Dialogue (42 page)

• Is there a way I can show my character's sense of humor more subtly?

Don't let the dialogue drive the scene. Using only dialogue, write one page of a scene that shows one character in conflict with another character over money. Now rewrite the same scene using dialogue, narrative, and action, first from one character's point of view, then from the other character's point of view. The goal of this exercise is to see how action and narrative contribute to a scene what dialogue only can't.

Don't worry about perfection. Write one page of dialogue without thinking about any of the rules of writing dialogue. You can make up a character or use one in a story you've been writing. The goal is to write without thinking, to just go. Let her say anything that comes into her mind, no matter if her dog would turn over in its grave. Don't even punctuate if you don't want to. If you do it often enough, this one exercise may free you up to where you're not afraid of dialogue anymore.

Do write dialogue that's worth eavesdropping on. With your pad and pencil, go sit in a public place like a park or mall and listen to people talk until you hear a conversation that gets your attention. If that never happens (many people talk about nothing), develop one of the nothing conversations into a conversation that would raise the hairs on the heads of anyone nearby.

Do know your characters (especially the minor ones). Write first-person profiles for all of the characters in a story you're working on. If you're not currently working on a story, be spontaneous. Write three first-person profiles of characters you would like to write stories about. It doesn't matter if you like the characters or not. This is organic, so just go for it and see what happens.

Do pace your dialogue. Practice pacing your dialogue. Use the following scenarios for practice and write one-page scenes of dialogue.

Fast-paced

• three friends at a party

• two car thieves on a joyride

• two female friends at a mall

Slow-paced

• two monks in a monastery

Do write functional dialogue. Experiment. Write a page of dialogue without thinking about anything at all. You can use characters from a story you're writing or just write dialogue in a vacuum. You're coloring out of the lines, so it doesn't matter.

Do honor your character's journey. Choose five characters from recent short stories or novels you've read and find lines of dialogue that honor each protagonist's journey. Or even the antagonist's journey; antagonists have an agenda and a destiny, too. These lines should indicate who they are and what their goal is in the story. If you want to use a character or characters from your own story in one of these exercises, that's even better. Choose dialogue that clearly indicates who the character is in the story.

Do search for the essence. Choose a character from a movie you've seen recently, a story you've read, or even someone in your real life, and write one page of fictional dialogue about something that's desperately important to this person. When you've completed the page, cut away everything until you have only the essence of the passion and subject left.

[ connecting with readers — you can make a difference ]

How many times have we been told, as writers, that we should write for ourselves and no one else? We shouldn't try to please anyone but ourselves. Not family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, enemies. It's just you and the blank page.

This is partly true. Integrity demands that we write out of the truth that resides in us.

But there's a delicate balance here, because if we are so concerned about being true to ourselves and not pleasing others we become self-serving, and the consequence of that is to exclude our readers. And don't think they can't feel that.

There are too many self-serving writers out there already. This happens to be a personal soapbox of mine, so I'm not going to go on and on about it lest I do the very thing I'm telling you not to do.

In this chapter I want to chat with you about how we can serve our readers through our fictional dialogue to assure their loyalty and commitment to our characters once they've started down the road with them. There is a line in the Bible that has always been a favorite of mine: ".whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant." (Matt. 20:26) I believe greatness and servanthood are intricately connected. If we can learn to consider our readers with every story we write, we can serve them with our fiction in a way that can empower them and change their lives. For me, this is what writing fiction is all about.

A character's dialogue, delivered with passion and authenticity, can actually change a reader's life. And isn't that what many of us are about when we write—changing lives? Sure, some of us, maybe even most of us, want to make money at this. Some of us would even like a little fame thrown in. We write to entertain our friends, relatives, and strangers out

there in readerland. But down deep in the core of our hearts, wouldn't it be wonderful if we knew we had made a difference in someone's life through the way we portrayed a fictional character?