Tag: dialogue tips

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Guest Posts Uncategorized

Dialogue Tags vs Action Beats: A Battle that Must be Won!

Guest posts

The art of writing continues to evolve. Today’s readership craves stories with an emotional impact and a brisk pace, even if the story is about strolling along a slow-moving, gently curving stream under a perfectly cloudless sky.

Does this seem to be a contradiction? Yes!

I mean, NO!

One way to create a brisk pace packed with emotion and action is to win the battle of Dialogue Tags vs Action Beats.

Most every writer knows the purpose of dialogue tags, but action beats are more elusive. In simple terms, an action beat identifies the speaker in ways that allow for elimination of the dialogue tag.

The only job of a dialogue tag is to identify the speaker.

Yet, however innocuous that makes them, lively debate exists over which comes first. The speaker or the tag?

         Margie said… or …said Margie.

         Ralph asked… or …asked Ralph.

Which comes first? “Margie” or “said?”

The debate rages.

I say, “Who cares!?! They’re both as boring as a cheese-only pizza.”

And like a sprinkle of cheese that adds little flavor to a platter of dough, dialogue tags fail to add value to a story. Plus, this problem is exacerbated, brought to a head, by editors, publishers, and others who ban the slightly more interesting tags such as exclaimed, commanded, and preached. Writers have been told such words doom us to be known as amateurs.

The sum of all the parts of this ban is that we have descended into a black cave of sensory deprivation.

Let’s look at how dialogue tags are to blame.

Perhaps you’ve struggled to stay awake as a friend recounts an incident that goes:

I said, “I want you out of here.”

“I’m taking the dog,” he said.

Then I said, “Good. I’m tired of sweeping up after you both.”

The struggle to stave off boredom is the same for readers of short stories and novels. He said… She said… Reader yawns.

Do not despair. An alternative exists! A better way! Action Beats rise victorious!

Now let’s investigate how action beats lead us out of the cave of sensory deprivation. Consider the following rewrite that does not change a single word of dialogue.

My high-heeled shoe hit David between his shoulder blades. “I want you out of here.”

“I’m taking the dog.” He grabbed Spike’s leash.

I rammed the vacuum cleaner against his loafers as he dragged Spike toward the door. “Good. I’m tired of sweeping up after you both.”

Behold, an entire scene without a single “said.” Not only is “said” gone, but we have replaced it with action that increases the pace, tension, and emotion. We visualize the scene, see the shoe fly, feel the anger in the snatching of the leash, and the revenge in the ramming of the vacuum cleaner. Most importantly, the reader has not yawned, not even once.

Without changing even one word of dialogue, the conversation is transformed.

Take a minute to consider how this happens.

The reader knows who is speaking without “she/he said.” Action beats identify the speaker without using dialogue tags. They work at the beginning, end, between two sentences, or even in the middle of a block of dialogue. Wherever placed, action beats increase tension or suspense when placed between two sentences.

Ready to rewrite? Okay! Here are the rules.

Do not alter what is said by the two characters. Replace the dialogue tags with action beats. Increase the word count to a maximum of 75 words. This gives you the freedom to double the word count. Then post your revision so we can all learn from the group’s efforts. So, here we go….

I asked, “Why do you smell like perfume?”

He said, “My mother accidentally sprayed me.”

I asked, “How’d that happen since you don’t live with your mother?”

He said, “I spent the night. That’s why I couldn’t call you last night.”

I said, “I don’t believe you.”

Before I leave you to create a fast-paced and emotional rewrite, I want to say this doesn’t mean you must never use a dialogue tag. Readers tolerate minimal use and even some abuse of them. But “she/he said” dialogue tags rarely enhance your story. Convert these boring tags to action beats that move the story along, increase the pace, reveal emotion, or build tension and suspense. This heightens the senses, causing the reader to “see” the scene in their mind.

A reader may shed a tear or break into a sweat because the brain turns your words into pictures, and those pictures stimulate feelings and emotions. With a bit of practice, you will create a mental movie for your readers.

I am eager to read how you use action beats to put life into this conversation! I will read them all!

