Books to Films (Again)

The premiere of the AMC miniseries of Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE set me thinking, again, about film adaptations of print fiction. Is it an unpardonable sin if a movie or TV series doesn't attempt to follow its book source as closely as possible (taking into account the different media and the limitations of the dramatic art as opposed to print fiction)? When I watch a movie or series based on a novel, I'm looking for the visual equivalent of the book. I want to see a faithful rendition of the story I enjoyed reading. With this new vampire series, I hoped for a more accurate translation of the novel to the screen than the original movie offered. Well, we don't get that. Louis's story in Rice's book begins in the late 18th century, but in 1910 in the TV series. Moreover, Louis becomes a mixed-race (therefore, by law black) owner of several brothels in the Storyville district of New Orleans. The declining fortunes of his well-to-do family depend on his business to prop them up. The retold story does retain Louis's mentally and physically fragile, fanatically religious brother, whose death drives Louis to accept Lestat's "dark gift." So far, the setting of early 20th-century New Orleans has an undeniable fascination, and the atmosphere is darkly enthralling, with a tinge of twisted eroticism. On its own terms, this series looks like a compelling tale of dark fantasy. But it diverges significantly from Rice's narrative.

The fidelity of adaptations to their sources ranges from almost complete to appropriating a title and little else. THE LAWNMOWER MAN exemplifies the latter, having nothing in common with the Stephen King short story it's ostensibly based on other than including a lawn mower. On the opposite end of the spectrum, ROSEMARY'S BABY follows its original as faithfully as can be expected in the time span of a feature film, and GONE WITH THE WIND comes almost as close as feasible without turning it into a miniseries. The typical movie version of a book, though, has to select elements from the original to translate the highlights of the story to the screen, since there wouldn't be time to incorporate every scene and dialogue passage. That's why the ideal film medium for a full-length novel is a miniseries, not a cinematic feature. Then there are movies that hijack title, characters, and basic plot points, then drive the resulting product off into the tall weeds with little or no respect for the plundered original. STARSHIP TROOPERS comes to mind.

It's often pointed out, quite reasonably, that because print and film are two different media, most print narratives can't be translated to film intact. Movies even have advantages over books in some respects such as showing scenes in a few minutes that would take many paragraphs to describe on the page. Physical action, particularly, works better in a visual medium. On the other hand, books have the advantage when it comes to conveying what goes on in the minds of characters. Some novels that have been assumed unfilmable, however, have been made into successful movies. For instance, GERALD'S GAME, the Stephen King work focusing almost entirely on a solitary woman handcuffed to a bed, became a very effective streaming program.

Although I strongly prefer an adaptation that maintains complete fidelity to its source, or nearly so as possible, I can enjoy almost anything that's well made and shows sincere respect for the original.

Carter's Crypt

Beware Awesome, Fabulous

At the risk of appearing to pass myself off as someone who would teach a grandmother how to suck eggs, 

https://wordhistories.net/2016/10/12/teach-grandmother-to-suck-eggs/

and also of straying into scam territory, I should like to mention a recent rash of emails that call themselves "Equifax-Alert" or "Experian-Alert", and appear to invite the happy recipient to bask in the unexpected (or not) news that his/her/their credit score is awesome, fabulous, and record-settingly high.

There is another saying that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. (Which probably goes back to the proverb, All That Glitters --or "Glisters"-- Is Not Gold.)

The credit reporting agencies do email subscribers/ account holders, but only once a month, and they do not use email addresses such as "Ella at flavorfulmoon dot com" or "Katty at brightandblossom dot com" or "Holly at chaiflow dot com.  

I have slightly changed the feminine names. The websites appear to exist and are flagged by browsers as potential trick sites.

Always hover your cursor over the "From" text. 

Be particularly wary of emails coming from dot online.de (a German domain), or dot online.uk (British), or dot xyz (sleaze, reputedly).

