to add complexity to a scene rather than just speaking the words.

In writing fiction, there is something similar. While our characters might not be picking out all of the emotional shifts in a scene, breaking up the beat changes for the reader will make for more powerful scenes.

So, how do you do that? The easiest way is to give the readers a natural pause. This gives the same effect as an actor physically giving the audience a beat change. Pauses can be done a number of ways, but the simplest to use dialogue tags/narration properly.

For example, say your character has a beat change between two sentences in dialogue. Just the line might be something like:

“I just don’t know what to do anymore. Are you listening to me?”

There is naturally a beat change between those two sentences. Without any sort of break between the sentences, however, they end up mushing into each other. There is no “beat” for the reader to switch tones in their head. The emotion you have for “I just don’t know what to do anymore” carries straight over to “Are you listening to me?” By instead writing:

“I just don’t know what to do anymore,” she said. “Are you listening to me?”

You have a natural break between the lines. It can be stretched out a little longer using “She paused” depending on what suits your scene.

These beat changes can become even more powerful by using the tag to “show” the emotions/stretch out the beat (rather than just using the word “paused”). For example:

“I just don’t know what to do anymore.” She sighed, looked up again. “Are you listening to me?”

Now there’s action “on stage” that is showing the switch in thoughts, along with a sizable break between the two sentences that gives the illusion of the character pausing–all using body language, like an actor would.

To really stretch out a beat change, you can even separate the dialogue all together. For example:

“I just don’t know what to do anymore.” She sighed.

John stared at his hands.

Jane frowned. “Are you listening to me?”

Even though John doesn’t say anything in the scene, throwing him in there with his own action stretches the silence in the reader’s head, leaving no mistake that these are two separate thoughts.

While what is said is always important to a story, it is also sometimes important to remember the silences for a more natural feel–and emotional effect–to scenes. You want your characters to “act” in your readers’ heads. Not just give them the lines and leave them to figure out the emotion.

There are no actual actors to bring stories to life in prose like you have in plays.

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 Live in the DC area and want to see some great emerging playwrights? The DC Fringe Festival runs through July 27th with wonderful plays (like TAME by Jonelle Walker). Check it out.

Who are you, again?

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To many writers, myself included, names are partially what make a character. I’ve touched on how a new name can completely change a character, but even after an author has found the perfect name for a character, there comes another problem: introducing the character to the reader.

Recently in the NaNoWriMo Forums, a writer asked for advice on, “how to appropriately introduce new characters and offer their names.” The poster acknowledged that there seem to be two ways to introduce names to the reader. 1) Using the character’s name whether or not it has been used before or 2) wait until the names come up in dialogue.

So which should be used? Honestly, a little of both.

Introducing characters is one of those moments when you really have to nail down who your POV character is. With first person and third person limited being the most popular POVs by far these days, writers will most likely be writing with one character relating the story/a scene (either as “I” or “s/he”) It is possible to change POVs between scenes, especially in third person, but each scene should follow one character (otherwise it becomes head jumping). Once you know who the POV character in a scene, it becomes simpler to know when to share names.

1) If the POV character knows another character’s name, use it. Since you are in the POV character’s head, there is no reason to wait for someone to say another character’s name if the POV character knows it. Would you really call your friend “the tall man” or “the blond man” when you know his name is “Tim”? It is forcing in awkwardness where it needn’t be. (Note: The same goes for using nicknames. If POV character calls someone “Tim” in their head, there’s no reason to use “Timothy” in the narrative. Just be consistent [you shouldn’t flip between Tim and Timothy in narrative if you start with one]).

2) If the POV character doesn’t know another character’s name, wait for it to come up. Hopefully, this won’t be a long wait, but it would be a POV slip to say a name when your character would have no way of knowing it. Luckily, people tend to introduce themselves pretty early on when they aren’t known to someone. Stalling some with “the blonde girl”, “the young girl” or “the happy girl” shouldn’t be a problem. As soon as the character is introduced or the POV character gets a name, you can switch to using the new character’s name (e.g. another character in the scene calls “the blonde girl” Sally. It is fine to use Sally from that moment on because the POV character now has a name).

The biggest thing is you simply don’t want to confuse your readers. The sooner you can introduce a name and use it consistently the better.