Dr. Pat Spencer is the author of the international thriller, Story of a Stolen Girl. Her historical novel, Golden Boxty in the Frypan, will be released September 6, 2023, by Pen It Publications. Sticks in a Bundle, literary/historical fiction, is under a three-book contract with Scarsdale Publishing. Her writings appeared in The Press-Enterprise, Inland Empire Magazine, and literary and professional journals. A Healing Place won the short story category of Oceanside’s 2019 Literary Festival.

Categories
The Intentional Writer

Common Writer Questions: How to Convey Accents

The intentional writer

“How do I write dialogue to show an accent or dialect?”

I’ve often heard this question discussed at writing workshops. It’s a good question. As we writers imagine our characters, some of them will have an accent, or will speak in a particular dialect. Naturally, we want our readers to hear those accents. But how does one accomplish that?

While there is not a single right answer to the question, here are my suggestions, based on listening to many discussions of this topic by various industry pros.

First of all, remember that fictional dialogue is not court stenography. A novel’s dialogue should not be an exact copy of real speech. Writers edit out all the ums, you knows, and random chattiness that crop up in actual conversations to craft dialogue that keeps the plot moving.

In similar fashion, writers should not attempt to copy the exact accent of each speaker. The goal is verisimilitude, not exactitude—creating the flavor and essence of the speaker rather than providing a syllable-for-syllable duplicate.

Factors to consider when conveying accents

  • Clarity first! A writer’s primary purpose is to get the story across. The dialogue should help rather than hider that goal. It’s normally better to choose simple, readable English over foreign words, unfamiliar slang, or phonetically rendered accents. Crammink ow-er dee-alokh weeth strenj spellinks… (I think you get the idea).
  • Don’t jolt the reader out of the story. Every time a reader stumbles over a word or has to reread a sentence that didn’t make sense, they have been jolted from the flow of the story. We writers don’t want this to happen! For example, consider this bit of dialogue: “Did he axe you for help?” Huh? What does that mean? The writer may have been trying to show a New Jersey accent, but for any reader not familiar with the accent quirk that turns ask to axe, the sentence is either nonsense, or looks like it contains a typo.
  • Use a light hand. When you do include dialect, slang, or accents, do so sparingly. Think of it like a sprinkle of black pepper. You want just enough to enhance the flavor without overpowering everything.
  • Don’t stereotype. If your character speaks with a dialect that you are only marginally familiar with, do your research. We don’t want to be lazy writers who stoop to using cheesy imitations of a dialect. Actual speakers of a language or dialect will easily spot a fake and call us out.
  • Don’t show off. Perhaps you’ve done tons of research into the history of your setting and compiled a whole list of archaic words. Great, but before using all those funny words, remember you are writing fiction, not a scholarly tome. You don’t need to impress anyone with your knowledge. Therefore, consider which terms are essential to your plot and skip the rest. Readers want to enjoy a good story, not stop every other page to look up yet another word they don’t know.    

Better techniques for conveying accents

Experienced writers come up with many creative ways to help readers hear the accents of their characters without forcing the characters to speak in phonetic accents or unfamiliar grammar. Here are four ideas:

  • Sometimes playing with word order is enough to suggest an accent. You could be using this technique to show a character is Irish, don’t you know? Or, something as simple as switching adjectives can make a sentence sound slightly foreign. For example, “I met him at the red, small house with the shaggy, big dog in the front lawn.
  • You could allow characters whose first language isn’t English to misquote or misunderstand common idioms. This can be used to great comic effect, when appropriate. (Think Agatha Christie’s Poirot.)
  • Adding a few recognizable words or phrases—gut, nyet, si, lass and laddie—can show a reader that this character speaks with particular accent. If you clue them in the very first time the character speaks, then you can allow the reader to fill the rest of the accent in themselves.
  • Another option is to show the accent through the POV of a different character. If the POV character has trouble understanding something another character says or thinks to himself about how the person’s speech sounds unusual, you have shown the reader the accent. The reader will hear that character’s speech the same way the POV character does.

While writers differ on their specific preferences when it comes to conveying accents, these tips should help you find a balance that pleases editors and readers alike.