The class action lawyers of Morgan $ Morgan (Freudian slip not corrected) have a helpful explanation of the alleged problems with credit-reporting-agencies ability to retain data. It is scary reading.

https://www.forthepeople.com/blog/experian-fails-security-now-hackers-can-change-your-email-address/ 

The Equifax site offers a helpful explanation of phishing and smishing (that is like phishing, only it affects people who indulge in text messages.)

https://www.equifax.com/personal/education/identity-theft/what-is-phishing-what-is-smishing/

Legal bloggers  Jeanne L. Seewald  and John J. Cunniff for the lawfirm Hahn Loeser and Parks LLP discuss an expensive scam that tends to come through the postal service, which looks official, and targets small businesspeople who own trademarks.

https://www.hahnlaw.com/insights/beware-trademark-solicitations/

It is well worth reading, if you own a trademark, but the bottom line is that a legitimate invoice ought to be provided through your trademark attorney's office.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday

Karen S. Wiesner: Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5D General Revision Choices

Writer's Craft Article

Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5D

General Revision Choices

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2: 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

In this three month, in-depth series, we're going to go over what could be considered the grunge work in building a cohesive story. Revising, editing, and polishing require a little or a lot of writing elbow grease to finish the job and bring forth a strong and beautiful book.

In the previous part of this series, we discussed editing and polishing introspection tips. This time we'll go over general revision choices, and we'll continue that for the three weeks. 

Tip Sheet: Effective Revision Choices

• Sentence structures and lengths need to be varied. Like good music needs to have long and short notes, high and low, varying beginnings and endings, a good writer should never allow every sentence to start or flow in exactly the same way. Take the example below:

She needed to make a loaf of bread. She went to the store to make her purchases. She bought bread ingredients. She took her purchases home.

Sounds terrible, doesn't it? I wish I could tell you I don't see this very often, but the horrifying truth is that I see this careless sort of writing from both new and experienced writers. Vary sentence structures and lengths so the lines flow into the ear like music, as in this revised version:

She slammed the cupboard with a grimace.

I'm Old Mother Hubbard. No flour, no yeast. How do you make homemade bread with an empty cupboard?

Sighing, she grabbed her keys. At least the store was just around the corner. And she could get her dog some biscuits while she was at it.

A world better, isn't it? Pay special attention to the way every sentence begins here. There are a million different ways to start a sentence without a pronoun of some kind. Look at the variations in each sentence above, the variety of sentence lengths. When you're editing and polishing, these are exactly the kinds of things you want to fix.

• Does passive voice = boring; active voice = exciting? Most writers will tell you, yes, those equations are absolutely correct. But what exactly are these passive and active voices everyone involved in writing talks about endlessly? In Conflict, Action & Suspense, author William Noble says that "active voice with its direct and straightforward verb use rivets our attention....The passive voice works best to change the pace, to stretch and extend narrative, or to diminish emphasis on action and suspense." Therefore, both passive and active voices are viable, depending on what kind of scene you're writing. An action scene requires an active voice, while a dramatic, emotional scene may call for a passive voice.

What has most authors, publishers, and agents in an uproar concerns the actual words used--are the words active or passive? The most instant form of action is what propels a sentence. Learning to write in an active voice is important to the overall appeal and impact of your story. For instance, here's a paragraph from my romantic comedy novella, "Silver Bells, Wedding Bell," written in the most passive manner possible:

She was racing across the distance between her and the open phone kiosk. Luggage was being knocked over, small children were hurtled in her rush. The men and women who glared at her were side-stepped.

This was revised before publication so it had a much more active voice:

She raced across the distance between her and the open phone kiosk, knocking over luggage, hurtling small children, side-stepping glaring men and women.

How many times did you stumble over the passive use of the words was and were in the first version? Like music, words very much have sounds as a reader reads. The words can flow easily, or they can cause a sort of clumsiness as they're read. That first example above "sounds" very plodding, almost thoughtful, and the reader is really watching the action from a distance--none of conveyed what I hope. The second example reads fast, smooth, but with a punch, and the reader feels the rush and tumble along with the character.

Your editing and polishing needs to weed out these passively, plodding sentences, to be replaced with tight active sentences.

We'll talk about cleaning up the overuse of words like "was" and "were" soon.

• Never tell, always show? Another point that's harped on in writing circles is the necessity of showing, not telling. Showing is very much about creating an immediate scene. The characters are there, and the reader moves along with them. Telling is merely a secondhand report of what happened to the characters in play. While there are certain uses for telling versus showing (i.e., you don't want to write an entire scene to convey a single, small point), you really do have to consider that a story told is very much like a newspaper article--it contains all the facts, none of the emotions. It's dry and often monotonous. Therefore, a story told is one that has nowhere near the compelling, immediate action of a story shown. While I'm not sure if it affected the impact The Friday Night Knitting Club made on readers around the world, since the book turned into an instant bestseller, take a look at the writing style. A lot of the book is told rather than shown, it's almost like short newspaper articles fill most of the scenes. This is a literary fiction leeway that few other genres are allowed.

