More on dialog

Today I was editing a chapter in a non-fiction book on aging. The chapter, on family communication, included a lot of reported (also called indirect) speech. "The wife reported that she...., but the husband disagreed and said..." For an occasioanl sentence, this works okay but this paragraph reported a whole conversation between this couple and their adult children. I suggested to the author that she create a small scene and use actual dialog, even though she might have to recreate it.

In nonfiction, dialog can help the examples feel more like a story, feel more alive and realistic. And an author can use them to the same good effect that fiction writers do.

But be wary of dialog that is used for its own sake or just to break up the page. Dialog should be used for two things: to convey information through an individual's voice (case study, fictional character) and to acquire information (fictional character as tool of author or nonfiction author asking questions of her reader).

Readers love scenes. We are all so habituated by tv and the movies that we get most of our information that way. Use them to your advantage.

Three things to watch for in fiction

In his excellent book Dare to Be a Great Writer, Leonard Bishop lists three things that plague the writing of amateurs and which they are reluctant to let go of when they begin rewriting:
1. Dialog that tells content that should be delivered in a scene.
2. Scenes that are overlong and that belabor the point they deliver.
3. Overlong introspections that include polemics.

I'd add a fourth: long passages of indirect speech that should be dialog.

While some exceptionally skilled writers (Wendell Berry comes to mind) can handle long passages that don't include a specific scene of action, most less experienced writers cannot do that without bogging the reader down.

Case in point: I've been reading a manuscript written in first person. The narrator has much to say. Too much. He explains everything overmuch, he philosophizes over much. I'm on page 80 and I don't yet know what the story is about. The author is a good writer in that sentences are well put together, his images are often clever, and his vocabulary impressive. But none of that works without more scenes, more action, more interaction. The overlong introspections and arguments are weighing this reader down.

Whenever possible, create more scenes where more happens. Where the characters' dilemmas are evidenced, where characterizations are revealed (motives, in particular), where people show their feelings, their values, their vices.

Practicing what I preach

Today was a Writing Friday gathering and I didn't feel much like writing. I've been in deep reflection since my last session with my therapist on Wednesday and didn't really feel like pulling out of that to plunge into my novel. In addition, I hadn't solved the issue for the novel that I'd been mulling over all week--how to reveal a key piece of information to my heroine and to the reader. I'd come up with two solutions but one was prosaic and the other one I couldn't quite make happen logistically. So I felt stuck and the muse wasn't giving me ideas and I didn't want to "waste my time" without the solution.

At the same time, I didn't want to wimp out. As a writing coach, I feel it important to set a good example and to practice what I preach. And I often preach the need to keep writing even when you don't know what you are doing. A huge part of the creative process is keeping on keeping on even when you don't know what comes next. Because in art-making, there are no mistakes, just experiments that do or don't work out.

So I went out to the terrace (it was a gorgeous day here in Portland--cool, sunny, 70s, and my terrace was just a heavenly place to be. I set up my laptop, and took the last three sentences from last Friday's writing as my prompt and just let my hands be guided. I kept coming back to trust, trusting the muse would show up, trusting my imagination would work and it did.

I discovered I needed to write another small section before I could reveal this part of the mystery and a great idea came up at the perfect moment. And I wrote that next chapter.

Then after lunch, I was about to move away from the computer, read a couple of articles I'd been meaning to get to, but then I thought, hey, it worked this morning. Go back to the story and see what come's next and I wrote another good chapter. Not as great, not as clear, but a good first draft. Very pleased tonight.

Planners vs. Pantsers

At the Willamette Writers Conference workshop I attended with Larry Brooks, he talked about the spectrum of advance work that novelists do. Some people are what he called "planners" (and he was one). They map out the whole strategy, the chapters, the major and minor characters, the major incidents and plot twists. They spend a lot of time on this and then write from this outline. Brooks says this saves a lot of time because you sort out the difficulties and the weaknesses beforehand and don't have to do so much rewriting.

On the other end of the spectrum are those who write by the seat of their pants (pantsers), who, he said with some disdain, claim their characters talk to them. I'm one of these. I'm probably not completely on the liberal, loose end of the spectrum. I do some serious consideration between writing sessions to sort out what comes next, rather than sitting down with no plan at all in mind. Right now I know what's going to happen in the next two and maybe three of my chapters and definitely that we are coming to the dramatic end of Act I. But I don't know "who done it" in my mystery, I don't know if my heroine will end up with any of the leading men, I don't even know if she'll be alive at the end of the book.

