In phase one of Dennis’ plan for World Domination, the folks of GW Derby were brutally crushed under his sandalled heel last Saturday. Thanks to everyone who volunteered for this subjugation. It was great to hang out and chat, and to sign some books as well!
Next target: Manchester on the 14th June.
The first citizens of Hamstertopia:
A quick reminder for those who do not visit the Black Library website – this saturday, the 17th, Games Workshop is hosting Black Library Day in its stores to celebrate all that is great and good about BL. Various authors are visiting stores, and I’m going to be in the Derby GW from midday for an hour or so. Pop along and say hi, and see Dennis in the flesh.
Find out more about BL signings on their website (please note that my signing at Manchester GW is being moved to the 14th because Angels of Darkness is getting re-released early!).
Thanks to those that have posted comments, and also the brave folks who have emailed the Ask Dennis hotline. This recent comment by Lost_Heretic leads me nicely on to a subject that’s been brewing in my head for a while – what advice should I be giving? More importantly, what advice do I feel qualified to give?
I am sure there’s some that visit this site who will say to themselves, ‘What the hell does he know? Why should anyone listen to some sub-pulp hack writing derivative tie-in fiction?’. Some may be less harsh but the principle stands… While I don’t feel any necessity to justify my opinions, I do think it’s good to understand where advice comes from. Quite often advice is given for the benefit of the advisor, whether consciously or not. I’ve attended courses on communication and coaching, and one of the things that comes up time and time again is the fact that most people don’t want advice, they just want help with working out the answers for themselves.
In my previous post I somewhat arbitrarily took one point of advice from a list of writing tips. I callously took it out of context and then deliberately used it to fashion an excuse to express my own take on dialogue. I did this for two reasons. Firstly, because I disagreed with the sentiment. Secondly, because on the whole I have real problems with checklist advice. The problem is not just with the people writing the advice, but with how many readers treat it.
Often the checklist of do’s and don’ts makes it look like something is easy to do – follow these simple rules and you can be a writer too. Not only is this misleading, it stifles thought and creativity. Such advice becomes a meme that inveigles its way into the minds of writers, editors and publishers, and becomes dogma rather than advice. One that gets me riled is the Show Don’t Tell approach. I have nothing wrong with this as a guideline, but it is not a founding principle. It has become a shorthand criticism that can be applied without thought. It’s too easy to scribble ‘Show Don’t Tell’ next to a passage of text, applying it as an ironcast rule without actually bothering to read the text and consider it in its place. Sometimes writers jump through ridiculous hoops to Show and not Tell, or otherwise mangle their characters and plot to avoid some necessary exposition. When applied as an unalterable law, what began as a sensible piece of advice to ensure writers engage their reader, along with the viewpoint character and other devices, has become uninspired dogma used to label and pigeonhole writing styles and their worth.
Everyone who reads this site is more than welcome to ignore everything on it. Some of it I occasionally ignore myself, and some of it I’ve learnt over the years and wish I’d known when I started out. Embarrassingly enough, I was re-reading Angels of Darkness over the weekend (for research, clearly, not just vanity!). Having laboured the point about not ending every sentence with an exclamation mark if a character is angry, I found just such a piece of dialogue that I had written myself…
So we learn, and we take on board those things that we can use and must be strong to avoid those pieces of advice that are actually dogma. More than just ignoring those things that we disagree with, we should work out why we disagree and express it. If a dozen comments were posted saying that I have no clue what I’m talking about with dialogue (oh dear, that’s a poor pun), you should look at this and that, read this book or that author, I would be overjoyed. Not because I’ve been proved to be an idiot but because it means that people are thinking and contributing.
So, more than giving do’s and don’ts, checklists of what will make writing great or awful, what I am aiming to do is stimulate thought and discussion. Every rule has a caveat and every caveat a codicil. Every piece of advice can be ignored. All I ask is that writers do this consciously. 90% of writing is thinking not typing. Thinking not only about characters and plot, scenes and dialogue, but about style, about theme, about pacing. Writing, like games development. is about making decisions and compromises, and the best thing any writer can do is make sure that those decisions are as informed as possible.
So, if you feel like calling me out on something I’ve written, please do. If you agree, then why not add your own thoughts and experiences. You never know, someone might pay attention and learn something else from you.
For creativity to flourish, there must be change and invigoration. Commercial forces would have the world predictable and manageable. As a writer, one has a choice, perhaps a duty even, to constantly challenge the status quo. The easy money is in doing the pedestrian, the achievable, the accepted. True greats break the mould and do their own thing. History is shaped by those who leave the flock and lead us on a new path, not from those who blindly follow. Without pioneers we would have no novels, no fantasy, no science fiction. Without new pioneers, what future do these things have?
