This
week author and agent, Lois Winston joins us with her tip. Lois also writes
under the pen name Emma Carlyle, is a USA Today bestselling, award-winning
author and literary agency associate.
Lois’s Tip
As
a literary agent, I’ve listened to hundreds of pitches and read through
thousands of query letters and manuscript submissions. Being both a published
author and a literary agent has given me a unique perspective on publishing. I
know what it's like to be the writer whose only desire is to sell a novel, and
I know what it's like to have to crush someone's hopes with a rejection letter.
It wasn't until I started sending out those rejection letters that I began to
have a better understanding of why so many writers receive them.
As
it turns out, most manuscripts are rejected for one or more of ten basic
reasons. Writers have control over some of these reasons but not all of them.
Over the years I’ve given writing workshops and talks on this topic.
Afterwards, many attendees often urged me to write a book on the subject, which
I eventually did. Top Ten Reasons Your Novel is Rejected and How to Avoid Them
shows writers how they can control more of their destiny by not falling prey to
many of these reasons. The following is an excerpt from the book:
Dialogue
and Narrative
Dialogue
is one of two ways authors can show their stories. The other is active
narrative (scenes where stuff happens.) Well-written dialogue, like
well-written scenes, will do one of two things – either advance the plot and/or
tell the reader something essential about the characters. Poorly written
dialogue reads like filler and bores readers.
Although
dialogue should sound natural and realistic, it needs to be written crisply. We
all speak with lots of extraneous words and interjections. We constantly repeat
ourselves. We uhm and uhr and stutter and stumble more often than not, unless
we’re members of Toastmasters or championship debaters. Even though these
things are natural and realistic in the real world, they have no place in
dialogue. Good dialogue shouldn’t make the reader want to shout, “Let’s get on
with it. Spit it out already!”
Dialogue
should also be more than just chitchat. It should cut to the chase, not be
filled with banal pleasantries.
Example
of a poorly written dialogue scene:
“Whatcha
want, gorgeous?” said a deep, gravely voice with a heavy Brooklyn accent. He
sounded like Fran Drescher on steroids.
What
I’d really like was two tickets to the ballet instead of two tickets to a
pro-wrestling musical extravaganza. Dave really hated the ballet as much as I
really hated pro-wrestling, but I couldn’t very well buy him something for his
birthday that he didn’t like or want, could I? Although, somehow I couldn’t see
him standing on line for even thirty seconds, let alone thirty minutes, to buy
ballet tickets for my birthday. I ran my fingers through my mass of curly red
hair and bit down on my lower lip as I wondered, did that mean I loved Dave
more than he loved me?
“Hey,
red, you like wanna stop like mooning over The Boulder’s tight ass and like
tell me whatcha want?” continued the male counterpart of Fran Drescher in a
loud, booming voice. I noticed several people turn toward the ticket counter.
“Like I ain’t got all day, you know,” he continued, his voice getting even
louder.
“Uhm,
Nori?” said Reese, tapping her French manicured nails on the shoulder of my
taupe colored Ralph Lauren linen cropped jacket, the one I’d bought on sale at
Macy’s to match the pencil skirt I was wearing. “It’s your turn. You, er, want
to tell the guy what you want, so we can like get out of here, maybe, and go
get something to eat before our lunch hour is over?”
I
hadn’t realized I’d made it to the front of the line and Mr. Fran Drescher was
talking to me. How absolutely embarrassing! I felt the heat quickly creeping up
my neck and into my cheeks as I slowly turned to look at him. He was as wide as
Fran was thin. He must have weighed three hundred pounds. He wore a skin-tight
sleeveless black T-shirt with the red “AWE” logo emblazoned across his massive
barrel of a chest. Muscles bulged on top of muscles on arms that were
completely covered in tattoos in every imaginable color of the rainbow from his
thick wrists up to his bulging shoulders. He had the thickest neck I’d ever
seen, a shaved head, and an enormous gold nose ring, large enough to easily fit
on my wrist, hanging down from his nostrils to his chin. I wondered how he
could eat with that large thing dangling over his mouth.
He
slowly drummed his beefy fingers on the counter as he leaned across, casually
leering at me, as he said in a very sarcastic voice, “Any day now, doll.”
~~
Now,
if the ticket seller is a pivotal character in the story, he needs to be
mentioned in detail, but certainly there are better ways to do it. However, if
this is the only time he appears in the plot (which it is,) he doesn’t need to
be described in such detail. And that’s just the beginning of what’s wrong with
this dialogue passage.
Tag
lines (he said, etc.) should only be used when it would be confusing to the
reader not to use them. If the dialogue is between two characters, tag lines
are extraneous because it’s obvious who’s speaking. The dialogue alternates
between the two characters. If there are more than two characters in the scene,
the tag line can still often be eliminated by the use of narrative action.
Then
there’s the body language, which is nothing but filler. Good writing will only
have a character engaged in body movements that are important enough for the
point of view character to remember later. For instance, if Nori only bites
down on her lower lip when she’s trying to rationalize something to herself,
then the lip biting is a tell. (Note: This is different from telling your
story. A tell is an action or trait that gives insight into a character. It’s
often used in mystery and suspense when ferreting out the bad guys.) Maybe Nori
really knows Dave isn’t in love with her and has been trying to convince
herself otherwise. But if the lip biting is merely a body gesture for the sake
of a body gesture, it’s filler and doesn’t belong in the passage.
Adverbs
in tag lines should be used as little as possible. Well-written dialogue should
use verbs that are very descriptive to the action instead of relying on
adverbs. That doesn’t mean you should never use adverbs. Just make sure there’s
a good reason for using them. Otherwise, they become a crutch.
Finally,
description for the sake of description has no place in a well-written
manuscript, whether as part of a tag line, in dialogue, or in narrative.
Describe only that which is important to what is happening to the characters in
the scene. If the hero and heroine are running through the subway, screaming
for help as they flee an ax-wielding serial killer, the heroine isn’t going to
notice the overflowing trash can filled with empty Starbucks cups nor the way the
hero’s sea green and turquoise paisley tie is flapping around his neck as they
race for the exit.
Dialogue
by its nature will speed up pacing. Internalization (inner thoughts,
monologues) will slow pacing. There’s a place for both. Good writing will have
a balance, and depending on the genre, might lean more toward one than the
other. But keep in mind wherever possible, you should strive to show your
stories, not tell them. Too much internalization will make editors’ and agents’
eyes glaze over and result in a swift rejection.
Excerpt from Talk Gertie to Me
So
let’s look at that same dialogue scene written as it appeared in the book:
“Whatcha
want, gorgeous?”
Two
tickets to the ballet? I smiled to myself. Dave hated the ballet as much as I
hated pro-wrestling. Payback would come on my birthday.
“Hey,
red, you wanna stop mooning over The Boulder’s tight ass and tell me whatcha
want? I ain’t got all day.”
“Nori.”
Reese nudged me out of my reverie.
That’s
when I realized I had made my way to the head of the line, and the thick-necked
guy with the nose ring and shaved head was speaking to me.
Buy
Links:
Top
Ten Reason Your Novel is Rejected
Talk
Gertie To Me
You
can find Lois at:
Twitter:
@anasleuth
Thanks
Lois, for dropping by and sharing that great writing tip.
Don’t
forget to check back next week for another author and her writing or marketing
tip.
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