Story Sensei

I wrote earlier in my Book Creation Process that just before I start writing my manuscript, I’ll take time to write down blocking notes. For me, “blocking” is like blocking in a live play. It’s writing a step-by-step description of what happens in a scene to make it easier for me to write the rough draft. The concept is the same as the “beats” described in Write Better, Faster: How To Triple Your Writing Speed and Write More Every Day , but I call it blocking because “beats” is sometimes used to refer to high-level outlining. Blocking is also mentioned (although she doesn’t call it “blocking”) in 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love ). In Write Better, Faster , the author explained her process in more detail. She calls them beats. She writes one paragraph about each scene in her outline. Then from the one paragraph, she asks a series of questions about each sentence in the paragraph, and in answering all those questions she elaborates on the...

I just discovered a great resource for inspiration, reminders, and tips for writing. I’ve been in a bit of a plotting rut and so I do what I usually do, which is watch TV shows and movies. This time, I watched the audio commentary for one of my favorite movies, Captain America: Civil War . I didn’t realize that I’d get so many great ideas for plotting, characterization, dialogue beats, theme, mood, and setting by listening to the directors and the screenwriters comment as they viewed the movie. It not only gave me a springboard for my own plot and character ideas, but it reminded me of techniques I’d forgotten about, which helped me in my story structure and character development. It’s a shame that I’m only realizing this now, because it’s a resource I’ve always had, in the movies I’ve bought on iTunes, but never utilized. I’ll definitely be using this more in future. I hope this tip helps you guys, too—pick your favorite movie and listen to the audio commentary. You never know w...

Jim asked another question: The guidelines for eliminating fluff or fillers were very helpful. I learned a lot from them. (I know, I shouldn’t have used “a lot”. Having said that, do these same rules or guidelines apply to dialogue as they do with narrative? It appears that we can use unfinished or incomplete sentences, poor grammar, pauses, etc. in dialogue. Do we have the same exemption when it comes to fluff or filler words within dialogue? As asked above, even if we are not bound by the same rules within dialogue, would it be better to still remove as many fluff words such as that, very, really, just, get, got, etc. as possible? Camy here: In dialogue, it’s fine to have incomplete sentences, poor grammar, etc. But also be aware that dialogue in fiction isn’t really true dialogue—it’s kind of like the difference between a real mixed martial arts fight and a scripted fight on TV. The moves are all the same but on TV, the scripted fight is made to look prettier and flow better ...

It’s been a while, but I was finally cleaning out my Inbox and got a question from Jim. He wrote book one in a series aimed at 6-9 year olds, but he had a question about the second book in the series: At this point, I used Book 2 to allow the child’s siblings to ask and receive answers about what he’s been doing the past 8 months. This was done via dialogue. Would this be considered Backstory dumping when it’s a second book and responds to a different “now”. If it’s not considered “dumping”, would it still be preferable to eliminate the 6-8 chapters in book 2 and go with the “dribble” the backstory approach? Camy here: Honestly, it’s entirely up to you. I’ve seen children’s books that have massive backstory dumps, and others where the backstory is more gradually inserted as the story goes along. I’ve also seen books where the backstory is only briefly outlined. (For example: “Harry explained about how he got somehow entered into the Goblet of Fire and had to compete in dangero...

I got the below message from Michael, who graciously agreed to let me answer his questions on the blog in case some of his questions are those some of you are curious about, too. Hi Camy, Do you have any tutorials, suggestions, tips on how to ‘hear’ a character’s voice? It is a problem that continually vexes me. I have some evil dudes and their voice, the sound of their voice, is not something I’ve been able to hear in my head. I’ve searched on you tube for evil voices, experimented with voice altering software and tried to imagine it. And sometimes, when I imagine the voice, I can hear how I want it to sound, but I can’t retain the memory of so lose it for the future. To hear the character’s voice, or at least a close approximation, would do so much for writing their dialog. What do you do? Do you have that problem? Any solutions out there for aspiring writers? Camy: That's a good question! I often have to resort to different measures to be able to write different ch...

