B- Banter

"Tha's tryin' to jest the jester!"

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

A large part of the way I enjoy interacting--or watching others interact--with people is banter. For me, a movie that has a so-so plot but sparkling dialog can be saved. Same with books. So it was only natural that, granted the nature of The Scarlet-Gypsy Song, I should include plenty of banter. There is a distinct difference between Banter and Verbal Sparring, and I made sure to include much of the latter whenever I introduced the former. Like Jenny Freitag said, the two are completely different animals.
Banter is good-natured jibing and teasing, while Verbal Sparring is jibing and teasing with intent and reason; often to discomfit the opponent--not to elicit a laugh from them. I think of banter like friends playing chicken-fights in the water, while verbal sparring is like playing stick-knife with a real knife and a gang of rough-and-tumbles standing at the ready to pound you if you win.
Essentially, The Scarlet-Gypsy Song is a book full of characters that are all too clever for their own good. They each have a rather high opinion of their intellect, and it can result in tidy little tit-for-tats. The challenge in writing it, of course, was not to let bantering go too far on its own. Often I turned what had been banter into verbal sparring, because who really wants to sit and listen to banter on its own for eight paragraphs?--certainly not I. But banter is a fabulous way to ease into a tense situation. The tone is light, congenial, and then suddenly turns desperate.

“I have no wish to fight you.”

“Haven’t you?” Mockery and contempt mingled freely in Diccon’s tones. What a donkey this fellow was—he wondered with idle curiosity whether Peter Quickenhelm was at all related to Sir Roger Guillbert, but the thought was brief. There were more important matters at hand. “You call yourself a soldier, and yet you are fearful of meeting a man in fair combat?”

Peter raised his eyes and all the pride of a wounded lion flashed from them and scalded Diccon. “Is ambush considered fair combat?”

Diccon observed him with his head on one side and a pitying eye. “Many a wiser man has answered that question: ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ or haven’t you heard? I rather think you are besotted with love—or something rather cruder—for these damsels. I—” he put a hand to his leather veskit, “—am a man of war. Therefore, I deem it fair combat, and you, my chosen opponent.”

The beauty of banter and verbal sparring is that it wards off melodrama as effectively as Thief's Oil wards off illness. I have used banter to lighten moments of danger, but it's also equally effective in romantic scenes--a tactic I used more than once in my other novel, Fly Away Home. See, I'm not a big one for deep, dramatic dialog. I enjoy reading it sometimes (especially in older books) but I don't choose to write it--it isn't a natural tone for me. When you are writing with a sweeping, emotional voice, it can be hard to avoid coming across as melodramatic. That is when the all-purpose tool of banter or verbal sparring could save the day. Try it, and see how it works out for you!

Diccon turned around and caught Adelaide’s eye, then smiled. He approached her and extended his hand. “Ah, my own sister—let me escort you to the very capable hands of that fierce little wench—Dear-Heart, was it? You look in need of a good wash.”

Adelaide laughed. “Doubtless you are right—and yet it is not the bearing of a gentleman to say so.”

“Is it not a gentleman’s duty to tell the truth? There—I have silenced you.” He laughed and patted her shoulder. “Get you to the chamber and clean up—it will be a mighty evening.”

Achilles' Heel

Every one of us wants to be a successful writer--we want to know our strengths and weaknesses. We want to rely on the strengths but we want to shape our craft so that our weaknesses grow stronger with each book.

There are several spheres that I consider "strengths or weaknesses" for writers. They are as follows:

Plot

Dialog

Characterization

Description

My greatest strength has been (and I assume will always be) characterization. It makes sense because since I am always people-watching whenever I'm around people (and I'm a people-person) I get a deal of research done. It's really important as a writer to pinpoint your greatest strength and then try to find the places that need work. My nemesis, I think, is plot. My first book--written at age twelve--was entirely plotless. My second, A Mother for the Seasonings, is a very simple tale. (though a good one!). I got half-way through two other books that are still languishing in their word document files, but never finished them. You see, one had too much plot, the other not enough. By the time I reached The Scarlet-Gypsy Song I knew I needed a plot that could carry me through a novel without seeming stretched thin. "Like butter scraped over too much bread," as Bilbo says. And though I was able to spin out a tale with a plot that I liked very much much, it was still lumpy-bumpy and will take a deal of editing to make palatable. I will admit that even in this book my character-love came out first. You see, I didn't have a plot when the book was born. I had a phrase:

"There was Nannykins to begin with, but she had a bad knee and left for the North."

