Your characters need their potatoes

A few weeks ago, while weeding in the overgrown plot alongside my yard, I yanked up a potato.

I found myself staring at the thing until I realized what it was, recognized the leaves, and I had an "Oh!" moment. Oh: last year, I must have missed one of the potatoes, and it had wintered over, and long after I'd forgotten it, the thing had done what potatoes do: it made a plant.

I stuck it back in the ground. But I realized our characters need their potatoes too. They need potatoes served three ways.

First, there's the character trait of which your character is barely aware. The reader is introduced to your character with this trait as a part of his whole, but over time readers begin to wonder why he's the way he is.

At some point, the plot yanks up something that looks like a weed, and hey, potato! It's the event or formative background that caused your character to become a liar or to hunger for justice or to fear a long-term relationship.

The reason my garden had potatoes was pure bad memory on my part: I moved something in the pantry and discovered a bag of sprouted potatoes. Given that I live in the Swamp, which as my Patient Husband says is "teeming with a surprising amount of life," I went into the overgrown leaf-dump and stuck the potatoes into the ground. "Have a good time, guys!" I said, figuring that at the very least, they'd turn into compost. Remember, I'm a New York City girl, and I know where vegetables come from: they come from Key Food.

The half-dozen potatoes surprised me by becoming four potato plants, which surprised me further by becoming twenty or thirty delicious potatoes last summer. I thought I'd gotten them all. Surprise!

Here's my second surprise: I'd forgotten the two that died, but later I discovered the two potatoes that never sprouted plants last year had put up plants this spring.

Here's your character's second potato: plot elements you introduced in the first half of the book should sprout in the second half. JK Rowling is an expert at this kind of thing: she'll slip something in, and then when it comes up again, instead of it being a new plot element, you say, "Oh!" Potato.

(Diana Wynne Jones is the master of this sleight-of-hand; the moment you realize what's going on in Archer's Goon is the simultaneous joy of feeling a story unfold and seeing how a black-belt level writer creates perfection. She does it just as well in Howl's Moving Castle. I'm told Beethoven is an expert at this too, but I'm not classically-trained enough to tell you where he does it, only that he does. Those amazing new musical elements in the development section actually arise out of the themes. Go figure.)

The key point you're aiming for is recognition. When something surprising happens, the reader should be surprised not because it's a shock, but rather because it feels right only he hadn't made the connection until now. It should seem obvious to the reader in retrospect: of course this would have come back to haunt the main character; of course this is who the main character really is; of course that's why these events were happening. Chekov tells you that a gun in the first act has to be shot in the third, but the potato corollary to this law is that a gun shot in the third act has to have shown up in the first. Has to have shown up and then been left underground, wintering over, forgotten, and then when everything seems dead at the end of the winter, it opens its eyes, and up pokes its head.

At the moment, I have seven potato plants, two from the dormant potatoes and five leftovers I missed in last year's harvest. And that brings you to the third.

Your third potato is the sequel. A sequel must have elements that were planted in the previous novel, but they have to be planted subtly and deeply enough that your previous books aren't filled with clutter. You have to plant your potatoes and then forget them. Leave them to winter over, presumed dead underground until one day the reader opens the sequel. He'll find that potato and remember when you planted it. Planted, but never harvested.



---
 Jane Lebak is the author of The Wrong Enemy. She has four kids, three cats, two books in print, and one husband. She lives in the Swamp and spends her time either writing books or crocheting inappropriate objects. At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four kids. If you want to make her rich and famous, please contact the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. 

Writing and the Rule of Three

I’m a reader…a writer…but definitely not an arithmaticker.

Numbers make me shudder. They tend to lurk in the boring part of my brain. Although my formal education is in pharmacy—which is all about numbers—my happiest moments are spent tickling the right side of my brain, making it jiggle until the words fall out. I retreat from the rigors of numerical stringency and mathematical regulation every moment I can, to run free among the open fields of word play.

And yet…the numbers follow me wherever I go, like nasty little shadows.

I first noticed the rotten little things when I started querying. I blame it on Query Tracker. The website makes it so easy to obsess over stats and percentages and all ten of those numerals in every possible combination—from response statistics to requests. Getting carried away with the statistics made it infinitely easier to tolerate the agonizing wait for responses.

Although I haven’t queried in a while, I have been writing—and I’ve found that the numbers are still lurking around every corner. Lately though, it hasn’t been a random gang of numerals. It’s been one particular number. Always watching, always waiting, always showing up where I expect no numbers at all.

