Dialogue: Intention and Conflict

I finished reading Linda Seger’s book “Creating Unforgettable Characters”. It was such a great book! I highly recommend it.

Anyway, as I cruised through the last couple of chapters, some bits on dialogue jumped out at me. For me, dialogue has always been, well, dialogue. Characters chatting, moving the plot forward. Or well, in my case, not always, but trying to move the plot forward! I still need to work on that. Dang that plot progression!

Seger says that “Good dialogue conveys conflict, attitudes and intentions. Rather than telling about the character, it reveals character.” And here I thought it just had to sound different from the main character.

She also mentions how in each scene, each character is acting based on their own intentions and that what makes a good scene is when the characters in the scene have conflicting intentions. She makes it sound so simple and basic! How did I not consciously realize that?

Anyway, after reading this, I rifled through my bookshelf. Of course. And you know what? A lot of authors aren’t as concise as I want them to be on this whole intentionality thing and attitude and all that. Huh… So I kept rifling.

I found a scene rife with ‘hidden’ conflict between Becky and her soon-to-be mother-in-law in SHOPAHOLIC TIES THE KNOT by Sophie Kinsella. They are at a big engagement party for Becky and Luke, hosted by Luke’s mom, Elinor in her fancy-dancy New York apartment. The party is full of people Becky does not know. Here’s a sample (leaving everything out but the dialogue):

“Hello, Elinor. You look lovely. I’m sorry I was a little late.” [Becky]
“Rebecca. I hope you have been circulating? Not just sitting here with Luke?” [Elinor]
“Er…Kind of…”
“This is a good opportunity for you to meet some important people. The president of this building for example.”
“Right, Well, er…maybe.”
“I’ll introduce you to her later. But now I’m about to make the toast. If you would both come over to the podium.”

And okay, a bit gets lost in the absence of the action tags. Still, you can tell that Elinor’s intention is to move up in the world and have Becky do the same. Be a good society wife and all that. Her attitude is that everyone who is or wants to be anyone will be circulating and what kind of person is Becky if she has to tell her to do these things? Is she trying to make Elinor look bad? Etc, etc. On the other hand, Becky’s intention is to spend her time with the people she cares about at the party and not neglect them to go shake hands with a bunch of people she doesn’t know in order to raise her societal ranking and to fill out her rolodex a bit more. Conflict! Their attitudes and intentions are very different.

Now of course, not all scenes can have such a hard line conflict without exhausting the reader with the CONFLICT, conflict all the time. But it helped me to see a case so clear. I hope it helps you too.

We All Survived!: Agent Chat

I survived!

Of course I survived you say. I was only moderating an online chat with a literary agent.

It was great. And it was so high speed. I totally didn’t need that mocha beforehand. Mental note: no caffeine before chats…

Tina Wexler of ICM was great. She did a great job of succinctly answering the pile of questions launched at her for an hour by eager writers. I wish I could say that I recall the questions and replies, but honestly, I can’t. I was so busy queueing people up for their questions and trying to keep track of everything that I swear I only read enough to gather whether the question had been asked and whether the answer had been given. And even then, I screwed up a time or two.

When the transcripts are available, I will sit back and take a peek at what really went on.

With people jumping in and out of the chat, it was a challenge to keep things going and on track and make sure everyone got their chance to ask something. Some people even got to ask a second question, so all is good at the end of the day.

So how many quests did Tina have? Well, at one point, I looked up and saw that we had 33 writers logged on. Wow. I would say that it was a success and that AQ’s bid for online domination is well underway. Now if only my head would stop spinning…

I’m in love…

with this new theme and what I’ve done to it. And I love my new graphic header. <Sigh.> Problem is, I now want to make the rest of my webpage look this lovely.

Online Author Chat Recap

The chat with Rhonda Stapleton went well last night. She was a natural and the chat guests were great. Thank you to everyone who joined us and especially to Rhonda for taking the time to tell us her inspiring story and to answer all our questions. Good luck on your book tour!

It’s encouraging to hear a story of someone who made it. After querying over a hundred agents with one manuscript, she moved on to her next work, landed an agent, but still didn’t sell. Her third novel, however, has made up for it. It’s become a trilogy with an awesome book deal with Simon Pulse. She’s gonna make it! Plus, her incredible query letter hooked five agents at one time! Five! I know! That means she got to interview the interested agents and pick the one that best suited her career goals. How incredible is that? It’s uplifting to hear of someone else’s success.

Last night my husband cooked supper, I mean, ordered Chinese food and here’s what my fortune cookie said, “Your dream will come true when you least expect it.” Kind of fitting, isn’t it? 

Don’t forget to join AQ’s online chat with Tina Wexler, literary agent for ICM this Thursday, 7pm Eastern.

Critiques Give Author New Knowledge

This just in…

Main characters who do not realise that they are to thaw a turkey before cooking are considered to be TSTL. (Too stupid to live)

In unrelated news, you can have jeans fitted. The word on the street is that you can ask the store to fit you. Asking a member of the same sex to join you in a change room bearing a measuring tape will not imply that you are gay and coming on to sales clerk. Attempts at past fittings without measuring tape and/or sales personnel have resulted in the sage advice, “Try another size” and “Sorry, that’s all we’ve got. Try Wal-Mart.”