Do I think I’m that sort of person? Very likely not, we can’t all be geniuses. We can be allowed to take risks. We can try to be great.
I’m currently writing (or more precisely thinking about) a short story that involves no dialogue. The reasons are many and varied, but the short version is that I and a circle of some other literary types are challenging each other to write more short stories and this month we’re tasked ourselves with the additional caveat of no dialogue.
It’s a tricky one, if only because as modern readers we’ve had dialogue rammed down our throats for decades. Whilst surfing t’interweb about the subject I came across this in a list of advice on good dialogue:
“3. Develop your ear. Listen carefully to actual people talking, not characters on TV, in movies, or on the radio – the latter kind of dialogue is always artificial, unrealistic, and unconvincing on the written page. No one actually talks like “The Sopranos” or “Friends” or “ER” or “Masterpiece Theater”. Sorry. Don’t mimic stage dialogue either.”
This is nonsense. You’ll find similar tired and mediocre platitudes from many other sources encouraging budding writers to churn out the same tired and mediocre dialogue we’ve been subjected to for years. Despite the apparent falsity of such dialogue, when performed or read it can be very natural.
The idea that any dialogue, whether from TV, film, stage or book is anything like realistic speech is an utter fallacy and any writer who tries to write their dialogue to mimic true speech properly would end up doing something very avant garde and probably unreadable. As a writer it’s your job to communicate what is being said in an appropriate manner and that means admitting to the fact that your characters’ words are contrived and planned by you, the author.
I cannot say this enough. Do not try to make your characters speak in the same patterns as real people. Real people stutter, repeat, umm and aah, pause for thought and generally make up what they are saying as they go along. In real life we filter out most of this unnecessary verbiage and concentrate on the words and message. We can do that subconsciously while we are listening, we don’t want to be doing that consciously while we are reading. They are very different functions.
Imagine how much you’d want to punch the author if a character inserted the word “right?” after every clause, as some people do. Or “okay?”. Or “so”, “and”, “so to speak” and all the other verbal placeholders we use in everyday conversation. Another one that crops up is adding the name of the person you are addressing at the end of a sentence, particularly questions. On the page, how confusing would it get if you did this in your writing, with a forest of names littering your dialogue.
The other problem with being literal about written dialogue is that artificial attempts to introduce character through speech idioms usually detract from what is being said. The content of your dialogue and any contextual description should be more than enough for readers to understand the sort of tone, pace and volume of the words. By forcing a strange word order to imbue some kind of unique character to a speaker will usually end up getting very repetitive unless you can do it subtly. Similarly, trying to write accents is usually a very bad idea unless you are going to do it for all of your characters (Irvine Welsh, for example).
Rather than ignoring scripted dialogue, you should seek it out. Script writers will generally not put in particular accent, speech patterns or contractions into dialogue because it’s the job of the actor and, more importantly, the director to make those decisions. Through the magical process of acting and direction what can look somewhat clunky on a page will flow into the ears of the audience from the stage or screen. Good dialogue on screen started out as good dialogue written down. In regards to prose, you must trust your reader to be the actor and director. Every reader will come up with inner voices for the characters that are suitable and appropriate. Let them do so without overly forcing your own view.
A script may tell a director that Bob enters the room, and he is angry. The director knows the context for the following dialogue. You can do the same for your written dialogue. A reader who is reading speech from a character they know to be angry will understand the volume and tone without you having to end every sentence with an exclamation mark. Give the reader-as-director/ actor enough information and then let them do the rest themselves. It’s this interaction that is enjoyable and makes the reader connect with the words.
If you want the reader to imagine the speech in a particular way, let them know, simply and directly. If someone is slurring their words because they are drunk, make sure the reader knows they are drunk rather than try to write it literally. Similarly, you can’t force timing into dialogue easily, so if someone is being slow and deliberate or gabbling on at a rate of knots, you need to tell the reader. The Show Don’t Tell police will throw their hands in the air. Good – they’ve managed to throttle the life out of good narrative enough as it is. Good dialogue will subtly reinforce this sense in the reader with the correct use of words and the odd quirk. It shouldn’t ram it down people’s throats.
Another thing to remember is that dialogue is part of your prose form and hence is part of grammar just like the rest of the sentence. When speaking, we commit run-on sentences, poor subject-object placement and a variety of other sins because it’s transient not permanent; the essence of what is being said can usually be understood without the grammatical guidelines that exist to keep writing clear.
A person in real life may say:
“Come over here, right, and pick up this ball, the ball, and then I want you to bounce it in that circle, right, the one over there, right Bob?”
Now add “he said” to the end of that sentence. Do you really want to read line after line of that?