Three. It seems to be a magic number. (Cue the School House Rock music.)

Why does three seem to show up in nearly every story I write—or read, for that matter? Perhaps it’s because, structurally, three is a very strong number. Think about it: archways and pyramids are based on triangles. So is the system of judo my kids are studying, with triangles present in everything from stances to joint locks. Strength comes in many forms and the number three is a solid presence in that strength.

Three data point give us our location in time and space. Three points on a map show progression. Three legs of a tripod give a camera a level sense of stability, leading to clearer pictures and more solid images.

All of these things--strength, setting, progression, focus--are things we want in all of our studies. It's a universal goal of writers to incorporate these elements into our work.

That School House Rock song is really like an earworm now: three’s a magic number.

The Number Three and Writing

Despite the left-brained quality of numbers, three is present everywhere in our writing. For instance, take a look at the foundation of our stories. No surprise to see the number three echoed throughout basic story structure.

• beginning, middle, end: every story needs them
• three act story arc: it’s how a story moves from beginning to end
• three plot points: it’s what is happening--gives the story a reason to be written.

And what about the Almighty Trilogy? I have yet to see a story “duology” or “quadrolgy” or whatever they may be called. Some things are too bizarre, even for fiction.

Look closer into the details of the story you’re writing, and you’ll find threes everywhere. Even the characters themselves work best when we identify the importance of three.

• hero, quest, villain/ hero, heroine, obstacle: the essential cast of players
• goal, motivation, conflict: the blueprint of each character

What about romantic tension? Three is a key element when a build-up of emotional climax is needed (and, to be clear, it’s always needed.)

• romantic triangles: so much more fun when there is no clear choice
• third time’s the charm: what’s better than the near misses the couple experience before landing that first kiss on the third attempt?

The idea of three will find its way into every sentence, every line, every phrase. One such way is through the use of rhetorical devices.

• Anaphora: this heavy-hitting device uses repetition to emphasize ideas and increase emotional impact. I could go with any number of brilliant quotes from King or Churchill, but instead I’ll choose a more contemporary example.

"I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize." (Weird Science, 1985)

If that doesn’t illustrate the example of building to a climax, then nothing will. :)

• Epistrophe: similar to anastrophe, but the repetition comes at the end of the sentence.
• Asyndeton: also leads to a building-up effect and reaches maximum impact when three ideas are linked, but their conjunctions omitted. (Many references cite “three or four” ideas but, to me, the fourth can make the sentence too cumbersome.) If you want an example, just re-read the above introduction to rhetoric.

The Rule of Three

Three is a very important concept when it comes to writing. When in doubt, remember the Rule of Three:  omne trium perfectum. “Everything that comes in threes is perfect.”

So, maybe School House Rock did more than come up with a catchy little song. Three really is a magic number (yes it is, it’s a magic number). Maybe the song eventually gets overrun by ranting hoards of digits that stampede mathematically across the rest of the verses, but even that doesn’t subtract from the brilliance of the original idea.

When it comes to writing, three is the most magical number there is…and numbers don’t lie. They're too left-brained to do it convincingly.

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Writing and the Rule of Three: How THREE can be your story's magic number...

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash's blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press), which has continued with the release of "Blood Rush (Demimonde #2)".

Drawing the Reader in through Character Emotion

All successful novels, no matter what genre, have one thing in common: emotion. It lies at the core of every character’s decision, action, and word, all of which drive the story. Without emotion, a character’s personal journey is pointless. Stakes cease to exist. The plot line becomes a dry riverbed of meaningless events that no reader will take time to read. Why? Because above all else, readers pick up a book to have an emotional experience. They read to connect with characters who provide entertainment and whose trials may add meaning to their own life journeys.

It is easy to see the power of emotion and how it connects a reader to the story and characters. The difficulty comes in writing it well. Each scene must achieve a balance between showing too little feeling and showing too much. Above all, the emotional description needs to be fresh and engaging. This is a tall order for writers who tend to reuse the same emotional indicators over and over. 

This is why Angela and I wrote The Emotion Thesaurus. We were tired of our characters always shifting their feet to show nervousness and narrowing their eyes when angry. And when we started talking with other writers, it became clear that many of them also struggled in this area.