In other breaking news, you can ask liquor store clerks for advice on what wine goes with what foods. Reports have stated that you will not hear the previously assumed reply of, “Coors Light?” but actual, helpful advice.

While the findings of this informative and oh-so-helpful news article have not been geographically tested, the results are guaranteed in upper-end larger city locations where citizens have great wealth and time on their hands.  In all other locations (i.e. the rest of the universe), the advice is still considered worth heeding or at least pondering before discarding with great mirth.

This post has been brought to you by waffles.

Another Chat: Author Rhonda Stapleton

In order to ensure that the chat machine’s wheels are properly greased and ready to go for the agent chat next week, AQ is hosting an author chat this weekend! Yes! This weekend! I’m proud to announce that I will be moderating a chat with author Rhonda Stapleton. So join us on Agent Query Connect Sunday at 8pm Eastern. It’s free and it’s sure to be informative!

A bit about Rhonda:

Rhonda Stapleton started writing a few years ago to appease the voices in her head. She has a Master’s degree in English and a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing. Rhonda works as an editor for a legal publishing company and enjoys offering editing workshops. Because one writing group is never enough, she belongs to Romance Writers of America, several online and local writing chapters, and Romance Divas. Rhonda lives in Northeast Ohio with her lovely, energetic family, who are more than enough to keep her busy when she’s not writing. In the twelve minutes of free time she has each day, Rhonda enjoys reading, photography, writing poetry, singing in the shower (and in the car, at work, or basically anywhere that provides oxygen), drinking chai tea, and playing on the Internet.

Did she just say chai tea? I may have just found my new best friend! So come on down to AQ and learn about her long, arduous journey to becoming the author of the upcoming trilogy STUPID CUPID, coming out December 2009.

It’s Official: The Chat Is A Go-Go!

Join me, the AQ Crew, other writers and literary agent Tina Wexler of ICM on June 26th at 7pm Eastern time on the Agent Query Connect website. Tina will graciously be answering questions and I will be graciously moderating the chat. Pretty cool, eh? Best part: it’s totally free! (We only ask for your soul and you don’t need that anyway!)

Here is a bit about Tina blatantly taken from the AQ site:

“Tina Wexler is an agent at ICM, representing writers in both the children’s and adult marketplace. Prior to joining ICM, she was with the Ellen Levine Literary Agency/Trident Media and the Karpfinger Agency. She is from southern Maine, holds an MFA in poetry, and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband.”

What exactly is she looking for?

“On the adult side, I am looking to acquire narrative nonfiction and up-market commercial fiction. I’m particularly interested in popular science, food (not cookbooks), pop culture, memoir, religion, art history, women’s issues (however defined), and modernized retellings of popular myths and legends. On the children’s side, I’m interested in young adult fiction and middle grade fiction. I love mysteries, adventure stories with boy appeal, coming of age stories, tall tales, and paranormal fiction. Specifically, I am looking for a witty story about an astrophysicist who has troubles finding her Mr. Right–I think his name should start with an ‘M’.”

Okay, you caught me, I added that last sentence.

Come join us online on Thursday June 26th, or visit the post afterwards–I’ve been told the transcript from the chat will be available. Does it get any better than this?

Goddess of Geek–Let’s Rename That to Goddess of Doofuses

I’m cracking code again folks. Such joy in my geekitude. I love it!

I’ve already noticed that I am the ‘odd girl out’ in an online class I’m registered in. Why? Why am I always the odd gal out? Maybe I am just projecting that…

Anyway, please note there are more links in my blogroll and that you can now follow the link on the left to my homepage. That’s where I was making code work for me. Yeah, baby. I’m working it. Wahoo. Doing the stirring the pot dance. Oh yeah, that’s me. I know you wish it was you.

Now, to do a back up and some more fiddling with this site… I may even get into colour stuff again. Or not.

Can you tell the edit section of my brain is fried liked mashed potatoes? Can not think…Can only code…Can only follow steps that have no subjectivity… Mashed potatoes?

Later Note: Yep, thee olde brain really is mashed potatoes because while I was listening to my daughter, I kind of um, deleted something important and now I can’t get it back. Oops. So, in the meantime, enjoy this basic blog theme. I may not even bother trying to get my old one back as I didn’t really like it that much anyway and this gives me an excuse to experiment a bit more. So, hang tight…the geek-who-only-knows-enough-to-get-herself-into-trouble is on it!

Even Later Note: Officially hate WordPress now. Could they make backups and upgrades any more labor intensive? Nevermind…that isn’t important. What is important is that my blog is still here for the moment and I will attend to my blog issues later. It may require lying on a couch with someone with a German accent asking me not to regress, but as usual, I digress…

Still Later Note: Whew! I did it! I fixed it. Damn, I am dumb though. Lesson of the day, don’t try to code or at least remove extraneous code when you are distracted or you just might lose your whole blog. God, where is that Maalox? None? Okay, pass the Vodka then.

Seriously Later Note: Crap! I had everything all nice and my Goddesshood reinstated, but now things are um, vanishing. I was going to quit while I was ahead (new RSS buttons on left), but crap, I still have more to do…

Um? Later Still: Things are where they should be with the exception of the RSS button which thinks it should be in a directory I don’t have. But I can fix that. Or ignore it. Or delete it. Ma-ha-ha!