For this week’s blog post, I’m sending you over to Mythic Scribes, a great site for fantasy readers and writers. I had the honor of having an article posted here, so go check it out!
The Nitty-Gritty of Writing: The Basics of Dialogue
There are many aspects of writing good dialogue, and I’m probably not qualified to write about most of them, as I’m still working on mastering the dialogue art myself. So that is why I’ve titled this post as “the basics.” If you are just getting started with writing your first work of fiction, or you struggle in other ways with conversations between characters, hopefully these points can help guide you in the right direction.
Proper use of quotations. In reading manuscripts (either critiquing for friends, or back in my writing classes in college), I learned that a lot of people don’t understand how to use quotation marks at all. (I recently wrote a punctuation post, and I briefly cover quotation marks.) As a general rule, all spoken dialogue should begin and end with double quotes. Other punctuation, like commas and periods, go inside the end quotes. If a character’s spoken sentence is split up with a dialogue tag, the tag and other descriptions do not go inside the quotes. Example: “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Maybe we could do it tomorrow?”
Dialogue tags. Many writers (myself included) like those fancy words like sneered, cried, shouted, whispered, etc. Or, worse yet, the offensive adverb: he said loudly, happily, sadly, sternly, sleepily, etc. I may be going against the advice given by professional writers and editors, but I believe that the occasional fancy word or adverb with your dialogue is not a mortal sin. Just keep it to a minimum, and make your selections wisely. Dialogue tags can be filled out with showing action instead of telling, like in my example above. …she said, shaking her head instead of she said glumly paints a fuller picture of what’s happening in the scene. Don’t be afraid of the simple word said.
Read aloud. I don’t do this one as often as I should, but when I do, I usually find a phrase or exchange of dialogue that just doesn’t flow. Reading your dialogue aloud is a great way to quickly find out if what you’ve written sounds real. Would you hear an exchange like that out on the street? Does anyone actually talk like that? Yes, you want to keep the voice of your character – the alien might have awkward English, the mathematics professor uses big words that no one else understands, the fairy speaks telepathically, whatever. But reading aloud can help you even in cases like that to really hear your characters speaking, and thus help you make each character’s voice realistic and unique.
There are other points I could add to this, but three is enough to get you started if you’re struggling with writing dialogue. What are some other tips or tricks that you’ve used to improve your dialogue?
Music Review: “Váibmosat,” Eva Jeanette
Eva Jeanette’s album Váibmosat debuted in 2012. Eva Jeanette is a Sami from Karasjok, Norway, and she sings in her native Sami tongue. Váibmosat (Til Ditt Hjerte in Norwegian) roughly translates to “To Your Heart” in English, and it is a collection of songs of praise.
Eva Jeanette is a Christian Sami singer. Most of the songs on this album are slow and prayerful – hymns of meditation rather than upbeat “praise and worship” songs that are common in the Christian music genre. Her voice is strong and clear – perfect for carrying songs with a solo voice.
Unlike many Sami singers, Eva Jeanette features very little of the joik, the traditional Sami style of chanting/singing, on this album. Instead she opts for more familiar Norwegian hymns, but sung in the Sami language. “Mu Váibmu Vádjol Doppe” – or “Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker” – is a well-known Norwegian song. I had heard that song in both Norwegian and Sami before hearing Eva Jeanette’s version, which I very much enjoyed – a slow, rhythmic song with a long instrumental segment at the end.
The song “Visot Buvttán Jesus Ovdii” I have heard in English as “I Surrender All,” a popular worship song at many a church or gathering. It was the only song besides “Mu Váibmu Vádjol Doppe” that I recognized, but I didn’t choose this album because I wanted something familiar.
I wanted to discover new music, new talent, and a beautiful new sound, and that’s exactly what I found in Eva Jeanette’s songs. Whether you’re looking for modern Christian music for an international audience, or you’re looking for new Scandinavian or Sami music, “Váibmosat” is definitely worth a listen.
Eva Jeanette’s Facebook page
Ovtta Almmála Báikki Mun Dieðán
How to Begin a Story
I’ve written a couple of posts about beginning a story, but I thought I’d come at this subject from a slightly different angle. Lately I’ve had a few people congratulate me on being a writer, while in the same breath proclaiming that they would love to write a book but wouldn’t know where to begin. This is not so much an “anyone can be a writer” post as it is some (hopefully helpful) tips on how to actually get started.
