Sharon Bala's Blog, page 5

Originally posted: March 18, 2020

This is the fourth in a series of posts about writing dialogue. If you’ve missed the previous posts, start here.

Direct dialogue is the one we all know and tend to overuse. It’s word-for-word what the characters are saying. It’s useful when you want to get in real close, write from within the scene, at a moment of crisis, discovery, decision, or climax. Direct dialogue not only ups the drama, it is more precise at revealing character because we have their exact words.

Word choice indicates education, class, age, familiarity with language, ethnicity. When you are writing direct dialogue, think about this: who is this character? What life do they live? What’s their background? The more you know your characters, the easier it will be to put words in their mouths. Where so much dialogue falls down, I think, is when characters are skeletons without flesh, when they haven’t been fully imagined by their authors. As a result, their dialogue comes off as a poor ventriloquist act and the reader only hears the author saying all the words. You want the dialogue to sound authentic, like something this character would legitimately say.

In Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion, a young woman called Zee talks about her hero Faith Frank:

“I know she represents this kind of outdated idea of feminism,” said Zee, “with more of a narrow focus on issues that mostly affect privileged women. I totally see that. But you know what? She’s done a lot of good, and I think she’s amazing. Also, the thing about Faith Frank,” she went on, “is that while she’s this famous, iconic person, she also seems approachable.” — Meg Wolitzer, The Female Persuasion

Normally, I’d be skeptical of such a long passage of dialogue. Long passages of dialogue have a habit of being information dumps, which is why one tip is to pare it all back. But overall, I think Wolitzer’s dialogue here is pretty good. It’s doing more than just conveying information about Faith, who becomes a central figure in the book. Look at what is revealed about the speaker, Zee. Hers is a millennial and current take on feminism. It’s woke. It’s mature. But lines like “I totally see that” and “But you know what?” signal that the speaker is still young, in that liminal space between girl and woman. (Zee is a first year in college). Also, note the change in register. “Narrow focus on issues that mostly affect privileged women” sounds like something that could be in an essay. But then Zee switches to simple language when she gets earnest and speaks from the heart: “She’s done a lot of good, and I think she’s amazing.” See that? Head and heart. The dialogue is working hard and multi-tasking and it’s sounds real.

1. Don’t forget about body language. Gestures and ticks reveal character. A character who constantly rubs their nose as they speak is indicating something. A penchant for cocaine, a lie, nerves, a pimple.

2. The way a character speaks is revealing too. Is she loud? Are they quiet? Are his sentences choppy and short or long and convoluted? Remember: if you’re stuck on dialogue, the problem is you don’t know the character well enough.

3. When you are revising a scene, read all the dialogue out loud. Every single word. Read it all slowly. If you get bored, have the urge to skip sections, if you are squicked out by how awkward and false it sounds, those are strong clues something’s wrong.

4. A common problem with direct dialogue - which you can hear when you read it out loud - is that it comes out inert (aka boring). Rule of thumb: dialogue must do more than one thing. It can reveal character, advance plot, create tension, enhance mystery etc. etc. Writing instructors talk a good game about multi-tasking but I haven’t yet heard anyone articulate HOW to perform this sleight of pen. Listen, I don’t have a good answer for this either. For me, it’s more like, if the dialogue is weak, I ask myself is it multi-tasking? If not, maybe I just do the easy thing and erase it. Fall back on summary or indirect or try to write the scene without dialogue at all.

5. Direct dialogue is the most difficult type to master because it’s slower and more precise than summary or indirect. My advice is to use it sparingly and in passages with lots of talking, combine it summary and/or indirect.

In my final post in this series, we will look at how to do this - take summary and indirect and direct and put it altogether.

Originally posted: March 23, 2020

This is the fifth and last in a series of posts about writing dialogue. If you’ve missed the previous posts, start here.

So now you’ve got your three screwdrivers. You know how to use them. Let’s get to work. I’ve already beat this dead horse but  one more smack for good measure: direct dialogue is the most over-used, slow moving, and difficult type of speech to write well. On trick is to use it sparingly and nestle a few sparse sentences inside a passage of summary and/or indirect.

