On balancing dialogue, descriptions, action and the rest

I have blogged before on balancing pairs of these wonderful things, like descriptions versus commentary and transitions from dialogue to descriptions and back. I even blogged about the danger of long descriptions, but I haven't yet written on the subject of all three, or however many elements there are. And now that I think about it, there really are only three things. People talk shit - dialogue. People look like shit (or not like shit, if you're writing romance) - descriptions. People do shit - action. There are other fancy names for fancy things like exposition (still don't really understand what that means), backstory, flashbacks, theme, bla-bla-bla (I've been actually Googling these terms to refresh my memory). I don't think about any of that when I write, I just write the story. And so far 3 elements have been plenty. Like Kurt Vonnegut said, "Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action."  You can look at it in many different ways, it's still the same. This happened. This dude said this. This gal said this. This happened. That happened. Oh, and it happened in this town looking like this, and they looked like this. You get the drill. So, for the sake of this blog post, we shall cover three things.

Dialogue is never perfect. There are books with excessive dialogue, and there are books with almost no dialogue at all. What exactly does this mean and how should you take it on, especially if you're a beginning writer like me? You don't. Don't copy anyone, just because they're a famous writer, or your favorite writer, be yourself. If you talk a lot, write a lot of dialogue. If you don't talk a lot, don't write a lot of dialogue. Write what naturally comes to you. But once you do start writing, in case of dialogue specifically, break it up. As in, when people talk, they start talking from the middle of the thought, and they get interrupted a lot. Remember the movie Up, "Squirrel!" Yeah, like that. Also, people interrupt people. People leave half of a sentence hanging, without finishing it. It's all very fluid and not perfect. When writing, it's easy to slide into this perfection of writing dialogue in complete sentences. Hey, that's what teachers taught us in school, write complete sentences, with fucking structure and whatnot! Well, they were wrong. Throw it out the window and forget about structure. When people talk, they have no structure, they have feelings, emotions. They try to structure them, yes, but they always fail horribly. And we read for those nuggets of failure, trying to guess what this or that characters feels inside. That's the fun of reading.  Now, I will get at the bottom of this post on how to balance all three things, dialogue, descriptions, and action, so don't despair.

Descriptions only begin on the page, but end in a reader's mind. Yeah, right, I wish I was the one who said it. I didn't, I only paraphrased it. Stephen King was the one who said it, here is the quote: " Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” With this in mind, all you have to do is paint one or two sentences and get on the way with telling the story. I had to learn it the hard way, over-describing practically everything in SIREN SUICIDES. I did learn my lesson, and I moved on. I'm very sparse with descriptions in ROSEHEAD now, only giving enough to paint the picture, and embellishing only the important elements. And here is where the balance comes from. You have to describe things for the reader to see the story, to orient herself or himself, but that's all you gotta do. Now, because your story is about something very important, those important parts you can embellish more than usual, to draw reader's attention to them. Also, one more thing I do. Somebody said it, can't remember who, but it goes like this. Everything that the reader already saw, describe briefly. For example, "It was a hot summer afternoon." We all know what a hot summer afternoon looks like, we all have our own idea about it, but it's basically the same. So say that one sentence and move on to the action or the dialogue. But if you're describing a new alien weapon that the reader has never seen before, indulge in description, make it real. I primarily use allegories to not get carried away, like "his gun looked like two cucumbers glued together by intergalactic saliva" or some shit like that. In general, don't do more than 3 sentences, otherwise it can get boring pretty fast.

Action is where the story happens. This is the most important element of any story. Basically, you have to answer the reader's question: WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENS? She ran to the Moon. He caught her with a fish hook. They fell into the bog of misery. Twenty tentacles of a mutant giant cockroach sucked them into another dimension. A kangaroo shrieked, because a herd of flying giraffes opened fire on... well, I'm getting carried away here. But this is it, really. Noun, verb. Verb, noun. Use adjectives sporadically, refrain from using adverbs, and do not use exclamations marks!!!!! Yeah, I'm so guilty of that. Anyway. Action should really dominate your pages, with a few lines of description here and there, and occasional blocks or lines of dialogue. But, again, remember, this is all up to you, up to what kind of storyteller you are. There is no golden rule for everybody. Everybody is different. You might be able to tell your story through dialogue, by writing something like this: "Get that green thing away from me!" "Trying! That fucking kangaroo got my gun!" "Watch out! I think that's a--" "--it's a bomb!" BAM! "Is that you? Are you breathing?" "No, you are mistaken, maiden. I am a panda overlord, ruling the entire universe." Demonic laughter. Okay, this is totally off the wall and very bad, but I just wanted to throw something out there to show how you can do action through dialogue. You can also do dialogue through action, as in: "They talked about the weather. She mentioned that fact that it wasn't sunny today, studying her nails. He said that it looks like it's going to rain, his hand accidentally brushing hers. They both looked up at the sky at the same time, wondering exactly when it's going to rain.  He breathed into her ear that it might start raining any minute, and they better..." All right, I'll stop right here, before I get too carried away.

