Dialogue Style

When you write dialogue, are you mimicking anyone? Like yourself? The curious want to know. Someone asked me about this today.

 I honestly don’t think my characters’ dialogue is the way I talk. I generally try to think of the character’s personality and fit the dialogue to that. Do I know anyone with that type of personality that I can borrow from? Sometimes, but not always. There are times I have to think about the average reaction.

There are times that the protagonist in my books might use a word that I use, and that’s to be expected. We generally create dialogue that’s familiar to us; that we use or someone we spend time around uses. Do you spend time around teenagers? Their dialogue might be quite entertaining.

Hmm. That’s not always the case. For instance, a bad guy probably isn’t going to say, “shucky darn” when he’s caught. Well, I wouldn’t either. It’s up to the individual author to decide whether he might cuss, yell, moan or whatever. On the other hand, I suppose someone might say “shucky darn,” but I don’t know that person.

I have some senior characters in my books and I’ve spent a lot of my life around seniors. Well, I am one now (I like to say barely), but I’m talking about people in their eighties and nineties. They can be quite colorful sometimes. My grandmother used to say, “I can pretty much say whatever I want now and get away with it. People just attribute it to my age.” She was ninety at the time. I have that same attitude about what I eat, not what I say. Think chocolate. Give me time and I’ll probably come around to her way of thinking.

Keep the dialogue real.

“I am going to the store to buy several items. Would you care to accompany me?”

“I’m going to the store to pick up some stuff. Wanna come along?”

Which one sounds right? Either one. It simply depends on your character’s personality.

What about a character who stutters? Let them stutter, but don’t overdo it. The grandmother I just mentioned stuttered. We were very comfortable together and sometimes I’d finish her sentence for her. If it turned out she was going in a different direction than I anticipated, she’d just laugh and start over.

What about a mean or demented character? Can you create dialogue for that type of personality? Sometimes it takes research. I know someone who lives in an apartment building with some very mean-spirited women. She wouldn’t need to research meanness. It’s right there in front of her.

Maybe that’s what it all comes down to. Study the people around you, no matter where you are. Some of the things you might hear in the grocery store are mind boggling. Yesterday I was at the store and I heard a mother and her adult son in the next aisle. I couldn’t see them, but the son just about broke my heart. He was mentally challenged and he was sobbing, crying his little heart out, asking her not to leave him. She was reassuring him that she wasn’t leaving him behind and he should walk with her. She was patient, kind and gentle with him. That was the gist of it, and it was eye-opening. You don’t hear an adult male react to something like a small child every day. How did I know he was mentally challenged? You could hear it in the dialogue and tone of voice. I never saw them, and the male could have been a teenager, but he definitely had an adult voice.

Remember the things you hear. Write notes to yourself if you need to. Sometimes you don’t have to take notes because some dialogue will stick in your mind forever.

Anyway, keep your dialogue in line with your character’s personality, age and gender. And, again, keep it real.

Until next time, don’t purposely be nosy, but sometimes you can’t help overhearing conversations, especially when someone is on their cell phone. They tend to talk louder for some reason. Children often speak loudly, too, and I’ve heard a few give away secrets just because of the volume.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

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Are you looking for something new to read? Try People Lookin’ Half Dead – A Bogey Man Mystery. Think major heat wave and people disappearing, and you’ve got an interesting and entertaining story.

Change Your Shoes, Please

I was watching something on TV the other night and, well, there was a scene that bugged me. I’ve seen the same instance happen in several shows over a period of many years. A cop or P.I. or whoever is sneaking up on someone. They accidentally kick something, knock something over, or step on a twig that cracks and gives away their presence. No one seems to notice that their footsteps were a dead giveaway. They’re not wearing rubber soled or athletic shoes, so every step they take makes a sound. That should have actually been what gave them away. You can’t sneak up on someone if your steps are clicking or clacking or echoing.

A sneeze or a cough would make a better giveaway. They might drop a flashlight or some other heavier object, but I like the sneeze or the cough better. Those are sounds that you can’t necessarily control, and they’re human sounds. When’s the last time you heard a rat in an old warehouse cough or sneeze?

Some things are just too predictable when it comes to giving yourself away. Sneaking isn’t all that easy, but it might be smarter to wear those athletic shoes. An allergic reaction to flowers might cause the sneeze, or dust floating in the air might cause the cough. Of course, there’s always the possibility that your character has a cold but believes the job must be done anyway.

