He Said, She Said

I recently received a rather unexpected comment on something I had written, and I think I did a good job of responding politely.  Like most writers, I greatly look forward to comments, either positive or negative.  Naturally, we like the positive nods because it means, usually, we did something well.  I pause with usually because there are readers who regularly write “great job” no matter how great or poor your “job” might have been.

Some of us actually prefer negative comments because there is always the potential for someone to accurately point out something that’s inaccurate.  No matter how carefully we revise, there are always spelling, punctuation, or other errors we will miss.  Just today I was lucky enough to have a friend find that I had written “were” when it should have been “where,” or maybe it was the other way around.  Either way, my thanks to Sverrir.

Another reason to enjoy negative comments is so we can learn something we previously had not known.  For example, last week I read a short story in which the writer used “mom” and “dad” several times, but too often he capitalized them incorrectly.  I left a comment explaining the rules for capitalizing titles such as mom, dad, grandmother, uncle, etc.  I have not yet returned to his blog to see if my comment was appreciated.  Probably not well, but that’s not what I’m here to write about.

A few weeks ago I wrote a flash fiction piece for which I found a critical remark from a reader who did not like my attributions.  I only used “he said” and “she said” instead of things like “he exclaimed” or “she cried” etc.  Perhaps you can tell, but this inspired another “Writing 2.0” blog post, of which you are now in the middle.

You might not know that dialogue is my strongest writing skill, and part of dialogue is attribution, of course.  I go along with advice from Ernest Hemingway, whom I paraphrase: 

If  your dialogue is written well, you don’t need anything more than “he said” or “she said.” 

Let’s think about that.

     “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked.

     “What the hell is wrong with you?” she said.

Putting aside the fact that I hear this on a daily basis, let’s look at the difference between the two sentences.  One used “asked” and one used “said.”  Only 99% of you will tell me that “asked” is correct, to which I respond, “Why?”  I know it’s a question, yeah, because of that curly thing.  I do not need the attribution of “asked” to know it’s a question.  Whether the spoken words are interrogative or declarative, she still “said” something.  If you asked, you spoke.  And if you spoke, you said.  Nobody is going to read “What the hell is wrong with you?” and not know it was a question when it is NOT followed by “she asked.”  And if you don’t know it’s a question, then you don’t know how to read.

Hopefully, you never suffered through any of the Twilight books.  While reading the first two – because my kid asked (not said) me too – I had a list of some horrible attributions.  Can’t find the list, so I’ll recreate them as best I can.

     “I don’t really care,” she said staring out the window abstractedly.

This uses “said,” but it adds the stupid adverb “abstractedly.”  It could be the writer really meant “distractedly,” but this is what was printed.

This next line was written as an answer to a question:

     “No,” he disagreed.

Really?  Are readers unaware that “no” signifies disagreement?

I think you get the idea.  I’m going to put down a few lines of dialogue, each with two choices for attribution.  You decide which works better, and feel free to explain your choices.

     “Holy batshit!” he exclaimed / she said / (or nothing).

     “Get away from my car!” she shouted / she said / (or nothing).

     “Shh.  They’ll hear us,” she whispered / he said / (or nothing).

     “Please!  No!  Wait!” he cried / he said / (or nothing).

Most writers will go with the first choices of exclaimed, shouted, whispered, and cried because they are the easiest choices.  Really, you can’t lose because nobody will complain.  However, I will submit that the context is enough so that we only need said.  I will go even further as to say my preference would be nothing.

Let me be clear about something that was lost in translation until I was reminded by List of X.  I am not saying NEVER use words like shouted, cried, and whispered.  I AM saying that if you spend time using a thesaurus to find unique attributions because you think it makes you a better writer - don't.  It doesn't make you a better writer.  Use those other words sparingly, but stick mainly with "said" or "asked."  

Your job as a writer is not to teach me new vocabulary.  Your job as a writer is to teach me a new story.

Of course we would need more narrative around the quotes, but I would wager that there would be enough context included that we wouldn’t need anything more than just the dialogue.  In context, there likely would be no mistaking which character would be exclaiming, shouting, whispering, or crying.  For example:

     Luke watched in amazement as Tex rode the bull well beyond nine seconds.  “Holy batshit!”

Considering that Tex is riding the bull, it is not very likely he would also yell “Holy batshit!”  It is more likely that Luke would have said this as Tex is probably unable to speak.

     Marie was walking through the parking lot when she saw two boys crouched next to one of her tires.  “Get away from my car!”