Unlike books, movies can't tell anything at all--they have to show. Books should be presented in much the same way because each reader forms a "movie" of the story in her head as she's reading. Your choice of active showing is what puts the movie in her head. It's unlikely that a told story will achieve the same effect. Here's an example of telling:

I went upstairs and laid him down on our pallet. I lay down beside him. For a time, his pulse beat fast, his heart pounding. But toward midnight, both faded away. I fell asleep with my baby in my arms for the last time.

While this is a perfectly acceptable means of conveying information if it's necessary to avoid writing a whole scene, the poignant way this scene was shown in Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders brought out every bit of heartache and anguish felt by this young, grieving mother who loses her child to the plague:

I crooned to him as I climbed the stairs and laid him down upon our pallet. He lay just as I placed him, his arms splayed limply. I lay down beside him and drew him close. I pretended to myself that he would wake in the wee hours with his usual lusty cry for milk. For a time his little pulse beat fast, his tiny heart pounding. But toward midnight the rhythms became broken and weak and finally fluttered and faded away. I told him I loved him and would never forget him, and then I folded my body around my dead baby and wept until finally, for the last time, I fell asleep with him in my arms.

The first time I read this in context with the rest of the book, I cried. I doubt many would have the same reaction to the told version preceding it.

While editing and polishing, you'll have your final opportunity to change these instances of telling instead of showing. Pump your story full of everything and anything that will get the movie rolling in your reader's mind as he reads.

Next week, we'll continue with the general revision choices.

Happy writing!

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

The Inner Lives of Animals

I recommend that you pick up a copy of the October 2022 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC if possible. You can't miss it; the cover shows a close-up of a sphinx cat. The lead article, "Minds of Their Own," explores the emotional and cognitive capacities of animals.

Not only some mammals but some birds can pass the "mirror test," recognizing their own reflections. Rats will often free another rat trapped in a plastic tube. Horses respond appropriately to positive or negative emotions as displayed by facial expressions, not only in other horses but also in humans. Sheep can recognize faces. Dolphins sometimes blow water bubbles and play with them. Some animals have been shown to react negatively to other members of their species who cheat. The NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC piece mentions other examples, including the famous dog who communicates by nosing symbols on a mat.

For many centuries, mainstream science believed animals didn't have an inner life, nothing resembling emotions or thoughts in the human sense. Famously, 17th-century philosopher Rene Descartes declared that animals were mere "automata," machines in principle similar to clockwork, although more complex. Here's an article about that theory and a contemporary of Descartes, Ralph Cudworth, who argued against it. (If you want to read this page, do so in one sitting, because the website allows only a limited number of free readings per month.):

Descartes Versus Cudworth

Cudworth, who (unlike Descartes) maintained that animals had souls, defined "soul" more broadly than Descartes. The defining characteristics of a soul, according to Cudworth, are "self-activity –- the ability of a thing to determine its own movement and action" and "subjectivity," self-awareness and the ability to experience pain or pleasure. Most of us nowadays would agree that animals, at least the "higher" species for sure, have these traits even if we attribute them to biological systems rather than immaterial entities. As the article puts it, "Cudworth noticed and emphasised the animal in the human, and more importantly, the human in the animal."

If the argument that we can't attribute "anthropomorphic" qualities to animals because we have no direct access to their minds (if any) is valid, how could we refute a similar argument about human beings? How can we know, just from their behavior and speech, that our fellow humans share the same inner experiences we have instead of being mere automata? The Marquis de Sade apparently thought we couldn't; one of his characters argues that it's fine to inflict pain on other people, since we feel our own pains and pleasures but have no proof others feel the same things. Most of us wouldn't want to embrace that philosophy, though!

Hard-line materialists might insist recently discovered resemblances between animal and human emotions and thought processes prove we are "only animals," little more than biological machines ourselves. The similarity could be considered from a less reductive angle, though. Maybe what those discoveries demonstrate is that animals, possessing inner lives somewhat analogous to our own, are in many cases closer to human than we've previously believed.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

T.O.U. for You

Do you know the saying, "It's illegal, it's immoral, or it makes you fat"? Terms of use are absolutely none of that.  They're a long way from sexy, and tend to be boring, long, and hard to read.