Maybe the character isn’t following anyone. Maybe they’re hiding from a bad guy and they’ve secreted themselves behind a pile of boxes. A sneeze, cough or a nervous hiccup will still work. Of course, it might make it harder to run for their lives if they’re coughing.

You have to look at all possibilities, all sides of what could happen.

I’ve also found it unrealistic if a character reaches into her purse, searches for and pulls out a weapon, and defends herself all in one swift movement. On the other hand, what’s she supposed to do? “Oh, hold on a sec, sweetie. I need to search my purse before you shoot, strangle, or beat me. cough cough With any luck I’ll find a cough drop before you hurt me. Be patient. I’m looking. Oh, here’s my gun. Uh, I mean here’s a cough drop.”

Bang! Too late. She didn’t even get her hand out of her purse. Yes, I know many people are anti-gun, but we’re talking about fiction here. And, frankly, if someone meant to do me harm, I sure hope I’d have something to defend myself with.

I once read a book where the protagonist used a bowl of salad as a defense. Figure that one out. It made sense in the context in which it was used and I’ve never forgotten that simple bowl of salad. (Darkness at Foxglove Corners by Dorothy Bodoin)

How about when they whisper to their partner? I understand that in a TV show the viewer wants to hear what’s said, but unless the character gets really close to their partner’s ear, the bad guy might hear something, too. It works better in a book.

Here’s one I almost forgot. Isn’t it just a bit silly when you see a female protagonist chasing a bad guy and she’s wearing high heels? She’d break her ankle before catching the bad guy. Unless, of course, the perpetrator that she’s chasing is also wearing high heels. She could take off the heels and run barefoot, but then she might step on something like broken glass and the whole chase could be over.

I understand these are probably farfetched ideas in the minds of some, but when writing a book I think the authors often need to put themselves in the footsteps (or shoes) of the  protagonist and think things through logically. What would work and what wouldn’t, and how do you keep from giving yourself away?

Of course, you can throw all of my comments out the window when you’re writing with humor or you need the characters to give themselves away. It’s just that there should be a purpose behind clicking shoes or a sneeze, or the type of shoes someone is wearing, or the weapon used to defend yourself.

Just some thoughts. Maybe I watch too much television.

Until next time, be prepared. Dress comfortably. Stay healthy. Think logically. Most of all, enjoy life.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

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Like ghost towns? What if you were stranded in one? Try Old Murders Never Die - A Sandi Webster Mystery 

Charley Cooked my Tookies

 The subject line of today’s blog is food for thought. Right? Sometimes the things that come out of our mouths aren’t what we meant to say. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

 

Sugar, my female yellow Lab, is having problems with her rear legs. She loves to swim and she needs the exercise. So the other day I let her swim. No problem. Uh, she couldn’t get out of the pool. I tried to bribe her with her favorite treat. It didn’t work. You have to understand that she’s a ninety pound dog, and I’m a… Well, we won’t go there. Let me say I’m not a big, muscular woman and I’m not in my twenties anymore, and I had to lift that dog out of the pool. The circumstances warranted my lifting her. I called my daughter later and told her that “the legs in my muscle” were as sore as could be. Now that didn’t come out right.

You’re wondering about Charley’s antics? When I was very young I was at work and had a box of sugar wafers on my desk. I was away from my desk for a few minutes and when I returned, they were gone. Charley had hidden them. Being a sweets freak, I looked everywhere for them. My boss was also away from his desk. He came back and found me searching everywhere. When he asked what I was doing, I replied, “Charley cooked my tookies.” He looked at me like I was nuts. Just to make things crazier, it turned out Charley had hidden them in a filing cabinet under “S” for sugar.

I’ve often talked about making characters real – and funny. Sometimes all it takes is a misspoken word or sentence. Once in a while a comment can further the story if it can be misconstrued. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, “That’s not what I meant. Let me start over.” Unfortunately, there are moments when people won’t let you correct yourself.

When my daughter was three-years-old (her age now is another place we won’t go), we had the opportunity to travel to Hawaii. On the flight home, the stewardess (that’s what they used to be called) gave her a small blackboard and some chalk so she could draw a picture. Boredom on an airplane can be disastrous. The stewardess returned after a few minutes to see what my child had drawn. The drawing consisted of a few squiggly circles. The woman gave me a funny look and asked her, “Oh, did you draw a ghost? Have you seen one?”