Thanks to the set up, we know there’s only one possible person who could say this.

     “I think the kids are awake,” David said to his wife.
     “Shh!  They’ll hear us.”

It is safe to assume his wife had answered him, and it is safe to assume she whispered.

     The gunman raised his pistol, taking aim at Joseph’s forehead.  “Please!  No!  Wait!”

Anyone want to guess who would have said this line?

Another instance in which poorly written dialogue drives me up a wall is when to use names in direct address.  For example:

     “Diane, can you answer the phone?”

     “Can you answer the phone?”

The obvious difference here is the use of a name in direct address, when you directly speak to a specific person.  Most writers use this unnecessarily and incorrectly.  More often than not, written dialogue involves only two people at a time.  If that is the case, why use the other person’s name if there are only two people?  If a married couple named Diane and Jack are talking to each other, they know only the two of them are present.  They can’t possibly accidentally talk to someone else.  If Jack only says, “Can you answer the phone?” there is no way Diane could ever say, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were talking to me.”  So please believe that 9 times out of 10, you won’t need to use the name.  But what about the other 1 out of 10?

Let’s put it in context.

     Jack was heading for the bathroom when the phone rang.  “Can you answer the phone?”

You want to guess who is making this statement?  Jack or Diane?  Should be easy. That’s 9 out of 10.  What about that leftover 1?  Let’s give that a shot.

     “I don’t either.”

     “I don’t either, Jack.”

These two lines seem silly on their own, so I’m going to add context.  Then you tell me which one is the better choice.

After ten minutes of nothing but forks stabbing at chicken and vegetables, Jack broke the silence.  “I don’t understand why you got fired.”

     “I don’t either.”

     “I don’t either, Jack.”

In the first one, without the name, we can assume that Diane is unhappy about being fired.  As previously stated, we usually don’t use the other person’s name when there are only two people - unless we are angry and feel a need to direct anger towards that person.  It brings emphasis and intent.  It kind of throws something back at or sort of reduces the other person. That's what happens in the second sentence, the one with "Jack."  Using "Jack" tells us that Diane is not only unhappy but she's also unhappy with Jack.  Maybe Jack didn't do anything wrong, but maybe Diane is tired of being asked.  Maybe Jack is blaming her for getting herself fired.  Or maybe you don't know Jack.

Try it out with a friend, or your significant other.  Say it to them, or let them say it to you.  When you hear your name, you will feel something, and it won’t be a hug.  Maybe more like a dart.  Or, maybe you already know what I'm talking about because it already happens too often.

Good luck, Writer.

Show - Don't Tell

“Every good writer has been told - Show, don’t tell.  And every bad writer needs to be told again.” – a guy named Eddie.

There are a million people looking for writing advice and another million ready to provide it.  However, just because someone offers something doesn’t mean that the something is worth taking.  Just ask the man in the trench coat.  If the most common piece of writer’s advice is Show, don’t tell, then why do those three words need to be repeated so often?  Either those offering or those receiving, or both, don’t really understand what it means.

Warning: if any of the following writing samples seem like something you may have written, then either this is purely a coincidence or you purely need to pay attention.

1. “I think you have the wrong house,” she said angrily.

2. “I think you have the wrong house,” she said shyly.

3. “I think you have the wrong house,” she said teasingly.

4. “I think you have the wrong house,” she said happily.

You might have a good grasp of what’s happening here, but you might not be impressed.  Either way, these are all good/bad examples of telling instead of showing.  It is the same line of dialogue each time, which is okay.  What’s not okay is the context – which doesn’t really exist.  The only difference is the one adverb at the end of each attribution.

What’s an attribution?  The “he said” or “she said” that usually accompanies dialogue and identifies the speaker.  The problem here is that each attribution is the same except for that one adverb.  There’s nothing wrong with adverbs except in sentences like the four above because there is nothing interesting about just one adverb.  That’s why good writers try to avoid overusing them.  Notice I said “try.”

In each of those sentences, we are “told” how the woman feels: happy, angry, shy, teasy.  Horny.  Whatever.  Just follow along.  There are two problems.  First, when reading the dialogue – “I think you have the wrong house” – we have no idea what’s happening until after the spoken words are over.  It would be more interesting if we had some context before the words came out.  You know - context clues.  Here is the same line of dialogue, four times, but with a little something added.

1. With a tight jaw and sharp eyes, she growled, “I think you have the wrong house.”

2. She showed one eye where the door was open only a few inches, then she whispered, “I think you have the wrong house.”

3. She raised one eyebrow, hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her cut-off jeans, and shifted her barefoot stance from one hip to the other.  “I think you have the wrong house.”

