In last week’s blog post, Editor Elizabeth Gilliland introduced some basic dos and don’ts of writing conversation. This week, we’re going to crank it up a notch.
A surely as every writer has their favorite way of tagging dialog (their own voice), every editor has a list of rules to which they expect compliance. Some demand only he said, she said. Others espouse variation with the use of other speech synonyms: shouted, whimpered, sighed, cried, bleated, ground through his teeth, etc. Schools of thought abound. The only hard, fast rule a writer can be certain of is “moderation in all things.” In other words, mix it up to keep your conversations from becoming tedious.
Here are a few tips to strike the proper balance:
The implied tag. Let the action of the characters do the tagging for you. When you show the actions of a character followed by the quote, the reader infers who is speaking.
Conversation staging. We are told constantly to show, rather than tell, but you can have too much of a good thing. Don’t bog down you writing with too much blocking (i.e., he moved there, she stood here, he sat down, she walked over). Let the reader fill in the blanks. It’s more engaging.
The Tell-All. Avoid the temptation to have characters tell each other what they already should know. Writers often fall into the trap of turning their conversations into exposition. In doing so, they lose their character’s voice. Find a different way to bring the reader up to speed, preferably by showing live action (as opposed to retelling). When you must structure the conversation to establish facts, guard your character’s voice religiously. Elizabeth explains this nicely here.
Let the characters do the talking. The less intrusion by the narrative voice, the better the conversation, so, stay out of it. Allow your characters’ speech to create the mood. Are their words angry? Conciliatory? Repentant? Wheedling? Short, concise sentences add tension. Sentences filled with adverbs and adjectives slow it down.
Tagging for timing. Just as reducing the number of tags within a conversation speeds it up, inserting them slow things down. Build in pauses by allowing the actions of the characters that reveal what they’re feeling. But stick to the point. Don’t wander away from the issue at hand.
Before, after, and in between. Remember the best tag is no tag, but when you must, mix it up. Whether tagging at the beginning, end, or middle of a quote, never repeat yourself in the next paragraph. When inserting a tag in the middle of a quote, always do so after the first pause, be it a comma or a period. This allows the reader to know who is speaking as soon as possible.
Following is an excerpt from “Tropic of Cancer” by Neve Talbot, one of the short stories to appear in Mechanized Masterpieces: a Steampunk Anthology (April 30, 2013 release). In this conversation, note how all of the above rules are employed.
My friend eyed me warily, without a single glance at the paper. I stepped back, undone by the truths I read so plainly on his face.
“You knew.” The words stuck in my throat. Herr Professor winced. His eyes fled mine. “By the devil! You knew and you hid it from me!”
He flinched as my palm hit the desk; a tiny jerk of the head as he stared at the floor. I pushed my hands through my hair with both fists to press back the whorl of disjointed thoughts that assaulted me. Tears rushed my eyes. A leaden weight sat on my chest. I could draw no air.
I stepped away from the violence bursting to free itself. My back to the man, I leaned against the windowsill, my outstretched arms pushing hard against it as if somehow I could hold back the cataclysm. I stared blankly through the glass, wrestling with a gale of sensibilities, resolves, reckless, insane schemes to make her mine; struggling to cease my trembling and stifle a wail of despair-laden rage. A knock at the door at last shattered the silence. Herr Professor rebuffed it. Footsteps scurried down the wooden stairs.
“I didn’t hide it, junge.” He spoke softly, feeling his way. “You never read the papers.”
“You just neglected to tell me, is that it?” I turned to him. He no longer sat, but propped himself against a file cabinet situated against the wall. “How long ago was ‘lately’. There is no date here.”
“Six months.”
I felt kicked in the chest by a mule. Herr Professor surely read my outrage. “I have not known for six months—only three months, perhaps. It has been six since the day.”
Realization of the truth settled over me like an arctic blast. “My father told you . . . That blasted bounder wrote and told you when, exactly.” Rottstieger again winced. “And all this time—all this time you have pretended to be my friend—pretended to encourage me, to share my joy! You played me for a fool!”
“No, Edward. When you asked Yvette to be your wife, I knew nothing of the matter. The letter from your father came after you told me what you had done.”
“And so for three months, every time you delayed our departure—all of it was a lie to put me off!”
“I delayed because Rochester told me he would write—they would write. They would tell you themselves in their own time. In their own way. I kept waiting for that letter—for Rowland to do the honorable thing. I had resolved to tell you . . .”
“When? When exactly were you planning to extend me that courtesy?”
“Before we got to England.”
“But after we left Boston,” I spat. “It would not do to spoil your precious tour.”
Herr Professor closed his eyes in capitulation. “No. It would not.” His pulse throbbed at his throat and he swallowed hard. “I never wanted this to happen. I never expected it to end like this.”
I peered at him. “What are you not telling me?” He heaved a sigh and I felt the last piece of the puzzle drop into place. “You have been in on it all along,” I whispered. “You took his part.”
“No. I never took his part. Anything I did, I did for you.”
“For you, you mean to say!”
“No, junge. For you.”
“How much? How much did he pay you to get me away from Yvette so Rowland could marry her? How much to properly merge the Fairfax and Rochester fortunes?” He hesitated, tongue-tied, and I slammed my fist on desk. “How much, Heinrich?!”
“The matching funds. If I could get you to Jamaica, he would match whatever other investors gave you—gave the corporation.”
“The matching funds? His club dues are more than his precious matching funds! You should have asked me, Heinrich. I could have got you better.”
“You have no idea what it meant to have Rupert Rochester invest in us. He is respected, known for his perspicacity. His endorsement gave us gravitas. That he would not invest in his own son’s inventions—it damaged our cause more than you can imagine. But what harm could a trip to Jamaica do, eh? How much good would come of it . . . at least, so it seemed to me.”
I snorted, then flopped to a chair and dropped my head into my hands. A storm raged within. I gripped my hair fiercely, clinging to something—anything—to keep from going under.
My friend sat beside me and placed his hand upon my shoulder. “Mein Sohn,” he ventured after a long moment, “no one could see you together and not know she loved you. That day—the day we left—when you were together in the cockpit, with the door locked and Rowland so frantic to get inside . . . I thought you had secured her promise. By my life, I thought you were secretly engaged.”
The pall of his words settled over me and I looked up. I could not deny the overwhelming sadness in his eyes, a mere glimmer of the grief my new clarity gave me. “No, Professor . . . No. She would not hear me. She sent me away.”
Penny Freeman’s role as editor-in-chief at Xchyler Publishing involves her in every project to one extent or another. However, she is currently wrapping up content editing of Mechanical Masterpieces: a Steampunk Anthology, to be released April 30, 2013. Her next personal project, Shadow of the Last Man by J. M. Salyards will be released later in 2013.