Did I Say That Out Loud? Dialogue Revision

Dialogue may do more heavy lifting these days than at any other time in the history of the English-language novel. Readers stand in bookstores fanning pages and assessing a potential purchase based on the distribution of white space in your story. Big blocks of type without indentation suggest heavy, dense prose, while interesting choppy patterns of black and white promise a fast-paced, hip, page-turner. In Last Call, Tim Powers splits his text by starting new chapters, with both numbers and titles, mid-page. Annie Proulx puts diagrams of knots in her Shipping News scene breaks, increasing white space and interest. I Don't Know How She Does It by Alison Pearson uses emails and lists to prevent monotonous rows of type. However, nothing breaks up a page as reliably as snappy dialogue.

Most of us, in real life, think of a clever retort or witty opening line three days after we really needed it. The same thing happens to us as writers. During the discovery draft, the down draft, the icky first draft--whatever you call the first time the story flows from your fingers onto the computer screen--dialogue is likely to be as tongue-tied as you were standing at the last cocktail party surrounded by beautiful people. Unlike your party fiasco, dialogue in your short story or novel can be revisited and revised as often as necessary to make it sound completely natural and tons better than anything you could have come up with off-the-cuff.

For the efficient writer, dialogue revision happens only after the foundation of your story has been completed. You know exactly what is going to happen and why. You know the arc your character will travel. You know who will help him and who will oppose him--and why. You will have lived with your characters long enough that you can hear the sound of their voices echoing in your ears as you fall asleep. You know which ones drop the last letter on gerunds; you know who uses blue language and who wouldn’t if they had a mouthful. You know who uses run-on sentences and who answers in monosyllables. Once all of those things are firmly gelled, it’s time to look over your story and consider the dialogue line by line to make sure it is carrying its full load.

Start with the big stuff
So, how to start? House building is a useful metaphor for writing, or, in this case, revision. So, let’s say you’re remodeling your living room. Would you paint the trim first and then tear out the drywall? Probably not. Likewise, in dialogue, look for the change that will cause the greatest disruption to your project and tackle that first.

Presumably, the slices of your story that are told in scene, rather than summary narrative, have been selected because two or more characters want something deeply, passionately, and, at the end of the scene, their mutually exclusive agendas guarantee that only one, and possibly neither, of the characters will have gotten the thing they _knew_ they needed just a few pages earlier.

Don’t show your hand too soon
Good dialogue is like a card game. Characters will lead with the lowest card they think is likely to be a winner, saving their trumps and aces to the end. So, take a look at your dialogue in a given scene. Does each character want something? Does each start with the simplest, lowest–risk gambit to get what he or she wants? As they meet resistance, does each risk more to try to win? Does he reveal more of his true self, whether whiney, or cool or arrogant? If not, you have missed an opportunity to display the layers of your character’s inner being.

In The Hunt Club by Brett Lott, 15-year-old Huger Dillard acts as the eyes for his blind uncle, doing chores at Hungry Neck, Unc's Low Country property. Huger helps run the hunt club favored by professional men from Charleston and chauffeurs Unc around in an old beater truck. The two have never discussed the disability or the incident that led to Unc's loss of sight. When a murder occurs at Hungry Neck, both Unc and Huger have strong ideas about what should happen next. Unc wants to keep Huger and his mother safe, Huger wants to be in on the excitement and help Unc out of whatever mysterious events are unfolding. The two verbally spar in the hospital room where Huger is under observation after a minor concussion.

Unc opens with a rational, reasonable statement intended to keep Huger out of a dicey situation he's not prepared to disclose. He invokes Huger's mother as authority for his claim, risking nothing of his own thought or emotion. "What she's saying is that you ought not be out there any more. You ought to stay home for a while. Till things get settled."

The last thing Huger wants is to stay in town with his mother, but he starts with a low-risk response, "No way."

Unc ups the ante, suggesting that there is danger to Huger's mother if the boy persists. "There's no way I want you or your momma involved in any of this."