It's more interesting to me to let it unfold. If I'd worked the original idea to its logical conclusion in a plan, I might never have come up with the story that I've got going now.

I don't think one way is more valuable than the other, or leads to better writing. And I don't think Brooks was intimating that that was true. But I do think my way's less work and more fun.

Home Readings

This morning my good friend Kathie hosted a home reading for my memoir. This is a the second time she has done it. She invites women she knows to attend a brunch, reading, and discussion at her home.

Kathie has a lovely home and is a great entertainer and eight of us enjoyed her hospitality and food. Then she introduced me and I read two selections from the memoir and talked about the process of writing the book and my belief in the value of writing our personal stories, whether we publish them or not.

I don't remember where I read about home readings but I really enjoyed reading in that intimate setting, getting direct feedback from readers--not only about my writing and what had intrigued them but about what ideas had resonated for them.

Today we got into a big conversation about creativity, about how you make time for it, create the support you need. I talked about writing Fridays and writing retreats and the ways I've built in support for my own work. Afterwards, some of the women bought my book and I was thrilled to send it home with them. Hope they will let me know what they think.

So if you're publishing your book, you might consider asking a friend or two to set up home reading events for you. They don't need to be as fancy as a gourmet brunch, just tea and snacks will do, but it is a great experience for writer and reader alike.

Why readers read

I got a nice phone call this afternoon from a woman who attended my workshop on Sunday who's interested in working with me. What most impressed her she said was my conversation about reader-focused writing.

For years in my professional and health professional writing classes (non-fiction), I've talked to students about writing for the reader. This goes beyond knowing who your target audience is. It means writing so that the reading experience is both communicative and seamless. First, communication. This means writing in a clear, clean way that presents the material in an easily digestible form. It means letting go of fancy styles and trying to impress the reader with your sophistication so that you can get the information across. Second, it means taking great pains with the conventions of grammar, punctuation, and formatting so that the reader is not caught up in noticing how poorly you've edited.

For fiction and memoir writers, the second rule applies in the same way. You want your grammar, punctuation, and formatting to be invisible, so clean and transparent (I'm tempted to say "normal" that the reader pays it no mind. In terms of content, you want your reader to be completely caught up in your story so that they forget they are reading and they are just experiencing. For that is why we read fiction and memoir: to experience what the author is writing. We want the act of reading to fall away and be transported. That's one definition of successful writing, I think: it's a form of transportation.

Some thoughts on writing conferences

As writing conferences go, I'm a relative neophyte. I met people over the weekend who've been to 6 or 8 different ones in the region, people who flew from Florida and Maine to attend ours, people who've been to this one 8 years in a row. Dedication or insanity?

Some people like conferences. They like meeting new people, get a lot out of listening to others' ideas, feel stimulated by the crowds and hubbub. I, however, am not one of them. I'm a visual kinesthetic learner so listening to speaker after speaker isn't my best way to get ideas. I know that about myself so I only went to two workshops the whole weekend. Friday morning I listed to Hallie Ephron talk about what makes a good mystery novel. While I'm not writing a genre mystery at the moment, although my novel has a big mystery at its center so far, I love reading good mysteries and now I know a lot more about their structure and why I like the ones I like. Plus she recommended some of her favorites and they were writers I'd never heard of.

Yesterday, I listened to Larry Brooks talk about characterization and breaking successful characters done into their parts was really helpful for me and a good exercise in the left brain/right brain combination that goes on in fiction writing.

Two speakers 48 hours apart was perfect. Time to think about what they said, apply it to my own book, and not be overloaded.

The manuscript consults went well. It surprised me to learn that most of my consults were paying to have two or three of us read the manuscript and compare notes. The best conversation I had was the one on Friday. I felt like the author and I partnered to discuss her book. The others listened to what I had to say, agreed or disagreed, but in three cases, they had already completely reworked the pages they'd sent me so it all seemed superfluous.

I was flattered though to hear one fellow say that he had tried to get a critique with me last year and my slots were all full. He had a copy of my memoir. Nice. Another fellow approached me Friday as I was sitting at the book signing table and asked if I had a workshop. Yes, on Sunday, I said. He wasn't coming that day but he had loved my workshop from the year before. Nice.

My workshop went great. It was in the last session of the day slot and I thought there'd be no one, but 35 people showed up, laughed when I was funny, asked great questions, and the time zoomed by. I came home quite contented.