Living in the Third Draft Editing Stage - Dialogue

Living in the Third Draft Editing Stage - Dialogue

I have long known that I am a lousy editor. I dread the third draft stage of any of my projects because I know that this is the stage in which I have to turn off more of the creative process and put on the editors hat. I will often read a sentence, make several grammatical or stylistic changes. Then come back the next day, only to read it and change it back to the way it was.

I’ve done a lot of research, and during the third draft editing stage of The Fenian Avenger I am summarizing some of those topics in my blog. My goal is that by summarizing it, it will cement the concept in my mind and make it more a part of my writing during draft one and two, and less of an edit chore in draft three. But, perhaps if I can present some of my research that can help another writer, then that is a great thing.

Dialogue

I’m starting with dialogue because my writing professor in college said that this was the strongest area of my writing. Now, let’s preface that, because it sounds warm and supportive, like the professor was a mentor and taking me by the hand and leading towards the oasis of being a published author.

I took a fiction writing course in college that was taught by a respected semi-best selling author. I had aspirations of learning from him. I was very transparent about my weaknesses as a writer, as teacher in high school really didn’t teach grammar or how to really write. But I had good ideas and a passion to make them come to life.

The professor’s assessment of my writing was quite simple, written in red ink at the bottom of page: A festering pile of s---. Poor characters. Bad descriptions. Unbelievable plot. Poor pacing. Dangling modifiers. Average dialogue. I wouldn’t read past the first paragraph.

Anyway, that professor ticked me off enough to fuel me for years to prove him wrong.

Average dialogue! Wow – that was almost a compliment.

Dialogue in a story is often mistaken for conversation. When writing dialogue, it’s not about catching every word that is said between two or more people. It’s about catching the essence of the conversation. That may be what is communicated. That may be what is not communicated.

Dialogue may be used to set characters apart from one another. The only distinguishing characteristics may be the way they speak. Following the scathing remarks from my professor about my writing, my stories became almost entirely dialogue, and thus characters had to be recognizable by their mannerisms in the words they choose, their cadence of their words, and such. Much of the sitcoms on television today are still based almost exclusively on dialogue.

If the story submitted to a busy screen contains a lot of dialogue. And that dialogue is snappy, confrontational, and intelligent. Then that screener may be more inclined to read more pages than they may have read if the text contained heavy block paragraphs of prose. However, if that dialogue proves to be clichéd or sounds dead, then screener will bury the manuscript very quickly. So, dialogue can help a story quickly, but bad dialogue can bury it quickly also.

Again, the dialogue in a chapter must have a purpose. Once again, it is not there for conversational reasons. Every chapter must have an agenda, whether it is one of four signposts that all stories are built on, or the journeys from one signpost to the next, each chapter has a purpose or an agenda. And the dialogue in that chapter must fit within that agenda or purpose.

For example, in Chapter 18 of The Fenian Avenger Reverend Fitzpatrick accompanies Eamon Malone to the funeral of his parents at Glasnevin Cemetary in North Dublin. Eamon is in agony, not just over the loss of his parents, but because of the fact that the man responsible was reading from Psalm 23 “The Lord is my shepherd…” Fitzpatrick offers Eamon comfort in their dialogue, and in Eamon’s dialogue he shows that despite his incredible gifts, he is still a seventeen year-old and has a lot of growing up to do. That is a lot to convey in dialogue, but I didn’t include the entire conversation, because it would not have advanced the agenda of the chapter. It would not have served any purpose for Fitzpatrick to thank the usher for showing them to their seats.

Tags are another item in dialogue that separate amateurs and professionals. Tags are the “he said” and “she said” after someone says something.

The rule that I was taught was that there is really nothing wrong with the word “said.” Whereas with other words it is said to avoid repeating words too often, with “said” this is not the case. It is a sign of an amateur when a writer finds different ways to say this.

All of these are signs of an amateur, and can be replaced with the word “said”:
…he whispered.
…he spoke.
…he retorted.
…he chuckled.
…he wondered.
…he thought aloud.
…he pontificated.

There are instances where you can skip the tag. If there are two participants in the dialogue, and their voices are distinct enough to tell them apart (which should always be the case with all your characters), you can hold a conversation without always adding the tag. When you do this, every once in a while, you will want to drop the tag in there just so your reader can re-acquaint themselves with where the conversation is.

