I'm reading Xmas Carol

It's strange to read your own book. After agonizing over every word during the editing process, I'm now sailing through the chapters of "Xmas Carol" as a reader. Doing this feels quite odd. Here are my impressions so far.

It was a strain for me to provide a "backstory" for the characters. I'm fine when the story's moving along, when I'm writing a scene with action and dialogue and I'm pushing the plot forward. Something's moving in those scenes; the words seem natural and alive. But telling the backstory for a character is more of a recitation: this happened and that happened.

As a writer, I don't like doing this. I have to become the omniscient overseer, the one who knows all, to reveal a character's history. This rubs me the wrong way. So I find the initial chapter a bit stilted. I was executing a requirement of storytelling rather than telling a story.

But as soon as the story gets going -- which happens late in the first chapter -- the tale flows. I'm pleased with the dialogue, descriptions and movement. They seem natural and free -- and much more graceful than the backstory segments that precede them.

I wish there was no need to reveal a character's history. In my earliest drafts, I tried to skip this. But readers told me they wanted to know why a character did a certain thing, which meant they wanted to know more about the character's history. Grudgingly, I supplied this information. I'm not sure how, but in my next book I will deal with this in a different way.

Anyway, this is all beside the point. The book works and I'm enjoying it. Once things get going, the story has a life of its own. It seems fresh and suspenseful. I'm quite pleased.

Steinbeck's writing suggestions

Artichoke Annie has an interesting post up today. It's about John Steinbeck. The post lists several of his suggestions for writers. One of them is:

"If you are using dialogue--say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech."

I never do this. As I write dialogue, I hear the words spoken by the character. Each character's voice and way of speaking is unique. I truly hear these voices and I don't have to do anything special to make this happen. So I've never read dialogue aloud.

But some of the suggestions are spot-on. For instance: don't edit as you write. Just get the damn scene down on paper or screen. You can always go back and edit it. For now, you're writing.

Writing and editing are two very different things that probably utilize separate (though overlapping) brain areas. They're that disparate. When you write, you should write. After you're done, you can spend the rest of your life editing your book. Almost happened to me. Well, okay, it was just a couple of years. Still.

(And hey, there's a shout-out to Steinbeck in Xmas Carol. Let's see if any XC readers can identify it.)

Creating fictional characters

Last night I was musing about the characters I've created for my books. Characters can be wildly interesting and it's fun to create them. At first you sit around, thinking this or that over, trying to see the character and get a feel for him. And after much soul-searching, you reach a point where you're ready to write a scene in which the character appears.

The thing that hit me last night is how important it is to write the first line of dialogue for your character. In that line is everything. Yes, you will develop this character further but as soon as you write down his words -- he exists. In fact, it's shocking how fulsomely he exists.

This happens because in that one line of dialogue is everything you need to know. (Okay, not really but stay with me.) You commit to the character when you write a line of dialogue, and instantly you know this person. It's as if the line is DNA that contains the blueprint for everything that must follow.

I think this happens because of the nature of writing and the nature of humans. When you write dialogue, you're not listening, as you do in life when someone is talking. You're speaking through the character. And in doing so, you are him. I think this happens in large part because the writer can literally hear the character's voice as he speaks. And in that intonation, that delivery, that voice, is the character, whole and true. At first, only the writer can hear this voice but in the course of the book, he makes the reader hear it too -- and hear it truly.

The knowledge a writer feels comes also from human knowing, from the built-in talent we homo sapiens have for understanding the actions of others. It's that mirror neuron thing, when you get right down to it. By speaking in the character's voice, the writer becomes the character. This is nothing new for us. We humans can slip into the minds of others at will. We do this to figure out the motivations of others so we know whether to trust them or not. To do this, we in a sense become the other person, and in doing so we can feel if their words and actions line up in a logical fashion. We ask if they are believable, and we're uncanny in our ability to ferret out the truth. It's how we come to understand others and it's one of our basic survival skills.

So when we slip into a character, we learn a lot. It's not so much a writerly skill that comes into play -- but a human one. This is how characters are built: we get inside them and become them. And the moment you write that first line of dialogue, you've crossed the Rubicon. You're off and running. This is how characters come to be -- at least, in my worlds.

Why is dialogue different from other forms of writing?

Writing dialogue that sounds authentic and appropriate is a skill. At this point, I have no idea if I have that skill but I suspect I do. I don't struggle over dialogue; it just happens.

What prompted this post is that I noticed something this morning: when I edit, I leave the dialogue alone. This is totally weird because I really edit: I alter the wording often and joyfully. I like improving things. But the dialogue usually seems good to me and I leave it as is.

This alone indicates that it's a different type of writing. After all, it survives my stringent editing intact while nothing else does. I am a big alterer of words. I hack at them until I'm satisfied and I am one tough customer to please.

Yet the dialogue stays! I might move a "she said" from before a quote to after, but the dialogue itself always seem easy and sure so it survives the editing process. It's very odd. I wonder if there is less interference from my conscious mind when I write dialogue than when I'm describing something or setting up a scene. In the latter situations, I see a sort of word smorgasbord before my eyes as I write, and I choose among the selections. (I know: Phil does it, not me. But you know what I mean.)

When I write dialogue, it's different. There aren't all these competing versions in my mind, all angling for supremacy as if engaged in an evolutionary process. Dialogue simply occurs to me and I write it down. It's talking, and I know about talking.

On the other hand, I hear some writers say that they find dialogue difficult to write -- and the dreamers, those who plan to write a novel some day but never do, often feel this way before they even sit down to play their hand. They are convinced they won't be able to do it. In fact, I suspect this fear is one of the things that puts them off writing and leaves their idea in the "idea stage". Folks in this group should just do it. It may not be as hard as you think, guys. Give it a shot.

But as for those who have tried dialogue and failed, or are dissatisfied with their product, I wonder why. I'd love to hear from writers in this camp to learn about their experiences.

Please understand that I don't mean to diminish anyone's problems in this (or any other) area of writing. I imagine most writers find certain types of writing simpler than others. And as for me, who knows? Maybe my dialogue sucks. My books are not out to many readers yet so perhaps I have extreme dialogue problems that I don't know about. Still, I do wonder: why do I leave the dialogue alone when I edit? How is it different from other writing? I don't know the answer to this question but I find it interesting.

Lest I seem like someone who finds everything about writing easy, I offer this. One thing that gave me a hard time in my second sci-fi book was having a main character who is a song writer. Naturally, this meant he'd sing songs now and then -- and I would have to write the lyrics. This was so uncomfortable for me. Coming up with lyrics that didn't sound ridiculous was a tall order. In the end, I did it but I still wonder whether if the songs (two of them) sound silly. This is a distinct possibility. 

Okay, I'm rambling. And I still don't know what the difference is between writing typical prose and writing dialogue. Tell me about you and dialogue. Did you ever try it? How did it go?