They might even be larded with Latin. For a brief and entertaining guide to lawyers' favorite Latin legalese, see an article by legal blogger Deborah Stehr.

https://www.outsidegc.com/blog/top-10-favorite-latin-phrases-for-lawyers

Terms are far from illegal. They are a binding legal contract, regardless of whether you read them, and in case of a dispute, you are legally presumed to have read and agreed to the Terms of Use and Conditions by virtue of your use of the site. 

What other contracts in life to you sign on to without reading?  A prenup? Maybe that one, because the alternative is real and immediate disappointment... but I don't recommend not reading a prenup.

Legal blogger Brian Heller of Outside GC LLC's On-Demand Insights blog gives 8 persuasive and well-reasoned arguments for why a website owner needs to take the time to write up some TOU.

https://www.outsidegc.com/blog/8-reasons-why-a-website-or-app-needs-terms-of-use

For any writer who runs a blog, let alone a website, this is important information, especially the first reason, which is the only one of eight that I will quote in the belief that one out of eight quotes and a couple of paragraphs of additional text may be fair use. 

"Protect your intellectual property so others cannot copy software, content or data from your website/app without your permission."

Brian Heller cautions potential clients and copyright enthusiasts to avoid cutting and pasting other bloggers and other n businesses' Terms, and he offers contact information for anyone who might need help or expert advice.

But surely, one might well think, we don't need T.O.U. for a Blogspot blog, or for a blog hosted on a rival site. The Legal Research Team at Termsfeed offer really great tips (but not a substitute for legal advice) for anyone who decides that they need to add T.O.U. to a Blogger/Blogspot blog

https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/how-add-terms-conditions-blogger-blogspot/

Bookmark it. Set aside a rainy day, and do it.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen S. Wiesner: Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5C Editing and Polishing Introspection Tip Sheet

Writer's Craft Article

Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5C

Editing and Polishing Introspection Tip Sheet

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2: 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

In this three month, in-depth series, we're going to go over what could be considered the grunge work in building a cohesive story. Revising, editing, and polishing require a little or a lot of writing elbow grease to finish the job and bring forth a strong and beautiful book.

In the previous part of this series, we discussed editing and polishing dialogue tips. This time we'll go over editing and polishing introspection tips. 

Tip Sheet: Introspection

• Get inside your character's head! The dictionary definition of introspection is "observation or examination of one's own mental and emotional state". By showing a character's introspection, you give the reader the ability to get to know the character from the inside out. A character's behavior in any given situation will both characterize her and create emotion. Hence, behavior and reactions work hand in hand (but they needn't be linear as a rule). Behavior, in essence, is the action, which is almost always followed by a reaction. Working within a specific point of view, follow action with that character's reaction to the behavior. Look at this simplified example from Linda Howard's Cover of Night, with just the behavior-reaction-introspection sequence pulled out:

      Cal reached back under the blanket and put his hand on her hip, silently pulling her even closer to him. (behavior)

Tears stung her eyes as she nestled close, as close as she could get. (reaction)

This--this was what she'd missed most, the quiet companionship in the night, the knowledge that she wasn't alone. She wanted him to hold her, wanted to feel his arms around her. (introspection)

When he'd held her and Neenah after the frightening episode with Mellor, (behavior) for the first time in a long while Cate had felt...safe. (reaction)

Not just because Cal had protected them, though she was bemused to realize that was indeed part of her response; some primitive reactions evidently don't go away. The biggest part of it, though, was that suddenly she hadn't felt so alone. (introspection)

Behavior and reaction almost inevitably lead to introspection. Without introspection, readers will feel as though they're watching your characters through a pane of glass they can't get past. They can see and hear your characters, but rarely will they experience what the characters are going through without effective introspection. Let's take a look at the above example without introspection:

Cal reached back under the blanket and put his hand on her hip, silently pulling her even closer to him.

Tears stung her eyes as she nestled close, as close as she could get.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered softly. "You'll need all the rest you can get."

Below is the published version from Cover of Night. You'll see what a difference it makes to get inside the POV character's head:

Cal reached back under the blanket and put his hand on her hip, silently pulling her even closer to him.

