The Things We Say

A popular post from April 2008

by Julie Wight
Everyone says writing should mirror real life, I am here to say, okay. But not mirror exactly. It has to resemble real life, but you don’t want an exact replica. Alfred Hitchcock once said that a good story was: "life, with the dull parts taken out."

Keep this in mind when revising dialogue. Think of two teenagers having a conversation “Did you hear about Jane?”
“Oh I know. What a sitch huh?”
“Yeah, crazy.”
“Totally.”

We have no idea what these girls just said. Teenagers speak in tongues sometimes, and readers, even teenage readers aren’t going to put up with pages of this circular sort of dialogue. You do not want to mimic this language unless you’re intentionally mocking it.

Something else to avoid is sounding stiff and stilted in your writing with dialogue. People don’t speak properly when talking to one another. They slur their words together. We don’t say “you will.” We say “you’ll.” In conversations, there are umm’s and errrr’s, and while now and again that works perfect in dialogue, if you do it too much your readers are going to skip whole passages to try to get back into the meat of your story or worse, they’ll put your book down.

Be careful with your dialogue. Mimic reality while making sure to shave out the unnecessary.

Don’t info dump in dialogue. I’ve seen it happen where someone will have two characters having a conversation for the sole purpose of cluing in the reader. It goes something like this, “As you know, Bob, the facility was shut down due to an outbreak of purple spots.”

Here we have two issues. First, in reality we don’t use names all the time.
“Mary would you like some cake?”
“Why Yes, Joe. I’d love some cake.”
“I thought you might, Mary.”

Does that sound like a normal conversation? Not a chance.

Second issue with the first example. Bob already knows the facility was shut down due to the purple spots epidemic so they wouldn’t really be having this conversation. Do not use dialogue to info dump.

Some really fast tips are:
Dialogue tags--Do not veer too far away from he said/she said. If you are always adding clever replacements, they call attention to themselves. He cried . . . She spouted . . . They queried . . . He growled . . . She stuttered.

Using he said or she said is invisible to the reader. The others draw attention to themselves in a negative way.

On the same lines be careful about adverb usage. He said excitedly, she said dejectedly, he cried angrily, she whispered sexily. That gets really irritating really fast. It looks amateurish and you will be embarrassed if your book ever makes it to print (trust me on this one).

Weave conversation naturally with action and a dash of exposition (remember, I said DASH!). Break up the dialogue with action and internal thought.
An example:

“I came to say I’m sorry.” He bent down and rubbed his hands in the dirt
for a minute to clean them off. Hap preferred dirt to tomatoes any
day.

She turned to him, her pulsating hazel eyes glowered. If she’d had the
superpower of heat vision, he’d have been nothing but a pile of ash. “What
exactly are you sorry for?” she asked.

What? Was this a quiz? Wasn’t it enough to apologize without having to
consider the details? He shrugged. It was the best answer he had. The fewer
words, the faster he could get back and figure what Tolvan meant by an’ icy
trust.’

“I’m asking,” she said, while climbing down from the boulder. “I’m asking
because I want to know if you’re sorry for making fun of my magic trick, or for
my application qualifications, or if you’re sorry you made me look stupid in
front of your grandfather, who might have given me a job if you hadn’t been
there slapping buzzers on my hand.”

Hap blinked and scratched his hand through his hair. “Um . . . I’m sorry
for all that.” He almost said he was only sorry for the buzzer, but felt pretty
certain she expected him to be sorry for all of the above. Girls were funny that way.

By breaking up the dialogue, you create a scene that moves along.

Think about the things you say and the things you hold back. Think about emotions involved in your situations so your dialogue can reflect those emotions. Our conversations reveal so much about us. Make your conversations reveal your characters.

In summary:

• Don't info dump
• don't get repetitious with name usage
• use adverbs sparingly
• use said instead of clever dialogue tag replacements.
• utilize action and internal thought along with your dialogue to break it up and make it flow.

Show 'Em Talking

A popular post from February 2008

by Annette Lyon

Recently I edited a couple of books by talented writers. In both cases, the bulk of my comments related to the old adage, "Show, don't tell."

Both writers knew how to show, but didn't do it quite often enough.

And in the vast majority of cases, the solution to switching the telling into showing was placing the situation into a concrete scene and getting the characters talking.

Basically, dialogue.

It's hands-down one of the best ways to show. Not only is it a relatively easy (just record the movie in your head), but characters speaking will transform your work from a simple narration into a story with life.

Read your work, and every time you see a section where someone "told" something or "thought" something (when implied as speech) highlight it. Each one is an opportunity to show with added dialogue. Be sure to include contextual details (Where are your characters? What are they doing?) so your characters aren't just voices in your readers' heads.

An example:

My sister thought I was nuts for singing a rock song at the auditions for the school musical.

Let's try again. Picture a movie camera recording the scene. What do we see? What do we hear? Don't report what happened. Make it happen before our eyes.

I stepped off the stage from my audition to thunderous applause coming from three of my buddies in the back corner. I raised my arm, acknowledging them with a humble nod as if performing to a sold out crowd. "Thank you, thank you," I said. "You're too kind."

As I sauntered down the aisle, my sister sunk down into her chair. When I sat beside her she rolled her eyes away from me. "Pink Floyd? For a Sound of Music audition? You're totally nuts. From here on, I'm denying that I'm related to you. There's no way we share the same genetics."

I grinned, resting the back of one foot on the chair in front of me and crossing the other on top. "Nuts?" I said, hands clasped behind my head. "Quite possibly. But memorable."

The magic is in the details.

If you have a character who is shy, put him in a situation where he has to speak shyly. If you have a boss who's mean, don't report it. Show him screaming at his employees. Let us hear his words.

Show, don't tell. It's a crucial element to fiction.

But if it helps you remember to apply it, change the phrase to, "Show 'em talking."

Basic Training

A popular post from January 2008

By Julie Wright

This is just some good old fashioned nuts and bolts writing information for today. I am writing this post mainly because I've done a lot of editing books for new authors, and because I've done a lot of reading of author's first books and think we could all benefit from a little refresher course.

There is a broadway musical called Urinetown. In the opening scene officer Lockstock explains the musical to the audience.

Little Sally comes along and asks, “Say, Officer Lockstock, is this where you’re going to tell them about the water shortage?”

To which Officer Lockstock replies, “Everything in its time, Little Sally. You’re too young to understand it now, but nothing can kill a show like too much exposition.”

Little Sally ponders this, and then replies, “How about bad subject matter? Or a bad title? That could kill a show pretty good.”

