The voice in your head, other voices in the room

In my previous post, Texas writers Rosemary Clement-Moore and Melissa DeCarlo began a dialogue with members of the Writers Guild of Texas  about writing fictional dialogue. With a mutual background in theater, Clement-Moore and DeCarlo know dialogue both from the standpoint of writers and of actors – both what it is, and what it isn’t.

Clement-Moore (l) & DeCarlo

Far from being mere transcriptions of “actual” speech, fictional dialogue – like stories themselves – are creations of art, realer than real-life semblances of speech with the boring parts left out.

But as the term “dialogue” implies, it’s a two-sided process. One character says something, then another. And adversarial, tense, or oblique though the exchange may be, it’s not hard for a writer – or reader -- to keep track of who said (or didn’t say) what.

There will be more tips later in this post for keeping track of who’s talking at a given point, but what about the still trickier situation when several people are talking together? Or when your character is talking to himself.

The technical term for the single character’s silent soliloquy is internal monologue, but as many of us know – however much we try to hide it from our medical advisers – it often takes the same two-part structure as dialogue. And thinking of this internal discussion by a character with different facets of herself – “interrogation or rumination” -- can give monologue the dynamism of spoken dialogue.

As such, treat it with respect. Use it in first, second, or third-person, but always in present tense.

Interior monologue should perform the same functions as spoken dialogue – information, characterization and tension. And, incidentally, it has the same ability to break up the pattern of print on a page or screen as dialogue, so keep it as terse as a conversation between characters.

Should interior monologue by italicized? a workshop participant asked.

That depends on personal preference (as well as the style of a writer’s editor or publisher. Whatever you do, however, whenever tempted to write “thinks to himself,” Clement-Moore said, “scratch that.”

But what about scenes in which three or four people are talking at once?

“It’s a juggling act,” Clement-Moore admitted. “You want to make sure you have them (speak) with different points of view. Every person is going to have their own agenda, and conversational tactics to get what they want.”

Her suggestion for learning how to differentiate between multiple speakers is to study how well-written dialogue is handled in TV and movies.

“Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The West Wing (or classic on-screen works of your choice). Willow wouldn’t speak like Zander, and her concerns wouldn’t be the same as his.”

It’s also permissible to use speech tags – Willow said/Zander said -- just as with two-character conversations, to give readers less subtle cues to who’s speaking a given line of dialogue. Just don’t overdo the tags.

“Use them when necessary,” DeCarlo said. “(But) I use business as much or more than tags.”

Business – “what some people call action tags,” Clement-Moore said, include statements such “Willow scanned the pages,” inserted before, after, or within lines of dialogue much as “Willow said,” might be.

But whether speech tags or action tags, they should be as close to invisible as possible. Unusual speech or action tags, they warned, can interrupt the narrative stream. And anything that gets between the reader and the character, that shouts, hey, look at me, I’m a writer, is deadly.”

She said/she said: two writers dish about dialogue

If anybody knows how fictional characters do – or don’t – talk, it should be actors. Fortunately for attendees at the Writers Guild of Texas  spring writing workshop, dual presenters Rosemary Clement-Moore (Texas Gothic and more) and Melissa DeCarlo (The Art of Crash Landing)

Clement-Moore (l) & DeCarlo

have not only the writing but acting chops (Clement-Moore in theater and improvisational comedy), DeCarlo in community theater, to know how dialogue works on the page – or the stage. And their she said/she said rapport kept the room full of writers on the edge of their seats.

Don’t dread dialogue, they assured us. It’s not only fun to write but a great way to overcome fear of being confronted with a blank page (or screen).

Clement-Moore admits being so addicted to witty repartee on the page that she’s been known to write it by the page without regard for what it does for the story. Is it word lost? Not at all! Even if the dialogue didn’t work, “At least now you have words on the page you can work with. It’s how I discover things for myself (and) the easiest way, when you’re facing a blank page, to kickstart your writing.”

None of which means, they told us, that dialogue is simply a transcription of actual speech.

Ever listened to a verbatim transcript of speech, say from a court reporter? they asked. Boring! Instead, dialogue, one of the major components of fiction, is “a semblance of speech” that needs to convey information, develop characters, and add tension to the story.

About that tension. . .

Clement-Moore: “As human beings, we learn to reflect (mirror) each other, (but in fiction), that’s what we want to get rid of. Get rid of the nicey-nice stuff.”

Instead of following the polite rules of conversation, in which people are expected to answer questions put to them, in fiction, when “one person asks a question, the other doesn’t answer, or answers only obliquely – anything other than what you expect.”

DeCarlo: “You almost want dialogue to be awkward. Keep everybody a little off balance. When you can, avoid pointblank questions. Misunderstanding is a great dialogue tool.”

Clement-Moore: “When you sidestep the obvious answer, it’s a good thing.”

How to manage that “sidestep”?

One way is the nonsequitur sidestep, in which a character responds with something completely different from either the question asked, or the general tone of the preceding conversation, wrenching the dialogue in a completely different direction.

Other sidestep methods: simply being quiet. Still another: action, both of which allow a character to say a lot without saying anything.

DeCarlo: On the other hand, “You can’t ever have people avoid answer a question either or it looks like an argument. It doesn’t have to be angry for there to be tension. It can be teasing, but even teasing is tension.”

“Conflict occurs if we both have different goals. (Dialogue) should move the story forward,” Clement-Moore said, urging writers to ask themselves “what changes in the story over the course of the dialogue? How does the conversation change the outcome, for better or worse?”

“Dialogue has to earn its keep,” DeCarlo said. “It takes up a lot of space on the page. It should earn that space.”

***

More dialogue tips to come, including conversation between multiple characters in a scene and conversation with only one character involved – the internal monologue (or is it a dialogue)? But until I return to the subject, check out other tips from one of Clement-Moore’s and DeCarlo’s own sources, How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them, by publisher/instructor/author Sol Stein.

And check here for more about the Writers Guild of Texas and its programs (including this summer’s visit from Australian author Kate Forsyth).