Tears stung her eyes as she nestled close, as close as she could get.

This--this was what she'd missed most, the quiet companionship in the night, the knowledge that she wasn't alone. They hadn't so much as kissed, yet somehow, on some level, they were already linked. She felt it as surely as she knew when the twins were all right, or when they were getting into trouble. She didn't have to see them; she didn't have to hear them; she just knew.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered softly. "You'll need all the rest you can get."

She wanted him to hold her, wanted to feel his arms around her. When he'd held her and Neenah after the frightening episode with Mellor, for the first time in a long while Cate had felt...safe. Not just because Cal had protected them, though she was bemused to realize that was indeed part of her response; some primitive reactions evidently don't go away. The biggest part of it, though, was that suddenly she hadn't felt so alone.

Your story comes to life through introspection in a way that can't be overstressed. It fleshes out characters, settings, and plots.

• Write effectively enough that the reader has the same reaction as the POV character. When editing and polishing sentences, make a much more focused effort to bring the reader directly into the story so she can participate actively. In scenes of intense emotion, if the reader doesn't feel the same reaction as the POV character, you haven't written the scene effectively. Take these examples from Angela Hunt's A Time To Mend (the second being the published version):

Jacquelyn felt a scream rise in her throat, begging for release, but she clamped her lips shut to imprison it.

***

A scream clawed in Jacquelyn's throat, begging for release, but her clamped lips imprisoned it.

While both work well, in the first version, the word felt separates the reader from the character. We're looking at her. In the second version, we're right there with her, feeling the scream clawing its way up her (our) throat while her (our) lips refuse to allow it escape.

Introspection can turn a good story into a suspenseful, moving one. Use your editing and polishing to make sure you've done the very best job you possibly can to make your story a compelling one.

Next week, I'll present the first of four tip sheets covering general revision choices.

Happy writing!

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Current Events: To Write or Not to Write?

The website of WRITER'S DIGEST has an article about whether authors should include references to the COVID-19 pandemic in contemporary fiction:

Should We Write About the Pandemic in Fiction?

The author of the article explores whether it's "too soon" to write about the pandemic or whether readers (and writers) who are worn out after the past three years prefer not to have that weight added to their fictional experiences. "Who would want to read about the pandemic, we wondered, on top of living it? Could we even bear to write about it? Didn’t we all need one long vacation from the subject?" On the other side, she personally felt a need to process the ordeal through stories. "Books make difficulties a shared experience. When we read about something we’ve also lived through, we realize that, thankfully, the story is not just our own." Moreover, in her opinion a present-day novel that didn't mention the pandemic would feel unrealistic; the omission of that element would jarringly stand out.

Most important, for her, failing to mention COVID-19 in a novel with a contemporary setting would violate her duty as an author to write the truth. Leaving it out would falsify present-day reality as we know it.

She makes some good points. On the other hand, one of my publishers decided not to allow references to the pandemic in contemporary fiction, and I believe there are good reasons for their position. First, we hope and trust the pandemic won't last forever. Like the flu pandemic of the early 20th century, it will pass. The disease may (probably will) hang around in some form, but it won't continue to dominate our lives and consciousness. Therefore, including COVID-19 in a story or novel would date the work to a specific period of three or four years. Unless there's a solid plot or character reason to write the piece within that framework, why handicap it that way?

Also, more fundamentally, the pandemic, if mentioned, would overshadow the rest of the story. Any fictional work that includes COVID-19 would have to be in some way ABOUT the pandemic. In that sense, I believe it is "too soon" in the same sense that it's still too soon to mention the September 11 attacks as mere background detail. A novel or story including that event would have to be "about" 9-11, such as Stephen King's novella whose protagonist had escaped dying with his coworkers because he happened not to be at the office that day. I think we can, however, legitimately incorporate such related details as going through an airport security checkpoint, something that's now woven into the fabric of our culture. Likewise, at some point in the future after COVID-19 recedes into the background as an annual nuisance like the flu, if people continue to wear masks in medical settings (for instance) that kind of thing could be casually mentioned in contemporary fiction.

What do you think about referencing contemporary real-life events in fiction set in the present day?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Unprotected Sex Words

This is a copyright-related blogpost. That is my disclaimer. Naughty words, the trademarking --or not-- thereof is my topic of the day.