“Yes, yes, a bad title and too much exposition!” Since the subject matter of this musical is pretty bad, the title is outright horrible, and the fact that the whole first ten minutes was exposition and explaining why exposition is bad, it all worked as a marvelous parody and a downright funny scene.

In a new author's manuscript where he isn't trying to make a mockery of the scene, it's not funny.

You've all heard it--show don't tell. Exposition is where we find ourselves giving a summary of events and dialogue rather than putting it into real action and dialogue. Exposition reads like a laundry list of things the character did and said today. Readers don't want to be told a story. They want to be in the story.

Instead of TELLing your readers that Emma is depressed and frustrated, SHOW her taking a bite of her favorite cake and pushing the rest away.

Instead of TELLing your reader that Sam's car is a broken-down wreck, SHOW him twisting two bare wires together to get the headlights to come on.

Instead of TELLing your readers. “Amanda took one look at the hotel room and recoiled in disgust.” SHOW the cockroach crawling over the edge of the bathroom sink, crawling down the cabinet (hanging by a single hinge), scurrying across the threadbare carpet, and disappearing under the rusty bed that sags in the middle.

Instead of saying: My mom hated my new hair cut. Make it: Mom reached for my head, but her hand halted at the place where my long curls should have been as though she could still sense them there, as though she were one of those amputees who still felt phantom pain in a leg long gone. "What have you done to your hair?"
"I cut it."
"I can see that! Why would do such a stupid thing? You look like an army sergeant. You need to fix this!"
I snorted at that. "What do you want me to do? Should I go back to the salon and demand they glue it all back?"
My mom pulled her hand away and wiped it on the front of her skirt as though she'd touched something dirty.

The exposition was dry . . . part of a laundry list. But showing the scene creates tension and character development. Now you don't have to tell us that Anne and her mom don't always agree. You don't have to tell us that Anne is independent, and does what she wants in spite of other people's opinions. You don't have to tell us that Anne falls into sarcasm in an effort to win arguements. You don't have to tell us that Anne's mother is a more traditional person. You can sense that by the fact she disapproves of Anne's new hair style--by the fact that she's wearing a skirt.

One conversation of realistic dialogue and we know quite a bit about these characters. The exposition would have put us to sleep.

In your writing, avoid lengthy bouts of exposition. Avoid the laundry list of what your character did and said today. Put your reader in your story by making them feel as though they are living it.

The Art of Dialogue: Building Relationships

A popular post July 2013

By Julie Wright
part four of four

It's time for the fourth tip of writing good dialogue. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things I am going to mention here, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number four:

Alter relationships—either building or tearing down-- You can tell if people are falling in love or getting a divorce by the kind of conversation they’re having. Most of the time anyway.  One of my favorite lines in the movie Life as We Know It is right after the two main characters have a major fight. One of the secondary characters made a comment that, "If my ex-wife and I fought like that . . . we'd still be married." So although they were fighting, it was a fight filled with passion, one that led the viewing audience to believe that the couple was in love in spite of the cruelty they hurled at each other in the form of words.

What are your characters saying to one another? Are they shredding each other verbally? Is the popular girl standing out from the crowd by telling one of the unpopular girls that she looks cute? Is the soldier refusing an order from his commanding officer which will likely result in disciplinary action?

You can tell if your characters are becoming friends or determined enemies by their conversations.  The things we say to each other alters our relationships even when we aren’t meaning them to. An offhanded compliment may save one person's life while a random verbal dig at that same person might be what throws them over the edge and makes them overdose. Conversations are important.

In real life, people kind of shamble through their own sentences. They um and er a lot, they digress, interrupt themselves, and start over again with the ums and ers. It's hard to build a believable relationship in print with all that going on, so refine the dialogue to include only the important things.

Dialogue can do all of these things we've discussed over the month—reveal character, move the plot, set the tone, and alter relationships in one conversation, but it, at least, has to have one, otherwise the dialogue isn’t necessary.

 –It can also do one more thing. Dialogue can provide exposition and backstory…and you want to use this judiciously. Nothing will bore a reader faster than you using dialogue to tell your main character’s entire life story or telling the entire history of the world you’ve built through the character’s conversations. That being said, dialogue is a tool in which you can quickly (quickly being the key word here) give some additional information, such as back story so that you won’t end up with long, tedious passages of exposition.

Building relationships means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. Like I said the last few weeks, if you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is:

• Moving the plot forward.
• Setting the Tone
• Revealing the character
• Building relationships

The Art of Dialogue: Reveal the Character

A popular post from July 2013

By Julie Wright
part three of four

It's time for the third tip of writing good dialogue. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things I am going to mention here, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number three:

Reveal the Character

We don’t learn about characters simply by what they do, or the exposition that is written; we can learn about them through what they say and just as important, how they say it. Some characters are quiet and reserved so every word they actually utter is like a gift. Think Phineas and Ferb. If Ferb ever says anything, you always pay more attention to it, because it hardly ever happens. You expect something profound and awesome to exit that guy's mouth.

Other characters say whatever pops into their heads. They're the non-filtered characters.  These people are annoying to most of the world. These are the people that you sometimes want to push off a cliff because you just need them to stop talking. I am a non-filtered conversationalist. Please don't push me off a cliff. I truly don't mean to be offensive. We are who we are . . .

Some people are opinionated. Some are conservative. Some people turn everything into a joke. Some people don’t even get jokes let alone tell them.

By using dialogue properly, we can SHOW a character who is a submissive kiss-up in the way he offers to do the Starbucks run when the boss mentions he needs a coffee. Or in the way the kiss-up walks in on his co-workers talking in the break room instead of working and insists he's going to tell the boss on all of them.  The author doesn't just tell the reader that Simon was a whiny, sniveling kiss-up. The dialogue shows it.

Revealing the character through dialogue is an ultimate SHOW don't TELL kind of move. Don't tell us she hates her mom. Drop us in the middle of the fight and show her yelling at her mom--saying the sorts of things that prove her feelings. Don't tell us it hurt him to say goodbye. Show his voice cracking as he stumbles over the one word that changes everything for him.

We learn a lot about people during the course of conversation. Use this tool to help your reader better know your characters, and for your characters to better know each other. The more your reader knows your character, the more your reader can empathize and love that character which means they will stay with your character until the very end.