Huger knows that the wife of the murdered man had called his uncle the week before the discovery of the body. He deflects his uncle's reasonable warning by challenging him, trying to get information, probing what he knows is a tender spot. "What's this?" he asks. "What do you know? You said she called you."

Rather than to even acknowledge the questions, Unc blatantly changes the subject. Referring to the doctor's earlier advice that Huger stay awake and watch TV, Unc makes a show of finding the television buttons on the hospital bed and offering his opinion that there ought to be a couple dozen football games to chose from.

Huger, of course, isn't sidetracked. In an attempt to be included, to be entrusted with information--to push his agenda--he timidly reminds his uncle of his disability, something that's probably not been mentioned since the earliest days of Unc's recuperation, if even then.

Unc takes the situation to the next level by pulling off his sunglasses to reveal, not lifelike glass eyes, but the white marbles that fill his orbital rims.

At this point there is sufficient tension that Lott is able to devote several paragraphs to backstory about the house fire and explosion that killed Unc's wife and took his sight. Later the reader will learn this is a crucial episode in this family's history, but presented here it appears to simply strengthen the subtext of the characters' opposing agendas. Unc replies to Huger's challenge, "If I can't handle something like this on my own, then I might as well up and die. Because—"

Huger interrupts Unc, his voice raised, and lists all the mundane things he has to do because Unc can't see. He talks about having to rewash dishes because Unc hasn't cleaned them properly, something he's never revealed before because it would embarrass Unc. But to get what he wants, he's now willing to sacrifice Unc's pride, risk his anger, make him face the truth of his limitations. One interchange before, he could barely get out the unequivocal statement of Unc's blindness. Huger didn't open the salvo with the risky stuff; he started with a simple, "No way."

The right order makes all the difference
If you notice a situation where tension falls rather than rises, check to see if the dialogue is in the right order. If the evil one threatens to cut off your protagonist’s little finger to find out where the treasure is buried, and your hero says, “cut away,” an offer of ten dollars does not increase the stakes unless you are writing a bumbling-character comedy.

Sometimes the agendas will meet head on. Unc wants to keep Huger from Hungry Neck and Huger wants to be there. But even in this case, their underlying motives are different; what success or failure means to each is different. So as you write your story remember that both characters in a scene can yearn for the last chocolate chip cookie on the plate, but it’s always more interesting if that cookie represents an issue between them. What if Bill craves chocolate and Sara is sworn to keep him on a clear liquid diet until his operation? Or Lisa wants to take the cookie to a hungry child and Claudia needs a ride to the airport five minutes ago. When characters' agendas are mutually exclusive, but represent something more tantalizing than each wanting to possess or achieve the exact same thing, sparks can fly in interesting directions.

Evasive? Why would you think that?
Also be aware that your characters are under no obligation to respond directly, completely, or honestly. In fact, much of their power in the card game of dialogue comes from dissembling. Much of the subtext of the relationship between any two, in fact, the entire story, comes from what isn’t said, often in response to a straight-forward question. As in real life, a simple, “No,” to the question, “Is there any more toilet paper in the house?” will usually end the conversation between your characters.

However, a retort such as, “Am I your mother?” or "As the queen of toilets, I refuse to answer that on the grounds it may incriminate me,” is likely to take your characters into a deeper level of conflict and reveal more of their underlying tensions and often dysfunctional way of dealing with one another.

Allison Pearson's novel, I Don't Know How She Does It tells the story of a 30-something British woman trying to juggle career, marriage, and children, but finding the balls bouncing out of her hands more and more often. At 11:19 P.M. she arrives home to find the place a wreck and complains. She wants relief from the chaos corroding every part of her life and making her feel incompetent on all fronts. He wants his wife to be home and pleasant. It's not likely either will get what they want, but both apparently feel it's still worth engaging.

"Ah, the great She returns. Is it that time of month already?"

"Are you accusing me of having PMT?"