Start writing something. This is the simplest step, but often the hardest. Just put a few sentences on the page. If the story begins slowly, awkwardly, or just plain wrong, you can always fix it later. Even the best first draft needs revising, editing, and probably rewriting – don’t stress about producing a publishing-worthy book before you’ve ever written a line.
Introduce the main character. This doesn’t have to be done in the first line or even first paragraph, but very early in the story (like in the first scene or chapter) the main character should either make an appearance or be referenced strongly in some way. After all, even plot-driven stories are still about characters. If you wind up writing twenty pages of boring day-in-the-life stuff about your character that you cut from the rewrites, that’s okay – it’s a great exercise in getting to know your character and their world, and it gets your creativity flowing.
Save the polished first line for the rewrite phase. As I’ve already emphasized, it’s okay to write mediocre and uninspired prose while you’re first getting going – it’s the action of writing that helps you improve your actual writing. While we all want that magic hook or that memorable first line that people will be quoting for decades to come, it’s probably not going to be the actual first thing that you write down.
Begin later in the story than you think is appropriate. This is one that I’m slowly learning myself. If you’re a plotter or outliner (like me), or you tend to be overly wordy in your first drafts (like me), chances are you’ll start your story way too early on in the plot. Like I said before, it’s okay to write pages and pages of boring drivel about your character’s daily habits, elaborate back story, and deep thoughts – but most of that should get cut (and/or mixed in throughout the story) in revision mode. I once began an epic fantasy story, and wrote probably at least 20,000 words of it before I realized that I hadn’t yet arrived at the start of the main plot. So I saved that novella-length prologue for the first half of an entirely different book, wrote a new beginning that started about five scenes into the main plot, and it was a much better start to the story.
What are some of your favorite ways to jump-start a story or get yourself into the writing process?
What International Travel has taught me about English
English is my native language, and I’m very grateful that my mother tongue is basically the Latin of the 21st century – the language of universal commerce. I say grateful because I always want to keep an attitude of humility when it comes to the global dominance of my language. I never want to be one of those travelers who, upon arriving on a foreign shore, arrogantly expects the locals to speak English and is offended when they don’t. I appreciate every person in another country who does speak English to me, and I usually try to learn at least a greeting or a thank you in the local language.
I’m far from being a seasoned traveler, but my experiences both overseas and with foreigners in America has taught me a few things about my beloved English.
Normal conversational speech is way too fast. And I’m from the American South where we taaaalk….reeaall…sloooow. If you’re in a non-English-speaking nation, or talking to a local at home who is still learning English, slow it down. Whatever you think is absurdly slow is probably still a little fast, especially if the other person’s English is very poor. And be sure to annunciate each word. We all tend to mumble and blend our words in the comfort of our mother tongue. A side note: resist the urge to shout. The other person knows English as a second, third, or fourth language – their hearing is probably fine. I tend to be soft spoken, so I’m not usually a shouter, but if I have to repeat myself several times, I do remind myself to speak slower and clearer, not necessarily louder.
Don’t judge or correct. If someone says something to me that makes grammatical sense but not contextual sense, I ask for clarification about the word that I think they might have misused. Asking for clarification or explanation is a more polite way of letting the non-English speaking person know that they goofed. Nobody likes to embarrassed, even if they made a legitimate mistake. By using this technique, I’ve often had the other person admit they probably used the wrong word and ask me for help. It’s much nicer to be asked to help someone with their English than to be the language police making corrections all the time. Also, whenever I’m tempted to judge someone’s English or get impatient, I ask myself how well I would do at talking to them in their language. Since I know far less Norwegian/Chinese/Farsi/etc. than they know English, I choose to be grateful that they’re trying to communicate with me at all.
English is hard. Grammar and spelling rules, exceptions to those rules, different pronunciations for the same letter combinations… Even us native speakers – and yes, even us grammar nerds – have trouble remembering all the rules and conventions of English. Yes, every language has its quirks and inconsistencies, but most everyone agrees that English is near the top of the list of difficult to learn. I’m always appreciative when someone has taken the time and mental effort to learn English, even just a little bit. Again, if I ever catch myself growing impatient with a non-native speaker’s improper use of sentence structure – like saying “You is” or something – I remind myself that I likely couldn’t do half that well in their language. And again, I keep an attitude of gratitude. I’m thankful and humbled that I was born into an English speaking culture. Not because English is better than other languages, but because I’m blessed that one of the complex languages of the world today comes naturally to me.
StorytellerGirl 