Revealing the character means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. Like I said the last two weeks, if you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is:

• Moving the plot forward.
• Setting the Tone
• Revealing the character

The Art of Dialogue: Set the Tone

A popular post from July 2013

By Julie Wright
part two of four

It's time for the second tip of writing good dialogue. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things I am going to mention here, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number Two:

Set the Tone

If it’s funny, or serious, or scary—you’ll know by the dialogue. Setting sets the tone, too, and is  completely important in writing, but a setting can’t exactly explain the tone of the book because the same setting can have multiple purposes.

So let's say our characters are at a funeral home. It’s just two of them, because no one else has arrived, or maybe no one else is coming. They're standing at the casket looking at the solemn repose of the deceased. That’s the setting.

But what will set the tone is the conversation—or lack of conversation—the two characters will have.

Maybe they’re brothers and it’s their father’s funeral. Maybe they hate each other because Dad loved one over the other. The setting says sad funeral, but the tone might be an angry war between brothers.

Or it could be two teenagers at the funeral of the science teacher who left them a clue to his murder. So they’re there to figure out who the murderer is. Their conversation and tone will be one of tension, intrigue, and anticipation. The tone is a who-dunnit.

Or it could be a couple of friends at the funeral of a roommate who was totally insane, and they’re there joking around about who gets his room and his Fender guitar. The tone would be a dark comedy.

Or maybe the characters are talking about cutting off the dead guy's head. Kind of weird, but hey, it happens. An ounce of preventuion and all that . . . As they cast a casual glance over their shoulders to see if anyone else is watching them cut off the head, the newly deceased's eyes pop open. Seeing that no one else is present, they move to the gruesome task of staking the undead at the same time the undead is working on making a snack of the two of them.  (I hate it when I wake up hungry). That tone of that scene would be horror/action.

The same setting can produce lots of different tones depending on what the characters say when they open their mouths.

Setting the tone means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. Like I said last week, if you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is:

• Moving the plot forward.
• Setting the Tone

The Art of Dialogue: Move the Plot Forward

A popular post from July 2013

By Julie Wright
part one of four

Dialogue is one of the most important parts of effective writing to me. It's one of my strengths in my writing, and so it's disappointing to me when it isn't a strength of other writers. I won't care if your commas are scattered like dandelion seeds on a manicured lawn, but I will sigh mightily if the dialogue doesn't work.

Sigh and likely put your book down.

So here is the first of four tips on what your dialogue should accomplish. The next three tips will come each Tuesday for the next three weeks. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number one:

Move the Plot Forward

Dialogue is a place where your characters can learn new information that helps them deal with the conflicts they're experiencing.

• This is where they make decisions about where to go from here.
• This is where they argue, fall in love, declare war, ask for divorces, make peace. Basically, this is where we create tension and conflict.
• This is where information is shared between characters that helps them understand if there is impending danger, or if the danger has moved on already. It helps build suspense.
• This is where the reader comes to understand how the character fits into the plot they've been dropped into. It allows the character discovery opportunities.
• This is where things happen because the characters say it’s happening.

Moving the plot forward means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. I believe that writing is like owning an apartment complex. If you rent a few apartments out to people who aren't paying rent--you need to evict them so that you can maintain profitability and stay in business. If you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Nowhere is this more true than with dialogue. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is moving the plot forward.

Starting Your Book

A popular post from August 2009

By Heather Moore

When I meet writers who are looking to get published, they often ask me how I decide where to start my story, who the characters will be, and how I plot.

So as I’m preparing to write my next book, I thought I’d give you some insight into my process.

1. Thinking. Maybe mulling is the more correct word. I have to have the main character pretty well defined in my mind before starting to write. The secondary characters come into the story to support the main character—and sometimes they surprise even me.

2. Creating a schedule. Writing, of course, is not always controlled by that effervescent muse (Annette—I’m probably using effervescent wrong). Writing is part creativity, and part science. Editing definitely falls into the science category, as well as actually completing a book. Like any writer, I’m constantly pulled in different directions. But once I decide on a book, I need to create the schedule to get it completed, and limit any other stories in my head that are trying to derail priority number 1. For example, if I decide to turn in a book on December 1st to my publisher and I start on August 1st, I divide the word count by the number of writing days. And I leave a couple of weeks in for editing. August: 25,000 words (average 1,000 words a day, 5 days/week). September: 25,000 words, October: 25,000 words, November: 10,000 (2 weeks), 2 weeks of edits.

3. Character sketching. This is an evolving process and changes and grows as I get further into the writing process. For instance, when I write my first draft, my character motivations aren’t usually ironed out. I’m writing mostly plot and dialog. About half-way through draft 1, I’ve had to make solid decisions about my characters, so I’m adding information to my character sketches as I go. So during the 2nd draft, I’m inserting more characterization to the beginning of the book.

4. Point of view & tense: I take into consideration who my audience will be and who the most important characters are. Will the story happen in real time (present tense) or past tense? Will my characters speak in first person (ideal for YA), or third person? It’s a lot of work to change this part of the process, so doing your research beforehand will save you a lot of time later.

5. Conflict. This goes hand in hand with character sketching. I have to ask myself what is the main conflict of the book, and of each character.

6. Beginning. Now that I have some basics going and I actually sit down to write, I usually concentrate on where I want the story to begin. Not to say that the first chapter I write will be the actual first chapter of the book, but I start pretty near the beginning. Before I start a chapter/scene, I ask myself: “What is the point of the chapter? What will be accomplished? What will it show that may/may not be relevant to the story as a whole?”

7. Creating a scene. I create scenes in several phases. Phase 1: writing and not caring too much about “fleshing out” the characters or the description, but I am nailing down the direction of the scene. Phase 2: revising the scene and inserting more description, making more concrete decisions about the character. Phase 3: this will happen when the whole book is drafted and maybe new developments have happened along the way. So I now have to go back through each scene to make sure the story is properly directed. As you can see, creativity has just been replaced by careful analysis (science).

Okay, looking over this list makes me wonder why I even start a new book. Every writer has what works for them. My style might be convoluted, but you never know, it might work for you as well.

The Mirror That is Our Writing

A popular post from January 2010

By Julie Wright

I eavesdrop. I've confessed this before, but I've been doing it a lot again lately so figured I was due for another confessional. I HAVE to eavesdrop when I'm working on a book because I have a problem I call speech reflection.

My writing is a direct reflection of my own language and speech patterns. I have to edit out a lot to change that, but first drafts are so transparently me. And so I resort to eavesdropping on other people's conversations to save myself from my own voice. If you listen to people--really listen, you'll find that no two people sound alike. Their word choices, their cadence and beat, their stutterings, ramblings, and hesitations all reflect on who they are. Like snowflakes, no two are alike.