Because clichéd and overused emotional descriptions seem to be a near-universal problem in the writing community, I was thrilled when Carolyn asked if I could talk a bit about character emotion. I’d like to tackle this area of difficulty by sharing an excerpt from The Emotion Thesaurus and giving some ideas on how it can be used to clarify your character’s feelings and freshen up your descriptive writing. 

Let’s say you’re working on a scene about sibling rivalry, and you need to express Sam’s frustration over his younger brother’s insistence on paying for lunch. The first draft might go something like this:

     I gestured for the bill, felt my face getting hot. “Absolutely not.”
     “Too late.” David didn’t even look up. He was already reaching for his money clip.
     My hands clenched into fists. He always did this—it’s why I’d made him promise on the phone to let me pay, for once. Why did he always have to throw his money in my face? It was so frustrating.

While this passage clearly conveys Sam’s frustration, it’s a clunky read. First off, there’s a lot of telling, which is hardly ever a good idea. Another sign of trouble is when the emotion is named (It was so frustrating) because readers don’t want to be told how Sam feels; they want to feel the frustration along with him. The best way to do this is by giving emotional cues that the reader can relate to.

Unfortunately, the cues used here are fairly weak. The flushed face, the clenched fists—we’ve seen them a million times. To show Sam’s frustration in a way that will really connect with the reader, we need some cues that are fresh and unique to Sam’s character. Enter the The Emotion Thesaurus. Here’s an excerpt from the Frustration entry:

FRUSTRATION

DEFINITION: vexation caused by unresolved problems or unmet needs; the feeling of being hindered
PHYSICAL SIGNALS:
Pacing in short spans
Stiff posture, rigid muscles, a corded neck
Clenching the jaw
Speaking through the teeth with forced restraint
Scratching or rubbing the back of the neck
Splaying hands out wide to stretch, then relaxing them
Throwing hands up in an “I give up” gesture
Stalking away from someone, leaving in a huff
A strained voice
INTERNAL SENSATIONS:
Throat closing up
Hardening of the stomach
Tightness in the chest
MENTAL RESPONSES:
Self-talking to calm down, to think straight
A need to ask questions and rehash information
Reining in one’s emotions before damaging relationships
CUES OF ACUTE OR LONG-TERM FRUSTRATION:
Using more force than necessary (stomping feet, throwing instead of handing off)
A display of violence (kicking, grabbing, shaking, or destroying something in release)
A tantrum (screaming, body flung down on the floor, crying)
MAY ESCALATE TO: Contempt, Anger, Impatience
CUES OF SUPPRESSED FRUSTRATION:
Gritted teeth
Swiping at tears, trying to hide them
Silence or minimal responses
Briefly closing one’s eyes

Looking at this list, I see some cues that could work, but I want to make them specific to my character. I can imagine Sam rubbing the back of his neck, but that gesture is kind of overused, too. Instead, I’ll have him rub his jaw—a stubbly one, to further emphasize the difference between the two brothers. The fact that Sam tried to arrange all of this beforehand also shows that he’s a thinker and a planner. Under Mental Responses, I see a need to rehash information; it seems fitting that he would argue his point, try to remind his brother of their conversation in an effort to change his mind.

I’m going to replace the weak cues from my first draft with some stronger ones from above—cues that are a little more unique to Sam.

    I wiped my mouth and gestured for the bill. “Absolutely not.”
    “Too late.” David didn’t even look up. He was already pulling out his money clip.
    “Hey, we talked about this. You paid the last three times.” My voice sounded pinched, like it was squeezing through a straw. I cleared my throat. “I know I don’t make as much money as you, but I can cover lunch.”
    David slipped a gold card into the envelope and waved the server over. “It’s not a problem. Don’t make a thing out of it.”
    I stared at him. “A thing?”
    He nodded—him in his pressed suit with every hair shellacked into place. Like he was the reasonable one and I was overreacting.
    Sucking in breath, I scrubbed a hand over my unshaved jaw, then dropped it to the table hard enough to rattle the dishes. This whole thing was a set up. Knowing David, he’d picked the time for lunch on purpose so I’d have to come between shifts. Everything was intentional with him, and he always knew how to put me off my game.

It needs more revision, but this scene’s already a big improvement over the original. Sam’s emotional state is clear, most of the telling has been replaced with showing, and the cues are stronger and say something about both Sam’s and David’s character. The added characterization also serves to increase reader empathy and strengthen the reader-character bond, which is a good thing.