4. She removed his company cap, put it backwards on her own head, and shrugged.  “I think you have the wrong house.”

Readers aren’t stupid.  Most readers aren’t stupid.  You’re not stupid.  Right?  You don’t want to complete a puzzle with sequentially numbered pieces.  You don’t want a maze that has a map.  And you don’t want to be told what is happening.  You want to see it for yourself.  You want to feel it, experience it, uncover it, and be there as it is revealed in front of your eyes.

You don’t want to be told that a woman was scared to death when a carjacker knocked her into the backseat and drove her car away.  You want to see her white-knuckle grip on the door handle as she weighs opening the door and rolling out as he slows to 40 mph around a turn.

Let’s look back at the woman who answered the door.  Not the angry one.  The tease.  If I want to tell you more about her, I might mention her having “ruby red lips” or “lips painted crimson.”  Sound good?  No – it doesn’t.  It sucks.  What good is it to tell you a color when I can show you a color?  Names of colors are meaningless, except on crayons.  Then they're fun.  What matters are things that actually are those colors.

Her lips held a shine as if she had just kissed blood.

Now we’re getting somewhere.  I want to know more about this woman.  Instead of telling you she has red lips, I’m showing you not just a thing that is red but a thing that holds a lot of mystery and feeling.  Blood.  Yeah, she bad.  Blood is bad.  There’s never a good reason to see blood, unless you’re on a table making a donation to the Red Cross.  This chick is bad.  How bad?  We don’t really know yet, but I would love to find out.  If we’re lucky, maybe she will “show” us just how bad she is.  Like that time I was in the parking lot of a bar in Philly and I – well – nevermind.

Focus.  Focus.  Well, let's think about it.  If your slutty neighbor is fooling around with the cable guy, would you prefer she tell you or show you?

That's what I thought.

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Write and Wrong

Too many people spout off about too many things about which they don’t know enough.  And then there’s me.  I spout off about things about which I am certain, unlike those aforementioned fools.  I mean, what do they know?  They’re just uneducated people with uneducated opinions.  Am I right?  Well, sometimes, yeah.  I suppose.  Of the few things about which you can’t argue with me, language is one of them.  When I make a statement on language, don’t waste your time arguing.  Just learn from it.  Ready to learn?  Too bad.

I don’t read.  I listen.  I don’t read books in print or ebook.  I listen to books on CD during a combined two and sometimes three-hour daily commute.  Listening to books on CD is a mixed blessing because it makes the well-written passages sound like music.  For example, I wasn’t a fan of The Hunger Games, but I loved the sentence in which Katniss climbed a tree to “get as far away from today as possible.” 

Unfortunately, books on CD also make poorly written sentences sound like a coffee can full of nails rolling down a concrete path.  I can’t nail it down verbatim, but there was a line from The Shining in which Stephen King referred to a brass bar that moved “vibratorily.”  That was a great/bad one, but unfortunately, or fortunately, it escapes me at the moment.

Please keep something important in mind:  there’s a difference between a poorly written sentence and poor writing habits.  Poor sentences can be a one-time thing, but this post is about habits because habits are both repeatable and correctable.  Fix a habit and you prevent future bad sentences from ever happening.  It’s like that “teach a man to fish” proverb, thing, line from the Bible.  The Bible. 

Anyway, there are a few language issues that you might have that you don’t even know you have, and I’m going to do you a big favor and straighten you – I mean – straighten them out.  Some of you might have seen these examples from me already, but that was about five years ago.  If this is redundant for you, deal with it.  I mean, thanks for reading it again.

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1. Either

Have you read or written a sentence like this before? 

The highway stretched miles into the distance and was lined by tall trees on either side.

Well, it’s wrong.  “Either” means a choice, one or the other.  You use “either” for something like “You can either have pizza or a sandwich for lunch.”  Or “We can either go to the beach or camping.”  One or the other, not both.  In the above sentence, I don’t think the trees were either on one side of the highway or the other side.  The trees were on both sides of the highway.  Or, the trees were on each side of the highway.  The correct sentence should be

The highway stretched for miles into the distance and was lined by tall trees on each side.

“Each” means both sides.  “Either” does not.  Stop using it incorrectly.  I don’t believe I have ever – not ever – seen that used correctly in any book ever.  When I hear it on CD, it is like a kitten clawing at my ears.  It means well, but it’s ripping my skin.  Please get it right.