In so many ways, my writing is like a mirror. It is a reflection on who I am even when I try hard for it not to be. My own persona sneaks into all the characters I write, whether they are the good guys or the evil guy. It's frustrating.

And in some ways, it's unavoidable. They tell us to write what we know and sometimes we just can't help but listen to them. But there are things we can do to find our own characters speech patterns and voices.

These are the things I try to do:

--Eavesdrop. You thought I was kidding, didn't you? No seriously--eavesdrop. Go and listen to other people's patterns of conversation.
--have a complete picture of what your character looks like. Some authors I know cut pictures out of magazines to identify their characters. This keeps them solidly in their head. If your character is always shifting in your mind on how they look, how can you pin down how they sound?
--remember your character's age. A two-year-old speaks differently from a ten-year-old, who will speak differently from a twenty-year-old. Don't forget to check the nuances of speech in different ages.
--know where your character comes from. New Englander who says "wicked?" Southerner who says "fixin?" Know their accents, and the vernacular of the culture they were raised in.
--take out phrases that anyone who's met you could pin point as something you'd say.

I have books in the past where the character sounds just like me and I cringe over it. But I've confessed the sin of speech reflection and am daily working on eradicating it from my writing life. So if you notice this in your own writing, feel free to go eavesdrop. People don't mind. They really don't. If they did, they wouldn't talk so loud.

Revising and Self-editing

A popular post from August 2012.

by Annette Lyon

The other day, TJ sent a great set of questions to me and a few other writers, asking for suggestions on how to go about self-editing and revising. He wasn't talking about the full-on, rip it apart and put it back together kind of revising, but the last big passes before you send your baby out into the world on submission.

I'm sure every writer has  different ways of going about revisions and self-editing, so take what I have to say in that sense. Below is my experience in relation to TJ's questions.


1) Do you go in order? Page 1 to page X. Or do you jump around?

Both. First I'll do the spot-check thing, filling in holes, double-checking scenes I'm unsure of, and so forth.

But in the end, nothing can replace going through the whole thing from front to back before you submit. That's how you catch transitions that don't work, jumps in time, inconsistencies, see how the arc works (or doesn't) and so forth. It's the closest you'll get to reading it as a reader before you send it off.

2) Do you outline and make sure the order is right?

I semi-outline. I can't outline like some people do, down to small details, with an outline that's several pages long. Instead, I need an idea of where I'm starting out, where I'm going, and several major landmarks along the way that create the arc I want. My outlines are more like long bullet lists.

The outline gets more detailed the farther into the manuscript I go, as the more I figure out of the nitty gritty details, the more I fill in.

But at the self-editing stage, all that flies out the window. If the story is drafted, I don't see a point in creating an outline after the fact, unless it helps you write a synopsis. Hate those.

3) What about a line that doesn't fit in the scenario but you love it. Do you just find a way to make it work or do you move it somewhere else?

Easy: cut it.

Really. I've had to do that several times, and it's always the right decision, no matter how painful it is. A few times years ago, I tried making a line work or moving it (it was just so good!), but in the end, if a line isn't organic to the story, it ends up sticking out like a sore thumb.

In other words, the reader is pulled out as you shine a spotlight on yourself as the clever writer. It's showing off.

In short, those lines are the "darlings" that need to be killed.

If you love the line so much you can't bear to delete it, do what Josi does: create a file specifically for cuts from the manuscript. That's where you paste everything you aren't using but love. That way it's not deleted, and you can always retrieve it, even using it for a later project where it works better.

But definitely, if it's not working where you originally put it, cut it for the good of the whole work.

4) Do you read aloud to check word/dialogue flow? If so, to whom do you read? (How's that for proper, Annette?) [I'm so impressed! Star on your forehead!] Your spouse, your dog, your kids as they're duct-taped to a chair with their mouths duct-taped so they can't overpower you vocally?

Most of my reading aloud is at critique group, and because we rarely have time to read through entire books nowadays, not every scene gets read aloud. But it's not uncommon for me to sit in my office and read quietly under my breath (to myself, unless the cat's sitting on the back of my chair) to see if a scene, especially dialog, flows well.

Reading aloud is worth doing, even if people think you're weird for doing it. But you should be used to people thinking you're weird. You're a writer, after all, right?

5) When you have a critique from your writing group, do you go chapter by chapter, person by person, one-potato-two-potato-three-potato-four?
I personally take a meeting's worth at a time, so a chapter or scene at a time, going through everyone's comments on that one section before moving on to another one.

This helps me target my revisions, because I see everyone's feedback in a short span. It's easy to see who agrees that page 34 stinks and who loved the line on page 38, and who agrees or disagrees with so-and-so.

6) You're all awesome!

Why thank you! :-D



Thanks to TJ for inspiring this post. Best of luck to all our readers on their revisions!

Dialog Exercise

A popular post from July 2010

by Annette Lyon

In the very first creative writing class I took, one assignment was to write a sitcom-length screenplay.

We learned about basic screenplay formatting and all that, but for me (an aspiring novelist), the most powerful thing I learned from that unit was how to write powerful dialog.

Screenplays by their nature are pretty much nothing but dialog. You're allowed to say where and when the scene is taking place (Interior, Day, Sherrie's kitchen) and maybe a few camera instructions (pan right).

But for the most part, the script relies on spoken words. Usually, the writer isn't allowed to even put in directions for the actor, because they like to decide how to act and deliver their own lines, thank-you-very-much.

Since you can't add actions (he folded his arms and stomped his foot), internal monologue (she wondered what he meant by that), or even adverbs or other descriptors (she said in a whining tone), you're forced to make emotions, characterization, conflict--pretty much everything--come through with nothing but the words your characters say aloud.

(The flip side of this lesson is that I had to later learn to put back in the internal monologue, the emotions, the actions, the setting and contextual details and how to show all that. But that's another post.)

So if you're struggling with making your dialog snappy, alive, full of conflict, and captivating, try writing it first as a script.

Test yourself: How can you change your characters' speech to reflect what they're feeling/thinking/doing?

If you can succeed in making those things clear with just the spoken word, without relying on crutches like adverbs and actions, your story will be much stronger. It's a challenge, for sure. You'll yearn to add just one stage direction or action or adverb. Resist. Tell the story with pure conversation.

If you succeed, the scene won't be done, but you'll have some fantastic dialog.

Then you have to go back and insert the other good stuff, all those things that make a novel, a novel. When you do that (and well, by showing instead of telling), your story will come that much more alive.

Of course, you can't rely entirely on dialog (and we don't want "talking heads"), but working a specific scene this way can help you find a specific character's voice, motivation, and more.