“Come over here, Bob,” he said. “Pick up the ball and bounce it in that circle.”
Wholly ‘unrealistic’ and much more pleasant to read for page after page.
A trick that you can generally get away with is sentence fragments, but don’t use them too much. This can convey a more clipped, irritated tone:
“Come here,” he said. “Ball. Circle. Bounce it.”
Or jollity:
“Come here,” he said with a wink. “Ball. Circle. Bounce it.”
With that last one I cheated, of course, in that I gave the character a nonverbal cue for the reader to connect with. It can be tricky writing nonverbal communication (or non-verbal depending on preference). Things we take for granted in communicating face-to-face look awkward if committed to paper in every detail. Describing every gesture, expression and nuance would flatten even the most lyrical composition. Think reader-as-director/ actor and concentrate on the most pertinent points. The reader’s mind will embellish your timeless prose with all manner of subtleties that fit. That’s why reading requires imagination; don’t deny your readers the opportunity to use theirs.
The chap who offered this advice, amongst some good and some not-so-good tips, concluded:
“How will you know when your dialogue is improving? It will become so convincing and powerful that you’ll hardly notice it – it will be like listening to real human beings, where you notice the content of what they say, not how they say it. Your reader will concentrate on your story, not on the people talking and the way they talk.“
My emphasis. Now that’s good advice.
The long May Day Bank Holiday weekend has passed and it is time for me to start working again. The thing is, I haven’t got any writing to do…
Well, not ‘proper’ writing.
I finished the rewrites on Malekith and Call of the Lion last week and also sent off the synopsis for my Heroes of the Space Marines short. That means that this week is dedicated to paving the way for future work – another synopsis or three, emailing folks for possible ventures, and coming up with ideas.
100% Free Range and Organic
When I’m in this mode there are two different strands of thought competing for space inside my head. The first is practical. These are things that need to be done to get direct work commissioned (and pay the bills for another month).
I have upcoming projects such as the second instalment of The Sundering, Alith Anar. I have a rough outline of what occurs in the novel, some notes on characters and theme and even some text that is left over from Flames of Treachery (the first Sundering novel before it became Malekith). These ideas need to be turned into a proper synopsis with a plot and everything.
In a similar vein I have a proposal for a Warhammer 40,000 Eldar project, originally conceived as a novel but after conversations with Lindsey it looks like another trilogy would be better (yup, Gav’s hypocrisy strikes again!). So, I need to develop the ideas further from where they are at the moment, outlining the trilogy as a whole and coming up with a more detailed plan for the first book.
There’s also some follow-up work to be done for a possible novel or novels that continue on from the Space Marines story.
On the other side of things are the speculative ideas. These are the early seeds of future projects that I need to generate and then mull over for a while. This is what I suspect is most people’s image of a writer’s life – walking in parks, listening to music, scribbling notes and coming up with cool ideas. If only it was that easy…
The ‘problem’ is a simple one – it’s not a shortage of ideas, it’s trying to sift through the many and varied concepts and images to find the ones that I can hopefully turn into a good story. Some ideas are virtually stillborn, fleeting thoughts that don’t pass the first examination. Others seem dead-ends at first, but nag away in the back of your head demanding to be re-examined. Since I am not merely interested in writing novels, but also short stories, scripts, comics/ graphic novels part of this thought process is diverted to wondering which of the many media would be most suitable.
Split Personality
I can find this quite an unsettling time, because my first instinct is to dedicate as much effort as possible into the practical issues. Knowing that there’s another commission just around the corner, adding another little brick in the wall of financial security, is an exceptionally strong driver.
On the other hand, if I don’t make time to explore some of those wilder, more far-reaching ideas there’s no chance of them happening. These are the dream projects that may come to nothing and are a gamble in terms of time and money. They are also a real test of my creativity and I subject them to a high level of scrutiny.
As with life in general, the key to success is finding the balance. By spending some time on practical issues I can feel comforted that I have got some ‘work’ done, thus freeing my conscience to do a bit of exploration. The important point at this stage is not to apply too much structure, but rather to go with the flow. If I find myself stuck on one thing, I can move onto another. If I end up getting really caught up in a particular idea then it doesn’t matter if it overshadows some of the other stuff.
In this way I can deal with the ‘practical angel’ on one shoulder and the ‘speculative demon’ on the other and keep both happy.
In theory…
Mouse Update: Nope, still not taking the bait.
Last Week’s Life Lesson: Don’t put eggs on to boil and then forget about them whilst surfing internet forums:
 | dave on Know Your Weaknesses |
 | Kiour_gr on Differences of Opinion |
 | Matus on If You Can’t Take The Hea… |