"God, Kate, I look back to your premenstrual tension with nostalgia. These days, we have postmenstrual tension, intermenstrual tension. We have 24/7 tension. Can you switch off when you eventually come to bed or will you be issuing instructions in your sleep?"

"It may have escaped your notice, Rich, but I have a major presentation—"

"For it to have escaped my notice, I would have to have been embalmed in Ulan Bator."

"I do this for us, you know."

"What us, Kate? The kids haven't seen you since we got back from Wales. Maybe you should become a TV presenter. At least they'd catch you once a day on screen."

At this point in the scene, with a trip to the States scheduled in the morning, Kate decides to use the ultimate method of marital communication, or perhaps in this case, weapon. After a little conjugal bliss, when he is in a more receptive frame of mind, Kate says, "Please be on my side, Rich. It's me by myself in the office, against them: I can't be on my own at home as well."

End of scene.

Each has used different, and escalating, dialogue to try to maneuver into a position to get what they want. Notice how the tension within the scene rises as the tactics change from blaming biology, to invoking work demands, to claimed sacrifice for the good of the family, to involving the children, to sex, and finally to vulnerability. And neither ever directly answers the statement or question the other has lobbed. It's not giving too much away to say that subsequent scenes prove that neither has won their objective in this skirmish.

Beware of informational dialogue
Once you have the correct order of the dialogue in place, make sure you're cautious about using dialogue to deliver information to the reader. Remember, snappy dialogue is about revealing character, not providing a shortcut for the writer. Any place a character utters a bit of data the other character does or should know, strike it out with the thickest, blackest Sharpie in your pen cup. In the above example, Huger might have said something like, "You're just bitter because you couldn't save Aunt Sarah from that house fire you found burning after your shift at the police station. You tried to save her, but the exploding glass ruined your eyes for good. But Unc, it doesn't mean you have to take it out on me."

Instead, Lott delivered all of that, and more, in Huger's consciousness. By doing so, the reader gets the information, we see that Huger knows his next words will be hurtful, and we understand what's at risk between the two if the long-unspoken is said aloud. Beware of terms like as you know and don’t you remember?

Some writers like to answer the question directly and then toss in the snappy retort. Again, use your Sharpie to take out the first sentence because it only weakens what comes next. “Is there any toilet paper in the house?” “No. What do I look like, your mother?” By removing that short sentence or phrase over many lines of dialogue, you can decrease your word count and increase the pace of your story without losing a thing.

Use the full palette
So, back to our remodeling metaphor—the drywall is in, taped, and textured. Now for color. If you want your "room" to as distinctive and interesting as possible, consider a different shade for each character. Make them identifiable without attributions or tags. It doesn't take much. One person says, "Gotcha," to let other characters know she has heard and understood. One says "I see." Another one says, "And I care because. . . ?" Of course, if you're modeling a character after my husband, he doesn't say anything at all and is surprised and annoyed when you make your statement for the third time—every single time you have an interchange.

In addition to favored words and phrases, think about the diction your character brings to the page. Try to think of diction that is appropriate to your character's education, social stratum, and profession, but remember that very few Harvard professors actually grew up at Harvard. Some of them came from steel towns originally, or farms, or big cities that weren't Boston. In I Don't Know How She Does It Kate has worked very hard to take the Industrial North out of her accent and phraseology. Sometimes she sounds more blue blood than the poshest person in her office, but when she gets tired or stressed, she might sound a little bit blue collar.

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem features a protagonist at one extreme of dialogue. Lionel has Tourette's Syndrome and yells inappropriate things at inopportune times. Hunt Club's Tabitha is mute and writes all her dialogue. But each significant character in the two books is distinctive in his/her own way. Minna, Lionel's boss calls his "men" by affectionately disparaging nicknames. Matricardi and Rockaforte always use odd sentence construction as if English was not their first language. A line like, "Have you got for us what we want?" or "Results—now those we truly cherish," could only have been uttered by one of the two old men. All the characters in The Hunt Club speak according to their social station in South Carolina—old-money graciousness, new-money crass, redneck, Low Country, or domestic.