Have fun!

Wait. Where Are We?

A popular post from March 2011

by Annette Lyon

One part of writing that I love is when I'm really in the groove and the story simply flows from my fingers, through the keyboard, onto the screen. It's like I'm watching and creating a movie simultaneously.

Sometimes those great bursts of creativity produce good work. Other times, well, the section needs revision.

Remember: What's in your head and what's on the page aren't always the same thing.

A common problem I see in beginning writers' work is not grounding the reader at the beginning of a new scene or chapter. The writer knows what the new scene looks like, but they haven't put it on the page. The reader may end up spending a page or two figuring out who all is present, where we are, how much time has passed since the last scene, and who's head we're in.

A good writer can jump right into the story, keep the pace going, and not leave the reader in the dust. It's a balancing act of giving out enough information but not too much.

The key is to remember as you write that your reader isn't in your head. They have no idea where or when this new scene is compared to the last one. The story could have jumped two minutes, two hours, or two years. We could be in the same room, outdoors, or on another continent.

If the writer doesn't orient us quickly, we're liable to close the book, annoyed and confused. This is especially important for speculative works, where one chapter could literally be in another world or time.

An example: John and James have a conversation. With speech tags, they're both identified. So far, so good. They're talking along for a couple of pages, when John signals and turns left into a grocery store.

Wait, what? When did we get into a car? Last time we saw John, he was at work.

Shake the head to clear it. Create new mental picture: John and James are in a car. John is driving. He pulls into a grocery store parking lot. Got it.

They keep talking, go into the store, and as they reach the produce section, Jennifer adds her two bits to the conversation.

Whoa. Where did she come from? Oh, she was in the car with them? The writer didn't show us that. We redraw the entire scene in our heads, adding Jennifer to the car as a passenger.

And so on.

As the writer, you're seeing it all. You know who's present. You know what everyone is saying and doing. Heck, you probably know what they're all wearing and had for lunch. You know precisely what the environment looks like and could describe the sights, sounds, smells.

But if you don't describe those things, we don't know any of it.

A similar problem with a scene opener is when we're put into a character's head, thinking about the current situation and what to do next. But we're not in a scene. There's no location, no action. We're just floating around in someone's head. That's not only confusing, it's boring.

So create a scene from line one. A scene requires, at the very least, a character, a location, and action (and preferably conflict). Then we can get into someone's head and think. (But not for long, flowing paragraphs, unless you're looking at literary fiction.)

The tricky part, of course, is knowing how much to show on the page. You don't want to bog down the narrative showing every turn the car makes, every detail of the dashboard, or the color, style, and designer of each passenger's shirt, and every business they pass on the road.

But we do need to know we're in a car, driving somewhere. A few specifics about the type of car, plus a sight, a sound, or smell, are all great additions that help make a scene pop. Sprinkle those in with care.

Likewise, there's no reason to spend paragraphs on every character present, but the reader must know who's there. And make sure we are somewhere doing something.

Remember: set a scene, which means having both location and action.

You'd be surprised at how easy it is to open a chapter or scene without either. Don't.

By the same token, avoid simply stating who's present, plus where they are and where they're going. That's telling, not showing.

Fixing this kind of problem really comes down to show, don't tell (as so many writing problems seem to).

In our example scene, where John and James are talking (and we have no idea where they are), we have a "talking heads" situation. That means we hear voices that might as well be disembodied, because we don't have solid details that ground the "movie" in our heads. Talking heads = telling.

We can fix the dialogue by adding "beats," such as facial expressions, gestures, thoughts from the POV character, and more. That breaks up the talking heads, and it creates a showing environment. The movie in the writer's head is more fully on the page.

The reader figures out the location not by being told what it is but by watching how the characters react to and interact with their environment. If every character is reacting and interacting, we get no surprises when Jennifer speaks in the produce section.

Perhaps James nervously flips the lock/unlock button back and forth. John moves the visor to block the sun then gets annoyed at the guy in the Lamborghini who cut him off. Jennifer tells James to stop it with the lock button already, because it's driving her crazy. All of those details show us where they are (and we get a peek into their characters to boot).

A challenge: Open your WIP to any scene. Read half a page of the opening. Is it clear where, when, and with whom we are? For that matter, are we in a scene or just floating in a character's head?

Look at every scene opener in your story. Revise them as needed to be sure the reader will come away with a clear movie in their heads: the one you want them to be watching.

Reading Like a Writer

A popular post from September 2010

by Annette Lyon

We've mentioned it before many times here: writers should read a lot. And they should.

Even inferior stuff.

Awhile ago, I finished some less-than-stellar novels. I pushed myself to finish them, even though I was afraid of losing brain cells in the process, for one big reason: reading bad stuff even to the bitter (sometimes literally) end can be a powerful teaching tool.

Now, I don't recommend finishing every single book you don't like, but finishing some can be worth it purely for the education you get as a result.

By finishing an entire bad book, you get to see poor plots (and how they don't resolve well) firsthand. How to make flat character arcs (you can't tell that from a few chapters). How conflict can fizzle when it's supposed to be ramping up. How dead wood flattens a story. How telling instead of showing weakens the entire effect.

Any time I purposely read bad stuff, I make a point of analyzing it. Why is this bad? Specifically? What could the author have done to fix this part? That one? Why does the voice drive me crazy? Why can't I connect to this character? Why am I bored during what's supposed to be the climax?

If I ask those questions and try to find the answers, then the time I spent on the book isn't wasted. I can apply what I've learned to my work, avoiding problems I might have made if I hadn't seen close-up how this or that doesn't work.

A few gems from some recent reading:

• Make your hero/heroine ACTIVE participants. Having your MC react to everything and not take action is boring.
• On the flip side, don't make your MC act rashly. If you must get them into a dangerous situation, find a way to do it that doesn't make your reader think the character is a total blockhead.
• Assume your reader is at least as smart as your MC. Or smarter. Readers will get it. No need to spell things out. They'll also catch plot holes the size of Alaska. And even ones the size of Rhode Island. Remember, readers are smart.
• Keep the pace clipping along, especially if the story is supposed to be suspenseful. Nothing like your MC spending weeks or months (and wasted paper and words) on, well, nothing.
• BEWARE OF DEAD WOOD.
• Show. Show. Show. No, really. SHOW!
• Make conflicts big enough for the MC. That means not building it up to be something big and then having it resolved in one paragraph like magic.
• Make sure the MC's actions are properly motivated. Just because you need X to happen doesn't mean that readers will buy it when the MC does W to set the wheels in motion. (See the "man, that character is a blockhead" bullet above.)
• After the cool, intense, climactic part hits, don't spend another 80 or more pages wrapping things up and trying to throw in additional minor conflicts for the sake of tying up every little detail.
• Don't belabor points. We got it the first time. And the second. By the ninth time, I'm trying to find a hot poker for my eyes. (Remember that "readers are smart" bit?)
• Make each character unique. They must sound different, not all like versions you.