I mean honestly. What does that have to do with a father whose children get into his fictional world and his princess who gets out of it, and massive travail and bloodshed and angst and beauty? Nothing. But somehow I came up with a plot and the phrase and the rest lies in the bloodied pages of the Gildnoirelly. 

All this to say, I know that plot strength is a weakness for me. So I've been doing a deal of reading this summer in hopes of getting a little better at it. I just finished reading a book called The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. She is not a Christian writer, but her skill is certainly a force to be reckoned with. I loved the plot anyway, but she put this huge twist at the end that left me reeling and marveling and wishing I knew enough to do the same.When we do research like this, it's helpful to ask yourself several questions:

Where did I think the plot was going?

How did she tailor my opinion one way so that she could whip the story around?

What was the most dynamic scene in the story?

How does the characters' personality/character play into the way the plot turns out?

I am excited. I've done my research and I have a good, strong plot for Scuppernong Days. I actually sat down and wrote it out in my writing notebook so that I know where I'm going. Y'see, my worst part is getting only major events and having difficulty stringing them together with important nothings. Of course there is wiggle-room for the plot changing and your characters changing and your idea changing, but for myself I find I can keep plot weakness to an ebb if I structure my story. :) What are your strengths/weaknesses? How do you strengthen your weak parts?

"Be sure of only two things: yourself and the ropes beneath your hands."

 -Mr. Nesbit, First Mate of The Scuppernong

The Mrs. Palmer Effect: a guest post by Amy

Hello everyone!  My dear blogging friend Rachel has kindly offered to let me guest post for her while she's off politicking in Georgia, and I'm so delighted to be here! Let's start off this post with a picture.  Pictures are worth a thousand words and all that, so without further ado... here's one that makes me all kinds of annoyed.

Now that I've (hopefully) got you hooked and wanting to know why that picture annoys me so badly, we may proceed.  (A hook is one of the most important things in fishing and in writing.  This is not the time to draw parallels between fishing and writing, especially since I've never done the former, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.  *bad pun alert*)
 Lately I've heard a great deal about dialogue tags in writing, and I am here today to tell you a great and important truth.  Sit up straight, take the Popsicle out of your mouth, cross your legs neatly and the ankles and listen closely.

There is nothing wrong with the word "said."

Did you get that?  

"Said" has been getting a bad rap lately.  It seems that everywhere I look, writers are advising each other not to use that word, because something bad will happen if they do.  Their books will become dry and hard to chew, the dialogue will turn clunky and the characters will be stuck in a monotone.  Or so you might think.

"Don't strain to find synonyms for 'he said,'" William Zinsser writes in his hilariously helpful book On Writing Well.  "Don't make your man assert, aver and expostulate just to avoid repeating 'he said,' and please--please!--don't write 'he smiled' or 'he grinned.'  I have never heard anybody smile.  The reader's eye skips over 'he said' anyway, so it's not worth a lot of fuss." Don't be afraid of "said."  Use it if you have to.  Don't use it if you don't have to.  If you can, leave the dialogue at bare bones (that is, without any kind of tags whatsoever, not even to distinguish who's talking) and see how it looks on the page.  If you need clarification, add some.  Even better, try using "said" as sparingly as possible and replacing the dialogue tags with action.  (See this post for ideas.)

 There's a phenomenon in writing--especially material written by young writers-- that I like to call the Mrs. Palmer effect.  Mrs. Palmer, in case you don't remember, is a character in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.  In the 1995 film she remarks that Marianne Dashwood will certainly be soaked to the skin after going out in the rain, to which her husband replies, "Thank you, my dear, I think we have all apprehended that much." When someone writes a sequence of dialogue like this (see below), that's what I call the Mrs. Palmer effect (because it's easier than calling it the Thank-you-my-dear-I-think-we-have-all-apprehended-that-much effect).

