Back to Basics: Writing dialogue for gut-wrenching scenes

 

Recently I mentioned writers can use dialogue to convey grief, terror, or other emotional situations. Below is an example from The Letter Keeper by Charles Martin.

 

The story is about David Bishop and a priest named Bones who rescued teenage boys and girls who were abused, physically and emotionally, and forced into the sex trade. Some had been kidnapped, others of them abandoned by their parents.

 

In this scene, one night the narrator, David Bishop, and his wife Summer were awakened by their dog and noticed a young lady they’d rescued from sex trafficking, Casey, standing by their bed.

 

“I’m afraid.”

 

“Of what?”

 

“Going outside.”

 

Summer rubbed her eyes. “Why?”

 

Casey glanced out the window into darkness. “’Cause he’s still out there.”

 

. . . Her bottom lip trembled. . . . She waved her hand across the two of us. “I was wondering if. . . .”

 

Casey had one wound left to heal, and maybe I alone had the power to do so. . . . “Can we go for a walk?”

 

Casey nodded.

 

. . . The three of us shuffled . . . out into the cold . . . and into the chapel. . . . I turned to Casey. “I want to ask you a favor.”

 

She nodded above a trembling lip.

 

“One of these days, some young man is going to fall head over heels for you. . . . He’s going to have to ask someone for permission to marry you.” . . . Casey’s head tilted sideways, spilling tears out of her eyes. “And then someone is going to have to give you away.” At this, Casey sobbed and buried her face in her hands. . . .

 

I lifted her chin, knowing there is no deeper pain than that caused by the rejection or abandonment of a father or mother. . . . “Will you let us call you Daughter?”

 

Casey crumbled, hitting her knees, and fell into Summer. . . .

 

. . . “Will you let us adopt you? . . . Will you be ours? Forever?”

 

The sound coming out of Casey’s stomach had been there a long time, and I had a feeling it was the deepest of layers. . . . A beautiful cry. The sound of pain leaving and joy entering. . . .

 

As Casey melted into the floor at my feet, I began to whisper the one word she needed to hear. . . .

 

“Daughter. . . Daughter . . . Daughter. . . .”

 

When I finished, Casey lay in a fetal ball clinging to us. . . .

 

When she emptied herself, I sat her up. “Casey?”

 

. . . “Casey Bishop?”

 

She nodded.

 

“From this moment on, we take you as our own. . . . Forever.”

 

Now read the passage again and note how Charles Martin wrote:

 

• He used few words—his writing style is called “sparce”. He was concise, succinct.
• He used simple words which were, for the most part, only one- and two-syllable words. He avoided flowery and multisyllable words.
• He used no exclamation points. He didn’t need them because his word choices, sentence structure, and context conveyed the emotion and pain.
• He used almost no adverbs or adjectives (modifiers or qualifiers—sometimes called padding or fillers). When you write, use strong nouns and verbs. Rather than saying a person is “very poor,” choose one strong word, such as “destitute” or “impoverished.” Instead of writing that a person is “very worried,” choose one strong word, such as “anxious” or “frightened.” Avoid words like pretty, big, very, small, heavy, really, lovingly, speedily, haltingly.

 

Experiment with your passage to find the right balance: (1) Avoid making light of—or diluting—the seriousness of the situation, but also (2) avoid being overly dramatic. Melodrama is not a mark of good writing.

 

Finding words to write your traumatic accounts 

might be painful for you, even agonizing, 

but I urge you to pray your way through it. 

Take as long as you need.

 

Also recognize the opportunity you have

—as well as the responsibility—

to write your stories.

 

Maybe today you can’t imagine how God can use them

to bless your readers—your kids, grandkids,

great-grands, friends, and even strangers.

 

But keep reminding yourself that

you are part of a story much bigger than yourself.

Writing your memoir is more than a hobby

—it is a ministry.

You have a story no one else can tell.

Take in Erin Morgenstern's words:

“Someone needs to tell those tales. . . . 

For each and every ear it will be different, 

and it will affect them in ways 

they can never predict. 

From the mundane to the profound. 