Anything you've learned from reading crappy stuff lately?

Powerful Dialog: Shorter Is Often Sweeter

A popular post from February 2012. 

by Annette Lyon

In the famous movie The Fugitive from the early 90s, Tommy Lee Jones has a fantastic line that people still quote and remember And it's all of three words.

He delivers the line when he's got Harrison Ford's character almost caught, standing at the edge of a water pipe that opens hundreds of feet above a river. Jones's character is simply doing his job to catch an escaped convict.

Ford's character, who was falsely convicted, cries out: "I didn't kill my wife!"

Jones's reply is simple and powerful, and delivered with slow deliberation, almost without emotion from fatigue. "I. Don't. Care."

Kapow.

Not that is effective dialog.

There's more to that line. The story goes that the script originally had several sentences there, a mini speech for Tommy Lee Jones to deliver as to why this isn't personal; he's doing his job, and yada yada.

Jones as an actor had the instinct that shorter is better, to trust the audience to get it. That doing so will be far more effective.

He cut the speech entirely and replaced it with those three words, "I don't care," that communicate more to the audience in three seconds than a three-minute speech could.

Writers could use this as a lesson on how to write good dialog. Pontificating is easy; we writers like to hear ourselves speak (or, er, write). We want to be absolutely sure the reader gets it.

As with so many writing issues, don't stress this too much in your first draft. But when you go through revisions, pay special attention to your dialog and take note of a few things:

• Can some of the words be cut?
• Are characters saying more than they need to?
• Are characters repeating stuff the reader already knows?
• Worse, are characters repeating what every character present already knows, just for the reader's benefit?
• Are characters repeating what someone just said to them? (Such as: "What are you doing here?" with the reply, "What do you mean, what am I doing here?")
• Are they saying something they already said elsewhere (whether in this scene or somewhere else)?
• MOST IMPORTANT: Is the dialog something we can figure out ourselves?

Trust that your readers are smart. They certainly don't need to have you beating a dead horse.

Or even tapping it with a switch.

This is probably the only situation where "show, not tell" ends up shorter rather than longer. Tight, concise dialog shows character and reveals plot so much better than long, meandering passages.

Or even three sentences that could be cut to three words.

Call this The Fugitive effect. I use it all the time on my own work and when editing clients. It's one of my favorite tools.

Five Tips to Improve Your Writing

by Lu Ann Staheli

I’ve been working as an editor now for a long time, first with students at school, but more recently I’ve returned to editing manuscripts for local publishers. As I’ve been working on the most recent projects, I’ve started to keep a list of suggestions that would help the authors improve the flow and content of their stories. Each of these is a simple fix, yet applying them could make a huge difference in the quality of writing, and improved quality means a better reading experience for your audience.

1. Use the Natural Order for Dialogue Tags

“He said” is the natural order of things and should be used whenever possible. Lately I’ve read three manuscripts where the author has elected to use “said he,” every time. Although an occasional use of this order works, using it too often makes the reader begin to focus on the tag and not the dialogue, the place where the focus should be. In an effort to avoid the same-old-same-old, authors tend to let the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction, thinking their new sentence structure will seem fresh and interesting. Instead, it feels awkward and annoying. My philosophy of writing is: Never annoy your reader. If your reader become too annoyed, they will no longer be your reader, and in the publishing world, that’s the last thing you want them to do.

2. Stop Telling Me How to Feel

Although it is important for your reader to experience a sense of place and character, adding a tag or beat that tells them how the character speaks easily becomes distracting. Words or phrases such as laughed, with a smile, in a serious tone, or asked happily are all examples of the author telling the audience. A better way is to strengthen the dialogue itself, so there is no doubt in the reader’s mind how the character feels when they say these words. Of course, an occasional directive may be needed, but most of the time these tags and beats can go.

3. Echoes are for Mountain Tops, Not Fiction

If you are in the habit of letting your characters echo or question everything that is said to them, you need to stop. When new ideas are thrown at a character, it is likely they will want to know more, but instead of repeating the key word from the previous dialogue, give them a question that covers new ground. Insist those characters listen the first time, then build upon the information they have been given. Stand-alone questions like what and huh are wasted words, something most novelists really can’t afford.

4. Put Your Dialogue Tags on a Diet

When you were in grade school, you probably had a teacher who insisted that you use a variety of words to replace said. It’s great that you know all those words, but in this case, your teacher was wrong. Dialogue tags need to be invisible. They are only there as place markers, a way for your reader to know who is speaking during a conversation with two or more characters. Keep your tags as bland as possible. Use said, whispered, and asked, always things a speaker can actually do with words. If you want to add a little spice, you may do so, but don’t change dialogue tags every time the character speaks. As a matter of fact, see how many times you can get away without using them at all.

One way to do this is to know how to use a beat, a descriptive phrase that also adds sense of place. Recently I edited a manuscript that used the following tags on a single page: said, questioned, replied, asked, replied, answered, said, said, questioned, answered, laughed. Not only were most of them too heavy, but the repetition of those heavier words stood out like an elephant in a group of penguins. An occasional beat like this might have worked better: “He could hardly keep the laugher from bursting through his words.”

5. Stop Beating the Dead Horse

Once you established a point, get on with it. Develop the information more if you need to, but don’t continue to tell us the same thing, just in new words. This might be harder for you to recognize in your own work than the other points I’ve made. Ask your trusted readers—the ones who see your manuscript before it goes to an editor—to look for times you’ve gone too far in making a statement. Sure, it might be significant to your story that the audience understands how handsome a character is, that another one is a klutz, and that they each have things they want, but give us credit for being able to remember that from the things they do and say, without you, the author, reminding us numerous times per page.

Final Words

These are the kinds of errors that are easy to make as we write with the muse. They are also corrections that are easy to do. Sometimes we need the help of other people to recognize we have fallen into their use, but most often, we can find them in our own work. Learning to write well requires constant work; each new piece brings its own challenges, but when we pay attention to detail and watch our writing improve, the rewards make all that work worthwhile.

