Dialogue--Snappy Dialogue, That Is - Clash of the Titles

Coming Up at Clash of the Titles, October 10-November 4, 2011

The first annual, Tournament of Champions! 

Over a FOUR week period, SIXTEEN previous COTT champs will face-off in EIGHT different mini-Clashes.

Only ONE will take home The Laurel Award.

With Clashes, games, and prizes galore, you won't want to miss this month-long celebration!

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*Guest post by Lisa Lickel

Dialogue lets your characters be heard. It’s their voice; their conversation amongst themselves. It’s how they tell their story. Dialogue is talk. Discussion. Arguments. Jokes. Questions and answers. Foibles. Mystery. Mesmerism. It’s the muscle on the skeleton of the story.

The writer’s ability to conquer natural dialogue comes out of how well we know our characters. The reader’s ability to hear natural-sounding dialogue comes from the depth from which he is drawn into the story.

      Using dialogue in a book helps readers see that characters spend time with each other for a reason, even if they’re stranded on desert islands. Tom Hanks had Wilson in the move Cast Away, after all. Dialogue is more than internal mutterings or their revelations to the reader. It needs to be heard, not just read. The words need to translate immediately to sound in the reader’s inner ear, and thus be natural, no matter the setting.

What can we deduce from these two small pieces of the excerpts in this Clash? Are you in time, in story, in the character’s emotions? Can you cheer for them? Figure out exactly what will happen next, or are you eager to turn the page for more?

“Would you mind if I walked with you?”
“As long as we’re not together.”
“All right.” He strode into the street and spread his arms as wide as his grin. “There. We’re not together.”
“Jack!” she cried…. “Get back up here.” Ruth motioned frantically.
“Don’t make me fix you up again.”

OR

    
“Perhaps you cannot wait for the wedding night?”

      Her brown eyes simmered. “Why you insufferable cad!” She raised her hand to slap him.

He caught it and lifted it to his lips for a kiss, eyeing her with delight.

She studied him then released a sigh. “You tease me, sir.” Snatching her hand from his, she stepped back. “But what would I expect from you?”

In a novel, talk must have a purpose. A conversation shouldn’t be talk for the sake of filling time or space. Readers have only until the last page to spend with people in a book, so writers must not waste time. Dialogue is meant to reveal something useful, important to the story line—passion, motive, or confession.

Why Snappy? Characters must speak true to their nature. While snappy it might not describe the personality, it implies action, tension, perhaps a slip of the tongue or a revelation that might even surprise the character, but certainly should surprise the reader.

Clash of the Titles hopes you are intrigued by these little snippets of story and want to find out more about the books and authors. Stop by and you’ll get that chance! Meet the authors and leave comments to enter the drawing for a free book.

*Lisa Lickel is a Wisconsin writer who lives with her husband in a hundred and fifty-year-old house built by a Great Lakes ship captain. Surrounded by books and dragons, she has written dozens of feature newspaper stories, magazine articles, radio theater, and several inspirational novels to date. She is also the senior editor at Reflections in Hindsight.

U is for Unspoken...The Body Language Blogfest

Harley D. Palmer over at The Labotomy of a Writer issued a challenge called the Body Language Blogfest today and I had to throw my hat in the ring.  There can be no dialogue whatsoever, but there must be some sort of conversation going on...and no sign language or telepathy allowed. The mood, conflict, and resolution all achieved with "U" is for Unspoken words.

 Wow. I love writing dialogue...my characters are snarky, sarcastic, and often very funny...My first thought was that there was no way I could do that. My second thought -- Now you're definitely going to try it with that attitude, Missy!

The Killers:

They giggled in tandem, the killers did. Holding the weapon together, they fought for control. The one with blue eyes, the bigger one, yanked it away. Wanting the fun for himself, he elbowed the gut of the younger one. Eyes clenched, the Younger tossed his head back; frustration wrinkling his forehead. He hit Blue Eyes, smacked him across the face, and flailed for the handle of the weapon.

Spittle flying, Blue Eyes held it aloft, his other hand closing around the hair of the Younger, pulling. They wrestled, their victim forgotten in the dirt next to them. Twisting together in an angry knot, the killers screamed and bit each other until finally, panting, the Younger released his grip. Blue Eyes sat straddling the Younger and gave a final yank, his eyes flashing as he stared down his nose at the upstart. Holding the weapon in his hand, Blue Eyes shook it and smacked Younger on the top of the head for good measure.

Out of fight, Younger whimpered, his eyes going wet.  He turned his head abruptly, refusing to look at Blue Eyes. Satisfied, Blue Eyes climbed off of Younger and sat next to the charred body twitching in the afternoon sun. Younger crawled over, once again sitting next to Blue Eyes, his face rapt as his attention focused once again on their victim. Blue Eyes held the weapon, then looking at Younger, offered room on the handle. A sweet smile pulled across Younger’s face and he lifted his pudgy hand.