Balance your writing they way it feels natural. This is the closing thingy, about all three things, dialogue, descriptions, and action. And whatever else it is you want to balance. The basic thing is, trust your gut. If your gut gleefully enjoys you writing page after page of dialogue, excellent. Keep writing it. If your gut cringes at the thought of writing dialogue, don't. In fact, read Nabokov's LOLITA. Do you see any dialogue there? Yeah, very very little. You can think of the three things this way. There is dialogue, and there is description, but they are both like these transparent layers over action, which is really the meat of the story. As much as you can, try for every sentence to move your story forward. Even if you're describing something, try to make it so that it moves the story forward. Remember, you have to make the reader turn the page. Every page the reader has to be glued to your story. Because at any moment the reader can be interrupted by life, and if your reader happens to be interrupted on the page of a long long description, guess what will happen? The reader might not get back to your story, abandoning your book. The only way to not let that happen is to keep the action moving the story forward. This is how books end up on the best-seller lists. People can't stop reading them (says she who hasn't made it to any best-selling lists, so feel free to scoff at me, I'm still learning!). 

There. I think this should do. Let's try something new here. How about you tell me in the comments what you want me to blog about next? I was thinking about the topic of beginning and ending chapters. Yes? No? Any other ideas? Let me know. Happy writing! 

Transitions, from dialogue to descriptions and back

I've been asked to write about this, and at first I didn't even know where to begin, never having given much thought about this particular topic when I'm writing. And then I thought, no, not true, I have, it's just that now it seems to flow and I forgot to think about it, but I did think about it when I first started, and I hated how my dialogue was clumsy, how it seemed like I jumped from people talking to describing the setting, to wondering when it was appropriate again to jump to people talking. You get the drift. So how come I don't think about it anymore? Because I seem to have found a certain rhythm. I think. Let me share what works for me, and hopefully it will help you too, because for me writing started having a certain beat, a pulse, almost, like in music. 

Listen for a tempo. This is probably the best I can describe it. It all comes down to listening for a tempo in your own writing and then comparing it with the tempo of the books you are reading. So, at first, don't worry about transitions at all, simply write, but after you are done, every day, read. Read some really good stuff, read books that you love. The next day write again, and read again. Keep doing this and allow yourself to be horrible, be okay with sounding very choppy or unnatural in your writing. The most important thing is to keep writing and reading every day, even if it's only 30 minutes each. Soon you will start seeing patterns, you will notice how some authors rely heavily on dialogue, while others hardly use it at all (just read Nabokov's Lolita, you'll see what I mean). Please, don't throw rotten tomatoes at me here, but my prediction is, it will take you at least 1 year to get it, you will start seeing distinctive patterns. It will take you another 4 years to get really good at it, if you are writing full time. I'm not there yet, and it's not me who calculated it. Malcolm Gladwell said in his book Outliers that it takes 10K hours to become good at anything. So, the main thing you can do for your writing to flow smoothly is simply to... keep writing and reading!

Measure it in paragraphs.  Until I developed a certain tempo, which my beta readers told me I have (I lean more heavily on descriptions rather than dialogue), I used the rule of paragraphs. I didn't read about it in a book, it was simply easy to visually remember and I have glimpsed it in other books too. So, it went like this. I would always open each chapter with one paragraph of description, no more (still do), and then would open the next paragraph with dialogue, go for a while, then do a paragraph of description again. I did it like in a song, alternating between the main verse and the chorus, if you will. It wasn't beautiful, but at least it was organized and it kept me on track. And that's all a beginning rookie writer like me needs, some kind of organizational system to hold on to when everything else seems to be falling apart.

Highlight important stuff for the story. Another way of thinking about transitions is to only highlight what the reader absolutely needs to know and not mention the rest. For example, if your main character is wearing a pink panda costume, make sure you describe said costume in minute detail, because it's an out of ordinary thing to do. If, on the other hand, your character buys a pink panda costume every day in a town where everyone wears pink panda costumes, then it's not something out of the ordinary, and you only need to mention the pink panda costume once in a sentence, no more. This is where the idea of the rhythm comes in. You write about unusual interesting stuff that is new, and you leave out the boring stuff. Now, in my experience, this really comes together in the rewrites, when you start seeing what is fluff and what is solid. Until then, especially in your first draft, don't worry about being choppy. The goal is not to be perfect, the goal is to get the story down on paper.

Read it aloud. This is the simplest exercise you can do for your transitions. Read your own writing yourself aloud, and, if at all possible, ask a friend to read to you several pages of your writing. Where you will stutter, where your friend will stutter, that's where it's rough and you have to smooth it out.  How? Simple. Cut to the next piece of action. The most important thing for your story is to make the reader turn the pages, and you have to ask yourself a question. That line of description, will it make my reader want to know more? That line of dialogue, will it make my reader sit on the edge of the seat, dying to know what happens next? Yes? Great! No? Cut it. The more you do this, the more you will start feeling a certain tempo that is unique to your own writing. It might be fast and choppy, or it might be slow and lyrical. Whatever it is, without doing a lot of it you won't find it, and once you do find it, you will feel it, and you writing will star flowing smoothly. It's the best feeling in the world.

I honestly hope I wrote here something that made sense to you and that you could put to practical use, because never specifically studied transitions, I don't even know if I'm supposed to use some big important words that people use when they talk about transitions. All I do is feel, and transitions in writing are like transitions in music, they are fluid, they are hard to catch and put in a box, but if you really listen for them, listen for them in your own writing and in the writing of others, one day a veil will fall off your eyes and you will see them. And, once you do, your own writing will start singing in accordance to that certain rhythm that's yours and yours alone.