So the next time your scene needs a little more emotional oomph, remember these tips:

1. Whenever possible, show the emotion instead of naming it outright.
2. To show emotion, choose physical, internal, and mental responses for your character that are fresh and not overused.
3. Choose cues that are specific to your character and make sense for him or her.

Thanks so much for hosting me, Carolyn. Best of luck to all of us!

Becca Puglisi is one half of The Bookshelf Muse blogging duo, and co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression. Listing the body language, visceral reactions, and thoughts associated with 75 different emotions, this brainstorming guide is a valuable tool for showing, not telling, emotion. The Emotion Thesaurus is available for purchase through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Smashwords, and the PDF can be purchased directly from her blog.

Emotion Behind Story

by Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL

 ©Stina Lindenblatt

Story isn’t about plot. It’s about emotion. It’s the element that leaves your body tingling in fear or anticipation for what will happen next, and what readers want from the first page to the end. But how do you bring in emotion to add maximum power to your story? 

Universal Theme

Universal theme will help your readers connect to the characters and emotions in the story. These are themes that everyone can relate to, even if they can’t relate to the specific circumstances of the story.  For example, how many of you know what it feels like to have the mob kill your family? None of you, I hope. Now, what if you wrote a story about how your protagonist’s best friend tells her uncle, who happens to be the Godfather of the local crime family, that she suspects the friend is the estranged daughter of the family he’s been salivating to kill, after her father turned state evidence on his former boss? Depending on how you set up the story, you can choose to focus on the universal theme of betrayal. At one point in our lives, we’ve all experienced the feeling of being betrayed. Now we can relate to the character and the emotion of the story, even though we have never, thankfully, gone through the same experience.

Character Wounds

Another word for character wound is backstory. This is where you create the most painful past possible for your character, and let it guide your character’s actions. The type and depth of wound will be dependent on genre. The wound then plays a part in determining your character’s fears, and it is the wound and fears that make the character vulnerable. Since he doesn’t want people to know his vulnerability (especially the antagonist), he creates a persona that protects him from being hurt. For example, you could have a character who lost his parents due to an accident and is bounced around the foster care system. He ends up in the worst of homes, where the foster parents only care about the money. He’s neglected and abused. He learns not to trust adults, and because he’s bounced around so much, he learns not to develop attachments to other people. He becomes the bad-boy loner, complete with tattoos. Inside, he’s still the caring individual he was before his parents died, but he refuses to let people get close enough to discover this. That is, until he finds the right girl. 

Naturally, you would not dump this information on the first page. Write the backstory down in a separate file, and fit slivers of it into your story. Start with the small stuff, hinting of the possible wound, and as the story progresses, hit your reader with the most emotional, gut wrenching parts of your protagonist’s past. Your reader will keep turning the page, because she wants to find out what really happened X number of years ago. It’s a great way to build emotional suspense. 

Showing verses Telling

The first thing you want to avoid when writing emotion is telling.

“Go away,” he said angrily. 

In the above sentence, the writer is telling the reader that the character is angry. We don’t get to experience his anger. You can switch ‘said angrily’ for yelled, but there’s a stronger way to show emotion.

He gripped the ends of the armrests and took a long, slow breath. “Go. Away.” The two simple words, meaningless on their own, held a dangerous edge when spoken without his usual warmth. He could only hope that Lydia was smart enough to understand what he was really telling her. She was a b**** and a traitor, and he would rather spend eternity in hell than spend another minute listening to her heartbreaking lies.

 

In the first example, you learn nothing about the character. By showing the emotion through action, dialogue, inner thoughts, visceral reaction, setting (more about this in a moment), you reveal characterization. One character might scream and hurl breakable objects at the wall when he is angry. Another character might speak in a calm yet deadly tone, and reveal his anger through body language, like in the second example. Same emotion. Two different ways to show it.

Go Deep

Words are powerful, but only if you pick the right ones.  Use words in an unexpected way to add emotion to the sentence. These are typically your theme words or scene-related ones (i.e. if your scene deals with death, your power words would be related to death).  For example, ‘He watched the light bleed slowly out of day . . . . ‘ (Whispers by Dean Koontz). Notice the difference, emotion wise, between that and ‘He watched the daylight fade . . . .’ The former sentence was created to give you the shivers. Try this trick to add dimension and emotion to your setting. 