Okay, my daughter could have replied that, yes, she’d drawn a ghost just like the one who was sitting in the seat across the aisle. That might make a good storyline in a book. In reality, she replied, “No. It’s spilt milk.” No mystery there, but you never know what a child is thinking. Sometimes they can make or break a scene or a story. By the way, “spilt” was her word, not mine.

 

I’m going to step back into the days of Charley again. We worked with a woman who was engaged and her military boyfriend was being sent overseas. She was a nervous wreck, to put it mildly. She was telling me about him when the phone on her desk rang. She answered her stapler instead of the phone and kept repeating, “Hello? Hello?” I had to take it from her and hand it to her while I answered her phone. It never dawned on her that the phone kept ringing after she’d “answered” it.

Maybe my stories aren’t all that funny to anyone except me, but you get the idea. Sometimes we need to lighten a particularly dramatic scene with humor. In real life, it’s one of the things that helps us through a difficult time. The woman who answered her stapler laughed and relaxed a bit while she waited to hear from her fiancé.

Have you ever put something like this in a book? Would you? Do you have a funny story about misspeaking or answering something other than a telephone? I’ve often said we need to look for the funny side of a tragic or dramatic situation. There isn’t always humor, but if there is, it can help. I have a friend who laughs long and loud when tragedy strikes. She’s not unfeeling, but laughter helps her through situations. It’s a nervous reaction, one I almost wish I had.

Until next time, think before you speak. Never mind. You might lose the humor if you think first.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

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Looking for a little humor with your drama? Think about trying either The Sandi Webster Mysteries or The Bogey Man Mysteries.

What's the Skinny?

Recently a friend asked me why I have guest authors on my blog instead of promoting my own books more often. The answer is actually a lot simpler than you might think.

I can promote ‘til the cows come home, but that feels a bit selfish. I’m a reader as well as a writer, so I like to hear about the books of others, too. Oh, speaking of cows, How Now Purple Cow was recently released. It’s about purple cows and elderly spies. Huh! You might wonder how those two things relate to each other. I’m not telling about it here. You’ll have to read the book. Okay, so that’s all the self-promotion you’ll get today.

Why do I have guest authors on Marja’s Mystery Blog? AsI mentioned, I’m a reader. What better way to find out about authors and their books? It can be fun to learn more about the writer as a person. We can learn what motivates them and where some of their stories come from. Just when I think I’ve got writers figured out, they come along and tell stories that surprise me. Some of these authors are brand spanking new, and some are well-entrenched in one of the most difficult businesses to break into.

Authors have lots of stories and if you’ll give them the chance, they’re more than happy to share. Some of the stories are sad, and some are quite funny. All you have to do is listen and learn.

I want the skinny about mystery writers and the capers they’ve been involved in. Give me the lowdown – all the background behind the author. Tell me where you’ve been and where you’re planning on going.  I want it all.

I’ve often said a blog is a good showcase for a writer’s style. Even though a blog isn’t a book, it still gives a good clue to the author’s writing.

Ever hear of reciprocity? I sincerely believe that what goes around, comes around. So if I give someone a chance to discuss themselves and their books, then on occasion someone else will allow me to do the same. It’s a win-win situation.

I surprised a few people when I told a story on someone else’s blog about having to search a women’s restroom for a bomb without any training back in the 1970s, when I worked in law enforcement. Things were very different at that time, needless to say. There was also the story about a job applicant who threatened to kill me because she didn’t get a job. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t made the decision not to hire her and didn’t have any input. She told me to watch my back because she’d get me when I least expected it. Okay, so after all these years I’m still here and she never went to work for the agency she’d applied to, but good grief! All I did was administer a typing test. I’ve got a lifetime of stories, and people wonder why I became a mystery writer. Other writers have plenty of material to draw from, too.

Thanks to guest bloggers on my site, I learn about new books and I make new friends.  I also learn more about old friends. How much better can it get? Maybe my books won’t be best sellers on the New York Times Best Seller List, but then again, one can always hope, and I have the same hope for authors who write guest posts.

So I’ll continue to have guest authors visit, and I’ll promote my books, too. On occasion I’ll do a blog about writing issues. I almost did one about overused words this week, but I have to admit that I was bored with it. Maybe another time.

Until next time, do for others, and just maybe they’ll pass it on and do for someone else. Reciprocity is a lovely word, and not often overused.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw's website

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