Finally, if you are using omniscient POV, you should use the names for your characters as soon as they are introduced, unless there is a specific reason not to. As your narrator is omniscient they know all of the character names to begin with. By withholding a name, you are saying there is something important about it. Suddenly using it without any sort of reveal comes off as odd/anticlimactic.

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He said, said he.

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As we turn into the third week on NaNoWriMo an interesting question has popped up in one of the forums about dialogue tags. Now, I have previously touched on the subject of why it is not a problem to use “he said” and “she said” rather than trying to find random replacement words. This question, however, asked:

I’m wondering if there is any difference between using ‘she said’ and ‘said she’. I feel like I tend to use ‘she said’, but both sound grammatically correct to me…

First things first, grammatically, yes,both are correct. The reason this forum poster might find they are using “she said” more than “said she”, however, is that “said she” has slowly fallen out of favor in the past 150 years or so:

He said, said he

Going above and beyond for this OP, WriMo doublej compiled this handy graph of the use of he said and said he over the past two centuries. As can be easily seen, “said he” was the more popular form of dialogue tag in the beginning of the 19th century before it started to lose quite handedly to “he said” sometime around the American Civil War. And so, while it is not grammatically incorrect to use “said he” in your writing, it does give a distinctly “old” feel to the prose.

If this is a conscious decision in your writing, go for it. Otherwise, it might be wiser to just stick to the more popular “he said”–especially if that is your first instinct. It doesn’t feel as old, and certain publishers will be less likely to find your writing “antiquated” (seriously, I’ve done editing work for a publisher who’s house guide included replacing any “said he”s with “he said”s in editing to keep the books from sounding, in the words of the editor-in-chief, antiquated).

And so, with that taken care of, get back to writing. November’s not over yet!

Floating Dialogue

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In a previous blog post, I discussed why writers shouldn’t be afraid of using the word “said” too much when writing dialogue. While I did talk about being able to tag dialogue with actions rather than “said” and its replacements (whispered/exclaimed/etc.) I didn’t mention another possible route that will also save dialogue from repetitive tags. Not using a tag at all.

Now, it’s absolutely fine–if not sometimes preferable–to not have tags after dialogue,  especially in a quick exchange. The more words there are to read, the slower action will seem to be passing. So, if Bill and Sam are having an argument, it might be preferable to have an exchange along the lines of:

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bill said.
“You’re an idiot.” Sam crossed his arms.
“Who’s the one who tried sailing a bottle to China?”
“I was five, let it go.”

And so on and so forth. Without the tags, more focus is placed on the dialogue, and it, as a whole, reads more quickly. So, all in all, a good thing.

Why I don’t suggest not using tags as a suggestion in my previous “said” article, however, is it’s very, very easy to abuse it. While it’s fine to have some untagged dialogue, what you definitely want to avoid is floating dialogue. That is, untagged dialogue that leaves the reader wondering who the heck is talking.

As I have said before, writers tend to have a bias when it comes to dialogue vs. narrative. Some find dialogue difficult to write, some hate narrative, it really just comes down to what each writer’s strengths are. For those who tend towards dialogue, floating dialogue is a common problem I see with new writers.

Now, I can only speak from personal experience, but the reason I tend to write so much dialogue is that, where narrative can seem wordy and forced, the call and response nature of dialogue keeps it coming so quickly that sometimes I have troubles keeping up with where I want the conversation to go. Since I hear the characters talking in my head, it’s easy enough to just write what they’re saying and forget about writing what they’re doing in my head. It’s their words that are important after all, right?

Well, sort of. While, in those situations, you are probably doing the bulk of your story telling in the dialogue, the readers sadly isn’t seeing what you’re seeing your characters doing while reading. And so, while you are writing a powerful, emotional scene between your main characters, filled with brilliant, brilliant dialogue, your reader is being left with something akin to the written version of hearing a movie in the next room without being able to see who’s talking or what they’re doing.

While it’s a fine balance–you never want to talk down to your readers/hit them over the head with something they probably already understand–you don’t want to make it too difficult for them understand what’s happening. If you’re spending every other page flipping around trying to understand who’s talking, you’re more than likely not going to get invested in the story. When you aren’t invested in the story and it’s taking a lot of effort just to understand the basics, it’s pretty likely you aren’t going to enjoy the book/will be putting it down not too far in.