Use words to show a shift in emotion and mood in the scene. The scene could start off with words like ‘skip, sunshine, rose-scented’, but as the mood and emotion change, you weave in words like ‘trudge, stench of rotting corpses, spiraling down’. For the most impact, figure out what emotions you want to show in the scene, brainstorm verbs and nouns that best convey them, then slip them in as needed. This is a great way to add imagery to your writing. 

Study Study Study

The best way to learn how to put emotion in your story is to study your favorite novels (or short stories, if you write them). Pick ones similar to what you want to write. For example, if you want to write a tear jerker, then that’s what you should study. Rip them apart and examine how the author approached the above elements. Then apply what you learned to your WIP. I’ll be talking more about analyzing stories in an upcoming post. 

Do you make sure that your story is rich with emotion before you write the first draft and while editing?

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes young adult and new adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and blogging addict, and can be found hanging out on her blog.  

 

Engaging Openings

You hear a lot about having "a gripping opening" and beginning your novel with a fast-paced sequence. And, well, I'm not impressed.


Ursula K LeGuin in Steering the Craft stated that most novelists begin their story three chapters too soon, and I admit I've seen several novels with what my instructors have called "throat-clearing."  It's what you say before you really begin to tell your story.

But the current trend of beginning with an action sequence isn't the answer to "throat-clearing." Not every novel in every genre needs to begin with your main character battling a werewolf or an explosion ripping through a warehouse. So let's stop and think about what an opening needs to accomplish.

Most people will tell you that your story needs to begin as close as possible to the inciting action of the story, the moment after which nothing can be the same again. I don't agree. Let's pretend for a minute. Let's pretend the inciting incident is important, but not as important as knowing the significance of the inciting incident when it happens.

What would that mean? It would mean we trust Blake Snyder in Save The Cat: first we need to know why life for the main character can't stay the way it is. That, as Snyder says, "to remain here is death."

Your main character won't know that at first. Your main character won't suspect that not only will everything be shaken up soon, but also that it needs to be shaken up. That's because your main character isn't aware of his or her "hidden need" (as Amy Deardon says in The Story Template) but you, the writer, will be aware of this hidden need, and you're going to have to establish it in the opening.

Your main character is perfectly happy as an assistant pig-keeper, or your main character is eeking out an existence in an overcrowded colony of rabbits, bullied by the Chief Rabbit's special police. But although the characters are settled in the way things are, you're establishing, word by word, that things mustn't stay the same.

Snyder has the inciting incident taking place almost ten percent into the story. Deardon has it happening earlier, but still after the main character's introduction. So, take some time. Don't spend three chapters telling us how your main character learned to shoot when she was seven years old, but also don't drop us into a scene where she turns around and shoots five men in an alley.

The problem with these action openings is that we don't know whom to root for. We don't know why it's important.

But back up a bit. Your opening needs to establish who your main character is. Yes, I know there are novels which don't begin with the main character, but let's just ignore that for now. For most of us, the opening chapter needs to establish the main character and why she's important. Not important in the world: important to us. 

My agent and I struggled with the opening of my WIP. A first scene with the inciting incident left readers with a bunch of who-cares people being accosted by an angry client. Um, okay. I added a chapter before that where I carefully established the main character's hidden needs, and my agent fell asleep before page three. I lopped off the first three pages and opened with an interesting sequence, and it still wasn't working. My agent (who deserves combat pay) suggested a crisis for the opening, but it felt too much like a red herring because it would never come up again. (Which is another problem with action openings: if your MC shoots a bandit in scene one and then gets recruited to hunt vampires, never to encounter a bandit again, it's rather unsettling.)

I turned to my much-abused critique partner, who after three versions of the opening scene said, "But I don't care."

Ah. People in three surrounding counties may have thought it was a freak lightning storm, but it was an actual lightbulb going off over my head.  I sat down with the opening and told my main character to talk. Just talk. Enough with the tight writing and trying to get to the main action as soon as possible. Just talk to me.

Talk she did. My MC talked about birthday gifts and calendars and her grandmother's thimble collection, and after an additional five hundred words of padding, out came the thing she needed to say. Her hidden need expressed in one sentence, one concrete longing: she wished that just once, when she came home from work, she'd find a note from her grandmother that she'd put a leftover chicken drumstick and mashed potatoes in her fridge.

I deleted the thimbles and the birthday gifts and the calendars and kept some of the other things, but there on the front page is my character's longing to be nurtured, to be accepted. 