You may tell a tale that takes up residence 

in someone's soul, 

becomes their blood and self and purpose. 

That tale will move them and drive them 

and who knows what they might do because of it, 

because of your words. 

That is your role, your gift.” 

(Erin Morganstern, The Night Circus)

 

.

 

 

Back to Basics: How to craft dialogue that brings life and personality to your characters

 

Are you having fun crafting dialogue for your main characters? I hope so!

 

Today let’s look at another aspect of effective dialogue. (If you missed it, click on Dialogue enriches your memoir—but how can you reconstruct old conversations accurately?)

 

This can be enjoyable: Create dialogue that sounds like the person speaking, natural and unforced, something readers can really hear. Spend time pinning down your key characters’ unique speaking styles.  

 

Here’s an example of people who talk with accents taken from Marie Bostwick’s The Second Sister:

 

I was just about to leave when I heard someone calling my name. . . .

 

“Lucy? Hey, der! C’mon over here, why don’tcha? Got an open spot here on da end.”

 

The Wisconsin accent was thick and very familiar. . . .

 

Clint laughed. “Well, until four years ago, dat was about it. After Dad died I decided t’spruce da place up a little. . . . [The old guys:] Dey kept dyin’ off, don’tcha know. . . .” (The Second Sister)

 

The next example contrasts the distinct speaking styles, and even cultures, of three people. It’s taken from Jamie Ford’s The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet about a Chinese family in 1940s Seattle.

 

The older generation, Henry’s parents, spoke like this:

 

“No more. Only speak you American.”

 

“. . . I send you to school. I negotiate your way—into a special school. I do this for you. A top white school. . . .”

 

Henry and his wife always imagined their son Marty would marry a Chinese girl, however:

 

“Dad, I’m engaged. . . . She’s inside, Pops. I want you to meet her.”

 

Henry heard a click as the door opened behind him. A young woman poked her head out, then stepped out smiling. She had long blond hair, and cool blue eyes. . . .

 

“You must be Marty’s father! . . . I’m Samantha, I’ve been dying to meet you.” She stepped past his hand and threw her arms around him. . . .”

 

Do you like the way the author captured and contrasted the speech and personalities of Henry’s father, Henry, and his fiancée, Samantha?

 

I also appreciate Jamie Ford’s respectful way of portraying Henry’s father’s culture and his generation. That’s important.

 

As you draft your memoir, identify the speaking style of each key character.

 

If you’re writing about a cowboy from Texas, make him sound like a cowboy from Texas. Or if she’s from Quebec, make her sound like she’s from Quebec.

 

How would the following people speak?

• a Ugandan lady
• an introverted pathologist
• an idealistic first-year teacher
• a person whose mother just died
• a grumpy old man
• a woman with dementia
• a preacher
• a surfer
• a spinster from Boston
• a teenager from Atlanta

 

If two people habitually interrupt each other, or if they finish each other’s sentences, write your dialogue in the same way.

 

If a character routinely starts a sentence five times in different ways, work that into your dialogue. (But don’t overdo it—it can get old.)

 

If your character grew up in a slum and didn’t finish high school, how would his speaking and vocabulary be different from that of a CEO with a Ph.D.?

 

To reacquaint yourself with distinct speaking styles, Brooke Warner recommends: “Listen to dialogue—around you, on shows, on YouTube if you need to jog your memory of regional dialogue.”

 

Experiment. Then set your manuscript aside for a week or so.

 

Read it aloud. (Your ears will catch what your eyes overlook.)

 

Does it accurately convey the character’s manner of speaking and his/her personality? And is it respectful of him or her, rather than poking fun?

 

Does it sound natural—or is it stiff? Too formal or too informal?

 

Revise your rough draft

until you make your dialogue and your characters

come alive.

And have fun!

 

Back to Basics: Dialogue enriches your memoir—but how can you reconstruct old conversations accurately?

 

Dialogue, well written, can accomplish important goals for your memoir. It can:

• acquaint readers with key characters’ personalities, values, perspectives, emotions, and attitudes
• add pizzazz—or grief or terror
• present information readers need to know including backstory (significant events from the past)
• let readers feel they’re experiencing your story (important)
• keep up your story’s momentum
• entice people to keep reading.