Forgive me if I gush but this is one of the best articles I've read in a long time, and I promise it's not because he quoted my book in it. His list of Rewards Per Page is absolutely stellar, because it's a very concise list of things I point out to my clients when I critique manuscripts. In future, I intend to point them to this article since it's so comprehensive and well written. How Rewarding is the ‘Reading Experience’ Provided by Your Writing? Measuring “Rewards-Per-Page” Can Give You an Indication of this Important Success Factor. Click here for the rest of the article

I admit, I'm prone to info dumps in my dialogue, especially in my first drafts, and I have to edit them out in my revisions. I wrote this article, which originally appeared on Suite101, with some of my tips and tricks. Avoid Info Dumps in Dialogue Strengthen Your Dialogue By Eliminating Telling Eliminating the Info Dump in dialogue will create mystery that keeps your reader riveted while strengthening the prose. In publishing days long past, it wasn’t uncommon to find a character who starts a line of dialogue with the infamous, “As you know ...” For example: Gerald walked into the living room and announced, “Phillip, our mother is at the door. As you know, she ran off twenty years ago with the family lawyer and we haven’t heard from her since.” Today’s readers and publishing industry has moved toward eliminating this technique, which is “telling” and not “showing” the story to the reader. Emulate Real Life In real life, people don’t need to remind their listeners ...

Sometimes, in my haste to make sure the reader knows something, I'll have a character go on and on in a line of dialogue, and I'll have to edit it out in revisions. I wrote this article, which originally appeared in Suite101. Shorten Your Dialogue Improve Pacing and Add Emotion With More Deliberate Dialogue Often, shorter dialogue lines with more deliberate word choices can improve a scene’s pace and create greater emotional impact. In real life, people don’t often have long speeches. Most of the time, someone will interrupt them—maybe when they pause for breath—or the speaker will purposefully pause for a reaction from the person they’re talking to. It should be the same in your fiction. Contemporary Fiction The dialogue in a present-day novel should be more back-and-forth, give-and-take, which is what real-life dialogue is like. One person says a sentence or two, the other person responds to what they said. A character who goes on and on for a paragraph or two i...

One of my favorite writing books is Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors by Brandilyn Collins. The chapter on subtexting is one of the best I've ever read. Subtexting is a powerful writing tool that isn't used enough by beginning writers. Think about all the times you've said one thing but meant another--that kind of dialogue in your novel can convey layers upon layers of powerful emotional meaning. This article I wrote originally appeared on Suite101. How to Utilize Subtexting in Dialogue Take Dialogue to a Deeper Level Add subtlety and richness in meaning by incorporating the tricks of cross-talk in dialogue. Subtexting, or cross-talk, is when characters say one thing but mean another. Dialogue doesn’t always need subtexting, but it adds weighty significance to certain dialogues within the story that you might want to emphasize. It can bring emotions to light with even more power than if they were stated. Here is a passage...

This article I wrote originally appeared on Suite101. Writing Riveting Dialogue Tips For Taking Dialogue to the Next Level Here are a few key elements needed to make dialogue sparkle. Before, I wrote about how to make dialogue sound more natural , but what if you want to bump your dialogue up to the next level? What if you want to make your dialogue really pop? Dialogue Is War In the words of Randy Ingermanson , “Dialogue is war.” Dialogue should have some form of conflict or tension. The characters don’t have to be shouting at each other, but there should be some sort of tension that keeps the dialogue from being a nice, easy conversation between two nice, easy-going people. Nice, easy-going dialogue is boring. In good dialogue, a character should be fighting for something: fighting to retain information, or fighting to extract information, or fighting to convey information. Don’t make it easy on your characters—make the conversation a battle for at least one of th...

This article I wrote originally appeared on Suite101. Writing Natural Dialogue Tips For Making Dialogue Smoother and More Realistic Here are tips for making dialogue flow and sound more natural when a writer has been told the dialogue is stilted. Sometimes a writer will get feedback that sounds something like: “Your dialogue is stilted” or “Your dialogue doesn’t sound natural” or “Your dialogue doesn’t sound realistic.” How to make dialogue sound more natural? Beware the Info Dump “Info dumps” are lines of dialogue that are there solely to inform the reader. For example: “As you know, Jane, our sister Lydia ran off with your ex-lover George and robbed a bank with him last month.” Jane already knows this, and her sister wouldn’t repeat the information to her—instead, she’d speak knowing what Jane already knows. “Doesn’t it pain you?” “Lydia and George? No, don’t worry about me. My relationship with him was over long ago. But the public shame of Lydia’s behavior hu...

