She said what?

I've been working on improving my dialogue and came across a chapter in the book Don't Murder Your Mystery by Chris Roerden. I thought I'd share a few things I learned in the next several posts.

The first thing that struck me was the sentence "Dialogue is a form of action, a potent technique for expressing conflict." Silly me, I thought dialogue was what people said to one another. Chris went on to say, "It's the mightiest power tool on the writer's workbench for making characters come alive."

It's all about having the characters reveal themselves, their feelings, their attitudes, and their personalities through their words. But I think the key word is "conflict." Emotions and attitudes are revealed much more clearly in a heated discussion, a disagreement, even a full-blown argument than what's revealed in a dull, non-confrontational conversation.

For example, in my current work-in-progress, two friends are speaking. These ladies have been friends their entire lives, and know each others' greatest weaknesses, strength, and, of course, their secrets. In one of the first scenes in the book, the protagonist, Cassie, has had a particularly nasty nightmare that's affected her morning mood. Her friend, Talia, recognizes that something is wrong and wants to know the reason for her friend's funk. Here's how I could have written the scene (FYI, it takes place in a bakery while they're baking bread):

Tala buttoned a white smock over her clothing and grabbed a sack of flour from the pantry shelves. "Want to talk about it?"

"I had a nightmare and it really upset me," Cassie answered.

BORING! No conflict, no tension, no reason to continue reading. So I revised it to add some conflict:

Tala buttoned a white smock over her clothing and grabbed a sack of flour from the pantry shelves. "Want to talk about it?"

"No." Cassie dumped the required sugar and salt into the mixer.

"Spill it."

"I don't want to."

"You have to. We can't have secrets."

Cassie grinned. "Some secrets can be good. Like that time you ducked behind the bleachers with Chad--"

"You know about that?" Talia looked horrified. "You didn't tell anyone, did you?"

"Of course not."

Talia set her jaw. "Tell me what's wrong and forget all about Chad Barlow."

Granted, it's not an Earth-shattering argument, but it's much more interesting than the original, and it reveals something about these women and their friendship. It reveals their attitudes and personalities while they have this seemingly inconsequential argument. In just a few lines, the reader discovers that this argument is actually the key to something much bigger, but I won't spoil the surprise for you now.

So I challenge you to go through your dialogue and find the boring, non-confrontational conversations and jazz them up a bit. Add some misunderstanding, or innuendos, or misdirections. Add some anger, or disbelief, or jealousy. Pit best friends and lovers against each other, at least verbally, and see if it doesn't improve the scene.

-Sonja

Resolutions vs. Habits

It's been awhile since I've blogged, and with the new year comes the idea of the resolution. Last year, I resolved to blog more. Oops. Failure accomplished. Experience now tells me NOT to make the same mistake this year. I will not resolve to blog more.

Instead, I resolve to change my habits. If I can institute a few new habits, maybe blogging will become second nature and I'll actually do it.

Sounds easy, but I know it won't be. To work properly, I can't pick a whole bunch of stuff I'd like to work into habits. The key is to pick one, work on it, focus on it for four to six weeks. After that habit's been formed, I can work on another.

In my writing life, I've decided to work on my dialogue techniques. Hopefully, by pairing my study of dialogue with blogging, I'll accomplish my goal of making blogging a habit.

For what it's worth.

-Sonja

NaNoWriMo, oh my!

Only 2 days left until NaNoWriMo!

If you don't know what that is, I'd be happy to explain. Twelve years ago, some writers declared November National Novel Writing Month. All you have to do is write a 50,000 word work of fiction, from scratch, during the month of November. That's 30 days to bang out the first draft of a completely new, original work. Not something you've worked on in the past, but brand-spanking new.

My friends at the NOVEL Writing Site.com said this: "The idea is to conquer fear, hesitation, overthinking, writer's block, analysis paralysis, or anything else that's holding you back and JUST WRITE!" Easier said than done, but a bold and daring challenge none-the-less.

Since I just finished the first rough draft of my newest thriller, NaNo comes at a fabulous time. I'll pull out an old idea that's been stewing but hasn't gotten any screen time, and I'll see where it takes me. Then, when November is over and I've had some distance, and I can pull out the old thriller and edit.

Accept the challenge, writer friends, and participate in NaNo this year.

-Sonja

It's a Personal Record

My current Work-In-Progress is flying out of my head and onto the page at an astounding rate. I'm averaging 3,000 words every writing session.

Yesterday, I wrote 7,000 new words in a four-hour session. That has to be a new record for me! At this rate, the book will be finished by October 1, taking a mere 1.5 months to complete. Of course, that doesn't include the months of stewing in my brain before I sat down to write anything. . .

Question for you, faithful reader: what's your personal record for the most words written at one sitting?

-Sonja

Nothing Better

A new story idea came to me a while back, but I shelved it because my latest WIP needed attention. But the new idea kept simmering in the back of my mind, waiting for the right moment. Now I'm in the midst of the dreaded waiting game with the publisher--who received my latest WIP last month--and that new idea's time has come.

Last Thursday, I wrote 4,000 words. I took a few days off from writing to brainstorm a bit and create a simple outline. Yesterday I wrote 6,000 words. Today I've logged another 6,000.

