He Uttered! He exclaimed!

“You almost always know when you’re reading a novice writer,” she uttered, “Because the dialogue goes something like this:

“I hope this works,” Sheila whispered.

“Of course it will!” Norm shouted.

“Well, no need to get shirty,” she uttered.

“Then stop second-guessing me,” he barked.

“I am not!” she exclaimed.

“You are always interfering!” he roared.

“I am not.” she protested.

What is wrong with this? Well, in the sins of the world, it’s not really high up, but consider this revision.

“I hope this works,” Sheila whispered.

“Of course it will!” Norm shouted.

“Well, no need to get shirty.”

“Then stop second-guessing me!”

“I am not!”

“You are always interfering!”

“I am not.”

Reads better, don’t you think? Even though all I did was remove most of the speaker attributions. Why is it more effective? Let’s talk.

Uttered, etc. is preening

A while back, in a post called Creating the Continuous Dream, I discussed how writers must create a world into which the reader can be totally immersed. And how even small things can kick the reader out of the dream and thus out of your story.

The use of fancy-dancy dialogue tags is an example of breaking the dream for the reader. You want her to be engrossed in your story and not pulled up short (i.e. ejected from the dream) to pay attention to the variety of your speech attributions.

But isn’t variety good?

Normally, yes. With most of your writing, you want to vary your terms. Look at this example: It’s important to understand the importance of not being a name dropper of important people. Clunky. It’s more readable to say, it’s important not to name-drop. So typically, you want to avoid repetition.

The one exception is speech attribution where using ‘said’ frequently or exclusively is the way to go. When characters are talking, you want to highlight the fascinating and insightful conversation without at the same time, implicitly communicating Look at me! Look at how erudite I am!

The emotion or manner of speaking needs to come from what the characters say, not how the writer tells the reader they are saying it. Look at the revised dialogue above. The feeling comes from the characters’ interaction; the reader doesn’t need the writer to tell her that.

Can I never use other tags?

Well, as in all writing, things are rarely cast in concrete.

For example, it’s okay to vary the tags if the reader needs additional information. In the above example, the reader probably should realize that Norm responded to Sheila’s whisper with shouting. You will undoubtedly explain why as the story progresses.

But often with a two-person dialogue, you don’t need tags at all once you’ve established who is speaking (as in the example above).

If you want to communicate how a character is speaking, substitute an action for an appellation. Let’s do the example once again.

“I hope this works,” Sheila whispered.

“Of course it will!” Norm shouted.

“Well, no need to get shirty.”

“Then stop second-guessing me!”

“I am not!” Sheila poked him in the side.

“You are always interfering!” He brushed her hand aside.

“I am not.”

Actually, I don’t love this iteration. I prefer to let the characters’ personalities speak for themselves but if you need to convey a reaction, use their actions to do so.

(Yes, I know I used ‘dialogue’ a lot in this piece—I think I can add another exception—technical terms).

February 28, 2020February 7, 2020

How to Show Emotion

Showing emotion is often one of the toughest things to do—in the sense of having the reader feel and identify with the feelings of the character.

You can do it by “He was sad,” but that’s not showing the emotion—that’s just telling the reader your take on the character’s mental condition. Look at the image above. If you describe what the person in the middle picture is doing rather than labeling it, you might come up with, “He dabbed a handkerchief to one eye.”

While that description doesn’t necessarily tug at the heart strings, it could be the beginning of a more effective scene.

“I can’t believe she’d do that.” He was sad.

Versus

“I can’t believe she’d do that.” He dabbed a handkerchief to one eye.

See, there is a subtle difference. It is easier for the reader to connect with the character’s action than with the writer’s description of it.

Emotion is tough

Here are some thoughts about how to get better at emotion in your characters.

Be specific. As in the example above, describe the action rather than your interpretation of it. Not He was pissed but His lips straightened into a thin line.

Don’t name the emotion. In one of those perverse things that is just life, the most effective way to show emotion is never to use the name of the feeling you are going for. That is, you don’t say he’s bewildered, you show how a person would act in that state. It’s not always easy to do but if you can’t picture it enough to describe it, how can you expect the reader to get it?