Two yards away, a man sat watching guard over the killers; his attention wandering from their carnage to the magazine in his hand. A woman walked up behind the man, handed him a drink, and nodded to the killers.

“What are the boys doing?” She asked.

The man looked over at his toddler sons playing with the magnifying glass and shrugged. “Burning ants.”

That concludes my attempt at a no dialogue scene.  Please take a moment to peruse the other entries at Labotomy of a Writer.  Until next time, people...Go Write!

Photograph by FranUlloa, Uploaded on December 22, 2006.

Business Meetings at the Chug-A-Lug

The Blog, Secret Story, is hosting a "Bar Scene Blogfest" today and I thought it might be a fun way to get myself to hone some of my writing skills, especially with dialogue. The scene parameters state that it can occur either inside or outside a bar, and that anything goes.  I'm very excited to read the other entries.

This scene is from my novel, Purple Knot. Reyna Cruz, a petite powerhouse, uses her skills as a private detective to solve her best friend's murder while trying to mend fences with the man she left at the alter...her best friend's twin brother. 

The scene that follows is between the antagonist, a biker named Crawley and Shane, the pharmaceutical tech he snared into a corporate drug scheme. Parker is the husband of Reyna's friend, she suspects he had her murdered to cover up his involvement in the drug ring.

Business Meetings at the Chug-A-Lug

Shane

Seventeen miles away, Shane, noticed light glint off of something for the second time tonight. He couldn’t quite place it, but he’d seen the effect before. He did a few lines before coming to see Crawley, and the drugs were making his skin itchy and his eyes hyper sensitive to light. Shane glanced back at the where he’d seen the light, decided he should probably write down the instances he thought he was being followed, and then batted at a non existent ant on his forearm.


He scratched at his chin stubble, thinking, before he walked up the broken wood stairs to the bar and peered in through the window. Crawley was perched on a torn, red vinyl bar stool. He tossed back a shot of tequila.

Shane’s heart beat in his mouth, and he tried get himself together. He had to tell Crawley about the detective chick. Parker had warned him she would get into their business and despite Shane’s efforts, she had. Now she was more of a problem than he’d ever imagined possible. He squared his shoulders and walked into the bar and up to Crawley who didn’t bother to look over at him.

“What do you want?” Crawley asked.

“We have a problem.”

Crawley spit a sunflower shell down at the floor and eyed Shane with disinterest.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shane forced himself to stay rooted to the floor and not to run like his entire body was screaming for him to do.

“Well, you’re not going to like it.”

“Just spit it out, Shane.”

Shane sidled onto the stool next to Crawley and spun the little wood peanut bowl a few times. He didn’t quite now how to begin.

“Parker met me at ‘The Border’ tonight. He said he absolutely can’t move the chemicals right now. And…and I think, Crawley, that maybe he’s right. The audit people are coming…”

Crawley rolled his eyes and sighed. He motioned to the bartender to bring him another drink.

“I told you that don’t matter to me. You and Parker promised me the ingredient I need, and I expect you to deliver.”

“I know but, you see the paperwork could really get us both in trouble and now with his wife murdered…”

Shane never finished his sentence. Crawley backhanded him off the stool so fast that Shane brought the bowl of peanuts down with him. Stunned, Shane crawled on all fours toward the table a few feet away. He knew from experience it was harder for someone to kick you if you had some cover. The bartender and two other men in the bar stared into their drinks, making sure not to witness anything.

“Get back here,” Crawley growled and yanked Shane by the neck of his shirt. He led the two of them back out onto the pea gravel parking area behind the bar. “How much have you been doing, Shane?”

“Crawl…Crawley, wait,” Shane stammered. “I just needed…”

Crawley rammed Shane against a nearby truck and shook him by the front of his shirt.

“Get your nose out of the drugs. They’re rotting your brain. Now, I have a deal lined up to sell close to two million dollars worth of tablets, and I need those chemicals for the batch I promised.”

“I-I know, Crawley. I just need a few more days…” Shane tried to focus on Crawley’s face but his head was spinning.

“No, we don’t have a few more days,” Crawley said and Shane thought he looked nervous.

Shane scratched his head and made a face like he smelled something horrible. It was his thinking face.

“Well, Parker said he won’t do it, and he won’t meet with me anymore,” Shane whined. “He said that tonight, just an hour ago. Parker said he’s out.”

Crawley looked at Shane like he wasn’t there, like he was looking through him to the truck behind. Crawley narrowed his eyes, thinking.

“Didn’t you say that Parker’s had some changes to his family recently, something about his wife's will?”

Shane nodded even though he did not, in fact, remember.

“Give me your cell phone.”

Shane complied, and Crawley called a number and waited through the rings.

“Hey, it’s Crawley. Do you know where the rich boy is right now?”

Shane watched Crawley frown and then nodded.

“Are you sure?”

Crawley’s head snapped to Shane and that made him jump. Shane wondered what Parker was doing.

“Well, let’s see if we can’t find a way to motivate him, then.”

Photograph by theopie, Uploaded on August 17, 2007.