Here’s an example from The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: 

“Ammu asked for the Station House Officer, and when she was shown into his office she told him that there had been a terrible mistake and that she wanted to make a statement. She asked to see Velutha. Inspector Thomas Matthew’s moustache bustled like the friendly Air India Maharajah’s, but his eyes were sly and greedy. ‘It’s a little too late for all this, don’t you think?’ he said. He spoke the coarse Kottayam dialect of Malayalam. He stared at Ammu’s breasts as he spoke. He said the police knew all they needed to know and that the Kottayam Police didn’t take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate children Ammu said she’d see about that. Inspector Thomas Matthew came around his desk and approached Ammu with his baton. ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d go home quietly.’ Then he tapped her breasts with his baton. Gently. Tap tap. As though he was choosing mangoes from a basket. Pointing out the ones he wanted packed and delivered.” — The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This scene is an important one. An innocent man is facing execution and Ammu must stop it. Here we have the highest stakes possible. Still, if the Inspector was polite and simply said: ‘Ma’am I can’t help you’ the scene would have fallen flat. Remember what I said in the first post: if Character A wants something, the tension is higher if Character B refuses the request.

This pace is quick here because the dialogue is mostly indirect. There are only two lines of direct dialogue and as a result they stand out. Can’t you hear the Inspector saying these words? The condescension drips. It makes the reader feel protective of Ammu and nervous for the innocent man on death row. The reader is stressed. Roy has saved up her direct dialogue for the lines that count, the ones that will elicit emotion.

In the first post, I said that the best dialogue is multi-tasking. Here, the dialogue is creating tension, evoking emotion, and conveying character. The Inspector’s dialect marks him out as lower class. But Roy isn’t just wielding the screwdrivers here. She’s reaching for other tools in her box. Through narration she reveals the Inspector’s bustling moustache, his greedy eyes (note the disconnect - this man pretends to be friendly but really he’s a snake in the grass). Through body language we see his eyes on Ammu’s breasts. Through action she shows the weaponized the baton.

When you are reading, pay attention to which tools the author is using and how they are being used. Then apply what you’ve learned to your own work.

Dialogue is the single most difficult thing to write well. Even experienced authors who write books full of beautiful prose and compelling drama, fall flat on dialogue. I’ve asked authors who do the job well for their secrets and they always say some version of the same unhelpful thing: it just comes to me/ I hear the characters in my head. To be honest, this is my experience too. In fact, I don’t like to write direct dialogue until it flows free and easy, until it strikes like lightning.

My theory is that poor dialogue is a symptom of a bigger issue, which is incomplete character development. You must do the work of building your character, of knowing them better than you know yourself. And once you have done this, created a Pinocchio so realistic he could be a real boy, he will come alive of his own volition and surprise you with what he says.

If that fails and you’re stuck and think the dialogue (and anything else) in your manuscript could benefit from professional feedback, I’m available for hire and taking bookings for the summer. Meantime, here’s a handy dialogue exercise and eight more technical tips.

Originally posted: August 27, 2019

Recently, I was having trouble writing a scene. In this scene a man and a woman are having an argument. The scene is third person, past tense, from the woman’s point of view. So I knew more or less what she was going to say, her motivations, her fears, her desires, but I had no clue how the man would respond. Or, more specifically, I knew how he would respond but his exact dialogue and body language, all of that was a question mark.

I don’t like to write passages of dialogue unless I’m in the zone and the characters’ words are flowing freely. In my experience, forced dialogue comes out stilted and false. At the same time, this scene is pivotal and I didn’t feel I could move on until I’d gotten some kind of rough draft down. (Which is another way of saying I’ve been procrastinating on writing the difficult scenes for too long and now it’s high time).

Then one morning as I lay in bed, circling around the characters in my mind, wondering how I was going to get into the scene, I had an epiphany. Why not write the argument from his point of view? So that’s what I did. And just to break myself out of the rut I was in, I decided to write it first person, present tense. Immediately his words and body language, his inner life, appeared. Once I was in his head, I understood his motivations, his desires, his fears. And after I knew all of those things, it was obvious exactly what he would say and do.

Exercise complete, I took another stab at the scene. From her perspective again, third person, past tense. Viola.

ps. Have you got a completed draft of a novel that could benefit from another pair or eyes? I moonlight as a manuscript evaluator which means I give constructive feedback on works-in-progress. Character and dialogue, plot and pacing, it’s all in my wheelhouse. I’m taking bookings for the summer so get in touch for more info or a quote.