And so, if you are planning on using untagged dialogue, watch out for floating dialogue by:

1. Only use untagged dialogue when there are two people in the conversation. When it comes to floating dialogue, this is probably the biggest problem I’ve found in my editing work. While it’s fine to switch off between two people in an argument without tags, you can’t do that where there are multiple people sitting around. For example:

“Hi,” Sam said.
“Hey,” Bill said.
“How are you?” Karen asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Awesome. Do you want to go to the park?”
“I don’t know, it looks like rain.”
“No, I saw the weather report. Just cloudy.”

Ok, hands up. Who can tell who’s saying what at the end of the conversation? Since Karen asks Sam a question (How are you?) the “I’m fine” is probably Sam again, but then, is it Karen saying “Awesome”? Or is it Bill? And who says it looks like rain? Bill? Sam? Karen? Depending on who said “Awesome” it could be any of them.

In contrast with just two people:

“Hi,” Sam said.
“Hey,” Bill said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Awesome. Do you want to go to the park?”
“I don’t know, it looks like rain.”
“No, I saw the weather report. Just cloudy.”

Perhaps still a little float-y, but at least you can more than likely tell it’s Sam-Bill-Sam-Bill-Sam-Bill.

2. Don’t use untagged dialogue when the characters are doing something. As stated in my “don’t be afraid of ‘said'” article, you can get around using ‘said’ over and over again by making the tags action. For example:

“How are you?” Bill shuffled his papers away.
Sam took a seat across the desk from him. “I’m fine.”

In this case, the dialogue tags are not only telling the reader who’s speaking, but acting as stage directions in a way. Going back to the movie example, with no tags and multiple people, you’re in the other room listening to a bunch of talk from who knows how many people. With no tags and two people, you at least can tell who’s speaking, but that’s all you have, a bunch of lines with no action. If all your characters are doing is standing around having a conversation, you don’t need any tags. If they’re moving around, though, you need to show it–and while it’s happening. Putting on an action tag not only shows the reader what’s happening (what the “actor” is doing on-screen) but it also keep the reader up to date. One thing I perhaps find the most annoying of all floating dialogue problems is something along these lines:

“How are you?” Bill asked.
“Fine,” Sam said.
“That’s cool, have you seen my new pet?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, here it is!”
While they had been talking, Bill had walked around the corner and pulled out a giant dog that then attacked Sam.

a) Action slows down when the actual exciting part is buried under a mountain of “this is what you missed”

b) For the past five lines I’ve been picturing Bill and Sam standing there talking, now I have to reattach it to the incorrect visual I have in my head, which means I have to backtrack in my mind slightly rather than staying with the action.

Both of these problems can be solved by simply tagging the lines with action:

“How are you?” Bill asked.
“Fine,” Sam said.
“That’s cool.” Bill slowly moved towards one corner of the room. “Have you seen my new pet?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, here it is!”
Bill pulled out…

3. Don’t put tags in after a new person has already entered the conversation. In the same vein of not making the reader play catch up to the action, if a third person enters into a two person untagged conversation, make sure the reader knows it immediately.

“Hey,” Bill said.
“Hey, how are you?” Sam asked.
“Not bad.”
“Awesome, do you want to go to the park?”
“I don’t know. It looks like rain.”
“Oh, hey Karen, how are you?”

Wait, what? When did Karen get there? Was she actually speaking when I thought it was Bill? When possible–if you don’t have a legitimate reason for keeping the reader off balance–try not to make the reader confused enough to stop and reread previous lines.

4. Even in a two person conversation, don’t only use tags at the very beginning of the conversation. Ok, so there are two people standing there talking to each other. Nothing else it happening, it’s just going to be a quick back and forth. Sounds like the perfect place not to use tags. You mark the first speaker as Bill, the second as Sam, and then go at it. If it’s a very short conversation, that’s absolutely fine. If it’s going to go for pages back and forth, still make sure you throw some more tags in their down the line, even if it’s just to make sure someone doesn’t miss a line somewhere and get really confused when it seems like Sam’s saying what Bill would. A good rule of thumb is to have names attached to dialogue atleast three times a page, just to make it clear which speaker is which. Of course, that’s just a vague outline. If it seems likely the reader is still going to get confused even with three tags, make sure you put more in. If you think it’s crystal clear, you might be able to go for longer between tags (though checking in with a beta reader/editor who can tell you if they’re lost will help you know whether or not it really is that apparent later on).