The dialect dilemma
A word of caution: be wary writing dialect. Today, Stephen Crane and Mark Twain would never get away with the funky spelling they used to denote speech patterns or dialects in their stories. Editors wouldn't stand for it and readers would complain. Anyone reading a novel in America has been exposed to accents, slang, and many different speech patterns on television and the movies for their entire life. It only takes a subtle shading to recall the sound in the readers imagination. Something as simple as a working-class boy referring to a gentleman as "Guv'nor" in Tracey Chavelier's Falling Angels will help the reader "hear" him as working class for the rest of the novel. Support that effort with appropriate Anglo-Saxon word selection, and you've created dialect without abandoning standard English spelling.

You can always redecorate
Dialogue is one aspect of craft that can really work for your story. Even before it's read, it shapes the appearance of your page. It builds tension and reveals character. It can make the reader wish they'd said something as clever or insightful as your hero. It contributes to the sound of your story. But try to avoid worrying about it too much in the drafting process. Dialogue is a room you can tear apart and rebuild, patch and paint, to your heart's content after the foundation has set and the roof nailed down.

The Courage of a Poet by Nina Bayer

He stands in front of our small group of writers, staring at the note cards in his hands. He is too nervous to pace or even bend his knees, and so he thrusts his left hand into his pocket and then his right, shuffles his note cards then shuffles them again, and never looks up to see if we are still there. He has come to teach. We have come to learn. And so, as he begins to speak – softly, slowly – we strain to hear him in the awkward silence of the room. The information he shares is good – we take notes, we ask questions – but his presentation and interaction is painful.

He has been introduced to us as a talented author, an award-winning poet, an experienced editor, but he is so obviously shy that we soon learn teaching does not come naturally to him. Earlier in the day, he resisted even the most innocuous of interviews – mine – and asked instead that I take and transcribe the notes from his lecture for my article. I agreed, but to myself I wondered: What is it about poets? That they would knowingly enter a profession where public appearances are expected, even commonplace? That they would force themselves to leave the safe seclusion of their writing dens, and stand, terrified, in front of a crowd of anticipatory faces? I just didn't get it.

The first time I heard this poet read, I had thought the same thing. My colleagues and I had been invited to a backyard reception, held to celebrate the start of a new MFA program. With our backs to the sea, he stood in front of us on the patio steps fumbling through a stack of windblown copy paper. His hair fell across his face, his glasses slipped down his nose, and as he spoke, seagulls drowned out his timid voice. I felt sorry for him. He must hate every minute of this, I thought. Why on earth does he do it?

Following today’s lecture, I have another opportunity to hear him speak, only this time he does not lecture on the perils of editorial responsibilities, he simply reads his poems. Standing in front of an expectant crowd who has gathered in a dusty, waterside coffee house, he smiles – the first smile I remember seeing from him – and begins to read. Now his soft voice and awkward stance fade off into the background, and it is his words that captivate my attention. In his unassuming way, he reaches out to where I am seated amidst a semi-circle of mismatched chairs, and touches the inside of me so deeply that I cannot breathe. The silence in the room is no longer intrusive; it is his stage.

He reads from a collection of postcard poems, found words really, about a woman who fears she may never marry, the sins of her beau having been thrust upon her own reputation. The story is compelling, his words, an art form; even the hum of the soda machine behind the counter does not break the tension in the room. Poem after poem, he draws us in. We are entranced, boxed and shipped. When he has finished reading his last poem, we do not know whether to cry, or sigh, or applaud, and so, as we contemplate our decision, we do all three.

Somehow, this timorous poet has risen above his fear of public speaking and shared his words with us. And because he has, we have learned the greatest lesson a writer can learn – that words mean nothing if not shared. Just as a baseball is useless if not pitched across a plate, and a seed, just a stone if not planted in the ground, this poet’s words would not have touched us if he had allowed his fear to paralyze him. His courage has taught us the value of words; his words have taught us the value of courage. And for that I thank him.