 

But crafting dialogue can be problematic.

How can you accurately reconstruct conversations

from years ago

if you don’t have them on tape or videotape?

 

If you call your story a memoir, you claim to have written a factual story (not fiction), and you’re promising readers you’re telling them the truth. Readers want to trust you. They need to trust you. If they can’t rely on your dialogue, how can they believe the rest of your story?

 

Here’s good news: You can’t always succeed in penning decades-old conversations with complete accuracy.

 

And that’s okay. Take comfort from Cecil Murphey’s words:

 

“Most readers are smart enough to figure out

that dialogue isn’t word-for-word accuracy;

however, they assume the author strives

to be as close to truth as possible.”

 

So, reconstruct past conversations with integrity. Avoid distortions. Create dialogue that represents your characters, situations, and events truthfully.

 

In writing rough drafts of my two memoirs, I contacted people involved so I could correctly write dialogue. I suggest you do the same.

 

And when I published my second memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir, I included this disclaimer:

 

This is a work of creative nonfiction. Because these events happened nearly half a century ago, some people’s memories might not match mine, but memory is a wobbly thing—for both writer and readers. Based on journal entries, letters I wrote . . . , verifiable historical incidents, and accounts supplied by many people, I believe I’ve written accurately about places, dates, events, individuals, and situations. I recreated dialogue to portray the original conversation in tone and content. For security reasons, I changed some names, as noted.

 

Now let’s take a look at well-written, effective dialogue. In the following excerpt, Pick and his wife Cameron are attending a fancy dinner party in New York. Pick, the narrator, writes about one guest, Felicity, who glared at him as he visited with the hostess, Rita:

 

My southern drawl seemed to unnerve her. . . . Finally, in a vaguely British accent she asked, “I gather you’re not from around here?”

 

“No, ma’am,” I said. “How could you tell?”

 

. . . . “Then where are you from exactly?”

           

“Charlotte, most recently,” I said.

           

“Charlotte?” Her nose squinched, as if I had answered Kazakhstan. . . .

           

“I don’t see how anyone could possibly stand living down there with those people.”

 

“Those people? You mean my kinfolks?”

 

“Surely your relatives are not . . .” She smirked at Rita. “Oh, you know . . . .”

 

I felt my pulse quicken. “Actually, I don’t.”

 

“Well”—she quaffed her wine— “I’m certainly not going to explain.”

 

“Have you ever been down South?” I asked.

 

“Once. I did a commercial shot down there somewhere—” . . . “Raleigh. That was it. Dreadful place . . . I would never live down there.”

 

Our hostess [Rita] smiled diplomatically and asked, “Why not? I hear it’s lovely.”

 

Felicity looked at me. “I couldn’t take all the racists down there.”

 

. . . “How about some duck roast?” Rita chirped, trying to pull the conversation out of the nosedive it had taken. . . .

           

. . . “Besides,” [Felicity] continued, “southerners sound so . . . ignorant. . . .  I could barely bring myself to vote for Jimmy Carter because of that accent of his.”

 

“Well, ma’am”—the chill in my voice could have frozen hummingbirds in mid-flight— “where I come from we call that bigotry.”

 

Suddenly, all conversation ceased at the table. All eyes . . . focused on me. . . .

 

“Please pass the bread, Pick” said Cameron, her face flushing.

 

“Hold on, Cam,” I said.

 

“Pass the bread, Pick!”

 

Rita scrambled for the bread basket, desperate to do something, anything. . . . (from The Bridge by Doug Marlette)

 

Through that dialogue, you witnessed the dynamics between these four people. You sensed the tension. You discerned Felicity’s personality. What did you learn about Pick? About his wife, Cameron? About the hostess, Rita? Just think—Marlette accomplished all of that through a few lines of dialogue!

 

Next week we will continue with dialogue, but for now, study the above conversation and experiment with similar techniques to develop your main characters, their settings, and interpersonal dynamics.

 

Good dialogue is essential to your memoir.

 

If you doubt that, ponder Joan Didion’s words:

 

“I don’t have a very clear idea of who the characters are

until they start talking.”

