Terry –

Without wanting to stir things up, I have to say I whole heartedly agree with you. I’ve read dialogue should be oblique. It is not a real conversation which is full of colloquial irrelevance that would bore a reader to tears. So, if someone says:
“Hi, how are you?”
The reply shouldn’t be: “Oh, I’m fine. How about you?” coz that would be boring, stuttering the story and irrelevant. But if you write:
“Why, what’s it to you?” which is unrealistic in everyday life, it immediately raises interest with the reader and moves the story on. Or something. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.

Adele – You know I love you dearly, but I think you are maybe a touch harsh on Terry’s words. I like gossiping, but my characters don’t! After all, we are talking writing stories and making up characters, not whether our friends can hold up a decent conversation. It is one thing to sit in a pub and chew the fat about Beckham’s disasterous lack lastre performance in the Portugal game (sorry but it still stings), or the state of Britain’s manufacturing industry, whether Lennon would have ended up an embarrassing old sychophant like his mate, or even the pro’s and con’s of communism and the nationalisation of the railways (or whatever). All are important and/or interesting topics, but to just write that down as a part of a story would be boring, contentious and likely to annoy the reader. The characters are more than everyday people. They have to be interesting and quirky and STRONG MINDED enough to move on the story and not get bogged down in irrelevant thoughts and small talk. I have no problems with thoughts, if they are vital and relevant to the story, and don’t patronise me as a reader.

As for boxes - all hail the middle classes - its a sign of progress!



Luv n' Cheese


Dav

Dav, I should have made myself clearer, I am defending gossip as a pastime to keep the little grey cells active, and also pointing out its place in literature. Who? What? and Why? and the foundation stones of story-telling, and gossip is simply a tributory of this magnificent river.

Also, I believe that dialogue in literature should reflect real speech, but run through the prism of the author's consciousness. When I read dialogue and shout at the page, 'but no one talks like that,' then the author has failed to convince me. Also, I remember one of my tutorials at college on Realist, tranche de vie, French novels, in which I came out with the old chestnut, 'but of course, no one in real life talks in complete sentences.' I was blasted out of the water by my tutor, who pointed out that every sentence both she and I had uttered since I walked into the room had been complete. That taught me in valuable lesson in not parroting received ideas without really thinking about them first. Harsh but fair, I believe.

Adele.

Okay, well, I don't want this thread to degenerate into condescension, preaching and taunting. I blame myself for introducing a personal example when I was talking about a writer's need to be able to free himself from bias. One side of my family are London working class, so I am somewhat allergic to programmes like EastEnders, or films by Mike Lee, where just about everyone is portrayed as brutish, thick, psychotic and charmless. This is not my experience of real East Enders. So, apologies for allowing the specific to detract from the point. And the point is, as I see it, that if any of us want to be able to write convincing and exciting characters, we have to be able to firstly understand our biases (and we all have them), secondly to erase or at least circumnavigate them sufficiently to allow human character-magic to flow through our writing. I started this thread because I was interested in the differences between action-based character depiction and more internalised portraits. It appears as if this difference may not just be down to a preference in story-telling style. I have to say that (to risk another boxing accusation) there does appear to be a tendency in those who prefer more internalised, intellectual, writing, to believe that this is better writing. I don't feel this way. I think good and bad writing appears in pretty much equal proportions in both approaches.

Terry, I like both Eastenders and Mike Leigh films (Life is Sweet is a masterpiece, and Timothy Spall's character is an outstanding creation). My own experience of living in some of the grimier parts of Leeds were that there was a mixture of very unpleasant, feral, Borstal graduates; salt-of-the-earth types; and many in between. I think Eastenders shows a good mix of characters. However, as we all know, the most unreal thing about that show is that no one swears, and so, by definition, a lot of the dialogue is unrealistic.

Btw, I see in your piece above that you appear to have come to join Dee and me on the action-thoughts fence

Adele.