I gotta say: nothing beats the frenzy of a new writing project! At this rate, I'll have this novel knocked out in record-breaking time.

Question: have you experienced this euphoric frenzy, where the words just spill out so fast your fingers can hardly keep up?

-Sonja

That's What Brandilyn Said

Back in May, I promised to pass on the wisdom I soaked up at the Christian Writers Renewal Conference. Here's the second part of Brandilyn Collins' lecture on creating dynamic suspense: CHARACTER EMOTION.

I'll start with the blurb that described the lecture: Human emotions are interconnected and multi-layered. They force action, which in turn produces more emotion. Often authors don't go far enough in creating character passions. The result is a ho-hum story. I want you to leave this hour understanding more about emotion than you ever have before.

So here's what Brandilyn said:

Passions are multi-layered. The greater the passion, the more diverse the layers that comprise it. Find those layers and portray them in the story to give the reader a stronger emotional response. Here are two ways to do that:

1) Find the passion's components. What are they? What do they look like? How do they show in char's life?

Example: Anger is a secondary emotion and arises from other emotions. What fuels it? Frustration? Jealousy? Greed? DON'T focus on the anger. Explore all the emotions that lead to that anger, then reader will understand the anger when it shows.

2) Find the passion's opposite. Contrast makes the emotion pop.

Example 1: Cross-walk attendant adores children. As she's helping a small child cross the street, a truck comes right at them; the driver isn't paying attention, doesn't see the attendant and child. Attendant is terrified, willing to sacrifice her own life to save the child. The truck stops at the last second, and her emotion turns to immense relief. Then it turns to anger and she lays into the truck's driver. After she's spent that, she turns to see if the child is okay, hugs him in relief, then yells at him that he's supposed to RUN when there's a truck coming toward him! Love is shown in through all these other emotions.

Example 2: Wife thinks husband is having an affair. She wants to win him back, so she asks him to be home by 6. He promises he'll be there. She puts on a tight red dress and high heels, fixes a fabulous meal, lights the candles, and waits. At 6:00 she's excited. At 6:05 she's disappointed. At 6:30 she's worried that he's been in an accident. She's getting cold, so she puts on a sweater. At 6:45, she's getting depressed. He's out seeing his lover. Her feet hurt so she kicks off the shoes. Dinner's ruined. At 7:00, she decides she doesn't need him after all – he's hurt her so much, so doesn't care anymore. At 7:15, she's in full-blown hatred. When he walks in the door with a dozen roses, she rips them from his hands and stomps them on the floor. The hatred at the end came about because of her love for her husband, and the reader went along for the ride so she can FEEL all that hate and love.

-Sonja

More from Brandilyn

Last month at the Christian Writers Renewal, I sat under the teaching of Brandilyn Collins. I promised some highlights from her class on Getting into Character.

The first class was Character Desire. As an author, I need to know my character's insides first. Why is he the way he is? What drives him? What's his Super Objective? What does the character WANT more than anything? This drives his thoughts and actions, especially in moments of high stress. Conflict is opposition against desire, so conflict is necessary to contrast with the character's desires.

1) The objective is an action verb. Not  "I want to be rich" but  "I want to raise to the top of the structure in my law firm."

2) The objective must be very specific. "I want to build trust in my marriage by never lying again to my husband so that..." Make sure the "so that" creates conflict. It's gotta be strong!

Answering End: What the character gets if he achieves his desire, or gets close to his desire. Sometimes it costs too much and he realizes he doesn't want it, after all. "I want to build trust in my marriage by never lying again to my husband so that he won't leave me for a younger woman and I'll be all alone."

3) The objective must be absolutely correct for the character and the story. "I wish to build trust in my marriage by never getting caught lying to my husband" says something completely different about the char than the original version. Find out characters inner values and core beliefs. Make sure they fit. Then use them to thwart the objective.

Example: Steinbeck's "The Pearl" - father finds a magnificent pearl. His objective is to sell the pearl for it's full value so that his son will have a better life and won't live in poverty. If the father didn't already live in poverty, this wouldn't fit. If the son hadn't been endangered by a scorpion in the first bit of the book, it wouldn't fit. If father was willing to sell pearl for significantly less than it's full value, then it wouldn't fit.

4) Desire arises partly from the inciting incident and partly from the character's personality. Put the character in a problem before the inciting incident happens. Then his desire conflicts with the previous problems. In The Pearl, the son is stung by a scorpion and almost dies. This builds in the father a fear for his son's life. Then when he finds the pearl, he sees a way past this fear that's built up within him.

Protagonist has conscious and unconscious desires. Throughout the story, the unconscious desires come into play and character must choose. In the moment of greatest stress, the character realizes what he REALLY wants: the unconscious desire. (Note: the conscious and unconscious desires should be diametrically opposed.) Note: Show glimpses of the unconscious desire at the beginning of the book so the reader doesn't feel cheated.

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's conscious desire is to marry Ashley. Unconsciously, she wants a manly man to tame her. That would be Rhett. When she finally gets her shot at Ashley, she realizes she doesn't want him because he's a wimp. She really wants Rhett – and it's too late.

Next time I'll highlight Brandilyn's discussion on Character Emotions.

-Sonja