Probably the best author I’ve ever read when it comes to dialogue was Gregory McDonald. McDonald wrote the Fletch and Flynn series, and if you’ve never read the books and only know the Fletch movies, you’re missing some great dialogue. The books are almost exclusively dialogue and are sharply written.

Working Towards Fenian Avenger Second Draft in New Year

The last few months of 2009 were very active for me. In September, I set out with an ambitious goal. I wanted to come up with a completely new concept for a novel, one that didn’t involve an additional book in a series or calling upon my stable of characters and storylines. I wanted to complete the story treatment and outline by November 1^st and participate in NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month). For those not familiar with NANOWRIMO is a non-profit group that encourages writers to set a goal of starting and completing a first draft during the month of November.

That was quite a lofty goal. Assuming that I had a treatment and outline to work with, finishing a first draft is not out of the question. Finishing a draft is historically a very quick process for me. The time consuming (and probably most enjoyable) is the process of developing the treatment and outline. Some concepts of mine take years to get through this process. An idea hits me, and I take months just thinking about it, playing out scenarios in my head, and sometimes having conversations with potential characters in my head Yes, I spend a lot of time talking to myself (people who work with me are more than likely nodding their heads at this).

To do all of this in that short period of September 1^st through November 30^th would be an accomplishment.

To be fair, I did not allow myself to use any ideas I was already working on and I could not use any character that I have ever used before in another book or story.

I wanted to do some kind of adventure story. Something relatively light. I had just finished a story treatment that for In the Mind of Declan Murphy, which is a story about an autistic man who, in his altered vision, can clearly see the devil taking souls in his small Irish town, but he can’t communicate with anyone to warn them. This concept was very deep, spiritual, and abstract. And was quite a downer. I wanted this new story to have energy of its own, as that would help me get through this task.

I came up with the idea of an Irish super-hero, fighting corruption in a fictional depression-ridden Ireland in the form of corporate moguls that have their own vision of what Ireland should and should not be, and fighting the Garda (the Irish police) as they continually shake down the Irish citizens.

It was a fun story to plot. Coming up with an origin that had a mysteriously exceptional boy name Eamon Malone who is part of a new direction in child development and education (and potentially turning him into a weapon). After his parents are killed in an apartment fire after an altercation with the executives at the foundation in charge of educating Eamon, he finds himself alone on the street with only revenge on his mind. After an incident in St. Stephen’s Green where Garda officers are shaking down a woman, Eamon takes on the guise of the Fenian Avenger and dispatches them. He soon is taken in by his friend Angus to live in his subterranean home underneath the streets of Dublin (my own version of a bat cave). The danger of this story treatment is throwing too much into the plot.

I was very pleased that going into the last week of October I had a working story treatment and outline. I was ready to go.

On November 1^st I was off an running. With a detailed treatment and an outline that details signposts and journeys of protagonists, antagonists, and impact characters – the hard part was done. It was just a matter of making time to write. The story took a life of it’s own. I thought of many directions the characters could go, and tightening up the original treatment as I fully worked through some of the scenarios.

Some 63,000 words and thirty days later, I had my goal completed. I had finished the first draft up until the last five chapters. I never do the last five chapters in a first draft. I always like to re-read the draft after a period of time to make sure that the ending I intended to use is still feasible.

It’s a waste of time to set goals to write during the holidays. It just doesn’t lend itself to consistency. And consistency is the key to writing. Writing has to become a habit, and for it to become a habit, it has to be something that you do every day. It’s not enough to be a good writing; you have to practice being a good writer and pushing yourself to better yourself.

So, for the new year I plan to get back into the habit of writing. And events so far in the new year have a way of trying to get in the way of that. In addition to my wonderful weekly gift of chemotherapy to dislodge any momentum I had, I’ve had a flare of my painful conditions that require the chemo, and a case of strep throat that causes me to stop taking my chemo that makes my symptoms get worse.

For the second draft, my goals are: tighten up the plot, flesh out the locations and make them pop, try to get inside the head of a confused sheltered eighteen year old super hero, and adjust the story to get rid of the prologue (a certain publication killer), and a hole in the middle where a plot point didn’t pan out.

Second drafts are my least favorite thing about writing. I’m a lousy editor of my own work and have a habit of thinking my writing is either too good or too bad.