<Added>

was that, not were that - doh!

Terry,

I was very much in agreement with your post. I think that, not just for writing, but for life, we have a job to stretch our perceptions of the world around us. To become aware of ourselves and others within the world.

Sometimes I feel like I am 'stretching' my personal boundaries, and other times I catch myself rebounding closer to where I was before - but since my self awareness has grown that bit much more, I realise in those cases that I've regressed!

Writing is ideal for exploring and interpreting our impressions.

Ani

<Added>

Oh, yes, and I want to add that you can explore either by writing that depicts action that reveals thought and ideas, or by going directly into the thought processes, crafted for writing (which is what I am keen to learn).

Ani

The concept of stretching oneself is so important. We all have habitual, easy, patterns we follow when writing if we're not careful, I guess because we don't like to stretch ourselves as an ongoing process. The norm at work, for instance, is to avoid difficulty and only push yourself when the job demands; which means, say, working in bursts then recovering in lunch breaks, the evenings, the weekends. Which is fine where the bread-winning job is concerned. But with writing - something we love to do - I think continually pushing one's limits should be a normal process. For instance, I'm writing a children's fantasy story at the moment, which is largely action-based (well, why do you think I started this thread!). The other night, I was writing a conversation between the heroine and the boy who's trying to win her. It's a quiet scene, between battles, but I realised that the dialogue was ordinary, unengaging. So I started again, pushing myself to make it unique, while also realistic. It felt like reaching through all these ready-to-go phrases hanging in the forefront of my mind - there to tempt me so I can 'get on' with the story - and struggling for something new, not grabbed before. Maybe this is what creativity is: resisting the easy and stretching for the new.

Terry

Maybe this is what creativity is: resisting the easy and stretching for the new.

Now that idea, Terry, I like a lot

Off to lunch (wish I didn't get so hungry then I could do more work),

Adele.

Wow Terry - that story sounds waaaaaaaaaay too cool. I can't wait to read it (on WW or a complementary signed copy - okay, I'll even buy it!)

My mouth is watering at some Edge fuelled fantasy battles. I'd like to say, you are a voice on this site that should be trusted, as I have first hand experience of being forced to look at my writing and change it, and that is frankly down to you. Now I feel so much more confidence, and I know I can't offer you advice in a professional capacity, but I can say, stick with how you do it, coz it reads fantastically, whatever the story. My only complaint is you haven't written an epic Pullman-esque fantasy trilogy yet. But now I can rest easy. Are you going to post (any of) it up here? Fair enough if not - I'll definately buy it anyway!

Anyway, I don't want to be a brown noser but just thought I'd say it, coz it's true!

I think we can see this topic is contentious, and each to their own, but I agree we should, as writers, strtech ourselves, and most importantly accept constructive and especially professional criticism, look at our work honestly and then change accordingly!

Regards



Dav

Dav, just caught this before I headed for the kitchen. You are absolutely right that we should all be open to constructive criticism. However, I think it is very easy for unpublished writers to doubt themselves, and to think that anyone who has been published always has superior knowledge. Naming no names, I had a piece of feedback on my work that really undermined my confidence, until I discussed it with someone I consider to be an expert, and was reassured in my suspiscion that the critic had simply been wrong. It happens. We are all human (except perhaps you, who are a Zombie God ).

Luv 'n' low-fat mayo,

Adele.

<Added>

qualification there - the critic was wrong on some points, not others.

<Added>

make that suspicion

Aw shucks Adele, no one ever called me that before. I feel all warm inside

That's totally fair enough, but I just think that in an industry which is so competitive, and offers little leeway for a new writer, you have to grab what nuggets of gold you can. After all, how am I supposed to know if I am any good if no-one tells me when my writing is bad? That's my point. I could have edited my novel, which is not up on this site, a million times and it still would have been way off what I want, but I just wouldn't have seen it until things were dragged kicking and screaming to my attention. At first I was aggreived, but then saw the light and glad I did.