Differentiate between you and the character. In order to have fully realized characters, you need to depict how the character feels in the situation not how you would feel. Your villain might chortle with glee when the heroine falls off the cliff; you might gasp. You want to avoid having your characters acting/feeling as you might—it makes for a homogeneous emotional landscape and is therefore boring.

Be in touch with your own emotions. This one follows on from the previous point. If you don’t have a visceral connection to your feelings, its lack will show up on the page in a mysterious way. If you are hiding you from yourself, it’s harder to create characters that have access to the full range of emotions. I know this is a big thing to lay down and then walk away from, but how you get truly in touch with your feelings is outside the scope of this blog. But is nonetheless very worthwhile pursuing, quite aside from the benefits to your writing. See, I told you this is hard.

You don’t need to do it all the time

When the characters’ emotional state is an important part of the story, then you’d probably be better off showing than telling. But when it is not, and this is likely to be the majority of the characters the majority of the time, you don’t need to. And in fact, an exhaustive description of how everyone is feeling will likely slow down the action and bore your readers.

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020

Creating a Page-turner when the Ending is Known

The stage musical, Come from Away shares a phenomenon with movies like Titanic, Apollo 11, and Argos. That is, from the start, you know how the story is going to turn out. The ship will sink, the astronauts will land safely, and the American diplomats will be rescued from the 1979-1981 Iranian revolution. In Come From Away, the airline passengers get safely home.

The problem is that a story often gets a lot of its uumph from the reader wanting to know how things turn out. Will the villain get her comeuppance? Will the lovers get together? Will Mary find her lamb? Who killed Cock Robin? (Sorry, got carried away a bit).

It’s tricky to write a plot with a known ending because you lack the element of surprise/satisfaction/ etc. at the climax. Readers can get impatient because they think they know where things are going.

This happened to me with Titanic. By the mid-movie, I was thinking, “Yeah, yeah. Sad story. Boo-hoo. When is the sucker gonna sink?” Also cut down on my empathy for Leonardo DiCaprio’s watery fate, as you can imagine.

So, it can be a difficult task to keep reader interest with one hand effectively tied behind your back.

Writing a page-turner with one hand tied behind your back

First off, you need all the regular story-telling skills I’ve been talking about in this blog. But now, you need to put in special effort to keep the reader entertained until she gets to the ending. Here are some ways to do it.

Tension in every scene.

You can focus on how difficult it was to achieve the end goal and/or how easily things could have gone off track. You can ratchet up the tension and rivet the reader by detailing these trials.

Fate of (fictional) main character unknown.

Often, even in a true story, the main character (let’s call him Tom) is fictional—inserted in the story as an anchor for the reader to identify with. This allows you to play with that Tom’s fate. He can be instrumental in achieving the end (rescue, safe landing, etc.) and still himself come to a sticky end. Thus, assuming the reader identifies with him—and if she doesn’t, we have a whole different issue—but assuming she does, she is going to want to know how things work out for him. And thus you have a more typical story with an unknown climax. ‘Course, doesn’t work as well for memoirs.

Surprise ending.

Quentin Tarentino did this in Inglorious Basterds. The commandoes plan to kill Hitler in a cinema by igniting the flammable nitrate film. Knowing that Hitler did not die this way, I was intrigued to see how Tarentino would pull off a satisfying ending given this reality. And then Hitler dies in the fire! Despite a niggle that millions of Tarentino fans will have a distorted view of history, changing the ending does perk up the reader/viewer.

Surprise interpretation.

In my novel, SCAM, four out-of-work Canadian actors pretend to be an intact British acting family to win roles on an American sitcom. It took on the feel of a heist movie—i.e. it isn’t one unless you have a heist. Similarly, there is no novel if they don’t get the parts. Since the reader knows this, I interpreted the events in what I think was a surprising way. Please read it to see if you agree! (ADV.)

So, writing a story where the ending is known by the reader before she starts the novel can be tricky. But it is possible to do so if you are aware of the special challenge you face.

February 14, 2020January 7, 2020

Come From Away—Straight-forward Story-telling

Come From Away is a Canadian musical which played on Broadway and toured extensively. It tells the true story of a small community in Newfoundland which had to cope with the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States.

Because of the attack, many planes were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland. This is the amazing story of the town housing, feeding, clothing, and even entertaining the stranded passengers.

As a play/musical, Come from Away has two writing characteristics I want to highlight: one here and one in the next post.