Lisa E Betz

An engineer-turned-mystery-writer, Lisa E. Betz infuses her novels with authentic characters who thrive on solving tricky problems. Her debut novel, Death and a Crocodile, won several awards, including the Golden Scroll Novel of the Year (2021). Lisa combines her love of research with her quirky imagination to bring the world of the early church to life. She and her husband reside outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with Scallywag, their rambunctious cat—the inspiration for Nemesis, resident mischief maker in the Livia Aemilia Mysteries. Lisa directs church dramas, eats too much chocolate, and experiments with ancient Roman recipes.

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Magazine and Freelance

Put Dialog on a diet

Like delicious desserts, dialog is often a reader’s favorite part of a story. We quote great dialog for generations.

            “Off with her head!” – Lewis Carroll.

            “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill.

            “There’s so much scope for imagination.” Lucy Maud Montgomery.

            “It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog.” John Erickson.

            “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” – Jesus Christ.

Dialog is what characters say. Powerful stories are dialog driven through carefully chosen word selections. When Scrooge responds to Christmas cheer with “Bah, humbug,” Charles Dickens has masterfully portrayed the old man’s attitude and character in two words.

Dialog has dynamic purpose in a manuscript. It economically accomplishes several vital objectives. Dialog must

  1. move the story forward. “There’s no place like home. ” This declaration tells the reader that Dorothy’s goal is to return to Kansas.
  2. reveal something important about the plot. “The priest told me they are married.” A single sentence provides a crucial plot point in Fiddler on the Roof without the use of an entire scene to show the same event. In dialog, information can be dropped like a surprise bomb. Readers read to be surprised.
  3. show something important about the character. “Go ahead. Make my day.” What a character says can show what the character is thinking, how the character responds, and illuminate the depth of the character’s motivation.
  4. give the character a unique voice. “I know hurryin’ is against your nature, but you might want to pick up the pace before that storm rolls in.” Vocabulary lets the reader know if the character is educated, gives clues to the region the character is from, and shows the character’s nature to be relaxed, tightly wound, worried, sly, or confident.

Put your dialog on a diet. Words that should not appear in dialog include:

Yeah

Okay

Hello

Good-bye

Oh

Well

Writers give the illusion of reality when crafting dialog. It is the juicy parts with the empty portions left out.

        She helped him sit up. “Are you okay?”

            He rubbed the goose egg on the back of his head. “Where is the phone?”

In this example, if the character answered the question – “Yeah, well, I think I’m okay,” – it would detract from the urgency of the situation. From the action of rubbing his head, we know the hero has a painful noggin. Because he ignores concerns about his health, the reader sees he is focused on what is more important. Show me or tell me, but don’t do both.

In the first draft, dialog may begin with “Hello,” “Oh,” or “Well,” “Yeah,” and end with ‘Good-bye,” but in the editing process, be sure to remove these unnecessary distractions. They are like empty calories in your work. Cream filled Twinkies to be eliminated. Then reread the conversations and see how concise it flows without the banned words weighing it down and sounding like the writer is a novice. With practice, you will no longer even write these twinkies into your diet for dynamic dialog.

History buff and island votary, PeggySue Wells skydives, scuba dives, parasails, and has taken (but not passed) pilot training. PeggySue is the bestselling author of 29 books including Homeless for the Holidays, The Girl Who Wore Freedom, and Chasing Sunrise. She is a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Christian Authors Network, Run Hard, Rest Well, advisory committee for the Taylor Writers Conference, and talk show host on Five Kyngdoms Radio. Connect with her at PeggySueWells.com, @PeggySue Wells, linkedin.com/in/peggysuewells, and facebook.com/peggysue.wells.

Categories
Talking Character

Body Language: What Your Character Is Really Saying-Lisa Betz

If actions speak louder than words then a character’s body language is an important part of dialogue. And yet writers often waste the potential, using body language merely to reinforce what is already evident, such as a character who both nods and says, “Yes.”

Studies show that body language, including gestures and facial expressions, make up over fifty percent of communication. (Tone of voice makes up another thirty-five percent or so.) That means our characters can give away all kinds of information without saying a word.

When harnessed effectively, body language can be a powerful tool—because it tells us what’s really going on inside a character’s head.