Remember that you can say a line of dialogue, but you can’t chuckle, walk, laugh, look, or caress a line of dialogue. You can only speak it. For example: “You look wonderful,” he caressed her shoulder. (wrong) “You look wonderful . ” H e caressed her shoulder. (right) Note the period instead of the comma after “wonderful” and the capitalized H in He in the correct version. “You look wonderful,” he chuckled. (wrong) “You look wonderful . ” H e chuckled. (right) You cannot chuckle and speak at the same time. However, you can: “You look wonderful,” he said. (right) “You look wonderful,” he moaned. (right) “You look wonderful,” he wheezed. (right) “You look wonderful,” he spat. (right) “You look wonderful,” he walked across the room to her. (wrong) “You look wonderful,” he said as he walked across the room to her. (right) “You look wonderful . ” H e walked across the room to her. (right) You cannot “walk” a line of dialogue. “You look wonderful,” he looked in her eyes. (wrong) “You look ...

Action tags can be great for conveying a character’s emotions without actually saying what the character is feeling. This is especially useful if you want to convey character A’s emotions, but you’re in character B’s point of view for the scene. ”You’re a bit red. Are you okay?” “Of course. I’m fine.” He sloshed his straw up and down in his iced tea, making a few drops land on the table. Obviously, he’s not fine, but he’s trying to make the character believe he is. “Mr. Carrisford?” A woman’s voice called behind Jerry and Sue. Jerry’s hand spasmed in hers. However, he didn’t turn around. The woman hustled up to them. “Mr. Carrisford?” She touched Jerry’s arm. He turned to her. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong person.” Here, Jerry’s hand spasming tells Sue something isn’t right, despite what he tells the woman. Take a look at your action tags in the manuscript. Do they do something besides tell the reader who’s speaking? See if you can make them convey emotion in addition to action.

Ideally, you should be able to tell each character apart from their dialogue alone, without any qualifying names. Each character’s sentences should be said so distinctly that a reader could immediately know that line is the heroine and that line is the hero. “Land sakes, Pastor Dave, what in tarnation are you doing with a gun? I thought pastors aren’t supposed to bear arms or somesuch as that. Do the deacons know you’ve got a firearm in your office? I don’t think they’d be very pleased.” “Mrs. Cauffield, I don’t have time to explain.” “Now wait a cotton-pickin’ minute. You’re not walking out of this office without some kind of explanation about why a grown man is heading outside with a gun in broad daylight with neither hide nor tail of deer around these parts, and hunting season months away. Pastor Dave! Come back!” Many factors can contribute to a character’s distinct voice: Sentence structure—some characters speak in fragments, others in full, proper sentences. Word choices—some cha...

Vary sentence structure so it doesn’t get sing-songy. “How are you?” “I’m fine.” “That’s good.” “How’s your mother?” “She’s just peachy.” “My dad arrived.” “Yesterday?” “Last week.” “How’s he doing?” “Enjoying himself.” Aside from the fact this dialogue as absolutely NO CONFLICT, the sentence structure is unvarying. Here’s another example. “I talked with the director yesterday.” He jerked his thumb toward the office door. “I hope that it went well.” Her eyebrows rose. “We got a lot accomplished.” He nodded enthusiastically. “Did you make a decision?” She raised her pen to take notes. “We decided to table it for now.” He shrugged and sighed. “Who will you hire?” She scanned her list of candidates. “It’s down to two people.” He raised two fingers. Here again (aside from NO CONFLICT), the sentences are all about the same lengths, and each dialogue line ends with an action tag. The dialogue cadence is the same for the entire example. “This is Felicia.” She adjusted the headset’s microphone...

