Purple Prose:
dialogue

I have only three words for you: The Hex Boys.

I recently read Demons at Deadnight by Alyssa and Eileen Kirk. The best part about the book (which is great, btw) were the six hot teenage guys. But it wasn’t their hot bods that made me fall in love with them, it was their banter. They cracked me up every time. So, for part of the Demons at Deadnight blog tour, Alyssa and Eileen wrote a guest post (at my begging) on writing awesome banter. They’ve also included tips on writing dialogue based on gender differences.

Make sure you check out the end of the post for information about their giveaway. I have one of the secret words you’ll need for a chance to win a Kindle Fire. Plus, I’m giving away a copy (paperback or ebook) of their novel Demons at Deadnight. If you want to be entered for the book giveaway, let me know in the comments and include your email address. It’s open internationally. The giveaway will close Wednesday, February 15^th at 11:59 pm EST.

<<<3

One thing we haven’t a shortage of in Demons at Deadnight is banter. We adore it. Dialog is a great way to show rather than tell who your character is. And with six hot male leads—that’s right, six—we use their dialog, word choice, sentence structure, and speech pattern to establish and distinguish character, as well as deliver necessary information.

Context plays a big part in how the dialog works but we’ve tried to provide examples that are still effective without a lot of knowledge of the rest of the story. Here, the Hex Boys are in the midst of discussing the organization they work for.

***
“Wait. Who’s she again?” Blake said.

Matthias sighed. “Don’t you ever pay attention? She heads up the Divinicus task force.”
Blake looked blank.

“Sophina Cacciatori.” Matthias continued. “She taught some conferences in Europe?”

Logan spoke up. “You described her as the curvy, hot, Italian brunette with—”

“Great legs!” Blake finished with a broad grin.

***
Hopefully you learned:

- Sophina Cacciatori: A big deal in a worldwide organization and so important Blake should know her name instantly.

- Matthias: finds Blake’s cavalier attitude and lack of knowledge irritating. Is more serious and responsible. Has a hard time relating to Blake.

- Blake: Playful. Unconcerned with the administrative aspects of their job. Bit of a horn dog.

- Logan: Informed. Great listener. Knows Blake inside and out.

Characters with fundamental differences create conflict which is always fun. Use the moment to reveal information about your character and information relevant to the plot.

Here, Aurora is just coming out of unconsciousness and since it’s first person, what she’s thinking is actually part of the banter.

***
“How’s that my fault?” Matthias said.

“You’re the only one mean enough to make her think we’re kidnappers and killers.” I’d never heard Logan so passionate.

“We are killers,” Matthias said.

Bad news.

“Not girls. We don’t kill girls.”

Good news.

“She’s no girl.”

Insulting news?

“What? Of course she’s a girl.”

“Want me to check?”

“Shut up, Blake,” the rest of them chorused.

***
The short version? Matthias = jerk. Logan = protective, gentleman. And even though they work for the same organization, they see their roles very differently. Then Blake = girl crazy and the rest of the boys, all too familiar with his antics, shut him down.

Gender Differences in Dialogue

Here’s a great tip from the many conferences we’ve been to. In terms of gender, guys tend to speak concise. To the point. Concentrate on facts. Lack of extraneous verbiage. Shorter sentences.

Girls, on the other hand, like to use more words, and construct longer sentences which contain supplementary descriptive prose and express a vivid interpretation of their feelings and emotions, their experiences and the environment surrounding them.

See the difference? So after you’ve written a guy’s dialog, go back and cut. And cut again.

However, we have a Hex Boy who is extremely verbose. Why? Because his character is…not mainstream. He’s an oddball. Not your typical guy, so it works.

The same information will be delivered differently by each character, so when you have something you need to say to move the plot along, pick the character who’s going to express it in the most riveting manner.
And if the character is conflicted about the information they have to verbalize, all the better. For example, the shy one has to talk about sexuality, or the cynical one has to talk about love. You get the idea.

Make every word count, have fun, and bottom line, know your character inside and out, then let them do the talking!

Stina, thanks so much for having us today. It’s always a pleasure to dialog with you!

<<<3

Kindle Fire Giveaway Info

To enter to win the Kindle Fire you need to know the secret phrase given out one word at a time by each blog tour host. Put the words together in sequential order and you'll eventually have the secret phrase! Right now you can Tweet and Follow on the AEKIRK Blog Tour Page to get points but starting March 9 (at the end of the tour) you can enter the complete phrase on the AEKIRK Blog Tour Page and earn BIG entry points! Your Kindle Fire will also include your choice of a DEMONS AT DEADNIGHT Skin. Either from the cover, or a Hex Boy group shot or individual "Team" skin of your favorite Hex Hunk!

The secret word from my blog is: ADDICTIVE (Yes, those Hex Boys are very addictive)

To view the entire list of blogs on this tour, click the banner at the top of the post!

(I didn't take this photo.)
Are you ready to get your butt ready for bikini season manuscript in peak shape for querying?

Are you ready to sweat and feel the burn?

Then I have the workout for you. It’s guaranteed* to whip your butt manuscript into shape and leave agents drooling. And a drooling agent = The Call.

