FA+
Shop
Was it "he said" or "she said?"
5 years ago
Last week I talked a bit about how to pace a story. It’s a common error among writers to spend more time than needed in some areas and less time in places that need more. It’s also a very “individual taste” thing but failing to attempt a balance results in a rather obvious deficiency.
Today I’m going to talk about something that I don’t hear much about from my publisher, but I do notice a lot when I’m asked to read people’s manuscripts. I haven’t heard a technical name for it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I guess the right name anyway. I usually call it dialogue and action mix and it goes right along with what I was talking about last week with pacing.
I define it as being the healthy combination of both dialogue and action to enable the reader to feel more like she’s in the story rather than just hearing the story told by others. It draws from something that I’ve heard my publisher talk about called “maid and butler dialogue” but goes a little deeper. Of course, mentioning that means I need another definition. Maid and butler dialogue is a hackneyed literary device where the author uses conversation to illustrate a concept instead of actually showing the reader what took place. It’s not wrong to do this. I shouldn’t have to say that really. I avoid saying something you do in writing is “wrong.” It is something that gets overused.
I could do a whole post on just that type of dialogue, but I’ll keep it to where it applies to what I’m talking about. As I’m writing this, I’m noticing that this topic draws from other concepts as well and that I haven’t covered all of those quite yet. We covered illusionary depth and suspension of disbelief. I touched on immersion but haven’t done a full journal entry on it. All of those concepts come together at this one point. It’s kind of cool, actually.
So we have two characters talking and telling us about something and they’re telling us:
“OMG! Did hear what happened to Lord X?”
“I did! His horse got a flat tire and he went spinning off the road…”
“…and landed in a large pile of shaving cream! I hear they’re still getting the suds out of his duds.”
The reader is sitting right next to these people, listening to what they’re saying. Notice something important here because this is the first part of what I’m focusing on. What are these two people doing as they’re talking?
Absolutely nothing.
I might just as well have written the scene for a couple of sock puppets. I don’t want to rewrite examples in these journals, because I want to leave the solution open to the individual author and not just create a template that gets overused. So let’s take a look at some of the things that help bring the reader more into the story.
• What’s happening around them? Candles might be flickering; books might be sitting stoically. They might be outdoors and there could be wind blowing or flowers waving or horses pooping… (Hey, I have little boys in the house. Don’t judge me.)
• What’re the characters doing? The dialogue makes it sound like they might be a little excited about this and it’s possible they find it funny. Describing what they’re doing as this happens can build a sense of urgency or change the whole thing to a casual conversation.
• How are they speaking? Oh my word… this one… I’ve seen so many writers’ groups trying to tell new authors that they don’t need to put qualifiers in their dialogue and should use just enough so the reader is aware of who is talking… My guess is: those are people that really like sock puppets. Qualifiers (like “she said” or “he said”) can (and should) do more than just tell you who’s speaking. How are they speaking? Are they excited, bored, sarcastic, hopeful, shouting, quiet, whispering, enthusiastic, sounding rote, tired… And the best part is: this can change during the conversation. You can use it as a way to reorient the reader on who is speaking, so she doesn’t have to go back to the last time you used a “he said” and then count lines. What those writers’ groups really wanted to say is to avoid the constant use of the word “said.” There’s no reason to use it every time you need to establish who is speaking since action and emotion can establish that just as well.
These principles also work well in long monologues. You can look at Sajani’s recruitment speech in The Wolf’s Pawn for a rather mediocre method of breaking those up. I got much better at it by the time I wrote the trial scene at the end of Faux Scent.
Ok, that’s the micro version of the topic, where we look at a very small precise example of it’s use. Now let’s look at the story as a whole. This is an area that’s going to be very individual to your style, the setting of your story, and the overall tone desired. Adventure stories will have a lot more action and less dialogue than a romance. (Boy did I learn that with Fugtive’s Trust).
In action sequences though, it’s important to remember that what is said or what is not able to be said, is an important part of what’s happening. One thing I learned in the Army as chaplain’s assistant is that people hate silence. It leads to what we called (I’m not making this up, this is the actual professional term for it) “the big download.” That point where, if you’re willing to listen to what people have to say, they’re more than willing to give us (another professional term… seriously… You think I’m making this stuff up?) TMI or too much information. This should play into your story. If a person is concentrating to the point where speech is difficult, this should also be noted as should those times where speech would be unwise. Just because no one is saying anything doesn’t mean that dialogue isn’t taking place. It might be internal or non-verbal, but chances are good, some form of dialogue is taking place. Mentioning those things adds a level of immersion to the story.
Well, that’s about it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this installment. Welcome to those that might have visited from RP Games’ Parler channel. I do these journals weekly and try to keep them upbeat and nonjudgmental. I also try to keep out the usual author angst. Shoutout to Youira, and XRiderX on FA, and Silver the 1 Wolf on So Furry: my three most faithful followers. Without those people, I’d have stopped these journals after only a couple of attempts.
I don’t have a definite lineup for next week, so if you have something you’re interested in hearing me ramble about, post it in the comments. If you’re from Parler and don’t want to make an account here, you can just ask Carl on the account there and he can pass it on to me at our biweekly meeting. Otherwise, it’ll either be a full entry on maid and butler dialogue or on using consistent point of view. I’ll hold out on immersion because it covers so many other topics.
