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.