  "Please go with me to the party," Lisa begged.
"No, I don't want to!" Sandra yelled loudly.
"You are just so mean," Lisa insulted.
"Take that back," Sandra snapped angrily.
"Girls, stop arguing right now," their mother scolded.
"Mom, pleeeeeeease make her go to the party with me," Lisa whined. "
I'm not going and that's final!" Sandra exploded.

 Oh, cringe. Now, of course, that was an example of the worst of the worst, made up entirely by me.  I didn't copy it from a book, nor did I base it on anything I've actually read.  But believe me, there is writing--published writing--out there that sounds... well, like that.  Ugh. Here's the same conversation, reworked.
  "Please go to the party with me."  Lisa plopped on Sandra's bed and tweaked the book out of her sister's hands.
"No, I don't want to!" Sandra snatched the book back.
Lisa scowled.  "You are just so mean."
"Take that back!" Sandra snapped.
Their mother poked her head around the bedroom door frame.  "Girls, stop arguing right now." "Mom, pleeeeeeeeeease make her go to the party with me!" Lisa put on her most pitiful expression
. "I'm not going and that's final!" Sandra scooped up her book, scrambled off the bed, dove into her closet and slammed the door.

 I'm not going to insult your intelligence by asking which paragraph sounds more natural.  Obviously the dialogue itself is cheesy and uninteresting, but I think you'd agree with me that the action surrounding the conversation in the second version is much better than the stilted synonyms for "said" in the first.  I didn't take out all the dialogue tags, however-- Sandra still "snaps" in the fourth line.  In this case, I felt that saying "snapped" was justified.  It isn't evident from her words that she was snapping, and Mr. Palmer has no reason to thank his dear and tell her that everyone has apprehended that much. Another thing I changed in the second paragraph was the use of adverbs.  In the first paragraph, Sandra yelled loudly and snapped angrily.  Well, of course she yelled loudly.  That's what yelling is: loudness.  Thank you, my dear, I think...  And since we were told that she was snapping at Lisa, we don't need to be further informed that she did it angrily.  I've never heard anyone snap sweetly. But even if you aren't being ridiculously over-redundant (see what I did there?) you can still fall into the trap of adding an adverb after every "said." I know because I used to do it all the time.  He said suavely.  She said coldly.  He said arrogantly.  She said disgustedly...  Blah-de-blah-de-blah.  "Said" is not a baby.  It can stand alone.  Really, it can.  It's been around for a while and doesn't need an adverb to hold it up.  Unless, of course, you are Agatha Christie.  In which case you are permitted to use tons of adverbs in your dialogue tags because they just seem to fit somehow, and besides, everything else you write is sheer genius anyway. But most of us aren't Agatha Christie.   (If you do happen to be Agatha Christie, please leave a comment on this post and make my day.) In conclusion (I do like saying that, it makes everything seem much more important somehow), the way you write your dialogue is completely up to you.  I am not the boss of you, nor am I the expert who knows how to fix everything that's wrong with your writing.  (If, that is, there IS anything wrong with your writing.)  I'm just a scribbler with an overcritical eye, a zest for perfection and an abhorrence of unnecessary synonyms for "said." And, too, maybe I just over-emulate those crotchety writing critics in the Anne and Emily books.  Go ahead and cut out all those flowery passages.  Skip the sunset, too.  And ditch that sap Percival who sits around mooning all the time and never lets a girl get a word in edgewise.  In real life she'd have pitched him.

The Scarlet-Gypsy Song--a last hurrah!

As a sort of Last Hurrah for The Scarlet-Gypsy Song, I thought I would give you some of my favorite bits from the past few weeks. I've been writing like mad--Thursday I wrote over 4,000 words. Enjoy these last few pretties from my dark-haired child! :)

Darby squeezed his fists where they were tied behind his back, feeling that somehow it helped him to think clearer. A clumsy movement beside him brought round a faint hope. Peter Quickenhelm! If Darby could only get Peter to be the object of the panther’s attention for a moment, he might have a chance to slip away. After all, wasn’t it a well-known zoological fact that panthers would stop and gobble whatever you dropped behind you? At least that’s how they told it in the books—that’s why people escaping from panthers often arrived to safety wearing no shoes or hat or jacket or—sometimes—anything at all. Yes. It was an applauded tactic in the old world. Perhaps beasts were similar here.
Darby drove his heel into Peter’s side—hard.
“Ow—whatsermatter?”
Darby took this to mean “what’s the matter” and since it also meant that Peter had regained consciousness, he smiled to himself and kicked again.