Originally posted: February 10, 2017

Characters come into their own when I first hear them speak. And that's how I primarily write dialogue - it bubbles up from the unconscious part of my brain that is always at work. I may have trouble with story arcs and pace but putting words in characters' mouths has always felt natural.

But like any other part of the craft, there is some element of science here too. Here are some technical suggestions:

1. Don't rely too heavily on dialogue to carry plot or develop character.

2. Less is more. Three lines of dialogue? Odds are you need only one. Remember: what is left unsaid is often more powerful than what is said.

3. Dialogue gets good when it isn't straight forward. When characters lie or hold back or speak at cross purposes. This is how you bake in irony, double meanings, and conflict, thereby making the scene more layered and interesting.

4. Don't underestimate the power of indirect speech. It proceeds at a swifter pace - helpful if your characters have a lot of talking to do - and is easier to nail than direct dialogue.

5. Dialogue should multi-task. If dialogue reveals character and ratchets up tension, if it propels the plot forward and makes you laugh, then it's all much more interesting.

6. Read the work of other writers and see how they go about it.

7. Listen closely to how real people speak. Listen to rhythm and cadence, how thoughts are phrased, the way people of different ages and backgrounds sound. Pay enough attention and you'll develop an ear for dialogue and an instinct for crafting it. Also, you can straight up just steal things you overheard friends and strangers saying.

8. Which is not to say that your characters should speak the way real people do. For one thing, we talk way too much in real life. Fictional dialogue has to seem realistic without actually being realistic. Allow a sentence to stand in for a monologue. Sure, in the first draft, write all the pauses and ums and uhs and verbal ticks and quirks of accent into a character's speech. But then later, when you're revising, delete, delete, delete and just leave a few things behind, a little bit of seasoning to give the reader a taste.

Years ago, in the waning minutes of what would be my last day at a certain mediocre job, the HR rep hustled into my windowless office, pushed a piece of paper under my nose and declared: “You have to sign this.”

“I don’t have to do anything, Belinda*,” I said, before tossing a lit match on a trail of already-poured gasoline and burning the damn place down.

via GIPHY

Metaphorically, of course.

Everyone who has toiled in 9-5 servitude knows all the myriad and cliched ways a workplace can suck so there’s no need to itemize my grievances against this particular job or why I peaced outta there. The incident is only noteworthy because it was the turning point after which my whole professional life changed. Though of course I didn’t realize it at the time.

In the novel I’m struggling to write, the turning point is proving elusive. Which is a serious issue that’s been stressing me out. Maybe you’ve noticed the obsession? But the other night, as I was going to bed, that day from a decade ago, the unexpected pivot in my own life, returned to me. Along with the words that proceeded it.

I don’t have to do anything.

It’s a good bit of direct dialogue, isn’t it? Concise. Pointed. A struck match. I wrote it in my notebook and then took that sentence on a meditative walk.

There’s very little we actually have to do. And yet we all do a hundred, thousand, million strictly unnecessary things, things we don’t want to do, because of some vague sense of hafta. So what makes a character who has spent 200-odd pages of a novel sloughing through these self-imposed obligations, finally say enough? I don’t know. I’m still working it out. For me a lot of writing involves pondering esoteric questions and waiting for insight.

Meantime, I’ve been reading Richard Wagamese’s profoundly beautiful last (unfinished) novel, Starlight, and Genki Ferguson’s delightful debut Satellite Love (it has illustrations! a book for adults with pictures!). Lots of e-newsletters have popped up during the pandemic and this piece about furniture catalogues and longing at Grief Bacon is very good. Tom and I have re-started our two-person book club and are tearing through Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

We’ve also been watching the last season of Dark, which is an excellent study in plot and an example of a story that takes a circular shape. Trashy Britcom Toast of London is our palate cleanser.

I listen to podcasts almost non-stop. A recent stand out was Code Switch’s episode A Shot in the Dark about the Covid vaccine and the Tuskegee Experiment; I promise they don’t tell the story you think they’re going to tell. And I’ve been catching up on the back catalogue of NPR’s Throughline (a history podcast). This episode about astrology was fun.