There is a word that is commonly (at least in some quarters) thought to have originated as a polite acronym for "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge".  

Ishaan Tharoor offers a variety of scholarly references for the etymology of the over-used word....which someone tried to trademark.

Are sunglasses, for example, commonly associated with sexual congress? They are not really shaped for the purpose, and are probably less so if four letters of the alphabet adorn the structure.

Aviators might make a person look Top Gunnish, partly owing to a learned association and the expeditionary connotations of the name, but giving sunglasses --and other fashion accessories-- a brand name similar to a short term for copulation would not necessarily distinguish that catalogue of sunglasses from another purveyor's similarly decorated sunglasses, and might not make the wearer seem cool and glamorous if he/she/they had their Fornications on.

Thus, I agree with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision to not allow someone to trademark the word.

Legal blogger Sara Bro of the lawfirm McDermott Will & Emery explains the entire sorry saga and all the dignified legal arguments for and against granting a trademark for such a word.

https://www.ipupdate.com/2022/09/oh-fudge-ttab-finds-curse-word-fails-to-function-as-trademark/#page=1

For those gentle readers who are easily upset,the IP Update site uses the once-taboo word liberally and in all caps...so there is really no shock value at all.

Another "word" trademark was denied in the UK as legal bloggers Tristan Morse  and Robert Humphreys discuss for the law firm Humphreys Law.

Is stimulant drinking a cardinal sin these days? No. That is more of a play on words, because the redness of farm animals is involved, if not the very crux of the problem when two beer brands both want to trademark "Red" to suggest a vivid sex flush brought on by the potency and strength of their beverage (or energy drink.)

The sex flush wording is my own. I did not get it from any lawyers.

The legal weighing of the pros and cons is well worth reading, especially for any writer considering an investment in a trademark application.

https://humphreys.law/choice-of-trade-mark-redbull-monsterenergy-drinks/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

 

Karen S. Wiesner: Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5B Editing and Polishing Dialogue Tip Sheet

Writer's Craft Article

Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5B

Editing and Polishing Dialogue Tip Sheet

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2: 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

In this three month, in-depth series, we're going to go over what could be considered the grunge work in building a cohesive story. Revising, editing, and polishing require a little or a lot of writing elbow grease to finish the job and bring forth a strong and beautiful book.

In the previous part of this series, we discussed editing and polishing tricks and covered description tips. This time we'll go over editing and polishing dialogue tips.

Tip Sheet: Dialogue

• Effective dialogue can transform a story into something unforgettable. External dialogue is everything characters say out loud, to themselves occasionally, most often to other characters in the story. Dialogue is important in a story. Few writers would tell you otherwise, but few realize just how essential it is. You'll most notice how effective dialogue can be in fleshing out a story when you take it out of your writing. For instance, take a look at this passage written entirely without dialogue:

She told us there was five hundred dollars in the envelope. That what she was about to ask us was very unusual and we might not want to do it. If we did decide not to accept, the five hundred dollars was for us to forget all about her.

I told her I'd pretend she was my algebra lessons in high school.

Roger glared at me as if my sparkling wit might scare her off, and asked what she wanted us to do.

She leaned forward confidentially. She wanted us to dig up her husband's grave.

Roger and I simultaneously leaned forward. I begged her pardon.

Her husband was buried last night, she explained, and she wanted us to dig up the coffin.

It was clear from Roger's expression that he considered this task quite a bit less appealing than wild kinky sex. He asked her if she was kidding.

She shook her head, saying she was completely serious.

Was this the kind of thing she usually asked people in coffee shops? Maybe she walked in here by mistake thinking it was Maude and Vinny's Discount Graverobbing Emporium.

Now read the same passage as it's actually published--with effective and varied dialogue--in Jeff Strand's Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary):

"Inside this envelope is five hundred dollars. What I'm going to ask is very unusual, and you may not want to do it. If you decide not to accept, the five hundred dollars is for you to forget all about me. Deal?"

"Sounds great," I said. "I'll just pretend you were my algebra lessons in high school."

Roger glares at me as if my sparkling wit might scare her off. "What do you want us to do?"

She leaned forward confidentially. "I want you to dig up my husband's grave."

Roger and I simultaneously leaned forward. "I beg your pardon?" I asked.

"My husband was buried last night, and I want you to dig up the coffin."