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

“Adoniram—you simply can’t be letting Darby and Bertram go to battle—you can’t. It’s…it’s…indecent! If it was happening in London someone would call the Agency.”
The pen stopped. The head rose. The eyes glared. “My love—it is not happening in London. There has not been a battle in the streets of the Capital since the time of your grandfather. Therefore, I would greatly appreciate your silence and a cup of tea. Miss Woodruff—er, Lady Cecelia. Would you be so good as to teach my wife the proper way to do it?”
Mrs. Macefield fluffed her skirt and pursed her lips. “I am certainly capable of making a cup of tea, Adoniram.”
“Doubtless. Nevertheless, the need of tea is imminent and one or the other of you must make it, or I’m afraid the boys will be done for. You’ve no idea what a horrid business it is, writing a battle. I’ve no more idea of what happens in a battle than…than a cockroach does! There are only so many synonyms for ‘hack’ and ‘thrust’ and ‘parry,’ you know. They’ve been hacking and thrusting and parrying for several chapters now and I feel quite exhausted for them.”

-Ibid.

Diccon shifted and gave a smile that was both shy and roguish. “In faith, my little sister, you showed yourself a bit of a vixen.”
Adelaide laughed and curtsied with an arch pursing of her lips.  “A fox caught in a trap is never over-careful of her manners.

-Ibid.

Darby hugged Diccon a bit tighter and shrugged. “I’m fine—I was just wondering if this daft plan would work.”
“Catching the panther in his lair, you mean?”
“Right.” Darby felt Diccon’s muscles rippling under his shirt, and it inspired him a bit of manly courage. “ ‘Course I’m not scared—I’d just think Growlbeard would be too smart for this sort of trick.”
Diccon laughed. “He is a clever beast, but a cat all the same—likes naps in the sunshine and doing his dirty deeds by night. Coming upon him like this in the full light of the morning—we’re like as not to catch him.

-Ibid.

Darkness, punctured with the honey-gold globes of lamplight, filled the banqueting hall. Echoes of that feast before the battle still seemed to whisper in the corners, discussing this new, half-somber celebration. On the dais the King sat, Lord Diccon Quarry at his left hand—Captain Sparrow’s seat at his right empty, as is the custom when a beloved man has died. The Macefield children fanned out on either hand—even the babies—and waited in silence.
For it was silent in the hall—very silent, with a warm sense of expectation that was curiously in keeping with the gold-stitched gloaming of the hall. Lad, Dear-Heart, and Agnes waited like kindly wraiths in the deeper shadows at the end of the table.

-Ibid.

“Oh, Diccon,” she whispered to herself. She had not thought he was by. She had not meant for him to hear those sorrowful words, but his rough hand closed around hers a moment later and she looked up to see him beside her. He did not look at her, and he did not speak, but his hand held hers and she knew all was right.

-Ibid.

Tears ran down Adelaide’s cheeks and blurred the sight of the king’s noble face, pooling it together with the shimmering, honey-colored globes. She tried to stop her tears but it was no use. This fierce ache was familiar somehow, and she had to weep. Why was it familiar? Adelaide could not say, but as she mused on the king’s words it came to her. He had said it was The End…this feeling was that of turning the last page of a splendid book, only magnified and heightened and altogether unbearable. Adelaide sobbed once, and it thrummed through the hush of the hall, startling her into silence again.
Diccon put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. He leaned over and put his mouth close to her ear. “There now, sister-mine. We are only parted by the cover of a book. When you miss me—or any of us—too too much, you have only to ask your father to read to you. I’ll be waiting there for you…there amongst the pages, and you will always be able to find me.” There was a catch in his voice, and when Adelaide wiped her own tears away she saw that Diccon’s jaw was set in a determined line and a lone tear glistened on his cheek as Jupiter or Mar glistens in a winter sky.

-Ibid.

Gone was the dusk-dim light of the banquet hall. Gone were the honey-gold globes. Gone were Diccon and Dear-Heart and all the rest, and Adelaide saw she stood on the strangely familiar marble staircase of…home.

-Ibid.