I passed it along to my second crit partner, who said, "This is awesome, and I can tell she's afraid of failure, but how does she define success?"  Second lightbulb moment.  


I passed the new revised fiftieth attempt back to my agent, who said (sweet relief) she really liked it now.


Days later, Kristin Nelson wrote about action openings versus active openings, and I felt vindicated. It's not about action. It's about engagement. It's about giving us someone to care for and then putting her in a situation where we can care about what she's up against.

---

Jane Lebak's first novel The Wrong Enemy (originally titled The Guardian) will be re-released this September by MuseItUp Publishing! She is also the author of Seven Archangels: Annihilation (Double-Edged Publishing, 2008) and The Boys Upstairs (MuseItUp, 2010). At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four children. She is represented by the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency.

Using Dialogue Tags and Punctuation Properly

Dialogue can be tough, but for a lot of writers, tagging and punctuating it correctly is even harder. Here are some of the most common errors I see, and how to correct them.

Dialogue Tags

You should use a dialogue tag anytime it’s not completely clear who is speaking. 

A dialogue tag lets the reader know who’s speaking. He said and she said are the most common dialogue tags, though if it’s not completely clear who’s speaking when you use he said or she said, it’s time to use your characters’ names. Let’s pretend for the example below that we’ve just started a new scene:

 “Sorry I’m late,” June said.
 “Where were you?” David said.
  “I just ran by the grocery store on the way home.”

In this example, we tag both June’s dialogue and David’s dialogue with their names. That way everyone knows which characters are involved in the scene. In the third sentence, we skipped the dialogue tag completely, because it’s unnecessary. We know that June and David are the only people involved in this conversation, so once June starts speaking again, we don’t have to tag her dialogue.

However, you may not be able to go more than a few lines without some kind of indication of who’s speaking. If you do, the reader will start to get confused.

For example, if we pick up where we stopped with June and David’s conversation:

        “I just ran by the grocery store on the way home.”
        “I wish you’d called to let me know you were going to be late. I was starting to worry about you.”
         “I had my phone on.”

By that third line, “I had my phone on,” we  may want to add a sentence tag back in (“I had my phone on,” she said), both to keep the reader from getting lost and to break the dialogue up a bit.

If someone new has several lines to say, and it’s probably not going to be entirely clear who’s speaking until you reach the ___ said  tag, then you should insert the dialogue tag after the first sentence of his or her speech, like this:

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said.  “I lost track of the time.”

Said

As I mentioned above, said is the most common dialogue tag, because it disappears for the reader. In other words, as readers, we’re so used to seeing it that we don’t really notice it while we’re reading. This keeps it from feeling redundant, even if it’s used frequently.

You should use other tags—like shouted, screamed, bellowed, sobbed, sang, blurted, whispered, wailed—sparingly. These stand out in a big way, and can be very distracting for the reader, particularly when your writing is peppered with them.  You may feel like you need to use such strong verbs regularly to show your characters’ emotions, but you’re usually better off adding a brief sentence that shows the character’s body language or actions instead.

Rather than saying,

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said regretfully.

or even

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she murmured.

in many cases you may be better off showing the character doing an action. This helps bring the scene to life for the reader.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. She shuffled her feet, avoiding his eyes.

Sometimes you don’t even need the “she said” part:

“I’m sorry I’m late.” She shuffled her feet, avoiding his eyes.

Note, however, that in the example above there should be a period at the end of the line of dialogue, not a comma, the way there is when the dialogue is followed with _____ said. A lot of writers try to follow dialogue with a comma and then an action, but you can’t speak an action. For example:

Wrong: “Not even one,” she offered him a halfhearted shrug.
Right: “Not even one.” She offered him a halfhearted shrug.

Wrong: She offered him a halfhearted shrug, “Guess I got lucky.”
Right: She offered him a halfhearted shrug. “Guess I got lucky.”

You can also include information on what’s happening before or during the dialogue. As I noted earlier, this breaks up the dialogue and can make it feel more natural, since most people don’t speak super-fast without taking pauses. For example:

The man gripped her elbow, steadying her.  “Let me help you,” he said.  “You’re covered in blood.  Is it yours?”

Finally, you can put the dialogue tag in front of the dialogue, though this is a less conventional approach, so it should be used with care. For example:

The two women eyed each other. Then Abbey said, “Are you trying to trick me?"