Posted using PostyBirb
Today I’m going to talk about something that I don’t hear much about from my publisher, but I do notice a lot when I’m asked to read people’s manuscripts. I haven’t heard a technical name for it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I guess the right name anyway. I usually call it dialogue and action mix and it goes right along with what I was talking about last week with pacing.
I define it as being the healthy combination of both dialogue and action to enable the reader to feel more like she’s in the story rather than just hearing the story told by others. It draws from something that I’ve heard my publisher talk about called “maid and butler dialogue” but goes a little deeper. Of course, mentioning that means I need another definition. Maid and butler dialogue is a hackneyed literary device where the author uses conversation to illustrate a concept instead of actually showing the reader what took place. It’s not wrong to do this. I shouldn’t have to say that really. I avoid saying something you do in writing is “wrong.” It is something that gets overused.
I could do a whole post on just that type of dialogue, but I’ll keep it to where it applies to what I’m talking about. As I’m writing this, I’m noticing that this topic draws from other concepts as well and that I haven’t covered all of those quite yet. We covered illusionary depth and suspension of disbelief. I touched on immersion but haven’t done a full journal entry on it. All of those concepts come together at this one point. It’s kind of cool, actually.
So we have two characters talking and telling us about something and they’re telling us:
“OMG! Did hear what happened to Lord X?”
“I did! His horse got a flat tire and he went spinning off the road…”
“…and landed in a large pile of shaving cream! I hear they’re still getting the suds out of his duds.”
The reader is sitting right next to these people, listening to what they’re saying. Notice something important here because this is the first part of what I’m focusing on. What are these two people doing as they’re talking?
Absolutely nothing.
I might just as well have written the scene for a couple of sock puppets. I don’t want to rewrite examples in these journals, because I want to leave the solution open to the individual author and not just create a template that gets overused. So let’s take a look at some of the things that help bring the reader more into the story.
• What’s happening around them? Candles might be flickering; books might be sitting stoically. They might be outdoors and there could be wind blowing or flowers waving or horses pooping… (Hey, I have little boys in the house. Don’t judge me.)
• What’re the characters doing? The dialogue makes it sound like they might be a little excited about this and it’s possible they find it funny. Describing what they’re doing as this happens can build a sense of urgency or change the whole thing to a casual conversation.
• How are they speaking? Oh my word… this one… I’ve seen so many writers’ groups trying to tell new authors that they don’t need to put qualifiers in their dialogue and should use just enough so the reader is aware of who is talking… My guess is: those are people that really like sock puppets. Qualifiers (like “she said” or “he said”) can (and should) do more than just tell you who’s speaking. How are they speaking? Are they excited, bored, sarcastic, hopeful, shouting, quiet, whispering, enthusiastic, sounding rote, tired… And the best part is: this can change during the conversation. You can use it as a way to reorient the reader on who is speaking, so she doesn’t have to go back to the last time you used a “he said” and then count lines. What those writers’ groups really wanted to say is to avoid the constant use of the word “said.” There’s no reason to use it every time you need to establish who is speaking since action and emotion can establish that just as well.
These principles also work well in long monologues. You can look at Sajani’s recruitment speech in The Wolf’s Pawn for a rather mediocre method of breaking those up. I got much better at it by the time I wrote the trial scene at the end of Faux Scent.
Ok, that’s the micro version of the topic, where we look at a very small precise example of it’s use. Now let’s look at the story as a whole. This is an area that’s going to be very individual to your style, the setting of your story, and the overall tone desired. Adventure stories will have a lot more action and less dialogue than a romance. (Boy did I learn that with Fugtive’s Trust).
In action sequences though, it’s important to remember that what is said or what is not able to be said, is an important part of what’s happening. One thing I learned in the Army as chaplain’s assistant is that people hate silence. It leads to what we called (I’m not making this up, this is the actual professional term for it) “the big download.” That point where, if you’re willing to listen to what people have to say, they’re more than willing to give us (another professional term… seriously… You think I’m making this stuff up?) TMI or too much information. This should play into your story. If a person is concentrating to the point where speech is difficult, this should also be noted as should those times where speech would be unwise. Just because no one is saying anything doesn’t mean that dialogue isn’t taking place. It might be internal or non-verbal, but chances are good, some form of dialogue is taking place. Mentioning those things adds a level of immersion to the story.
Well, that’s about it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this installment. Welcome to those that might have visited from RP Games’ Parler channel. I do these journals weekly and try to keep them upbeat and nonjudgmental. I also try to keep out the usual author angst. Shoutout to Youira, and XRiderX on FA, and Silver the 1 Wolf on So Furry: my three most faithful followers. Without those people, I’d have stopped these journals after only a couple of attempts.
I don’t have a definite lineup for next week, so if you have something you’re interested in hearing me ramble about, post it in the comments. If you’re from Parler and don’t want to make an account here, you can just ask Carl on the account there and he can pass it on to me at our biweekly meeting. Otherwise, it’ll either be a full entry on maid and butler dialogue or on using consistent point of view. I’ll hold out on immersion because it covers so many other topics.
Posted using PostyBirb
Yes speak it, this is a cap I put into many new writers' rears.
LadySajani
~ladysajani
OP
Thank you for the response. This is the way that most "poor pacing" expresses itself. If I wanted to watch a bunch of boring talking heads, I'd turn on the news.
