The Writer's Toolbox:
Continuing the Conversation
by
Danielle Ackley-McPhail
Do your characters talk to you? Come on, you can admit it.
No, really, it’s a good thing!
Mine do—well, actually, they’re more likely
to argue with me, but that’s beside the point…
If you can hear your characters in your head, clear
and distinct and individual, that means they have their own Voice.
Yes, Voice with a capital V. This is a very important part of the
character’s personality. With a capital V-Voice they have their
own identity that sets them off from the other characters populating
the story. Not just because you’ve said so, or because you’ve
described them in very particular terms, or because of the things
they say, but because of the way they say them is unique only to them.
Primarily this pertains to dialogue, though not always. It depends
on how much you use the narrative and point of view to establish your
characters. For the purpose of this article we will focus on dialogue.
Getting the Conversation Started
So much of conversation is in how you say things. Your
grasp of grammar—whether written or spoken—will determine
how well you are understood. In person, you have the opportunity to
clarify. On paper, you only get one chance. Because of this, even
when you are trying to establish a character type, you have to be
sure to get your point across properly through word choice, sentence
structure, and the response of other characters, otherwise you are
going to frustrate your reader. In my previous article, The Tricky
Art of Conversation, I recommend reading selections of published dialogue
to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. I again recommend
that. My skill at writing effective dialogue without a doubt came
out of my being a voracious reader since I was a young child. By the
time I had to learn this stuff in school it was already coming naturally
to me.
One of the most important things to remember is to break
up your dialogue. Lectures are one person going on and on, not conversations.
Give your characters the opportunity to respond to one another, and
if that isn’t appropriate to the scene, inject a bit of narrative
so we can see the silent participant’s reactions to what is
being said. In either case, always remember that more than one character
is involved and don’t let your reader forget either.
Personal Identity
Have you noticed in life how much you can tell about
some people just from hearing them talk? I’m not talking friends,
or family, or anyone you know intimately enough to pick up on the
unspoken cues. I’m talking strangers, people you have just met.
Now, as with most things in life, this doesn’t go for everyone
but there are several bits of personal information you can garner
from a person’s Voice—real life here, not fiction—those
things are their general age, their gender, their education level,
and their general geographic origins. This is because there are cues
we all project, without even realizing it. The words we choose, our
diction, regional slang, or even just accent: these details are a
part of our personal identity.
As writers it is our task to mimic those auditory cues
to shape our characters. We are hindered a bit by this being a print
medium—duh!—but, by an intricate dance of narrative, dialogue,
and character interaction you can accomplish the same goals. Let’s
look at the tools for the job:
Slang – this develops on several levels, for several
reason. Sometimes it comes out of technical language used among a
given set of people, sometimes is specific use language developed
by a ethnic or social group, or sometimes it stems from popular culture
or results from poor education. Whatever the origin you need to take
several things into account: the meaning of the slang, the context,
and the appropriateness of its use by a particular character in a
given situation. My newest novel, The Halfling’s Court, is a
perfect example. This book is set in my biker faerie universe—yes…I
said biker faeries—and to write realistically in this context
I had to do a lot of research into biker slang. I discovered they
virtually have their own language, for instance, a mechanic is called
a “Wrench”, cars and their drivers are called “cages”
and “cagers”, respectively, and those thick, slick squiggles
of tar used to repair cracks in the road are called “tar snakes”,
just to give you a sampling of what I mean.
If we were to use this language in our everyday lives,
we would likely get more than a few eyebrows quirked at us, but in
a biker bar, spoken with confidence and understanding, no one would
bat an eye. I did not take myself down to the local biker bar, but
I was very fortunate that there are a lot of websites on the internet
that give a glossary of biker terms. Not only do they give you the
language and the meaning, but they often put it in context as well.
This made my job very simple and gave credibility to my biker characters.