There isn’t a whole lot to do in these lockdown days but I gave online yoga a go and am a reluctant regular. And recently, I got a set of grips which are coming in handy on icy trails.

*not her real name

The handles of a bright green Sobey’s bag loop around a door knob. Moments later, inside the house, a text bubble appears on a phone. “Dropped it off. Enjoy.” A couple of days later, another ping to a different phone. “Hitchcock mystery. 1,000 pieces. Difficult. Interested?”

Jigsaw puzzles are something I deliberately avoided during the lockdown last spring. Not because puzzles seemed hopelessly dull (they did) but because I had a feeling we were trapped in a long game and some pastimes would need to be saved for later.

Towards the end of summer, after life had settled into a pandemic normal that allowed us to see friends again - albeit in small groups, often outside, with precautionary hand sanitizer and a polite Regency-era distance - I started a note on my phone. Covid Winter: a to-do list that included a couple of TV shows, cooking projects, and, yup, puzzles.

For months the list remained theoretical. September turned to October became November, then December. There was a long stretch where the case count was zero. Even when cases appeared they were travel-related and the two-week arrival quarantine meant they were immediately contained.

On New Year’s we went out to dinner with some friends then back to someone’s place for board games and laughs. We sat around a table, elbows nearly, though not quite, brushing, slapping down cards and collecting tricks, tallying up points. Everyone was eagerly discussing the vaccine which our friend the ER doc had already received. January rolled in snowy but quiet and it felt like we might avoid a second lock down, sail into the vaccine queue and straight on through to the “after” times.

Needless to say.

Puzzling

Have you ever done a mystery puzzle? It’s like this: you get a whodunit scenario. The puzzle, when completed, reveals the crime scene, full of clues you must decode in order to solve the murder. The catch is there’s no picture to guide you. The image is revealed only through assembly.

Of course this is an analogy for novel writing. It’s equally tedious and frustrating and even when you know you have all the pieces, that somehow they do all fit together to form a coherent whole, there are moments of doubt.

Turns out puzzles are fun. At least in lockdown when cracking into a new puzzle on a Friday night with a bottle of wine constitutes a big weekend “plan.”

First time around, when we hunkered down last spring, everyone was baking. Cinnamon buns, root beer cupcakes, and lemon curd doughnuts materialized on door steps, their bakers waving through the windows as they went by. This time around, there’s a brisk trade in puzzles. I think about those cardboard boxes being shared between households, crossing thresholds we can no longer enter, all the ways we hold fast to a sense of community.

On Saturday we venture out to a lake we’ve never visited to tramp around a warren of winding snowy trails. A perk of lockdown: discovering gems that have been here all along. In the car on the way home, a text from my friend Joel arrives: a photo of a leaf in a jar of water. I’d admired his ZZ plant and he’s propagating a cutting for me. One day, a plant will appear on my door step and Joel will stand on the street waving through the window.

Even as every square on the calendar remains blank, even as lock-down is extended and we’re not sure what the new normal will be when we re-open, as long as anticipation remains, so too will joy.

Originally posted: November 27, 2019

One day in July 1984 biathelete Kari Swenson was abducted in the mountains. I heard her story the other night while making dinner and listening to the podcast Criminal. I was struck by Kari’s ordeal but also left thinking about craft because there is a lot we can learn about storytelling by paying attention to the facts of this story and its construction.

If you haven’t heard this episode yet, please have a listen because the rest of this post is one long spoiler. Then come back and we’ll take the thing apart like a clock and figure out what makes it tick so well.

Kari Swenson is bravery personified. To say nothing of tenacity and grit. She was shot point blank in the chest and had the presence of mind to save herself by slowing her heart down. And then, after it was all said and done, she threw herself into training and returned to competition. And Alan Goldstein was a hero. I was moved first and foremost by their courage and humanity.

But as a writer there’s a mercenary instinct that kicks in any time I encounter a well constructed narrative.

First, note the classic three act structure.

Act one introduces Kari and Alan and establishes setting. The action begins when Kari, the protagonist, heads off for a cross country run alone in the mountains. Next, comes the inciting event: meeting two terrifying men.

