Dialog -- When is Enough Too Much?

Writing a story often comes in drafts. Each draft / layer is determined by your own personal writing preference.

Some writers write their entire first draft in dramatic action. Character emotional development comes later. Meaning comes later still. Others begin with character. Still others start with dialog. First draft has little action. Little character emotional development. Terrific dialog.

Well, some of the first draft dialog is terrific. In other places, the dialog serves as a place to dump information. With dialog, especially in the first quarter of the story, less is more. Only tell as much as needed to inform that particular scene. Leave the info dumping for later (or better yet, forgo it all together).

By less dialog, I mean less in terms of how much each character says at a time. Lots of short and specific dialog back and forth in rapid succession, keeps the pages turning and draws the reader deeper into the heart of the story world itself.

Dialog is a gift. At its best, dialog communicates to the reader the character's interior world, their thoughts and dreams, how they lie to themselves, to others, their beliefs, patience level, expertise, intelligence. At the same, great dialog advances the dramatic action plot.

The Dramatic Action plot is the external movement that allows the character to show who they truly are, first to the reader, then to themselves and then on a trajectory for character emotional transformation. Rather than random movements, the Dramatic Action plot works best if wrapped around the protagonist's well-defined goal. Dramatic action plays out in scene. Dialog comes from the dramatic action and unfolds moment-by-moment.

Think of dialog between two characters like two ships passing in the night. Each speaker has their own agenda, their own reason to converse. The characters' words lap up against each other. Often their words have little effect. Sometimes their words throw the other completely off route.

To create conflict on a secondary level, use the character's individual goals to help define their point of view in dialog. When each character comes to the conversation with something to prove or accomplish, the story moves forward. (And, sprinkle the dialog with authentic details and word use that reflects the time and setting.

Plot Authentic Details

The Middle of every story begins with the entrance to the story world itself. The more exotic and unusual this world, the better the read. 

List sights and sounds, smells and tastes, texture and mood of the setting of your story. 

First list may be general and generic. Refine the list as you refine drafts. Little-by-little find the exact right authentic and unusual and historically-just-right word, detail, object, sensation...

Each day draws me deeper into the exotic and unusual world of a premiere surf spot, The Hook at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, California.

The Hook

• Mean age range: 25-30 years old
  
• Principal occupation: surfing
  
• Palm trees tower 
  
• Cypress trees sway in the bay breeze
  
• Fog horn blares
  
• Gulls cry
  
• Surfboards stick out from truck beds, latched atop car roofs
  
• Boys dressed head to toe in black zip by like seals astride bicycles built for two = boy and surfboard
  
• Nightly news tracks high and low tide each day
  
• The aroma of bacon, eggs, and hash browns rolled in flour tortillas waft from a shack known for "rolling fatties"
  
• Girls in uggs, cotton sun dresses, and hoodies 
  
• The smell of seaweed at low tide
• Snippet of conversation: "Hey, dude. The sun's coming out. I might have to go surfing."
• Mexican music floats in on a hazy layer of marine warmth

Thematically, the place reeks of youth and movement and the power of nature, though I have yet to mention the sea...

What are some authentic and unusual details of your story world??

Self-Sabotage and Success

A local wrestler wins the state title. In the beginning, odds were against him due to internal fears and flaws. The newscast chronicles his story with a thematic flair that it's not unusual for someone to binge on toxic food when faced with possible success. Wrestler's dad seemed also to serve as antagonist in someway personal to the family itself. Mom sends the boy on a journey to an exotic land. He trains at a wrestling camp, sheds his old beliefs, practices important new steps, returns home and wins the state title. 

The newcaster's easy acceptance of our often compulsive and self-sabotaging behaviors when faced with possible success was refreshingly honest...

Isn't that what writer's block is all about? Self-sabotage. Isn't that why so many writers have never finished a story? Or if they have, it sits on a bottom shelf in the dust?

Moving forward, becoming conscious, finishing, showing up takes energy and trust, study and discipline. 

Discipline... When did it become associated with punishment? "You'll be disciplined for that..." Only in the past decade or so have I come to understand the other side. Root word of discipline is disciple. A writer who writes and finishes serves as a disciple of the creative force. 