Dialog--the spice to your story

In my newly restored passion for being a truly great writer, or perhaps more honestly, in my newly restored passion for reading great writers, I've come across a weakness of mine that I plan to mend. That weakness?

Dialog.

My dialog is not the worst that I've come across by any means, but it lacks meatiness. I spend more time in simple dialog without making much of it pack a punch. My characters tend to speak (at the most) three sentences at once. Granted, the sentences they do speak sound realistic and like real dialog, but there is a median ground between realism and monologue.

The book I am reading right now, The Gates of Zion by Brodie Thoene, is full of amazing dialog. His character's words count for something. They are not senseless babble or one-word replies. The dialog is loaded with insight, wit, emotion, and greatness. And the people generally speak more than a couple sentences. ;)

Dialog is such a fertile ground for telling a story. Giving your characters the chance to tell the story rather than you telling it yourself is effective indeed. And I want to remedy my simple little conversations and make them a bit more powerful. That is not to say I want my villain to go off on a three-page rant or my quiet little-girl character to suddenly become a great orator. But there are ways and means.

Ways and means?

Aye, ways and means. 

[Pardon my lapse into North and South there. :] I think of good dialog as having lots of conflict or emotion in it. Perhaps there are moments when you can have both. A good, riveting conversation will be like a fencing match--little thrusts and parries and poking-each-other-in-the-back. To and fros, ups and downs, steel clanking upon steel...that sort of thing. Thus far my characters' words have been effective, somewhat, but rather of the tea-party species instead of the dueling style. Now of course you don't want every conversation to be an argument, nor the quiet, sweet moments to have to have a diabolical plot and reason behind them. Let me give you a quick example of the same setting, one with polite exchanges, the other with conflict.

Let's see...the setting will be a young man trying to send a mysterious letter at a small-town post-office. The mail-girl is unduly curious and it's irritating him.

"I'd like two stamps please."

"Right. That'll be twenty-four cents." The mail-girl leaned against the counter and held her hand out, palm-up.

He fished around in the depths of his suit-pocket and brought out a dusty quarter. "Here. Keep the change."

"Thanks." The quarter landed with a glittering rattle in the cash-register. The mail-girl took a penny out and weighed it in your hand. "Who's it to?" She indicated the letter in the young man's hand and smiled, curious.

"My grandmother."

"She lives in Germany? Wow. That's a long way. Funny. You don't look German." She squinched up her nose and tilted her head, taking in every dark feature of the man before her. "You look Italian to me. Are you sure the letter's for your grandmother? I'd bet this penny it's your girl-friend." She laughed archly and tossed the penny in the air.

"Listen, missy. I haven't got all day. I'll just send this myself if you please." The young man swept out of the post office and dropped the letter in the mailbox, careful to hurl it into the very depths of the blue-tin box.

Right. So that's the polite conversation there. Just the bare minimums to show the guy was getting irritated. Here's how I'd rather write my dialog:

"Two stamps. And hurry--I've got a train to catch." The young man scanned the room with his burning, dark-eyed gaze, as if searching for something.

The mail-girl pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "Right. That'll be twenty-four cents.

"Don't know why postage has gotta' cost so much these days," he mumbled, fumbling in his pocket for change. He brought out a quarter. "Here, keep the change. Who knows? Might be a lucky penny...though in that case I could use the luck."

"Oh? Who's your letter to? Bet it's your girl-friend." The mail-girl leaned over the counter and peered at the address.

He pointedly covered the direction with his hand and licked the stamps, keeping his eyes fastened on the envelope. "It's to my grandmother for your information. Don't know what business it is of yours, though."

She crossed her arms and drummed her fingertips along them. "Huh."

He glanced up and rolled his eyes at her offended interest. "Listen, honey. It's to my ailing grandmother...in Germany. 'Kay? She's sick."

The girl's eyes brightened. "Funny. You don't look German...your nose is too big and your eyes are too dark."

"Hey, tootsie, this isn't a beauty pageant. Can't blame my parents for my looks."

She continued, undaunted. "You look Italian to me. Are you Italian?"

"Maybe that's why I love spaghetti." He clenched his jaw and licked the last stamp, then whirled around. "Listen, missy. I haven't got all day. I'll send this later."

See the difference? I personally would rather read the second example in a book. :) Any great tips for writing dialog? Let me know! ~Rachel