 

Have fun writing your memoir!

 

Back to Basics: Beat back the past with grace and tell your readers “We are not victims”

It used to be that people didn’t include scandalous stuff in their memoirs. We lived in a modest, dignified culture. 

 

But then things changed. Memoirists tossed out gentility and decorum, and our society entered into what William Zinsser calls “The memoir-crazed 1990s.” 

 

It was a time, he says, when people disclosed shocking information, indulged in self-pity, and sought revenge, a time when “no remembered episode was too squalid, no family too dysfunctional, to be trotted out for the titillation of the masses.”

 

But, he points out, those types of memoirs didn’t stand the test of time. (Hooray!)

 

That era did have a few good memoirs, though.

 

“The memoirs we do remember from the 1990s,” says Zinsser, “are the ones that were written with love and forgiveness, like Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life, and Pete Hamill’s A Drinking Life.” (From “How to Write a Memoir” in The American Scholar.)

 

“Anyone might think” he says, “the domestic chaos and alcoholism and violence that enveloped those writers when they were young would have long since hardened the heart.” 

 

And yet they did not have hardened hearts. For example, “The marvel of Frank McCourt’s childhood is that he survived it. . . . The second marvel is that he was able to triumph over it in Angela’s Ashes, beating back the past with grace and humor and with the power of language.”

 

Each of those four authors “look back with compassion. . . .  These books…were written with love. They elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness, arriving at a larger truth about families in various stages of brokenness.  . . .

 

“There’s no self-pity, no whining, no hunger for revenge; the authors are as honest about their young selves as they are about the sins of their elders. (Writing About Your Life)  (If you missed it, be sure to read Don’t start writing your memoir until . . .)

 

“We are not victims, they want us to know. . . . We have endured to tell the story without judgment and to get on with our  lives. . . .”  (Zinsser, Writing About Your Life)

 

If you’re writing about pain caused by others, be cautious and honest about your motives.

 

Avoid writing:

• to get revenge, settle the score, or retaliate,
• to humiliate a person, company, or organization,
• to get readers to pity you,
• to get readers to take sides with you, or
• to indulge in self-pity.

 

Examine your heart and if you find even traces of writing for any of those reasons, stop! That’s not what memoir is about.

 

Extend to others the same forgiveness, grace, and mercy God has extended to you. (See last week’s post, How do you write about your family’s baggage?)

 

Let the following dwell in your heart and mind as you write:

 

“At our best,

memoirists hope it is silence we are breaking,

and not another person.”

(Kelly McMasters)

 

Zinsser counsels us:

 

“If you use memoir to look for your own humanity

and the humanity of the people who crossed your life,

however much pain they caused you,

readers will connect with your journey.

 

What they won’t connect with is whining.

Dispose of that anger somewhere else.”

 

That somewhere else could be in your journal—for your eyes only—or in a fictionalized version of your story.

 

Or it could be a first draft. Dr. Linda Joy Myers advises,

 

“Write your first draft as a healing draft.

Get out what you need to say.

Make it bold and real.

Then stand back and think about

how you want to revise it for publication.”

(Will My Family Get Angry About My Memoir?)

 

In that rough draft, write about the injustices, mistreatment, hurt feelings, anger, scars, and tears. Write about destroyed dreams, confusion, hopelessness.

 

Write it all. Write it as a prayer.

Write until you know God has heard you.

Write it as a way of asking Him

to help you forgive and move on.

 

Since that process usually takes time, set aside your private writing (rough draft) for a week or a month or a year. Listen for God, let Him work in your heart and mind.

 

Your goal is to move from anger to forgiveness, from pain to compassion. When you succeed in that, you can throw away that rough draft, or at least commit to keeping it private.

 

And then rewrite your memoir.

 

Rewrite deliberately to “elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness.”

 

Rewrite with integrity.

Delete the wallowing.

Write not as a wounded victim,

but as one who has triumphed,

as one who has forgiven, healed,

and moved forward in a good way.

 

Write like Frank McCourt did:

Beat back the past with grace—

and maybe even with a little humor.