Add Tension to Your Scenes

Another day, another embarrassing moment.

I had an interview yesterday, which I was extremely excited about. I'd prepped like crazy — everything from pulling work samples together for a week to flossing twice on the drive in.

When I got home, I was feeling exhausted but pleasantly positive about the experience — that's until my husband pointed out I had my shirt on inside out.

Multitasking Scenes

Since I can't go back to the interview with my shirt on right side out, I've tried to see what I can salvage from the experience.

If I look at it as a scene versus another embarrassing experience, I did learn something about adding tension.

Ideally scenes should have more than one thing going on at a time, and they should leave the audience wanting more.

In the Diane Interview scene, there was multiple layers:

Layer #1

• Character stresses and preps for the interview

• Character interviews with potential bosses

• Character feels confident as interview concludes

Layer #2

• The audience sees the shirt inside out

• The people conducting the interview see tag on the shirt

We leave the scene not only wondering if the character will get the job (the primary reason for the scene), but by adding tension (the inside out shirt), we:

• learn more about the character and her dress habits

• wonder if she will ever notice if her shirt's inside out

• wonder what the reaction will be if she does notice, and

• wonder if this is going to forfeit her the job

Good Interview

So, I guess it was a good interview in that I learned how to beef up my scenes.

But I also learned that I'm going to have SOME LOOK ME OVER before the next interview.

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National Eavesdropping Day

The title of this blog may be misleading. If you write dialogue, every day is Eavesdropping Day.

I don't know about you, but I LOVE to eavesdrop. How else are you going to develop great dialogue for your characters?

I've got my standard spots:

• supermarkets

• anywhere I have to stand in line

• conversations on cell phones (Hey, if you're going to talk on those things in public, you're fair game)

• restaurants and coffee shops

• restrooms (I don't know about guys, but girls do a lot of stall talking)

The more exotic locals:

• sporting events

• anywhere I'm on vacation

• family events — especially weddings with lots of weird guests

• concerts and other social activities

Then there's the happy accidents:

• visitors from out of town

• catching an argument in a street. (My favorite quote is from an angry 5-year-old girl, upset with her sister. She turned to her parents and yelled, "She's MEAN and she's STUPID!")

• any spontaneous incident

Carry a Notebook

I used to carry a notebook and try to capture great bits of dialogue. One year I challenged myself to write down a memorable piece of dialogue each day. I did it, but the problem was that I never went back and read any of those memorable quotes. (Note to self, go back and read those.)

Subtext

My current challenge is to see if I can spot subtext. Each day I want to capture dialogue where someone says something that meant something else. Like when someone tells you that your outfit is "interesting", which really means "Seriously? You wore that in public?"

I'm not sure if I'll meet my goal, but the real goal it to continually improve my ear for dialogue.

If you've got some tips on eavesdropping, I'd love to hear about it!

In the meantime, happy National Eavesdropping Day!

A Walk in the Garden, aka Story Development

People tell me, "Your garden looks great." I respond, "It's all in the fertilizer," but really it has more to do with story development.

While I'm out weeding, pruning, watering and fertilizing, I'm working on the scenes, plot points and characters.

Stepping in to the Garden

I can literally step into the garden and an hour later step back out unable to remember what I did because I was working on the story.

Yesterday, I was out with a new character — a successful underwear model named Michael — trying to find out why he's so set on becoming an actor.

After talking to him (thank god no one can see me garden except for my husband), I found out that he's been serious about acting since he was in high school. It was while he was in L.A. trying to break in that he did this underwear commercial. How could he know that he'd become an overnight sensation.

Today he's splashed on billboards across the company, famous for his tight buns, and avoided like then plague when it comes to serious acting roles. Everyone sees the Underwear Guy as a joke. He's depressed and wants a real acting roll in WORST way and will do just about anything.

All this information while I was cutting back the dahlias and pruning and weeding the herb garden. I consider it successful multitasking.

No Sharp Instruments

Maybe other writers are different, but I think everyone needs that place they go for inspiration and creative freedom. That place they feel free to wander around with their characters or play around with story ideas. It can be anything from long walks to doing chores.

However, I do recommend avoiding story work while you've got sharp instruments in your hands. I've pruned my fingers and fallen off more ladders than I care to admit.