It takes energy and discipline to achieve our goals in life and never more so than in a writers life. 

How do you keep energetically strong?? What is your discipline???

Boston Globe

Thanks to Google alerts, I find the Plot Whisperer is mentioned in the Boston Globe.

Click to read the article.

Of course, I commented.
Hope you will, too...
Enjoy...

Heart and Soul of a Story

Yesterday's post was in desperation. The work I was reading was good. 

By about the End of the Beginning (1/4), I found the plot working, the character believable though not completely likable, the issues of value. 

I wanted it to be great. 

Continued reading to the end today. Things picked up shortly before the Halfway mark. The heart and soul of the work emerged. I shed tears. I really cared. 

Made me a believer again. 

Cautiously though....

Work needs to be done. More authentic details. Entire first quarter reworked. Character deepened. More foreshadowing. Smoother flow. Interconnecting thematic significance on all levels.

Can't help but wonder -- how many times will he rewrite his piece to make it truly memorable??? 

How many times do you rewrite a piece from beginning to end in an effort to make it truly memorable?? 

What Makes a Good Story?

I don't know anything about video games. Truly. I'm embarrassed to expose the underbelly of my ignorance about one of the largest revenue markets out there, but here goes...

Video games have a character doing stuff -- action driven. Character propels from one event to the next. Setting. Mood. Theme. Journey.

It's a story.

There's also a character doing stuff to reveal self -- character driven. Character propels from one event to the next. Setting. Mood. Theme. Journey.

It's another kind of story.

So many stories created today -- online, hardcover, softcover, movies, music videos, plays, radio, newspapers, video games...

What makes for a good one?

Likable characters. Exciting action. Meaningful issues???

Enough, I guess. Thousands of stories are published in one form or another everyday.

The good ones are so rare.

Seems to me, a good story makes real time, rather than pass unconsciously, bring us to consciousness...

Unsatisfying Climax

Viewed two movies recently, both of which left me disappointed and dissatisfied at the end.

The first movie is actually made up of three movies -- the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I watched all three on a marathon movie day while recovering from an awful flu going around. Non-stop action and conflict, tension, suspense and curiosity effectively kept my mind off my coughing. However, my disappointment at the end nearly sent me spiraling back into the abyss of illness. Exaggeration, of course.

I was truly dismayed at the ending. Yes, I understand about the power of the ring and the evil lure of greed it evoked in all who saw it, but still... The Climax of every great story is when the audience and/or reader get to see in moment-by-moment excitement, the protagonist act in a transformed way and doing something they were unable to do anywhere else throughout the story. In other words they needed to go through every other trial and test and scene first in order to be transformed at depth overtime.

Even in the final seconds of the highest point in the entire story -- the Climax, Frodo was the same Hobbit he started out being -- brave with the urge to do his best. The only transformative change came in him being as seduced by the ring as everyone else. He ends up wanting it even as much as Gollum.

The other movie was Vicki Cristina Barcelona. The characters were amazing, the scenery beautiful, the action exciting -- all the elements of a truly wonderful flick until the very end. Every single character remained unchanged by all that transpired -- thus no character transformation which in the end equalled extreme disappointment.

Anyone else seen either movie??? Anyone else disappointed??

The Deeper the Meaning, the More Lasting the Project

Every story that becomes a classic has at least three universal plot threads:

(1) Character Emotional Development
(2) Dramatic Action
(3) Thematic Significance

Many writers develop one plot line at a time. The plot line you first choose to carry through the entire first draft is usually directly tied to your strength; strength determines preference (Take the Test).

Whether you begin with the Character Emotional Development plot line or the Dramatic Action plot line, most writers put off the Thematic Significance plot line to the end.

By your final draft, you have at least a vague idea of the deeper meaning of your story, what you are trying to say and the ways you have attempted to communicate that meaning through your story to your audience.

Crystallize the meaning you are attempting to convey into two specific universal themes and improve your chances of creating a classic blockbuster project.

Two Kinds of Thematic Significance

When a character is changed at depth over time, a story becomes thematically significant.