Finally, if someone is, for example, asking a question, you should always use a proper question mark at the end of the line of dialogue, and then add your ____ said as if you had used a comma (ie, with a lowercase he said or she said rather than a capitalized He said or She said).

For example:

Wrong: “You have to send anyone else to the hospital?” She said.
Right: “You have to send anyone else to the hospital?” she said.

And to pull together several principles we’ve discussed:

        “Hey,” he said.
        “You have to send anyone else to the hospital?” she said.
        He nodded, checking off several adjectives in the mental status area of the intake form.“Three others.”
        “Delusions of influence?”
         “Well, I don’t know that the girl who thought she could disappear would count as a delusion of influence, but the others…yeah, they kind of fit that category.”  He tapped the tip of his pen on the table.  “How about you? Did you have to send anyone to the hospital?”
         “Not even one.”  She offered him a halfhearted shrug. “Guess I got lucky.”

Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD's book, THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment, and Human Behavior helps writers avoid common misconceptions and inaccuracies and "get the psych right" in their stories. You can learn more about The Writer's Guide to Psychology, check out Dr. K's blog on Psychology Today, or follow her on Facebook or Google+! 

Character Connection

One of the most common reasons for rejecting a manuscript is when the agent or editor can’t connect with the main character. Sometimes this is subjective; other times it’s not. 

First you need a multi-dimensional, sympathetic character. Next you need to examine your Motivation Reaction Units (MRU). A Motivation can be an action, dialogue, or description that leads your character to react. For example, if you are walking toward your house and it explodes, the exploding house is the Motivation.  The Reaction is what YOU do in response.

The intensity of Reaction needs to match the intensity of the Motivation. If your house explodes, you’ll likely react with more than a mere shrug. If the Motivation is small and the Reaction is over the top, then you’ve got an issue with melodrama. 

Reaction can be action, dialogue, visceral reactions (e.g. heart rate), and/or inner dialogue. Visceral reactions (the body’s response that you can’t control) ALWAYS come first. The rest is up to you and your genre. But if you’re finding you are getting rejections because agents aren’t connecting with your character, you might want to examine your inner dialogue. It might not be enough. Remember, though, it needs to move the plot forward, not force it to sit still while your character contemplates the non-relevant. 

Read the following three versions of an excerpt from In the Dark of the Night by John Saul:

Version with no inner thoughts

“Guess what I have!” Ellen demanded. “You’re going to love it.” (Motivation)

Merrill’s eyes narrowed and she held out her hand. “Give.” (Reaction)

Version with most of the inner thoughts deleted

“Guess what I have!” Ellen demanded. “You’re going to love it.” (Motivation)

Merrill’s eyes narrowed as she ran through the possibilities, except that whatever it was was small enough to be held in one hand. (Reaction)

Merrill held out her hand. “Give.” (Reaction)

Version from the novel

“Guess what I have!” Ellen demanded. “You’re going to love it.” (Motivation)

Merrill’s eyes narrowed as she ran through the possibilities. With Ellen, everything was always wonderful, and everyone was always going to love everything, so she could be talking about almost anything. Except that whatever it was was small enough to be held in one hand. (Reaction)

Ellen Newell’s hands, of course, were larger than most, and stronger, too. Even though she was nowhere near her son’s size, she was just as good an athlete as Kent, and could still beat him at tennis without even breaking a sweat. If Ellen weren’t one of her best friends, Merrill knew she could have hated her. As it was, Merrill just held out her hand. “Give,” she said. (Reaction)

Do you see the difference?

HOMEWORK 

• Copy a scene from a story in the genre you write (preferably a book you love/admire) and highlight the inner thoughts. Do they move the story forward? Do they give you insight into the character and her goals? What do you like about them? What don’t you like? What do you notice about the amount of inner thoughts on a typical page (this is going to vary among genres)? Compare them to your writing. 

• Take a scene from your story and analyze each Motivation and subsequent Reaction. Is the reaction enough? Can you expand on it by combining more than one element (e.g. action and inner thought)?  What is your character thinking after the Motivation? Would it help your reader connect with your character if you wrote it down? (Write it down. You can go back later and trim if need be.) You’ll be surprise just how much you can strengthen the characterization by doing this exercise. Better yet, do it for the entire novel. Yes, it takes time, but it’s worth it if readers are struggling to connect with your character.

 

Stina Lindenblatt writes young adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and blogging addict, and can be found hanging out on her blog, Seeing Creative.