OK, back to writing.

One Tip for Better Dialogue

I struggle with dialogue. In fact, a professor once read my story out loud to the class to demonstrate how bad it could be. I wanted to crawl out of the room when he held up my paper and said, "Listen up. This is what you don't want to do."

If I can save anyone this kind of humiliation, I've done my job on this planet. So here goes.

Good Dialogue

Characters aren't just giving the reader information when they speak. Good dialogue moves the story forward and communicates everything from character development to plot points.

There are all kinds of tips for improving your dialogue:

• listen to other people talking

• understand your character's background

• don't make lengthy speeches and make it brief.

• etc., etc.

My question always was . . . but HOW do I make my already terrible dialogue better?

Speak Up

What ended up helping most was reading it out loud.

If you want to be adventurous, you can get your friends to take different characters and have them read it out loud. This is really effective for screenwriters.

But you don't need buddies. Just belt it out and see what your characters sound like. If it's bad you'll be glad you did it solo. My dialogue has been so bad at times I thought I would get craps from so much cringing.

Listen Up

When you're speaking, listen to yourself closely. Do the conversations sizzle, push the plot forward and expand the characters? Or do the characters sound off? Stilted? Similar? Are they saying things you've never heard another human being say?

If you're a natural, that's awesome (and we'd prefer you not rub in our dialogue-challenged faces). If you're like the rest of us dialogue dorks, just keep talking. It might take a while, but you'll start hearing a difference. The dialogue will become smoother and the characters will start to sound more natural.

It may take a while . . . but what do you have to lose. It beats having your professor read your paper in front of the class.

What If . . . With a Twist

I just spent a day with my 10-year-old niece. She introduced me to a new game of "what if" that I've got to share.

We were driving along and she asked, "Would you rather die by drowning or falling off a cliff?"

I picked "death by cliff" because if you're going to die, the quicker the better. But then I thought, should I have asked if falling off a cliff meant tumbling down it. In that case, I wanted "death by drowning."

Too late. It was my turned.

I asked, "Would you rather have your house and possessions burned, or would you rather have your house flooded and all your possession wash away." She chose flooding.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I could just go down pick up all my stuff and bring it back."

Good answer — very optimistic. I had mentally chosen burned because I assumed my stuff was gone forever and it would be easier to build a new house than deal with an mud-soaked one.

Next question. "Would you rather have a pet snake or pet spider?" she asked. Both are bad, I chose spider because I figured it had a shorter life expectancy.

Next question: Would you rather lose a hand or a foot. "Hand," she said without hesitation.

"How can you pick hand?" I asked.

"Because I don't want to be in a wheelchair."

"But you could get a prosthetic," I said.

"You never told me that. Foot then."

And on the game went, taking weird turns as we discovered all kinds of things about ourselves.

It was a great game (in a creepy sort of way), but one I plan on not only playing again with my niece but with my characters. I don't just want to know the decisions they would make, but the unique and interesting reasoning behind them.

OK, I'm off to find out if my niece has other cools games to play.

A Little Help from my Facebook Friends

Trying to develop three-dimensional characters? Log onto Facebook.

Each morning I scan through the latest comments.

I love my friends, but most would make boring fictional characters. From what I can tell about 75% are "getting ready to do some laundry", "exhausted after work" or "looking forward to the weekend".

Some, however, are so interesting that I'm logging into find out "what's next".

What am I tuning into?

• One friend has a baby bat in her freezer. So far, I can't tell why it's in there. I'm not sure I want to know, but the suspense is killing me.

• One friend is cooking different recipes from the old meat she's found deep in the bowls of her freezer. It ranges from 3-year-old prime rib to 5-year-old ground turkey. Then she posts pictures of the mouth-watering meals. I'm thinking maybe there's a book in this, like Olivia's Old Meat.

• Another friend is spending three weeks in Cuba where she's enjoying lots of mojitos and salsa dancing . . . I assume with swarthy Cuban hotties.

Am I going to use some of these details for future characters? OF COURSE!! You don't create characters in a vacuum. They're an amalgam of your experiences and your friends' experiences and Facebook is like a mini database.

OK, I'm off to Facebook to beef up my characters.

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