Technique: Straight-through story-telling

This technique is interesting, if only because the pure form isn’t seen that often. That is, the story starts at the beginning (the townspeople’s bucolic existence before the planes landed) and goes to the end in a straight line (the stranded passengers returning home). I know this seems kind of ‘duh’, but most fiction has diversions off that straight path.

For example, a passenger is the mother of a New York firefighter but doesn’t know what is happening to him. The playwright makes the interesting choice in allowing her to speak of her anxiety, but with no flashbacks to show their love. A flashback is as easy to do in the theater as it is in fiction writing—the mother and her firefighter son are in a spotlight and the dialogue shows this is the mother’s memory of her son.

Advantages of the straight-through

Well, for one thing, it’s the way we typically tell stories. What happened, then what happened next, etc. It’s a form we’re familiar with and can take comfort from as we would well broken-in slippers.

It is also more efficient because there aren’t any interludes which might impede the forward action of the story. While I don’t typically advocate for efficiency as goal in writing, when a series of events has to be covered in a limited period of time, you might realistically pursue a little efficiency.

Disadvantages of this approach

In particular, the use of flashback may be the opportunity to connect emotionally with a particular character such as I discussed above with the mother and her firefighter son. A flashback takes you from guessing or assuming what her love is to seeing it for yourself.

Scene setting can also be done in flashback. What if the musical started when townspeople were in the midst of their herculean efforts to help the stranded passengers? It would focus immediately on the central point of the play. How the townspeople got to that point could be done in quick flashbacks which give the reader/watcher the information about the setting or past he needs at the moment needed. This is rather than knocking off the explanations at the top when their significance may not yet be clear.

Which is better?

It’s all a matter of choice—straight-through or a more convoluted structure. One way isn’t necessarily better than the other—but it does shape how the reader/watcher experiences the event.

So when you have a story to tell, take a moment to think whether the familiar straight-through, soup-to-nuts approach best serves or whether you might want the soup at the end and dessert somewhere in the middle.

February 7, 2020January 7, 2020

How to Tell Whether it’s Being Shown or Told

As I covered in a previous post, Let the Reader Participate in the Story, whether a story is shown or told can make a big difference to the reader’s enjoyment. However, writers often have trouble knowing what mode they’re writing in. So, the post is about telling the difference between show and tell.

Shown or told?

Look at the image at the top of this post. Is the story being shown or told? Obviously what the person is saying is very vivid as the other person can picture it. So that makes it shown, right?

I would say not—one person is telling the story to another other. Shown would be relating it from the point of view (POV) of the woman watching the ship. I think this is telling because the story-teller (blue person on the left) has to infer what the protagonist is thinking and feeling. If told from the protagonist’s POV, the chances of it being shown go up.

Other examples

This is a deceptively simple concept as I think the example above indicates. I realize that not everyone might agree with my take on it and I accept that opinions can differ on the line between the two concepts. Which just shows you how complex this whole thing is. So, let’s try a couple more examples.

Told

The town has never welcomed strangers. Dunno why. Some say it’s the prairie air. Others think that the townspeople have never gotten over that unfortunate hot air balloon invasion of 1984. But fact remains, the municipality of Dunton Heights is only good for those who were born in it.

Does it surprise you that this is that I consider this a tell passage? It is because the reader is told how to think about the town (i.e. unwelcoming). A way to show this might be a scene when a stranger moves into the town.

It should be noted that tell has its place. If this passage were unimportant information that the reader nevertheless needs to know, it’s a good use of tell. In addition, tell does not preclude the author’s voice coming across.

Shown

Ice crunched under Shana’s feet. She closed her eyes against the blowing snow and thought about how difficult everything was. If only she could banish her problems as easily as she could shake off the snowflakes.

Again, perhaps a bit of a surprise as show often uses dialogue. But not necessary. We are being shown what is physically happening around her. Tell would more likely be something like:

Shana loved winter and usually welcomed it. But her problems are not going to melt as easily as a snowfall would.

See, this is pretty tough. The rule of thumb I use: if what I wrote tells the reader what to think about the situation, it’s more likely tell (e.g. the town didn’t welcome strangers). If the writing lets the reader decide what is happening (e.g. ice crunching underfoot suggests winter), then it’s more likely show. But not always. Sorry.