Avoid Talking Heads

by Lu Ann Staheli

What is a “talking head”? Maybe you remember the 1970's, when the punk singing group Talking Heads first made their debut. Or you might have heard the term “talking heads” used to refer to cable news anchors, TV or radio personalities who sit behind a desk and share their opinions.

I’ve often used the phrase “talking heads” in my language arts classroom. No, not to refer to those students who are so busy chatting that they don’t learn anything, although that has been tempting at times. I refer to a style developing writers often use, offering pages of dialogue, bouncing the reader back and forth like a ping pong ball, but failing to establish a sense of place, develop characterization, or move the story forward through action. Sometimes the reader can follow the author’s intention, but still come away from the work feeling they need to know more.
Here’s a sample passage adapted from the award-winning novel Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse to illustrate what can happen when writers fail to use more than dialogue to tell their story.

“Wear this in health,” Hannah had whispered.
“Come,” Papa said.
“Quickly, Rifka,” Papa whispered. “The boys, and Mama, and I must hide before light.”
“You can distract the guards, can’t you, little sister?” Nathan said.
“Yes,” I answered.

What is happening in this selection? Who are the characters? What do you know about them? Where are they? You probably don’t know all the answers to these questions after reading nothing but this adaptation.

Here’s the same passage in its original form. Notice the difference in information about where the characters are, what is being asked of them, and the action that is to come.

“Wear this in health,” Hannah had whispered in my ear as she draped a shawl over my shoulders early this morning, before we slipped from your house into the dark.
“Come,” Papa said, leading us through the woods to the train station.
I looked back to the flickering lights of your house, Tovah.
“Quickly, Rifka,” Papa whispered. “The boys, and Mama, and I must hide before light.”
“You can distract the guards, can’t you, little sister?” Nathan said, putting an arm around me. In the darkness, I could not see his eyes, but I felt them studying me.
“Yes,” I answered, not wanting to disappoint him.

You have probably figured out that these people are trying to escape from somewhere, despite danger and their own fears. These details were not clear in the first version.

If you want your reader to become engaged in your story, care about your characters, and leave the story with a sense of fulfillment. Add the rich details that take your reader right into the setting and the scene. Readers don’t want to follow a ping pong game, they want to make a connection with the characters. Don’t let your character’s dialogue stand alone as nothing more than “talking heads.”

Creating Natural Dialogue

By Heather Moore

Have you ever been told that your character’s dialogue sounds stilted, formal, or unnatural? One easy way to prevent this is by reading your scenes aloud. When you “hear” the words you’ve written, suddenly you pick up on any awkward or disjointed phrases.

Some tips I’ve found useful:

1. Say more with less. Showing character through dialogue applies to this. If you told your girlfriend you found the perfect dress, she might gush, “When can I see it?” If you told your husband, he might say, “How much?” These two different responses show character.

2. Don’t name call.
In other words, if Jeff is speaking to Roxy, he probably doesn’t say, “Roxy, will you call me later?” He’ll say, “Call me.” There are some exceptions for when characters call each other by name. They include when they meet each other somewhere, when they’re angry, or passionate.

3. First draft dialogue vs. second draft.
When the story is coming fast, your job is to get the words down quickly. This includes dialogue. But before you start sending your work to readers, go over the dialogue again with the character in mind. If your character is annoyed at someone, would he say, “Knock it off,” “Buzz off,” or “Leave me alone”?

4. If you have one character who swears, fine. But if all your characters swear, and with the same expletives, it becomes confusing.

5. Make sure when a question is asked by one character it’s answered in some way by the other character—whether in action or dialogue.

6. Don’t forget the unforgettable rule of thumb. Use “said” most of the time when writing dialogue.

7. After the second draft, read aloud again. You’ll be glad you did.

Weaving Fiction from History

by Annette Lyon

Some of the most beloved novels of all time are historical fiction, written well after the period described in them. Think Gone with the Wind, A Tale of Two Cities, and Les Miserables.

These books (and many others) have much in common, including the fact that when you read them, it feels like they were written during the time they were set. The time period is accurate and real.

How did Margaret Mitchell, Charles Dickens, and Victor Hugo do it?

A Dynamic Time Period
They didn't write about any day in any year. They wrote about a time in which there was turmoil and conflict (great building blocks for a story!). Those time periods are also ones in which readers can readily identify. Saying "1860" is far more generic to a reader than "The U.S. Civil War." Immediately we have an image in mind, complete with inherent conflicts, a setting, and much more.

Research
These authors most certainly read up on the time period they were writing about. I don't know if it's true, but rumor has it that Dickens read a couple of hundred books on the French Revolution for A Tale of Two Cities. While I don't think you need to go that far in your research, read and dig around enough to know what you're talking about and be able to present the era in a way that's believable and real.

Story over Research
If there's one key to writing great historical fiction, this is it.

Keep your knowledge of the period in check. Yes, Dickens and the others knew boatloads about the Civil War or war-torn France, but they didn't flout it. They used whatever bits and pieces helped bring the STORY alive.

And that's the key right there. Story must take precedence over research. A chain of facts does not make a plot.

It's tempting to cram into your book as many of the details, facts, and figures you've learned. Or at the very least, cram more than you should. Chances are that less than 10% of what you research will end up in the book. But it's that 90% or so that you can draw on that allows you to create a rich environment for your characters to play out their stories in.

Beware the danger of making your story into a giant history lesson. Remember at all costs that the historical details are NOT the story, that they are there solely to ENHANCE the story. Yes, they may play a big part of the story and provide many of the conflicts. (But now we're back to the history being there for a reason: creating a rip-roaring story, not for setting the scene.)

I like to think of the time period as the hanger on which the story is draped. It's definitely there. It makes a big difference in how the story and characters work. But it's NOT the story in and of itself. In some respects, Gone with the Wind could have been written about several different wars, because it's the characters who create the story, not the war itself per se. (Remember how Goodnight Saigon, based in Vietnam, is a retelling of Madame Butterfly? MB certainly wasn't written during the 60s, but the underlying story is timeless.)

Any time you find yourself throwing in facts for the sake of telling more than your reader needs to know, pull back. Don't over explain elements from the past; it doesn't sound natural. If you use terms that might be unfamiliar to modern readers, find a natural way to work an explanation into the text.

For example, I had a reader for my upcoming historical novel indicate that he/she didn't know what a tick was and that I should explain. It would have been ridiculous for me to stop the scene and go on about how before mattresses, people filled large fabric "pillowcase" type things with straw, and they slept on those, and that's what a tick was. That would have been an intrusion to the narrative.