5. Remember the reader isn’t inside your head. And, as always, this is the big one. While it might be obvious in your head that Bill is saying something and then Sam is, you just can’t expect the reader to know that. While it’s so obvious to you that Bill’s moving across the room while speaking, until you’ve written it down, the reader just can’t know that. Don’t over explain things (if it isn’t important that the main character just got their hair done and put on some new sneakers they bought last week, you don’t need to say it. If you already said they don’t like peas, you don’t have to repeat it) but make sure you have all of the necessary information to keep them from being confused a couple of paragraphs down. Are multiple people speaking without any way for someone outside of your head to know who you mean says what? Then use tags. Is the character moving around while talking? Then use action tags. Are there just two people standing there having an important conversation? Then you’re probably ok if you don’t want to use tags for a little while.

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Googled Questions

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One of the things I have to say I love about WordPress (the host for this blog, if you missed that in the URL) is that they give you a stats page about your blog. It might be a little more addicting than it should be (I really want someone from Russia to read this blog one of these days to get that country filled in on the “where your readers are” map) but it’s very handy when it comes to seeing how you’re reaching your readers, and what posts are the most popular.

What can be interesting about the stat page, though, is that it will sometimes show you search terms that brought people to your page. For example, if someone searched “Jessica Dall” and then clicked over here from Bing or Google or another search engine, it might show “Jessica Dall” as a search term on my stats page. Of course the page isn’t going to let me know who’s doing the searching (or even what country they’re in) since I’m sure that’s some sort of privacy violation, but it is interesting to see what people are trying to find out when they make it to this blog.

So, for anyone who’s Googled something and haven’t found the answer they wanted here, I’ll do my best at answering some of those questions. (Questions edited for spelling mistakes/coherency)

Q. Is 300,000 words a long book?
A. Yes, it is, but hardly the longest out there.
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: Why it’s harder to get longer books published , or tips on cutting down word count.

Q. When writing in third person, can you say what several characters are feeling?
A. It depends. There are two different ways of writing third person: Third Person Limited and Third Person Omniscient. In the first (currently more popular) narrative, you are telling a story through the point of view (POV) of a character, just describing them as he/she/it rather than I. In third Person Limited you should stay in the head of your POV character (thus you can only say what they feel/what they observe. If they don’t know Character B is upset because she had a little sister POV Character’s age, the narrative can’t explain that while still in POV Character’s head). In Third Person Omniscient, the story is being told by an all-knowing narrator. It is generally uncommon to find true Third Person Omniscient stories at the moment (the style seems to have been most popular in the 19th century) but if the story is being told by a narrator who knows everything it is possible for that narrator to say how all the characters a feeling (just make sure you aren’t writing in Third Person Limited and then decided you’re going to call it Third Person Omniscient randomly just so you can jump back and forth with how characters are feeling).
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: Head Jumping

Q. Should you use contractions in query letter?
A. Sure. I’m not sure there is a set protocol for it (I never knew one when I worked in submissions) but I don’t believe there’s any reason to sound overly formal in a query letter and (at least to me) you sound more natural as a writer if you use contractions, which is a good thing in my humble opinion.
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: I don’t think there’s one directly related, but I do touch on why you should use contractions in creative writing here.

Q. How much narration do I need in a novel?
A. Depends on your novel. There are reasons to use narration some places and dialogue others. It’s about weighing the pros and cons to each. The big thing is not to worry too much about having a perfect ratio of narration to dialogue in your novel, it’s to make sure you’re telling the story the best way it can be told.
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: Pros and Cons to dialogue and narrative in Too Much Dialogue

Q. What’s the poison thing vampires have?
A. I don’t know, Googler, I don’t know… Apparently rather than turning someone into a vampire by feeding them your vampire blood (a la Anne Rice) in some books it’s “vampire poison” ( though I suppose it would be “vampire venom” if you’re going to be technical on the poison vs. venom thing) that turns a human into a vampire (the bite infects them or what not and if they don’t die the poison/venom changes them into vampires). Of course, it’s fantasy, so your guess is as good as mine.
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: One of the many where I talk about writing problems where Twilight just happens to pop up…