4 ways body language can add useful information

  1. Revealing an emotion the character wants to conceal. The heroine is facing her nemesis in a meeting. She wants to appear calm and in control, but under the table her leg is bouncing or her hands are clenched in her lap. Although her dialogue and tone may give the appearance of complete confidence, the body language tells the reader the whole truth.
  2. Indicating the character is lying. Fictional characters don’t always tell the truth, but without a non-verbal clue, the reader may not realize when a character is being less than forthright. A bit of body language can show the reader what’s really going on, for example: a character refusing to meet someone’s gaze, rapid breathing, or covering the mouth while speaking. If the POV character notices these telltale signs, the reader will get the hint.
  3. Showing that all is not as it seems. In a scene where both reader and character expect a certain response, body language can tell a potent tale. For example, a husband arrives home from work on the day he was to get a long-awaited promotion. When he walks in the door and slumps on the couch, the wife realizes something is very wrong. And the more the husband claims everything is fine, the more out of kilter things obviously are. In a similar fashion, when the felon under interrogation acts smug, we begin to suspect he knows something the police don’t.
  4. Hinting at a character’s motives. When a hostess greets a guest with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, we suspect there is something between them. Perhaps the hostess is merely acting polite, or perhaps she has ulterior motives for treating the guest with a kindness she doesn’t feel. Of course, the POV character may misinterpret the clues, reading ulterior motives into a situation where there are none—which might be exactly what the plot requires.

Are you using body language to the full potential?

[bctt tweet=”How can your characters’ non-verbal cues help the reader read between the lines? #writetips #bodylanguage” username=””]

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A Little Red Ink

Dialogue Tips

dialogue film crew

When you write dialogue, think like a screenwriter. Every minute of screen time, every word counts. Don’t add fluff. 

You don’t want readers to skim your conversations because nothing’s happening. If it doesn’t move the plot forward, cut it, cut it, cut it.

Here’s something else that doesn’t belong in your conversations: director commentary. 

Sure, people buy DVDs with bonus footage, but I don’t know many people who actually watch the version with the director chatting the whole time—explaining, telling what he wanted from the scene, making himself sound generally witty. (Peter Jackson doesn’t count. Of course you watch those.)

Seriously, though. Audiences want the end product. They want to be entertained. They want the scene to play out in their mind. And they don’t want to think for one second about the writer behind the scenes—at least the first time.

Here are a few dialogue tips to help you accomplish that.

1. Use the word “said.” Avoid sounding like a thesaurus with your dialogue tags.  No one wants to be wowed with your synonym skills. Statistics show that readers actually skip over the word “said” in their reading. It doesn’t even register. All they see is dialogue (which is what you want). 

If your characters are replying, interrupting, cajoling, remarking, and muttering? There’s no way people can miss that. 

     “Are you kidding me?” Jen queried. “Just tell me we can undo it,” she complained. “What will it take?” 

     “We’ll do what we have to do,” Will countered.

     “We better,” she sniped. “If we lose this account because you dropped the ball—”

     “Relax,” he challenged. “Your attitude isn’t going to help us win them over.”

It can get annoying after a while, right? 

vancouver
2. Use action beats about 50% of the time. An action beat is exactly that—a moment filled by the character’s action. When it’s right next to the dialogue, it’s clear who’s just spoken. Often, an action beat can do more to convey the emotion than an explanation, with no “said” involved. Isn’t that same excerpt better like this?
“Are you kidding me?” Jen snapped her head to the side. She swallowed, then turned back and locked gazes with Will. “Just tell me we can undo it. What will it take?”

 3. If the characters are taking turns nicely, don’t tag every give and take. Sometimes, it’s obvious. 

     Will stood a little taller. “We’ll do what we have to do.”

     “We better. If we lose this account because you dropped the ball—”

     “Relax. Your attitude isn’t going to help us win them over.”

     Jen rolled her neck and closed her eyes. After a few deep breaths, her shoulders relaxed an inch. She met his gaze once more. “I’ll smile, and you dig us out of this hole you got us in.”

Make sense? A little goes a long way.
Thanks to McBeth and Vancouver Film School for the images.