1) Character Emotional Development Thematic Significance

In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick serves as the narrator. Of all the characters in the story, Nick is the only one who is changed by the Dramatic Action, thus making Nick also the protagonist. (The definition of a protagonist is the character most changed by the dramatic action in the story. Unlike The Great Gatsby, if other characters are changed by the dramatic action in your story, then the protagonist is determined as a matter of degree and significance of change.

Some might point to Gatsby as the protagonist, alive in the beginning and dead in the end. What counts with thematic significance is not the change from alive to dead, but how the dramatic action creates a long-term emotional change in the protagonist.

Nick sets his own thematic significance in Chapter 3 when he states that he is one of the few honest people he has known. Since he is the narrator, the reader is curious to know if he is reliable, or not. Does Nick have a clear sense of himself from his time in the war as he thinks? Or, does he have more to learn about himself before he can accurately judge himself? In the end, Nick understands he has only begun to live up to his initial assessment of himself as stated in the beginning.

A thematic significance statement for Nick’s character emotional plotline could be:

Only with maturity and assuming personal and moral responsibility are we able to accurately judge ourselves and others.

Hands on
1) Who is the protagonist of your story?
2) Write down a Thematic Significance statement that encompasses the emotional transformation your protagonist undergoes from the beginning and throughout to the end of the story.
3) Infuse your story with the theme through details and comparisons, metaphor and simile.


2) Dramatic Action Thematic Significance

The Great Gatsby, as with all classic stories, deals with universal themes. Along with Nick’s personal thematic significance, there is also an overall meaning or Thematic Significance for the entire story.

A thematic significance statement for The Great Gatsby as a whole could be:

Ambition for money and another man’s wife leads to destruction.

Hands on:
1) Write down a Thematic Significance statement that encompasses the meaning of the overall story. In other words, what do all of the scenes and dramatic action together add up to mean in the end.
2) Infuse your story with this theme through details and comparisons, metaphor and simile.

When a story embodies universal themes for the characters themselves and through all of the elements and details of the story itself, a story becomes lasting.

Refer to Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple for more tips about each of the three universal plot lines and how to incorporate each one in your writing project and have fun doing it.

Creating a Sacred Writing Space

We as writers spend countless hours in our writing "caves," creating characters and stories we hope will engage and captive our readers. The more enticing our writing environment, the more apt we are to enter and stay awhile. 

Surround yourself with objects that have helped you find your way in life -- books, totems, photos, quotes, special rugs, notepads, pencils and pens. Pay attention to little ritual details. Do you like to light a candle before beginning to write? Brew a cup of tea? Have classical music playing in the background? 

Creating a sacred writing space releases you. And, as Joseph Campbell writes: "...since that space is associated with a certain kind of performance, it evokes that performance again." "To live in sacred space is to live in a symbolic environment where spiritual life is possible, where everything around you speaks of exaltation of the spirit."

As you cross the threshold into your sacred space, cast off all your responsibilities. Banish the internal critic. Seal yourself off from distractions. Allow yourself to sink more deeply into your inner life. Invite in the sense of play and discovery. 

And most of all, have fun!!

Plot Consultations for Writers

I always disguise the identity of the writer when I unwind here and reflect after a plot consultation. I keep my comments general in hopes of showing how universal most of the plots and the plights I encounter.

In my mind, I already see the writer successful and imagine how notes like these would shed a certain sense of historical perspective when the time of success truly arrives.

Today's consultation was all about subplots and themes.

Every element in a memoir, novel, screenplay contributes to the greater thematic significance of a story. 

• Every character functions like a mirror shining back to the protagonist the very elements of themselves they can see in others but not in themselves
• Every subplot does the same thing to the overall plot of the story 
• Every word contributes to the theme and mood and nuance

Nothing is extraneous or there simply because the language is beautiful, the action clever, the character quirky. Every element contributes to the deeper meaning of the piece.

Do you know the thematic significance of your story?

Can you condense the overall meaning of your story into one statement?

This Thematic Significance statement reflects the truth of your story. Not the necessarily a universal truth or truth for all time, but true for your story itself.