Monday Night Writers

Welcome Barbara! Great to meet you... Claire you were missed. Thanks to everyone else who showed up!

For next time: Michelle will email out another chapter for comment. If anyone hasn't gotten comments to her on Chap. 1, please do.
Jenn will work on her "manuscript" for the Taos writing conference (Flashes of Friendship).
Marsha is going to work on a This I Believe essay even if it doesn't fit into the NPR This I Believe style: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138
Barbara will bring the next section of her reunion story...
Lex will continue the saga of Bogie and the soon to erupt scandal in the neighborhood as Bogie is named one of the 3 worst cats in the neighborhood by the Bird Rock News... will Bogie soon resign as Mayor?
Claire: hoping you are well... looking forward to more about Trevor and Julie and some good juicy dialogue.


AND: Next meeting May 23. Monday. 7 pm. Michelle is taking the steering wheel.

I'm posting the info from the handout... but would add one more thing:

Watch your commas! Dialogue that is not structured correctly is particularly cumbersome to read, and totally takes your reader out of the story...

--Jenn

Dialogue DOs....

• Use your dialogue to show what you want to tell the reader.
  Instead of coming out and saying it with narration, let your characters do it for you, giving your characters time to interact and your reader time to get to know your characters.
  
• Let your characters tell the back story for you through dialogue
  It’s much more interesting, plus it gives the characters a chance to develop.
  
• Use dialogue to define your character
  How a character speaks can tell us what region he/she is from, what personality type (airy fairy, type A, etc) education level... When dialogue is used properly, it should define your characters so thoroughly that if you took off all the tags of "Jake said," or "Daisy whispered," we would still know who was talking.
  
• Avoid redundancy
  If we know there are only two people in a scene, you don’t need to tag every bit of dialogue. That’s why we start a new paragraph each time a new person speaks:

“Listen,” said Maria. “I think I hear something.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” John grumbled.
“Don’t call me ridiculous, Maria snapped. “If you just listen, you’ll hear the noise too.”
“Maria,” John said with a grin, “you are still afraid of the dark after all these
years, aren’t you?”

A better way to write it would be:

“Listen.” Maria stilled John with her hand on his arm. “I think I hear something.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” John brushed her hand away with a laugh.
“I’m not!” (No need to repeat the word ridiculous again)
“You’re still afraid of the dark after all these years, aren’t you?”

• Get to the Point
  Use all your dialogue for a purpose and avoid small chat such as introductions that take up pages, or telephone calls that say:

“Hello?” said Susie, speaking into the receiver.
“Hello,” answered her good friend, Mable.
“How are you?” Susie’s voice perked up at hearing the voice of her friend she hadn’t seen in a while.
“I’m good, how about you?” answered Mable.
“I’m doing okay,” sighed Susie, “ but I’ve been a bit tired.”
“Yeah, I think this weather has everyone tired and depressed,” Mable agreed.

Cut to the chase, while keeping the pace of the story:

Tired and depressed, Susie picked up the phone, surprised to hear the voice of her good friend Mable.
“Mable, it’s been so long since we’ve talked.”
“Yes, I know. But I just had to call to let you know I’m getting married.”

The corrected version is simplified but still lets us know that they are old friends who haven’t seen each other in awhile and Mable’s reason for calling, while maitaining the pace of the story.