Of course, I'm just talking individually here. Every case is different I'm sure.

Anyway, as long as I'm your zombie god, things'll be reet good!

Luv n'piccalilly



Dav

xx

Zombie God, if I didn't want constructive criticism, I wouldn't post my work. I find feedback incredibly useful. And in the case I mention above, even though that particular feedback threw me off balance for a few days, and ultimately proved to be incorrect, it served a useful purpose in getting me to think in microscopic detail about what I'd written. However, I am very lucky that someone else (and thank you again if you're reading this!) gave me a second opinion, or I might have thought that everything I had written was utter rubbish, and have given up writing all together.

Adele.

<Added>

The problem for a neophyte is in distinguishing between gold and iron pyrrites.

Action or Internalising? - I think it depends on what you are writing, and reader expectations. Romance readers want to know what both parties are thinking. Literary readers are interested in the inner life of the narrator. Crime/Thriller readers want mostly action with less thoughts.

In my writing, I want action and dialogue to suggest what the character is thinking. I want to use thoughts only when I feel the reader is DYING to know what the character is thinking at that moment. It’s something I am working on, not there yet but I’ll be pleased when I achieve it.

For me real speech in a novel is a killer, it takes away the most important thing that ‘story people’ have, and that is character.

Dawn,

Hi Terry,

Just caught up with this thread and found it fascinating. I did like your line:

Maybe this is what creativity is: resisting the easy and stretching for the new.

which reflects something I've just read elsewhere about the importance of avoiding cliches. You can fill speech with it and get nowhere. (the one I hate more than any other has to be "at the end of the day" - aarrrghhh!)

Anyway, my reason for replying is the original point of the thread, "action vs internalisation", because I have a state of affairs which has brought the same question. I am writing a children's novel (older children) and I am trying to deal with a female character showing her love for a male character. The problem is that the way she does this is by being pushy, arrogant, short tempered and horrible to him. In her mind, however, she's doing backflips over him.

Sheesh, birds eh?

Colin M

Hi Colin,

It's been very interesting to see differen't writers' views about what in essence is the question of how to tell a story creatively. Show Not Tell is often cited as a skill any writer has to learn, but there are many levels to it. There's the local - say, within dialogue, where you might have a character allude humorously to what they're actually saying, rather than have them spell it out scientifically. Then there's the major, which may be showing the reader, through subtle clues in attitude and behaviour that, say, the main character is in total denial about his feelings, i.e. we can see it but not the character (maybe like the girl in your story).

It's just my view, but I believe that most readers like to feel that the author is in control of the story. That he or she knows the characters so well that he can side-track you, throw in red herrings, completely mislead you but in the end will deliver you to a satisfying ending. For that to happen, there's no alternative for a writer than to put in the time - in terms of planning, writing, re-writing, editing, re-writing, re-planning and so on. And I guess the analysis of this process is what this site is good for.

Terry

I'm new to this site and also fairly new to writing - and thinking about the show not tell thing in relation to the children's novel I have been writing - so was interested in this thread.

Slightly surprised by how discussion seems to get polarised at times and not quite sure why! Seems to me from reading friends' work and editing my own that it is usually obvious when there is too much telling going on - writing suddenly seems more clunky and less flowing - but I think, as others have said, that there are lots of different ways of showing, including internal thoughts.

Re: this issue in relation to children's writing: I think children like to see some internal stuff - the differences between how children and adults think can be part of what makes a character and sometimes what moves the story on. The bit I found hardest when I started writing was dialogue - it felt as if the characters and I were swimming through treacle because it is so slow compared to narrative - however I have reluctantly come to realise that it is necessary and it is getting a bit more interesting and less painful!

Most of all, when they work, both dialogue and internal thoughts give lots of opportunities for humour, which is fairly crucial if one is writing for children.

Don't know if this adds anything... perhaps it's all been said before!

all best
Veronica