A word (or three) from our sponsors...

From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth. In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field.’ Martin Heidegger, 1935

Some great views here on Wicked Writers this week – that is what is so rewarding about sharing this space… diversity of opinion… you cannot beat it for stirring the creative juices!


We have Sharon writing for posterity (and the little guy in blue – what d’ya think? future President? Must be!)… And I love the whole statement of purpose thing…


Then there’s Greg – aside from razzing C.J. – writing for one of the most critical, single-minded, stubborn, unyielding audiences ever: the self!!! My hat off to you, Greg… I couldn’t cope with my own critique…


Then C.J. … what brilliance… what strategy! She secretly became her audience! By getting to know who they were, what they liked and what they disliked, she was able to throw off the constraints of their existence when she sat down to write as a reader!


And my take?


I do not believe I consciously write to, or within, a specific genre. I am a poor reader as a writer… flitting from this to that… often starting but never finishing a text. However, I do believe I write for an audience – I just don’t know who they are.


This is paradoxical. On the one hand, I am denying that a section of society exists which can be characterised by a set of literary expectations that may guide my writing. (I don’t identify with a genre.) On the other hand, I want to write in a manner that will appeal to the literary expectations of a section of society sufficient to provide such an audience. (I want to sell my books!)


So how do I resolve this paradox?


In essence, I do not know for whom I am writing but I do know that I am writing for someone. Does that someone call to me? No. If there was a call, I should listen and I might then at least have an opportunity to determine who the caller might be.


This is where I get all philosophical… (Bear with me!)


The French Philosopher, Sartre, wrote:


“To the extent that I strive to determine the concrete nature of the (social system) and my place therein I transcend the field of my own experience. I am concerned with a series of phenomena which on principle can never be (fully) accessible to my intuition, and consequently I exceed the lawful limits of my own [narrative] knowledge. I seek to bind together experiences that will never be my experiences and consequently this work of construction and unification can in no way serve for the unification of my own experience.”


I see the world as I see it… this provides the framework for my vision, for the explication of my narrative story. But if I want an audience to buy my books, I have to present a world that will appear to them as I will never, truly, be able to see it… I am creating a fictional world which, as Sartre would say, “transcends my experience”. That world will never be “fully accessible” to me. This, to my mind is where the art in what we do, as writers, lies. We must reveal to an audience, who ever they are, something that we ourselves cannot see. And that “something” must engage them. And it is not an easy task.


Are C.J., Greg, and Sharon wrong? Most certainly not… C.J., when she writes, may be disinterested in her audience, but she is not “uninterested”; her investment as a reader in her genre allows her now to step away from that audience. Likewise, Sharon’s writing for a future which cannot yet be specified shows similar disinterest. Greg, also, through learning to become detached from the specific audience he wrote his early work for, has become disinterested.


But not one of us is uninterested in our audience of readers.


If you like, disinterest, as concept, is a move of focus from the specific to the general. It is a concept that allowed another famous philosopher, Heidegger, to look at Van Gogh’s painting of “Old Shoes with Laces” and see the toils of a working-woman in the fields. He held no care for whether or not the shoes were really those of an old women, or just a pair of random shoes Van Gogh bought off a market stall for the purpose of painting his next still-life study.


And a final word?


In 1873, John Ruskin wrote, ‘…the art is greatest which, conveys to the mind of the [audience], the greatest number of the greatest ideas…’. As writers, our written work should engage with our readers (who ever they might be, now and in the future), producing within them the greatest ideas about the worlds we create.


We do not want to spend too long, trying to get inside our readers heads, making assumptions on their behalf. They can read; they can decide for themselves; they are intelligent (we hope). All we should give them is possibility.

Did he just say "intercourse"?

Did you know that in Victorian England, men and women often had intercourse several times a day?

And men were known to ejaculate quite often.

I didn't know that until I read the dialogue in some of the short stories in The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Doyle, of course, wrote his Sherlock Holmes stories in the 1890's during the reign of Queen Victoria. Back then, "intercourse" meant conversation and "ejaculate" meant "exclaim."

Today, we'd get calls from the PTA about such language, but in order to write believable dialogue, we have to talk like the characters would really talk or really did talk.