Q. Is it ok to use song lyrics for writing prompts?
A. Absolutely. I’ve used a couple of different songs as the original inspiration for characters, plots, or even entire stories that have now been published. What you don’t want to do, however, is quote the song lyrics in your story (you can get into a whole host of problems with copyright infringement then).
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: Writing Prompts

Q. What’s the shortest word count a publisher will accept?
A. It depends on the publisher (look at their submission guidelines as to what they accept before sending a query). It also will depend on if the publisher only publishes novels (generally considered to be over 50,000 words, but many publishers put novels in the 70,000+ words range) or if they also publish novellas and short stories. Of course, word counts are generally guidelines. One novel I have coming out this summer is around 51,000 words and the publisher generally doesn’t publish things that short, they just liked mine and made an exception. If nothing else, and you have an awkward word count, try searching for a publisher on a site like Duotrope which will let you search based one word counts accepted rather than just “novel/novella/short story”
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: Word Limits

Q. Why do people say “dahlin'”?
A. Regional accents (in this case Southern US more than likely). If I remember my history of language class, that exact morphing of “darling” come from the fact that a US “Southern” accent is actually closer to an old English accent than many other US accents (supposedly Shakespeare would have sounded sort of Southern to us?) and thus it shares the same ‘h’ sounding ‘r’ as a British accent today (“dahling”). As to spelling it like that in a novel, “dahlin'” might be one you can get away with for phonetic spelling of accents (people generally will know what the word is without struggling) but as always, I’d be wary of trying to go overboard with “fonetik” spellings.
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: Wy I Hayt Fonetik Axsents

Q. When are info dumps necessary?
A. Never. Ok, ok, probably not never, there’s always an exception to all writing advice and times you can do things that aren’t suggested amazingly, but as a general rule? Stay away from info dumps unless you’re parodying a Bond villain. There are almost always better ways to get information into a story than info dumping.
– Likely articles(s) they were interested in: Tips on how to get information in without info dumps in Info Dumps

Q. Is J. K. Rowling a bad writer/J. K. Rowling bad writing examples/examples of awful writing in Harry Potter/[and the list goes on]?
A. It’s interesting to see just how many different people are looking for examples of what makes J. K. Rowling a bad writer. Honestly, I enjoyed the Harry Potter series as some light reading as a teen, but no writer is faultless, so for those looking for some of J.K.’s weaknesses:
– Over uses adverbs
– Clichéd plots/characters/etc
– Flat Prose
– Contrived Plot Points
And I’m sure there are more that people will point out (believe me, if you were a best seller, people would be picking apart every little problem you have in your novel too) but those are some major ones. Just remember, no author is infallible.
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: But They Did It… about why best sellers aren’t always the best role models.

Q. Some real stories on why you shouldn’t use i cant believe it’s not butter?
A. All right, not really a question, and I don’t have an answer for it, but some how it linked someone to my blog. I really have no clue how. Still amuses me enough I felt the need to end with it. If someone has some sites with stories on why you shouldn’t use “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” (other than that meaningless “margarine’s a molecule away from being plastic” myth) please let me know, since obviously a search engine thinks I can help people with that.
– Likely article(s) they were interested in: …um…I really have no clue…

You Don’t Say…

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Now, anyone who’s ever read my work knows I’m big fan of dialogue. As I’ve pointed out before, I’ve even gotten letters from my editors claiming some of my short stories to be 95% dialogue. While I’m not sure that’s completely fair, I am completely willing to admit you can often find my short stories in an anthology by flipping through it until you find one that has a huge chunk of dialogue in the middle of a page.

Now, is that a good thing? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I seem to have made it work for me. And I’d think it’s a good things too since dialogue is what I find easiest to write. My narrative may have been less than stellar with my first couple of novels (Mary Sues, wordiness, and info dumps abound, I promise) but going back now the dialogue’s actually not that bad.

For some people, though, I know dialogue is the hardest part. On the NaNoWriMo Forums we find:

“I always have a hard time writting dialogue so If someone could help me It would be appreciated.”

