Writing Advice: Define Reality Boldly

 As the narrator in your story, whether first or third person, you are in charge of reality and must be clear in its portrayal. State the facts; don’t guess what they are. Avoid overuse of terms like “apparently,” “it seemed,” “it appeared,” and so on. 

Your POV character needs to state exactly what others are thinking and feeling at times. They are going to be more discerning than in real life. The reader needs to be clear about what is going on in the moment.

Writing Advice: Proactive Characters

At the beginning of your story, your characters may be reacting to a bunch of stuff happening to them: They lost their job, their house got bombed, they were wrongfully jailed, aliens abducted them, whatever. You just throw stuff at them and watch them struggle. But after the first half, your main characters need to do more than react to weird stuff. They need to take charge of their lives and stop reacting. This makes the story much more interesting.

Look at Star Wars with Luke: First he’s just reacting as he works on his farm with new droids. Then he makes a decision to go to Alderaan. He’s more proactive now but still inexperienced. At the end, he joins the X-Wing fighters to assault the Death Star—a very proactive decision. The story is much more satisfying because of it.

A plot in which the characters merely react doesn’t make a great story, and it doesn’t create character development. So if you find yourself floundering in the middle of the story, let your characters take charge of their situation. You can still throw stuff at them, but they should start taking back control.

Published: Humor Short Story

I have a short story published in a Utah humor anthology. The anthology is titled Heard at a Utah Diner. My story is called The Road from Grief. I set it on a road trip so I could mock Utah drivers. Several of my writing buddies are also in it.

I also have a few hard copies to sell cheaper than online.

Writing Advice: Dialogue

Books are a great medium for dialogue. Deep conversations, arguments, banter, and scheming between characters make books engrossing. Do not fear long conversations. Let’s look at “decorating” the dialogue:

“Hi there,” she said.
“Hello,” he said.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“Pretty well,” he said. “How about you?”
“Just fine. How is your grandmother doing?” she said.
“Better, I think. Thanks for asking,” he said.

First of all, there’s nothing wrong with said. It’s invisible. It’s neutral. If you go out of your way to avoid it (using instead commented, replied, queried, etc.), you will draw attention to the dialogue tags and away from the dialogue itself.

Second of all, the dialogue runs smoother when the dialogue tag comes after the first sentence of dialogue instead of at the end of several (or many) sentences of speech.

“Pretty well,” he said. “How about you?”  Better!
“Just fine. How is your grandmother doing?” she said.  Meh

You don’t need a dialogue tag every time, of course, if just two people are talking:

“Hi there.”
“Hello.”
“How’s it going?”
“Pretty well. How about you?”
“Just fine. How is your grandmother doing?”
“Better, I think. Thanks for asking.”

After a few lines, though, the reader loses track of who’s talking when. You can solve this problem and the problem of too many dialogue tags by interspersing some simple action.

“Hi there.” She paused in her walk.
“Hello,” he said.
“How’s it going?” She began tapping her foot nervously.
“Pretty well.” He glanced up from his feet. “How about you?” 
“Just fine,” she nodded. There was an awkward pause. “How is your grandmother doing?”
“Better, I think. Thanks for asking.” He gave a small smile.

That’s rather overkill, but it gives you the general idea. Note how just a bit of action made the boring dialogue more interesting.

Any questions or comments so far?

Punctuation with Dialogue #2

Question marks and exclamation points are inside quote marks if they are part of the dialogue. If they are not part of the dialogue, they go outside. Simple enough, right?
“Are you coming tonight?”
“Get that straw out of my ear!”

Did she just say, “Go ahead”?
Then he rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever”!
Note how these two are sentences that are only partially made up of dialogue.

The same rule applies to commas and periods only if you are British. In American writing, commas and periods always always always go inside quote marks because it looks rather lame to leave a comma or period hanging outside like that:
The policy is “no exceptions”, which is fine with me. (British)
The police is “no exceptions,” which is fine with me. (American)

Punctuation with Dialogue #1

● The simplest rule is to separate the dialogue tag (“he said”) from the dialogue with a comma:
Joe said, “Let me in.”
“Let me in,” said Joe.

● Complete sentences that go before or after dialogue get a period as normal:
She nodded. “I know.”
“I almost killed you.” Her voice was sharp.
These sentences are not actual dialogue tags but function like them.

● You can combine these types:
“I’m hungry,” I said. “I’d like some more.”

● If you want to interrupt a sentence of dialogue with a sentence of prose, use em-dashes outside the quotes:
“I would like you to know”—he stood up—“that I am not left-handed.”
Even though the action is a complete sentence by itself, it is part of a sentence that includes dialogue, so it isn’t capitalized.

Grammar: None

None is a contraction of no one. This means it’s singular and follows the same grammar pattern as he, she, it.

Wrong: None are perfect. None of us are perfect. (It’s ironic how often you hear this.)
Right: None is perfect. None of us is perfect.

Trick to Remember
Replace none with no one, and that should make it clear.

Commas: Addressing

This is a very simple comma rule that gets missed a lot. It’s just this:

When you talk to someone, as is common in novels, their name gets a pair of commas surrounding it. It doesn’t have to be a proper (capitalized) name.

Yes, sir, right away.
Dad, can I have some money?
Stop it, Jim.
Hey, bro, help me out here.

This rule is only for direct addresses, as shown above, not for the following examples.

I asked Dad for some money.
I told Jim to stop it.

These are a different type of sentence.

Trick to Remember
If you’re talking to someone, their name gets two commas around it.
Is that helpful? That’s all I got.

Quills Conference

The Quills writing conference, sponsored by the League of Utah Writers (of which Glenn and I are members), was August 24 and 25. Glenn and I volunteered but were only able to go on Friday as we had a wedding on Saturday.

Friday we got up really, really early to go to the U of U Marriott, where it was freezing in the building! As it was in the upper 90s outside, it didn’t occur to me to bring a jacket. I spent the morning in one of the conference rooms on the fourth floor. I had two mugs of hot chocolate. First was a “kaffeeklatsch” with an agent, where people came and asked her questions. I kept time for that.

Next was a session of manuscript evaluations, where people have their first page read by a volunteer (to remain anonymous) and then receive feedback from an agent, an editor, and an author. This session only had one submission, so it wasn’t exactly anonymous. My volunteer partner, who did the reading (I kept time), agreed to cover one of my volunteer shifts so I could go to Maria Snyder’s kaffeeklatsch because that was going to be EPIC. 

At lunch I saw Maria for the first time entering the lunch tent. I brought my own lunch; Glenn went ahead and paid for his. It was nice to experience some heat for a little while. After eating I sat in a chair near the elevators and read a little but ended up talking. Then Maria came by and said hello, and I said I was going to her kaffeeklatsch that was starting in a few minutes, so she invited me to ride the elevator with her. I RODE AN ELEVATOR WITH MARIA V. SNYDER, and we were talking like normal friends. 

The kaffeeklatsch was really fun. About seven of us fans were there and just talked about books and Harry Potter and writing and stuff. For the rest of the afternoon, I was assigned to timekeep for agent pitches. That left a lot of open time to chat with people around the registration desk (and Maria again!).

Glenn and I originally weren’t going to the dinner, but Maria was giving her keynote address there, and I didn’t want to miss that. We figured it could count as our anniversary dinner. 

The presenters were assigned seats throughout the banquet hall so the conference-goers could all mingle with them. Food was good. Glenn and I sat with LUW friends John and Kelly Olsen and writers James A. Hunter, Aaron Michael Ritchey, and Spanky Ward. Maria’s keynote was great fun.