Act two is focused on the abduction and the search crew’s efforts to find her. The tension is rising, climbing toward the peak of Aristotle’s arc. Kari is chained to a tree. Alan, introduced in act one, bursts in to save her. Alan is shot and killed. Kari is shot in the chest. This is the climax.

Act three takes us through the aftermath. Kari is rescued and survives. Moreover, she trains hard and returns to competing in biathlons. The abductors are caught and sentenced to jail.

So far, so conventional right? As a story this one is perfectly satisfying.

But then comes the sleight of hand, that moment when the story surprises us with an unexpected turn of events that, in hindsight, was predictable.

In this story, the WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW moment, comes when we realize that a whole bunch of people have got the heroes and villains mixed up.

At first, I was outraged. A young woman is abducted and shot in the chest and a man is shot dead in the face and the murderers are valourized by the media and people all around the world. How is this possible?

But then as I thought about it more, as I remembered gender politics, and the Rape of the Sabines, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Freemen on the Land, libertarians, and the Cult of Cheeto Jesus, well in hindsight the public’s love affair with a couple of unwashed white male terrorists is par for the course. CAN I GET AN AMEN?

Conventional stories (Red is stalked by a wolf in granny’s clothing, then saved by a passing woodcutter and lives happily ever after) are fine. But the stand-out stories, the ones that stay with us, that we re-tell to our friends, and dissect in long shouty blog posts, those stories have something more happening. Which brings us to…

Most stories have external stakes (will the protagonist get out of this alive?) and emotional stakes (will she thrive?). In Act Two the external stakes are front and centre. In Act Three the external stakes are resolved and now the emotional stakes become important. Eventually those stakes are resolved as well and we share that moment of elation when Kari gets pulled up to the podium by the third place competitor.

But exceptional stories, those ones that resonate far longer and make us really think (or in my case silent scream in my kitchen and now here on the internet) are the ones that have philosophical stakes.

What does society value - a young woman’s life or that of her abductors? Do we care more about the man who died to save his friend or the outlaws on the run? All through acts one and two, going into act three, I didn’t think basic morals (the philosophical stakes) in peril. I assumed Kari and Alan were the heroes and the two psychos who shot them were the villains. Bet you did too.

Then: surprise! Society is immoral. Oh wait…we already knew that.

If the abductors were black do we think for a second they’d have been valourized? What is broken in human nature that makes us root for certain evil men? What about the narrative of the wild west and the whole long arc of the western canon and pop culture and Barbara Walters? Who is to blame and also how and when are we going to put an end to this bullshit? One reason this story is so powerful is that we are left with more questions than answers.

There’s more architectural detail that I noticed in this story. Note that the story is framed by the present. The episode is bookended by present-day Kari looking back on this one episode of her life. That was a conscious structural choice the storytellers made. In one way, it deflates some of the tension. We know from the jump that she’s going to live.

But go back and listen to the first beats of the story. What do you hear? Breathing. Kari breathing. And shooting. Lovely foreshadowing. This is an intimate opening too, one that puts us right into her body as she talks about the athleticism involved in her sport, the importance of breathing. If this was a fictional story, I would say: note the attention to detail. Remember: character is king.

At the climax of the story, what was foreshadowed takes place. She’s in agony from the gun shot wound and realizes death is close. Here at the crucial moment, she returns to her training and slows down her heart beat. This ability to control her breathing, combined with her athleticism, is what ends up saving her life.

Three act structure + external and internal stakes = perfectly fine conventional story. Philosophical stakes + turn of events that is simultaneously unexpected and predictable = exceptional story.

There is an architecture to every narrative, an unobtrusive but vital structure that holds the whole story together. Learn how to spot it and your writing will improve. If you’ve got a story that could use some architectural assistance, I can help. I moonlight as a manuscript evaluator which means I give constructive feedback on works-in-progress. Character and dialogue, plot and structure, it’s all my jam. I’m taking bookings for the summer so get in touch for more info or a quote.

Originally posted: June 20, 2016

Here's some writing advice I got a few years ago about plot and structure: banish the words "and then" and replace them with "but", "therefore", and "meanwhile."

But is the idea of conflict and opposition. The good guy wants something but the bad guy stands in the way.

Therefore there must be an escalation of action and tension. The good guy does something to get around the bad guy but he hits a roadblock he must overcome.