All it took was a little research. Of course, if you are lacking a
convenient and detailed website, you can always interview someone
of the appropriate demographic to use the type of slang suited to
the character you are trying to develop, or you can go to where such
people are likely to be found and observe them in their native habitat.
It’s important to do the research, though, rather than relying
on stereotypes and assumptions that may not be as authentic as you
assume they are.
Another caution, do not overdo this as it can be come
difficult for the reader if a story is too overloaded with such references,
particularly if they are not intuitive to someone not a part of that
culture. I always put a glossary in the back of my novels when I use
a lot of slang or mythological references, but you also don’t
want to put your reader in the position of having to continually flip
to the back just to understand what they are reading. Make your references
clear by explaining them briefly and in a non-disruptive way within
the context of the story.
Vocabulary/Grammar – This is related to slang,
but isn’t quite the same. More often than not, this is dictated
by education level and career, though not always. Someone who is more
well-read or educated might choose more complex words, or someone
with a very technical occupation will reflect that in their speech.
Of course, a character who wants to be perceived as well-read or educated
might well adopt this manner of speech to mislead others.
Dialect – For our purposes, this is the written
representation of regional accents. By itself, it is only part of
the picture but combined with the above two treatments it completes
a picture. Put into practice in literature, it is generally the phonetic
representation of some words or sounds representative of the verbal
identity of an ethnic or regional group.
There are two schools of thought on this device. Some
people absolutely loath written dialect, while others feel it has
a transformative effect on the writing. In the end it all comes down
to how you incorporate it. Done incorrectly—or correctly to
excess—it can be tedious, even painful to read, especially if
the character it is applied to is a primary focus character that appears
and speaks often. With a lighter touch, it can be just enough to add
flavor to a piece. But how do you decide how much is too much?
This is a dilemma I have encountered personally. In
my first novel, Yesterday’s Dreams, three of my primary characters
are Irish, as well as a number of secondary characters. It wasn’t
too bad, though I did catch some flack from reviewers. My approach
to it was to take three conventions stereotypical of a brogue and
apply them to those characters: the dropped consonant, primarily the
“f” in of and the “g” in anything ending in
–ing, substituting “ye” for “you”, and
“ ’tis” and “’twas” contractions.
By selecting just these three alternations it was enough to get the
point across without rending the dialogue nearly indecipherable, as
well as being easier to maintain consistency.
Pausing For A Breath
As I’ve said before, nothing is fool-proof or
absolute. Take the above suggestions into consideration, then see
how best to apply them to each character you write and the specific
interactions between those characters. If you are trying to maintain
a particular feel, perhaps you want to go with a bit of dialect. If
you need to establish a passing character quickly because they won’t
be around long, you might want to go with slang or specific vocabulary
to get their Voice across. Whatever you choose, be consistent and
don’t let the device you use take undue attention away from
the story you are telling. These are tools that should augment and
complement your tale, not dominate them.
See next issue for my third and final installment on
dialogue – The Writer’s Toolbox: Wrapping up the Conversation.
***
Award-winning author Danielle Ackley-McPhail has
worked both sides of the publishing industry for over fifteen years.
Her works include the urban fantasies, Yesterday's Dreams,
Tomorrow's Memories, and The Halfling’s
Court: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale. She has edited the Bad-Ass
Faeries anthology series, and No Longer Dreams, and
has contributed to numerous other anthologies and collections, including
Dark Furies, Breach the Hull, So
It Begins, Space Pirates, Barbarians
at the Jumpgate, and New Blood.
She is a member of The Garden State Horror Writers
and Broad Universe, a writer’s organization focusing on promoting
the works of women authors in the speculative genres.
Danielle lives somewhere in New Jersey with husband
and fellow writer, Mike McPhail, mother-in-law Teresa, and three extremely
spoiled cats. She can be found on LiveJournal (damcphail), Facebook
(Danielle Ackley-McPhail), and Twitter (DMcPhail). To learn more about
her work, visit www.sidhenadaire.com.