It was clear from Roger's expression that he considered this task quite a bit less appealing than wild kinky sex. "You're kidding, right?"

She shook her head. "I'm completely serious."

"Is this the kind of thing you usually ask people in coffee shops?" I inquired. "Are you sure you didn't walk in here by mistake thinking it was Maude and Vinny's Discount Graverobbing Emporium?"

Undeniably, dialogue truly adds spice and impact to any story, so use it effectively.

• Passages or an entire chapter made up of nothing but dialogue can cause readers to lose focus on everything outside the dialogue. You might laugh about that because it's so obvious, but, in my many years of critiquing unpublished contest entries, this is one of the most commonly made mistakes I've seen.

We discussed the importance of using dialogue effectively, but let's turn it around this time. Instead of taking the dialogue completely out of a passage to see how necessary it is, let's make the passage all dialogue. Look at the next example:

"Will it come back today?" Ramo asked.

"It may," I answered him. "More likely it will come after many suns, for the country where it has gone is far off."

"I do not care if the ship never comes," he said.

"Why do you say this?" I asked him.

"Why?" I asked again.

"Because I like it here with you," he said. "It is more fun than when the others were here. Tomorrow I am going to where the canoes are hidden and bring one back to Coral Cove. We will use it to fish in and to go looking around the island."

"They are too heavy for you to put into the water."

"You will see."

"You forget that I am the son of Chowig," he said.

"I do not forget," I answered. "But you are a small son. Someday you will be tall and strong and then you will be able to handle a big canoe."

The passage is pure dialogue, and it reads like bullets firing from a gun. (I call writing like this "dialogue bullets".) When dialogue is used exclusively, you don't find out who's talking, and you lose focus on the characters, their goals and motivations, and their emotions in the scene.

Now read an effectively written version of the same passage as it was published in Scott O'Dell's classic, Island of the Blue Dolphins:

The air was clear and we could look far out to sea in the direction the ship had gone.

"Will it come back today?" Ramo asked.

"It may," I answered him, though I did not think so. "More likely it will come after many suns, for the country where it has gone is far off."

Ramo looked up at me. His black eyes shone.

"I do not care if the ship never comes," he said.

"Why do you say this?" I asked him.

Ramo thought, making a hole in the earth with the point of his spear.

"Why?" I asked again.

"Because I like it here with you," he said. "It is more fun than when the others were here. Tomorrow I am going to where the canoes are hidden and bring one back to Coral Cove. We will use it to fish in and to go looking around the island."

"They are too heavy for you to put into the water."

"You will see."

Ramo threw out his chest. Around his neck was a string of sea-elephant teeth which someone had left behind. It was much too large for him and the teeth were broken, but they rattled as he thrust the spear down between us.

"You forget that I am the son of Chowig," he said.

"I do not forget," I answered. "But you are a small son. Someday you will be tall and strong and then you will be able to handle a big canoe."

The scene now has focus and the text takes you right inside the scene and the characters. You not only feel with them, you see what's around them in the scene and get a glimpse of what they're doing physically. The dialogue provides a catalyst to all this, advancing plot and characterization.

As a general rule, only use "dialogue bullets" when you need to create extreme tension. Here's an example, from Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, of how this can be done proficiently without losing any of the texture:

"How's Maude Rainey?" he asked.

"She's in good health," Call said. "She fed me twice."

"Good thing it was just twice," Augustus said. "If you'd stayed a week you'd have had to rent an ox to get home on."

"She's anxious to sell you some more pigs," Call said, taking the jug and rinsing his mouth with whiskey.

"If Joe was to get kilt I might court her again," Augustus speculated.

"I hope you will," Call said. "Them twelve young ones ought to have a good father. What are the horses doing back here so soon?"

"Why, grazing, most likely," Augustus said.

"Didn't Pedro make a try?"

"No, he didn't, and for a very good reason," Augustus said.

"What reason would that be?"

"Because he died," Augustus said.

The dialogue in this passage effectively manages to convey characters, emotions, goals and motivations, plot, even setting, all sprinkled liberally with a good deal of humor.

• Effective internal dialogue can flesh out your characters. Internal monologue is everything the characters don't say out loud; these are essentially their thoughts. Not everyone can write this type of dialogue effectively, so play around with it for a while. There are two types of internal monologue, and you can use whichever one is most effective for a particular scene. The following example, from my novel Falling Star, is fine as is:

He was smooth all right. Nate chided himself as Rori disappeared into her father's house. With a little more practice, he could apply to snake charming school.