Meanwhile suggests a parallel narrative, two plots happening in tandem. When one story hits a climactic peak, you cut away ("Meanwhile, back at the Ranch...") to the other.

Editor Tony Zhou explains in this video and if you still don't get it, check out his post on Vox.

Originally posted: February 15, 2016

And then there's Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries, a book with more than its fair share of plot, "a gothic cathedral of plot!" At 800+ pages, maybe plot, erected on such an intricately designed scale with flying buttresses and gargoyles and stained glass, is necessity more than extravagance.

The Luminaries sat on my shelf for some time, sitting there like a door stop screaming "commitment." Then one January day, I was looking for a new read, something dense and hearty that might also help me break my online habit, and there was The Luminaries waving its hands, calling out: "pick me."

January seems tailor-made for mammoth reads. This is when - if you live in the northern hemisphere, at least - you want to crack open Middlemarch or The Byatt’s The Children's Book or the complete Sherlock Holmes. Cuddle up by the fire, tuck in to something substantial, and try to tune out the internet's siren song.

The Luminaries is set in gold-rush 19th-century New Zealand. A dead man is found in a cabin. A prostitute lies collapsed on the road. The richest man in town has gone missing. And on a night of torrential rain, a council of twelve convene a secret meeting. What is the thread that binds these things together? Eight hundred and thirty two pages later, you find out.

Catton adopts the 19th century Gothic as her style. Her narrator is all-knowing and arch, moving freely in and out of different characters' points of view. Everything is explained and very little is submerged. There are cliff hangers galore. In the role of the villain: an enigmatic man with a scar. It's the kind of page-turner that might have been written by a 21st century Wilkie Collins. All the suspense and classic story-telling of an earlier age with modern-day good sense (which is to say you find any simpering Angels in the House).

But perhaps this all sounds hopelessly outmoded. Haven't we moved beyond conventional plot and story-telling, evolved past the need for narratorial hand-holding? This reader has not! I found The Luminaries completely refreshing.

And make no mistake, Catton's characters are well-drawn and complex with flawed motives and inconsistent, deeply human, actions. Her scene-setting is on point. Themes of land appropriation and colonial entitlement, racism and inequality are handled with intelligence and empathy. Agency is found in unexpected places. (At one point a villain casts aspersions on the local prostitute, only to be reminded that as many men bare him a grudge, there are twice as many who love and would protect her.)

The Luminaries - which won a slew of prizes including the Man-Booker and the Governor General's - is immersive and sustaining. After a while I forgot the internet existed.

Originally posted: February 10, 2016

Tessa Hadley has perfected a magic trick. And I want to know her secret.

She writes these novels - the most recent one is the excellent The Past - that break the rules of plot. Specifically the main rule that plot should progress in an Aristotelian arc. Characters are introduced. The scene is set. There is pressing conflict and tensions mount toward a peak. The handgun is shot, secrets are revealed, the story blows wide open. Then, climax discharged with, characters settle into a new normal and denouement eases into conclusion.

That is the formula. It's what readers expect, what keeps pages turning. But then along comes Tessa Hadley. And she's got no truck with any of that.

In The Past four middle aged siblings gather in the country home of their grandparents. Hadley tells the story through the eyes of the grown children and then, rewinding a few decades, from the point of view of their mother. Secrets are revealed, sure. There is a mystery, yes (the decaying carcass of a dog is found in an abandoned cottage) but it doesn't feel very pressing. There is a romance, yes. But it isn't very urgent. Doesn't this sound like the world's most boring book?

And yet, The Past is a compulsive read. I finished it in just a few days and then was sorry it wasn't longer (this, incidentally, is how I devour all her books and stories). What is it about Hadley? Her prose is faultless. She has a way of finding words for the things that are indescribable; her writing thrums with arresting moments of insight. And in her stories, character is queen. Her imaginary people - so flawed, so foolish, so endearing - continue to resonate long after the last page is read.

Is this the secret? Can conventional plot be replaced by insightful, well-crafted prose and pitch perfect characters? Are those three ingredients sufficient to propel a story forward? Somehow, I don't think it's as simple as following a formula. My suspicion is it's the exceptional writer who can pull this off, conjure story without plot. And those rare birds aren't giving away any of their secrets.