“I think good dialogue is very hard to write. So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it will require extra effort when it’s time to rewrite and revise… ”

“I’m about 1,000 words into my NaNo and for some reason I”m stuck on dialogue.  When I wrote out the beginning of this conversation it sounded fine in my head, however, on paper/screen, it looks horrendous.”

Struggling with narrative and struggling with dialogue are both bad things (they make for stilted/unnatural reading) but for right now I will focus on some tips for writing better dialogue.

1. Listen. Just like people develop an ear for notes when they’re musicians (my French Horn-playing brother can pick out a flat note from a mile away) writers tend to develop an ear for language. Some people are better at it naturally than others, but if someone writes well, somehow or another they’ve figured out what sounds right.  Developing that ear is part of what makes writing get better over time (practice makes perfect after all) and while reading good writing can definitely help with that, when working on writing better dialogue, simply sitting down and listening can be one of your greatest tools.

In acquisitions, you see people put down all sorts of credits on their query letters (past publications, degrees, having worked as a journalist/technical writer, etc.) and you learn very quickly which credits mean something. The reason spending 20 years as a technical writer for a company doesn’t mean much on a query letter is that creative writing is very different from formal writing. Being a technical writer means that (hopefully) you have good spelling and grammar, but it doesn’t say you can write a good novel. People talk in fragments, they use poor grammar, they use slang. Where you’d never (again hopefully) find a piece of business writing that says, “Me and my guys…” You may very well find a character in a novel saying it, and making it work.

The more you listen to those speaking around you, the more you will be able to write dialogue naturally.

2. Don’t be too formal. As I said up above, people don’t talk in completely proper English (some seem to barely speak it at all). One of the most common problems I see in novels I’m editing with stilted dialogue is that, for some reason, the author has gotten rid of most of their contractions. Perhaps it comes from years of teachers trying to get us not to use contractions in formal essays (I know my teachers did) but creative writing is a completely different animal from formal/technical writing (it’s why writing “This is my first novel, but I’ve been a technical writer for X years” isn’t so helpful on your query letters, FYI). Taking contractions out of your dialogue makes your character sound awkward. It’s actually, I’ve found, one of the best ways to make your character sound like a non-native speaker. People use slang, people use improper grammar, people slur words. Don’t over do it, but embrace it for more natural dialogue.

2b. Don’t use stereotypes/slang you don’t know. Side note to the last two sentences of number 2, people use slang/improper grammar, but they aren’t stereotypes. Don’t try to force in slang you aren’t familiar with to try to make a [enter ethnicity/nationality/age here] character sound “natural” A little might be ok, but making a character say “wicked” or “dawg” every other sentence will sound just as unnatural as overly proper dialogue (and has the added bonus of often coming off rather insulting).

3. Don’t be long-winded. Unless your character is supposed to be a blowhard (or a Bond villain) keep dialogue short and to the point. Contractions, nicknames, abbreviations, people tend take just about any short cut they can use to cut down on the length of what they’re saying. Long monologues with a lot of unnecessary words comes off as unnatural.

4. Use punctuation properly. One of the biggest problems with written dialogue is that you just have the words, not the intonation/cadence you have in actual speech. “Why did you do that” can be said a million different ways, but how it’s read is dependent on your reader. Use commas properly to show small pauses, Periods to show full stops, and if you need to use italics (sparingly) to show emphasis (“Why did you do that?”) Don’t worry if using a period every once in a while ends up with a sentence fragment (re: people don’t speak in proper English). If something is an afterthought, a period might best suit the sentence. For example:

“I really want a dog or a cat.”

reads differently than:

“I really want a dog, or a cat.”

reads differently than:

“I really want a dog. Or a cat.”

4b. Don’t overuse punctuation. My old editor used to joke that every book she edited was only allowed five exclamation marks (well half-joked). Overusing punctuation can be just as bad as under-using it.

“I don’t know!” Works, the person is upset.

“I don’t know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Makes it look like either the character is crazy or (at least to me) like it should be on a preteen’s MySpace page (do people still use MySpace?)

Punctuation is a fine balance, don’t be afraid to use it, but don’t go crazy with it (and please, please, please, DoN’t WrItE LiKe ThIs to show someone is drunk. Yes, I have seen that in a manuscript before. It was quickly edited out for “he slurred” and actions which showed he was drunk).

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