THREE VALUABLE LESSONS LEARNED AS AN MFA STUDENT

by Helen Sears

Working toward an MFA in writing is akin to watching your own appendectomy. It’s agonizing, physically and emotionally excruciating, but fascinating beyond any previous dream.

In the intense two year process, a dozen toolboxes of writing techniques are acquired; but more than that, a student learns lessons he or she might have gone a lifetime without discovering. Among them are:

• Noticing details is an art form that can be learned and practiced. Like daily vitamins, details keep a writer’s skills healthy. But unlike a capsule that is taken in one gulp, noticing is taken in small sips throughout the day. It can be activated with help from a morning journal that examines a single gesture, facial expression, bird wing angle, a shopper’s tone of voice – and always with the purpose of lifting the surface to find what’s underneath. Once in place, noticing keeps working to provide a writer with catalysts and story details that can be noted and used at will.

• Respecting a reader isn’t a polite mannerism to remember when fantasizing about book tours or readings; it’s the core essential that keeps writing true and of any value at all. Without a constant awareness of a human intellect on the receiving end who deserves a writer’s best efforts in everything from weaving elements to deploying commas, a page of words slips to the equivalent of a concert master conducting in frayed jeans. “The Reader” becomes a sacred invocation that demands a writer’s total talent and attention.

• Subtext can be created with language rhythms and sound, and spaces created with white space, interrupted narrative and dialogue patterns, and punctuation. These subtexts allow what’s not described or spoken to emerge, and encourages the reader to bring his own experience to a piece, a process that creates more interaction between reader and author, along with the writer’s hope for a more satisfying experience for the reader.

Once these, among many other epiphanies of an MFA program are experienced, there’s no going back. Everything is different. Even when fully recovered from the operation, the patient’s incision will always be visible. And always changing, the way it curves and catches the light, the way it itches when in the presence of authority figures, the way it turns a Gatsby dawn blue when temperatures dip below freezing...

Profiling An Agent

You're a new writer. You've written a novel, made a few sales, picked up some writing credits, and you're ready to start agent hunting. You do some research, read some articles, look through the Literary Market Place, maybe hit Preditors and Editors, and start picking agencies to receive your submissions. Everything's lined up, and you're ready to roll. All you have to do is get in with a good agency and you're set, right?

Wrong. Chances are that you haven't really solidified what a good agency is, particularly if you're just breaking in. Depending on how hungry you are any agent may look like a good agent. Beware. Even if the agent has sound business practices, that agent may still not be right for you. How do you know? What makes an agent good for you?

You'll need to ask yourself and any prospective agent some hard questions to find the answer to that. You're about to enter an important business relationship, and like any relationship the more you understand up front the better chance of success you'll have. So what do you need to look for in an agent? What do you need to understand about your own goals? Answering these questions will require more research, but it's a different kind of research.

First, you need to consider the business side of publishing. If you're looking for an agent, that's the arena you're entering. And for most authors looking for an agent, it's the first time they've entered that arena as an author, so they don't know what to expect. If you've been focusing on the creative side all this time, and you haven't thought about the business side, think about it now. It will be unlikely in the current publishing environment that you will be able to ignore this piece of publishing, no matter how nauseous the consideration may make your internal artist. Separate those two pieces of your personality. Use the internal artist to produce a fine piece of work, and let the business manager out of its cage when you're not creating (and if your internal artist is the cranky or idiosyncratic type, put that sucker in the cage you let the manager out of while you're dealing with the selling and marketing of the book). Remember that the agent is a person in the business of selling your artistic work. The more help you can give your agent, the better the odds your agent can succeed.

Understand what time and resources you can commit before and after you sell the book. In all probability, you have limitations on your resources. Competition for your time comes from every other element of your life: your job; your family; your friends; all social commitments or obligations. How flexible can you be around these? How much time can you commit if you need to promote the book? How much travel could you do if required? How much of a war chest will you have to draw on to pay for some or all of this promotion? Do you have or can you establish a platform (a forum with an existing audience who provides a basis for name recognition)? Do you know what a business plan is and do you have one? Do you have a plan for your next work, and the one after that? How much time can you split between creating and selling while your first book is out there and the second book is moving from head to hard drive?