First, you’re going to need some equipment:

• Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. You don’t have a copy, you say? Then stay tune. It will be one of the prizes in my upcoming contest to celebrate reaching 500 + followers. (note: if you don’t want to bother with the workbook (though I highly recommend it), you can still do some of the workout. Adjust accordingly).

Workout

Warm up:

1. Characterizations

2. Outline

Some people (also known as pansters) prefer to skip the warm up. I’m not going to make you do twenty push-ups if you do. Just remember, you may need to do more work to get your manuscript into shape compared to the outliners.

Donald Maass’s workbook has some great exercises to do for the warm up (found under Character Development and Plot Development). However, I did them after I finished the first draft of my current WIP. With my next project, I’ll do them during my preplanning, to make sure my characterizations and outline are properly warmed up before I start my first draft.

Light Aerobic Exercise:

1. Write your first draft. I don’t care if you speed through it or if your internal editor is peeking over your shoulder (like mine). Just do it!

2. Read through your manuscript and write notes about things you want to fix (like inconsistencies) or things you’re questioning. Go back and deal with them now if necessary.

Intense Aerobic Exercise:

1. Go through your WIP using the exercises in Donald’s workbook under the section Character Development. With my WIP, I went through the entire manuscript doing this step.

2. Go through the remainder of the workbook (Plot Development and General Story Techniques), completing as many of the exercise as you can. Some will have to wait until you analyze the WIP at the scene level (next step).

3. Now we’re going to do interval training. Divide your WIP into chunks, each containing about three chapters (depending on the length of the chapters). Why? Because after each chunk has gone through the interval training, it’s send off to your CPs. Of course, you don’t have to do it this way. But this is how I did it.

a. Go through each scene doing the exercises in the workbook (under Plot Development and General Story Techniques). Not all exercises will be necessary for each scene. Only you can decide which ones apply to a given scene.

b. After editing the scene according to the above step, do a dialogue pass. I talked about this last week on my Query Tracker Blog post (Strengthening Dialogue).

c. The final step is to Toss The Pages. Okay, I don’t actually toss anything. I randomly select the pages. But the main point is I don’t edit these pages sequentially. This enables me to focus on the writing and not on the story. I also use the RWA handouts list under ‘equipment’ during this part. Doing it this way helps me deepen the layers of the story (setting, emotion, etc). Check out the handout, From First Draft to Final Manuscript, and you’ll see what I mean. Really push yourself on this step. Don’t gloss over it, thinking the page is fine. I bet you can make it better.

d. Continue the above three steps then read through the chunk of chapters you were working on and edit if necessary.

e. Send to CPs (optional but recommended). Edit based on their suggestions.

f. Repeat steps a-e for next chunk of the WIP.

Cool Down

1. Once finished—and after you’ve given it some distance—read through your manuscript and deal with any areas you feel could be further improved on (like pacing).

2. Send to beta readers. Edit as needed.

Celebration

(I didn't take this either)

Yay! You are now ready to query. Just make sure you’ve put your query and synopsis through their own intensive workout.

Good luck!

Any other suggestions? How do you usually edit?

* Fine Print:
1. I’m using this workout with my current WIP, so I don’t actually know if it will work when it comes to querying it. But it has made MAJOR improvements in my manuscript, hence why I’m sold on it. Of course, both the writing and a unique concept are important too. This workout won’t help you there. Sorry.
2. I lied about it being a twenty-minute workout. But it got you to look, didn’t it? ;)

When revising, do you find yourself too immersed in your story? Well, I’ve got the perfect game for you that will help you spot the problems on the page you might not otherwise notice.

RULES:

1. Print off the pages you want to do a more in-depth edit to. It could be a chapter, a few chapters, or the entire book.

2. Toss the pages in the air (or spread them randomly on the floor if bent pages freak you out). Make sure they’re all facing down.

3. Grab a page.

4. Read through it, and mark each line that contains tension (I use a T in the margin). Ideally you want at least one line (but more is better) per page with tension. If you don’t, go through it and increase the tension through dialogue, unanswered questions, action, exposition. That is what’s going to keep your readers turning the pages.

5. Find paragraphs that are begging for more description or emotion (or both). Can the action be improved on? You might not have noticed it before, but now the weaknesses are easy to spot.

6. Is there enough white space? Not enough and your reader’s eyes will glaze over. This can be easily fixed by adding dialogue and breaking up your paragraphs (and trimming them if necessary).

7. Is your dialogue suffering from the talking head syndrome? Add some physical beats to ground your readers and characters in the scene.

8. Did you spot those typos and awkward sentences often missed when you read the pages in order?

9. How’s the pacing?

10. Read the page out aloud and see what else you can find that irritates the hell out of you.

11. Either edit the page now on the computer or save it until you’ve finished marking up all the pages.

13. Pick the next page off the floor. If it’s too close to the one you just edited (I’m referring to page number here), then put it back and randomly select another one.

14. Repeat steps #4 to 13 until you’ve finished all the pages.

THE WINNER:

You, of course. Now you’re one step closer to having an awesome manuscript.

Any other suggests as to what else to look out for when using this technique?