You can use tags besides “said.” I know, some people would call that heresy, but it’s true. Now, that being said, don’t go overboard—you don’t want your characters mumbling, chirping, drawling, squeaking, yelling, and hissing all through your book. But an occasional action verb can add nuance to the dialogue by telling the reader how the line is said. “If you keep it up, I’m going to smack you,” she hissed. Here, the character is trying to not let people know she’s upset by pitching her voice down but still trying to convey her displeasure. “If you keep it up, I’m going to smack you,” she bellowed. The character has reached a point where she doesn’t care who hears her and wants the person she’s yelling at to stop whatever they’re doing. “If you keep it up, I’m going to smack you,” she sang. Here, the character is talking to a person old enough to realize the threat of her words even though the tone is sweet. In each line, the atmosphere and flavor of the dialogue exchange changes depen...

Where you put the dialogue tag can make a difference with emphasis and pacing. “Sure, I did it last week,” she said. She said, “Sure, I did it last week.” “Sure,” she said, “I did it last week.” Readers tend to pause slightly at the sight of a dialogue tag, whether they know they doing it or not. As a writer, you can take advantage of that pause to add emphasis or subtly impact the pacing of the scene. For example, if a scene is going a bit fast and you want to slow it down a little, a tag here and there can moderate the pace. A dialogue tag can slow the pacing of the dialogue, so it’s not just back-and-forth like a tennis match. Example one: “Jenn is totally freaking out,” Trish said. “What brought all this on?” Venus asked. “Well, Aunty Yuki had a doctor’s appointment today—” “Is she doing okay?” “Clean bill of health. Cancer’s gone, as far as they can tell.” “So that’s why she’s taken over Jenn’s kitchen?” “She took one look at me and decided I needed something to help the baby alon...

Use dialogue and action tags to eliminate confusion about who’s talking, but don’t use so many that they distract. Example one: “Jenn is totally freaking out,” Trish said. “What brought all this on?” Venus asked. “Well, Aunty Yuki had a doctor’s appointment today—” “Is she doing okay?” “Clean bill of health. Cancer’s gone, as far as they can tell.” “So that’s why she’s taken over Jenn’s kitchen?” “She took one look at me and decided I needed something to help the baby along.” This example could use a few more dialogue tags or action tags to help the reader understand who’s speaking. By the end, it’s getting confusing keeping track of who’s saying what. Example two: “Jenn is totally freaking out,” Trish said. “What brought all this on?” Venus asked. “Well, Aunty Yuki had a doctor’s appointment today—” Trish started. “Is she doing okay?” Venus interrupted. “Clean bill of health. Cancer’s gone, as far as they can tell,” Trish said. “So that’s why she’s taken over Jenn’s kitchen?” Venus sa...

In real life, people interrupt each other all the time (especially in my family). Why not have your characters do it, too? It adds a bit of realism and depth to the dialogue, making it sound more natural. Interruptions can also create more variety in your dialogue rhythm. It adds a nice change of pace without being too much of a hitch in the reading flow. Now, don’t go overboard and have people interrupt each other all the time (even though we know that in real life, that can happen). Moderation is the key, as with any writing style. Finishing a sentence: This is a fun type of interruption, when the other character finishes the person’s sentence for them. “This is a private Christian school, kiddo. You sure you’re supposed to be saying that kinda word around here?” Joel asked. Bradley jerked his head around, his eyes rapidly scanning the perimeter as if they’d just come under enemy fire. “N-no. I ain’t supposed to. Good thing my teacher’s not—” “Right behind you, Bradley?” --From A Sol...

Dialogue is one of the best ways to reveal emotions, but it can also be overused. Just dialogue: If you only use dialogue to reveal emotions, the reader doesn’t quite get into the character’s head. They’re an audience at a play, not inside the character’s skin. Use dialogue in conjunction with thoughts, physical reactions, and actions in order to give your reader the full effect of the character’s emotions. Subtexting: Many times, the greatest emotion is conveyed by what the character doesn’t say. This is called subtexting or “cross-talk.” Sometimes it is also referred to as “off the nose” dialogue. Sometimes, you read dialogue and can take it at face value. Other times, there are subcurrents under the actual words said, meanings deeper and perhaps even the opposite of the dialogue. Those subcurrents make for juicy, conflicted, tension-filled dialogue. For a good example of subtexting (with commentary), read the Advanced Fiction Writing Ezine September 2006 edition . One of the best ...