Once you have an understanding of your resources, you can ask a prospective agent what they expect. Do their expectations line up with yours? If they do, excellent. If not, can you adjust to their expectations? If not, this is probably not the agency for you. So you need to understand an agency's expectations as to your role in the selling and promotion of your work. What else?

What expectations do you have of the agent in terms of managing your career, and vice versa? If you don't have a firm set of works cooking in the back of your head, and you can write to demand, you may want to work with an agent who is interested in working closely with you to develop your career. Some agents will give you their insight into the market, and will expect you to respond to that insight in the works you produce. If you want or need that kind of guidance, you'll be happiest with an agent with similar expectations. If your internal artist has a master plan, or is the cranky type who doesn't respond well to ideas driven by someone else, then you may want to look for an agent less focused on managing the kind of works you create, and more focused on matching the works you create to their likely markets. Need I say that you shouldn't even be considering an agent who doesn't cover the kinds of markets for which you write?

I didn't think so.

Another thing you and your agent need to understand is if you're looking for a long-term commitment or a one-book stand. Most agencies are most interested in long term, reliably selling authors. Multiple, steady sales are good for the agent and good for the author. Remember, the agent is in this game as a business providing their primary source of income. If they don't make a sale, they don't see any cash flow. No cash flow, no business. If you want to quit your day job, this isn't a bad attitude for the writer to adopt. If that crassly monetary attitude makes your internal artist nauseous, consider the other reasons you write other than quitting your day job.

The possible difficulty an agent may encounter when attempting to sell the book brings up the next point: what's the agent's try/fail cycle? If they can't get a bite on your book with their primary tier of editors, what's their secondary tier? What's their tertiary tier (if they have one)? What's the agent's strategy if a book fails to sell the first or second time around? This is a good gauge of an agent's commitment to the relationship.

What's the agent's reputation? Do they have an honest reputation? Are they new? Established? Only represent established authors? Willing to take on new authors? Is the agent reliable? Easy to deal with? How does the agent prefer to communicate? By voice? Email, snail mail? What's the frequency of communication the agent expects and what's the frequency you expect to be able to communicate? Too many queries to someone busy with numerous manuscripts are a good way to get on the bad side of an agent. So how do you find some of this out when you're sending out query letters? Don't send them out yet. Look around. Attend conferences with agent participation. There's usually an opportunity to talk to agents (and other authors) both formally (in pitch sessions) and informally. Use opportunities to talk to other people in the business. Check out agent/author blogs. Read more thoroughly on available agent web sites than their submission criteria. Look at an agent's author list. Read any articles the agent may have written. Acquire as much information as you can through the sources available, and be informed.

All of this is pretty simple stuff. Understanding the environment. Setting solid expectations. Communication. Laying a foundation that will support your goals. But when a writer is working on a long work, it can feel like climbing Everest, and when the writer is done, taking the time to thoroughly survey what's on the other side of the peak before crossing over into the undiscovered country feels like unnecessary and tedious work, when base jumping off the peak seems so much less tedious and more exciting. Entering into that new country with open eyes might be more conservatively tedious, but it can spare the new writer the considerable pain and indignity of hitting unseen outcroppings on the way into that undiscovered country.

About the author:
Loren W. Cooper has published over 30 short stories in electronic and print magazines and anthologies. His short story collection, The Lives of Ghosts and Other Shades of Memory, won the EPPIE for best electronic anthology in 2001 and is available in paperback from Silver Lake Press. The title story of that collection won the NESFA short story contest in 1998. Published novels include The Gates of Sleep and A Slow and Silent Stream, as well as his most recent work, A Separate Power, published by Mundania Press. He has two more novels due to be released in 2007 from Mundania—The Way of the Wolf: Walking the Path, and The Way of the Wolf: Breaking the Path.