Having my characters stop and talk about it would have felt equally false. Why on earth would one of my two female characters describe a tick when they both know full well what it is? People don't chat over things they already know about. (It's what I call the, "As you know, Bob" mistake in dialogue.)

Instead, I simply had a character refer to the person who would be sleeping on the guest tick and that they'd need to get it filled with straw before she arrived. Natural conversation, but the information that the reader needs to know gets across.


Historical writing can be rewarding and exciting. Just don't let the history get in the way!

Characters that Breathe

by Annette Lyon

Characters are the lifeblood of any story. Next to conflict, they're arguably the most important element of your book. The trick is how to make characters that practically breathe on the page, rather than making characters who feel about as lifelike as cardboard.

1) Dialogue
Listening to characters talk is not only good for showing vs. telling, propelling the plot, and so forth, it's also a terrific way to show characterization. Think of JK Rowling's characters: Hermione sounds very different from Hagrid, who sounds different from Snape, who again sounds very different from Dumbledore. For specifics on writing characterization in dialogue, visit this post about it.

2) Mannerisms
Major caveat here: don't overdo this one. But a specific mannerism or two that a character does when nervous, angry, excited, or experiencing another heavy emotion can add an additional level of realism. An example: In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, Nynaeve yanks on her long braid whenever she's angry or irritated. After a while, he doesn't have to tell me how upset she is; I know by how hard she's tugging on that braid.

3) Motivation
What is at stake for your character? More importantly, WHY? If your readers know the answers to both questions, they'll be far less likely to put the book down because they're rooting for the fictional people you've created. The characters are REAL. Read Josi's earlier post here for more about character motivation.

4) Point of View
You can reveal a ton about a character by the way they see the other people in their world. Going back to Harry and company, imagine how Snape would be viewed if we saw the story through Malfoy's point of view. Snape would be a hero, a champion, a great teacher. But we see him through Harry's eyes, the kid who gets the short end of the stick from Snape.

5) Internal Dialogue
How do your characters think and feel during and after situations of conflict? What they feel and what they decide to do next reveals more about their character than anything you could tell us outright. When Jean Val Jean releases Javert (and then when Javert kills himself) we learn an enormous amount about these men, and in a more effective way than if Hugo had just explained to us that Val Jean values mercy and Javert is a slave to justice.

Read over your drafts and see how well your characters are coming through. Are they round or flat? Have you shown who they really are? Work in some of these elements so they're just as real to your readers as they are to you.

Dialogue and Characters

By Annette Lyon

The last time I blogged on dialogue, I mentioned keeping each of your characters true to themselves in relation to their age, gender, education, geographical differences, and so on.

This time, I'll expand on that idea and provide some examples:


AGE
The following is an actual quote. The basic age of the speaker is probably easy to determine:

“Mama, I can’t sleep without Teddy. You look for him everywhere you can think.”

I’m betting you could tell that the speaker isn’t a 60-year-old chemistry professor. It's my 4 1/2-year-old daughter the other night as I tucked her into bed.

How can you tell? Not only because of the topic (her teddy bear), but because of her word choice ("look for him" rather than something like "search for it," since we're talking an inanimate object) and her syntax ("everywhere you can think”).

Similarly, teenagers talk differently than preschoolers do. Twenty-somethings will sound different than seniors. And so on. Even all your adult characters shouldn't sound the same.


GENDER
In my critique group, we’ve had some lively discussions about what is natural for men and women to say. It’s happened more often now that a couple of men have joined, and I welcome such discussions, because my male characters are much more masculine than they’ve ever been as the guys have called me on the carpet. (“A guy would never use that word; it’s too feminine.”)

Take a wild guess which is the female and which is the male in the following examples:

“The walls were golden—almost buttery.”
“The walls were yellow.”

Not hard. Generally speaking (no pun intended), men tend to not notice or care about the subtle differences in shades of color. For them, a sweater is just orange—not salmon, coral, or apricot.

But bring out a car engine, and the story changes. Suddenly it’s not just pistons that are firing. This time it’s the women who bow out of the conversation. To them, it’s just a hunk of metal.

Granted, these are whopping generalizations. You might have a female character who is a grease monkey, and a male character who is an artist and does know and care about all the subtle shades of white and can tell ecru from egg shell.

Great! Those differences are what make your characters stand apart, make them different in their speech and characterizations. But by and large, know the differences in large categories in speech such as gender. Know what your readers expect (and even what they don't know they expect). Knock their socks off which how specific you are.

How do men and women talk differently? Pay attention and try to duplicate it. Colors and engines are just one tiny example. One book that I've found eye-opening in discussing how men and women talk differently in the real world is socio-linguist Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand. She didn't pen it for writers, but I couldn't help but read it as one.


EDUCATION
The level of education a character has—or doesn’t have—will show up in how he or she speaks; it’s inevitable. When people don't know how to read or write and don't know basic grammar, it only makes sense that they’ll speak in one way, and if they grew up with a private education, they’ll speak in a different way.

Very often that education will go hand in hand with how well-off that character is. More money often means more education, which will likely play into your story.

Regardless, it should definitely play into your characters’ speech. Pretend we have two witnesses on the stand in court:

“I’m sure I seen her done it,"

will be spoken a witness by a very different educational background than someone who would testify,

“Goodness, I’m sure I would have noticed if the accused had crossed my path that day.”


GEOGRAPHY
Different areas of the country develop quirks of their own, and people from those areas use them. Even if they have a high-level education, move away, and don’t use those grammatical quirks in their jobs, they’ll often flip back into them (use those “registers”) when on vacation with the families they grew up with. It’s sort of a dialectal thing.

One example: “That pile of dishes needs washed.”

Technically, the sentence above needs something to be “correct” standard English (it should be that the dishes need “to be washed” or need “washing”) but this type of construction is common in some areas of the country.

The West, South, New England, and even the Northwest all have such quirks. Some ethnic groups have them within those geographical areas. Learning about them can help spice up your dialogue and make your characters feel that much more real.


All of this is not to say that you should make your characters stereotypes of any age, gender, or background. To the contrary, the more you know about any generic group, the more you can create new variations on an old theme (the female grease monkey, for example).

It’s the common adage about knowing the rules so you can break them. But learn those rules first. Learn what your reader will expect from your characters. If you have a ten-year-old boy in your book, know what your average ten-year-old boy behaves like, talks like, and enjoys doing. If your character is an eighty-year-old woman and lives in New York, find out how elderly female New Yorkers usually talk.

The more vivid you can make your dialogue, the more your characters will pop off the page and become alive in your readers’ minds.