Writing Better Part 5

KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH YOUR CHARACTERS:

There’s an easy way to keep in touch with your character’s thoughts without using the phrase, "He thought" - just before writing down the thought, have your character perform some kind of physical movement, preferably something to do with the head.

Examples:

01) He nodded, nonplussed. He had heard it all before anyway.;

02) He blinked. She was even more beautiful than he remembered.

The KIT (Keep In Touch) Method can also be used to segue into flashbacks, physical descriptions of characters, and to get into the minds of non-viewpoint characters without leaving the mind of your main viewpoint character.

DESCRIBING CHARACTERS:

As always, weave the description into the narrative. Here are tips on how to do that:

01) Describe distinctive features - generic descriptions tell readers little and sound cliche;

02) When writing in 1^st person, don’t rely on the character looking in the mirror for a self-description;

03) Tie your descriptions into your plot by using them to foreshadow events (PERSONAL NOTE: This is most easily done by measuring the length of your descriptions against the importance to the plot of the item or character being described.);

04) Entwine your character descriptions with self-image;

05) Use description to evoke a sense of the broader culture and your character’s place in it;

06) Incorporate a character’s background or ancestry into your description;

07) Use physical description of one character to deepen characterization of a second person.

DIALOG

DYNAMIC DIALOG

It accomplishes at least one of these five goals:

01) Advances the plot;

02) Characterizes your character;

03) Creates suspense and intensifies the conflict;

04) Reveals motivation;

05) Controls the pace.

Watch out for these dialog don’ts that can drag down your fiction:

01) Describing dialog: Don’t rely on excessive verbs and adverbs to do the work that should be done by your characters and their words;

02) Dialog without tension: Don’t let your characters be obvious in their dialog. Keeping something hidden - while letting the reader know there’s something being hidden - builds tension;

03) Don’t repeat in dialog information already given in narrative. As a general rule, to inform the reader or set a foundation for future story events use narrative; reserve dialog for showing conflict, tension, character, or something developing in a relationship.

04) Don’t load your dialog with a lot of information that wouldn’t be part of a normal conversation. Let the speaker speak out of his own need, not that of his listener (who is, in all cases, ultimately the reader of the story.);

05) Don’t use too many direct references in dialog - in real life, we rarely use one another’s names in a discussion.