As readers, we have to understand this and take it in context. Thus, when we hear Little Richard sing "Good golly, Miss Molly, she sure likes to ball," we have to know that "ball" in the 50s meant "to party."

Or when Doris Day crooned "By the light of the silvery moon, I want to spoon, with my honey and croon love's tune," we should make it a point to understand that, in the 1940's, spooning was holding your loved one close in public, not cuddling up nude in bed after a one-night stand.

As a writer, it's my job to make the readers understand that. Don't be fooled by those novels set in the Old West or Shakespearean times or in a fantasy realm akin to Lord of the Rings or in the 50s like Rebel Without A Cause where the characters talk like your next-door neighbors. That is the author being lazy.

Unfortunately, I have been lazy at times in the past with my own dialogue. I've produced enough cheese to supply Mickey D's for a year. But, I've learned a lot over the years, so let me tell you some of the things I have learned and see if you recognize them from your reading (if you're a writer, learn from them, please).

#1) Use real people

Do the characters in your book read like the cast of Jersey Shore? Do they talk like them or are they as believable as Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer and  Russ Tamblyn passing for Puerto Rican in West Side Story?

It took me a few years, but, eventually, I got away from copying people from the movies. Why? Because those people in the movies are actors. They are acting.

I've been halfway around the world in my travels with the Navy, with newspapers and magazines. I've built up a wealth of knowledge and experience. For example, I can have a Boston character say "wicked" every third word and feel comfortable about it because I grew up in the Boston area.

I also freely borrow from all people. For example, I copy black people from all walks of life, just so you readers don't think we all just walked off the set of the latest Friday movie.

Note: Please try to avoid stereotyping. Not every Italian sounds like Joe Pesci. Maybe they talk like Joe Pantoliano, Annabella Sciorra, Al Pacino, Jennifer Esposito,  Vanessa Ferlito or Robert DeNiro.

#2) I ask the experts

An "expert" is anyone who knows more than me or has more direct experience in something than I do. Therefore, we are all surrounded by experts. If I want a character to sound believable when he talks about military intelligence, I ask my older brother, who was an intelligence officer in the Army.

If I don't have an expert readily at hand, I hit the Internet to make sure the terms I need are correct. After all, Devereaux Marshall Fox, the male lead in Land of the Blind, can't be in Antarctica enjoying the Aurora Borealis, now can he? Not when the Aurora Borealis is also called the Northern Lights, better seen in Alaska from the inn of C.J. Ellisson's Vampire Vacation.

#3) I take hints, suggestions and criticism

With a grain of salt, sometimes, but I take it. The readers offer insights that I can't get -- namely, the views and perspectives of other people. Maybe the reader is from Brooklyn and doesn't think my Brooklynite cop sounds authentic. Or maybe the reader is a retired general who points out that, in real life, a one-star general would not be talking to a battalion as if he were in charge of it.

When I was younger, I had this penchant for contradicting my dialogue. I tried to write a story based on the old TV show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Whenever the ship was in danger, I would have the captain order "Left right rudder!"

WTF?

In other words, I was just being verbose in saying "go straight."

Someone was kind enough to point that out to me that it should be "Left full rudder!"

#4) Shift the attributes

Professionally, I am a journalist. A sports writer specifically. In the journalism world, dialogue generally begins with the quote and ends with ," such-and-such said.

C.J. pointed out that I use this form of attribution way too much. And I agree.

I guess it won't kill me to put the attribute first such as Jodi groaned, "I knew you were going to say that." Or "I knew you were going to say that." Jodi slapped her head and groaned.

I guess variety can be the spice of talk.

A special note: one thing I do disagree with from many of my critics is the word "said." Everyone tells me to just use "said." Can you imagine using that word fifty kazillion times in a novel? I like to use synonyms such as "stated," "explained," "noted," "exclaimed," eh, I mean "ejaculated."

#5) And finally, check, recheck and then check again

Once I do the dialogue, I often post it on Writing.com. But, before I do that, I say it to myself over and over again to see if it sounds natural. If it sounds like real people having a real conversation.

Because, if I don't believe the dialogue I've written, then what's the point of showing it to other people?

Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what kind of dialogue you like.