Add internal monologue and it really turns the paragraph into something personal and intriguing:

That was smooth, Nate chided himself as Rori disappeared into her father's house. Very smooth. You could apply to snake charming school with a little more practice.

The second example brings the reader directly into the character's thoughts and has much more impact. Effective dialogue always reveals character.

• Dialogue--what a character says and how he says it--reveals the inner person, and more. The manner in which a character speaks and the particular words she chooses say something about her. Dialogue will and should reflect who the character is, even what she does for a living.

On the other hand, the occasional character who doesn't fit her stereotyped mold is always intriguing to a reader. Make a bad boy or a cowboy philosophize about the poetic insight of Shakespeare. Make a wallflower put on a vixen red dress and stiletto heels and temporarily act out of character.

Take a look at this example of dialogue reflecting character from Marilyn Pappano's A Dangerous Man:

A faint tinge of color accompanied her next shrug. "The body. The muscles. The grace. You're obviously in very good shape, and you move very gracefully but with a great deal of control."

That control relaxed almost enough to allow him to smile--almost. "I wasn't aware you'd noticed."

"You're the only observant one." She went around to sit behind her desk and moved several items he'd placed there an inch or so to one side.

He adjusted the blinds, stepping back to avoid a shower of dust from the slats as they tilted, then warned, "Leave these just like this."

"Yes, sir." She offered him a mock salute. "You give orders very well. Did you get to do much of that in the Army?"

The dialogue reveals what the hero has done for a living as a retired Army master sergeant, and cleverly incorporates a bit of description. Hero and heroine are star-crossed lovers who parted badly once upon a time and have now been reunited by danger, which is hinted at here, in the dialogue that also touches on their situation, emotions, and conflicts very effectively.

• Start your story with dialogue. An old, very effective (and infrequently used) trick of the writer's trade is to snag a reader with a fascinating morsel of dialogue at the very beginning of a story. You can't lose. You begin with immediate action and conflict, and the reader is brought into the scene from that very first sentence. Look at these examples and judge for yourself. I'd be shocked if you didn't want to read more of each:

"Why are you writing a stupid parking ticket when there are killers running around loose?"

--Badge of Honor, by Justine Davis

***

He looks like a walking corpse, Xizor thought.

--Shadows of the Empire, by Steve Perry

***

"Death," the proprietor said clearly, showing the stone.

--On a Pale Horse, by Piers Anthony

***

"I had the dream again last night."

--The Seventh Night, by Amanda Stevens

***

"I want to meet my dad."

--Daniel's Gift, by Barbara Freethy

***

"Ray Bans, a five o'clock shadow, and a black leather jacket."

--Private Dancer, by Suzanne Forster

• Vary each character's dialogue. How do you make your characters sound different? By making a conscious effort to do so. Make a list of your important characters. If you know their personalities, you'll have a good idea about certain things they would and wouldn't say, and ways they would and wouldn't say them. Are they prone to the vernacular--in other words, do they use street language? I know most writers have some kind of aversion to writing slang of any kind, but they're not doing justice to their characters if they don't take into account that many people do use slang--often, and as a habit and a choice.

Or do characters "sound" more like English professors? And, again, this shouldn't be the writer's choice. Some writers use dialogue that makes all their characters sound like English professors, and the dialogue becomes monotonous because it's not varied from character to character. That's not good or even effective writing.

Do characters use dialogue somewhere between slang and uptight English professor? Do characters use a lot of internal dialogue? If you don't know the answers to these questions, spend more time on this in the editing and polishing stage.

Try creating dialogue worksheets for all your main characters to keep track of their unique dialogue idiosyncrasies. Sometimes dialogue comes easily and you won't need to map out or think about how a certain character would talk. Other times, you'll have to sit down and map out specific words or phrases certain characters would use. Create tags or mannerisms for some of them. Once you've figured out who says what and how she'll say it, go through your book from start to finish and mold her dialogue to the specifics you've mapped out for her.

Dialogue can be turned into a catalyst for a dynamic story during your editing and polishing.

Next week, I'll present an editing and polishing tip sheet for introspection.

Happy writing!

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

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Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

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