Wordcraft – Naughty or nice? Making a list, checking it twice

Steal from the best. – Kurt Vonnegut

  

Dallas literary agent Jim Donovan was generous in sharing helpful lists for writers after his appearance earlier this month at the Southwestern Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Last Tuesday I mentioned the first of his “15 Most Important Things to Remember in Writing Fiction.” But we’ll want the other 14, especially as we’re rounding the last turn this week with our NaNoWriMo manuscripts. So here, with no apologies for the theft, is Donovan’s complete list.

1. Resist the Urge to Explain. “The reader will respond proper if your dialogue and action do their job,” Donovan writes. “So let them. Which leads to. . .

2. Show, Don’t Tell. Joseph Conrad said a writer should make the reader HEAR, FEEL, and above all SEE. . . to do this, use concrete, sensory details. (But note Donovan’s caution: “if a description goes on too long, I start skipping. . . ”)

3. Be Aware of Rhythm. Reading aloud helps.

4. Involve the Reader First. If possible, begin in the middle of action or a scene.

5. Kill Your Darlings. (Or as the late, great, eminently theft-worthy Elmore Leonard said, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”)

6. Use Subject-Verb-Object. Avoid backing into a sentence with a modifying clause, especially if it starts with an “ing” verbal.

7. Avoid!!! Use exclamation points as sparingly as possible – almost never.

8. Know Your Characters More Than You Need To. “You should know them – at least the half-dozen or so most important ones – inside out.”

9. Use Markers. One way to make characters more vivid is to use “markers” (visual or otherwise) . . such as clothing, mannerisms, habits. . .and most obviously, how they speak. (See below.)

10. Make Your Characters a Mix of Good and Bad. No Dudley DoRights or Snidely Whiplashes. (I’d add an exclamation point, but that would violate Rule # 7.)

11. Read Dialogue Aloud. “Or aloud in your head, if you know what I mean,” Donovan writes.

12. Just Use “Said.” Unless someone is screaming, yelling, or whispering, don’t use anything but “said” with dialogue, and don’t use an adverb with “said.”

13. Everyone Talks Differently. Each character’s dialogue should be distinct, whether it’s through grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm, etc. (See Rule #9 above.)

14. Add Business. Another way to subtly drop in details about your character is to add some “business” during the dialogue – show the speaking doing something at the beginning or middle of a speech.

15. Advance the Story, or Reveal Character. Remember, dialogue should do one of two things: move the story along, or reveal character. That’s all.

For true listaholics, Donovan also has Sol Stein’s “Secrets of Good Dialogue” (expanding Rule #15), “Helpful Lists for Fiction Writers,” “Oakley Hall’s Writing Tips,” “Elmore’s Rules for Writing” and “Creating Unforgettable Characters.” Perhaps if you ask at his email address, he’ll send them to you. Say something nice about his books, too. You don’t want to get on an agent’s naughty list.

Wordcraft -- Our imaginary friends talk back

Last week, I let Dallas writer and editor Joe Milazzo walk us through a recent class on developing fictional characters sponsored by the Dallas Writer’s Garret. But of course, characters are no dummies, no matter what their IQ. Whether based on people we know or dredged from the deepest recesses of our own minds, they don’t just stand around waiting for us as writers to put words into their mouths. In fact, they seldom stand around at all.

“There’s a concept in theater called blocking -- where you’re aware of the actions taking place around the actual dialogue,” Milazzo said.

With that in mind, he led class members through exercises designed to build character development through dialogue.

But first, we had to make our characters move. Why put movement first? Because, “even in a purely auditory work, like radio, there’s a sense of blocking.


So he asked each of us to write a list of gestures or facial expressions we felt were particularly communicative. With other people in the class, jotting ten or a dozen gestures was simple. If, like me, you often write in public places, take a minute now to glance around the park, the café, the bookstore. How about making notes of the people you see while waiting to be called for jury duty, during class, in a doctor’s or hospital waiting room? Waiting for the bus, in shops, at the gym? Just don’t be intrusive -- you want to notice how people look and move when they don’t feel on stage.

Once we had a list of gestures to refer to, Milazzo provided a scene written entirely in dialogue, the speakers unseen but overheard by the principal character, and asked to imagine seeing the speakers and inserting their gestures, expressions and movements. This exercise would also work using plays, especially classics available online.

For now, I’ll use a few lines from Milazzo’s example, the scene on pages 336-337 of Degrees by Michel Butor, in the English translation by Richard Howard. This is available in the Dallas Public Library system.

“Say, isn’t tomorrow Uncle Pierre’s birthday: Mother want to know if we’ve done anything.”
“Done anything?”
“Jacques and I haven’t, but you’re his pet. . .”
“Are we celebrating tomorrow night?”
“No, he’s coming to lunch?”
“Lunch? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Does he tell you everything?”

“By adding blocking and gesturing, you are remaking things about that character that readers can use to get to know your characters,” Milazzo said.

Some of these actions can be used instead of speech tags -- “he said, she said” -- to indicate the speaker as well as the action occurring. The emotional content of gestures lets readers discover facets of a character’s life without exposition on the writer’s part. Use of movement and gesture also slows the pace of dialogue, if needed for the story. Although it’s often advisable to keep action and speech tags to a minimum, even to the point of eliminating them completely from portions of dialogue, knowing where they underlie the speech will keep our characters grounded.

For more about Milazzo and his work, see www.slowstudies.net/.

For more about the Dallas Writer’s Garret and its programs, visit www.writersgarret.org/.

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Today, August 12, is the last day to reserve a seat for Dallas author Ben Fountain discussion of his National Book Award finalist, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. To sign up, go to www.dallasnews.com/benfountain/. I’ll follow up on Fountain’s appearance next Monday. My biggest what if -- if Fountain could satirize the poor old imploded Texas Stadium, what couldn’t he have done with the Cowboys’ new billion dollar digs in Arlington?