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2. I Knew It

Here’s another sentence element I hate:

When I saw the gun aimed right at me, I knew I was going to die.

That’s not true.  You didn’t know.  If you know something, then it is real and inarguable.  Not sure if that's a word, but what you know is a fact that cannot be undone or untrue.  What writers are getting wrong is that a character may have believed or was convinced he or she was going to die, but – unless one actually died – one could not know it. 

I don’t care what you find on dictionary.com or Merriam-webster.com.  You can always find a fourth definition that leans in the direction of “having a belief,” but good writing does not stretch or twist the most significant definitions of language.  Don’t use know unless it is a fact or dialogue.  If through dialogue someone says they know something, it is okay if they don’t actually know it.  However, if written in first person, then the person still can’t know they were going to die because they would never have lived in order to tell the story.

It could be this usage is a poor attempt to make a reader think the character might actually be about to die, although ten times out of nine we already know the person will survive the moment.  Either that or it is just lazy writing.  Although I’ve seen this in some of the most popular books on the shelves, its use can’t be justified.

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3. Lost and Found

Here’s another element you have definitely read and probably have written more often than you would guess, and I hate it.

I was walking mindlessly at night when I suddenly found myself in a bad section of town.

Can we please stop?  Can we find a new way of explaining that you weren’t paying attention to your surroundings or actions, causing you to be in an unfamiliar or unexpected situation?  Of course, that’s too much, but I’m tired of found myself.  I swear I just finished a book in which that was used at least ten times, and it was a relatively short book compared to most fiction.  

Let’s find alternatives…

…when I suddenly realized I had wandered into a bad section of town
…when I noticed I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.
…when I wasn’t exactly sure where I had gotten off to.
…when I seemed to be in an unfamiliar place.
…when nothing around me looked as it should have.
…when things around me were not what I expected.

I can do this all day, but I know I won't ever write that I suddenly found myself.  And I hope that each of you never writes it either.

Who Uses Outlines?

I was recently asked about my writing process. Do I use outlines? Do you plot a story or just make it up as you go along? Please keep in mind that what works for one person might not ever work for anyone else or even that one person ever again except that one time.

For my most recent title, Connecting Flight, here’s what happened:

In mid November, 2011, a plane carrying two coaches of the Oklahoma State women’s basketball team crashed. After seeing the story on the news, I wondered about the last moments of the two coaches, one male and one female. I wondered what might go through the minds of people on a plane that is plummeting to earth and death is certain or at least likely. What do people think about? What do they do or say? Did they pray, cry, scream, or something else? And then I settled on what I would likely say. “I’m not ready to die. I’m not ready to die.”

And then I wondered about that proverbial light we’re supposed to see upon death, and I wondered what would happen if I or they were truly not ready to die. What if they refused to go into that good light? What if they just wandered away? And what if they lived (no pun intended) up to that ghost theory that some spirits are here because of “unfinished business”? What if?

I had the beginning of a story, but I couldn’t use the basketball coaches because that would be wrong. So I did what most writers do – I put myself into it. I made the male ghost an uptight math teacher. I needed the female to be different, so she at first she was a rather uneducated, stay-at-home wife. However, after going through several drafts, I eventually realized that she needed something in her past to haunt her. (Again, no pun intended.) She eventually became a model/actress. Then she became a model/actress of the kind with very little clothing. That was because she needed to have something in her past to hide and something to make her resist going to “heaven” because of a fear of being rejected based on that past. There’s more to it than that, but it’s enough for now.



I had people. I needed reasons. They are both on a plane together going from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. He is going to spy on his wife whom he thinks is having an affair. She is going on business, another “modeling” job, so to speak. She also suspects her husband is having an affair, but he has provided her with a great amount of wealth and material things that she shares a good deal with her less-fortunate family, so she quietly takes one for the team.  No pun intended.  I had a connection between them - both suspected their spouses of cheating.

But that’s not important right now. What’s important is the process. What I first did was treat the story as I always do – like a movie. I write outlines and, unlike some writers, I cannot work without one. Mine begins with a setting followed by the important events that should happen in that scene/chapter. Here are the first three scenes/chapters in the outline:

1. Philly airport
    a. Ann and Chris, nervous, getting on plane, Philly airport,
    b. neither happy, notice each other, assume fear of flying
    c. small talk, both hinting but hiding something,
    d. turbulence, distracted, notice wedding rings
    e. Plane going down, people freaking, ann and Chris hold hands tightly, repeating “I’m not ready to die”            intensity so great they can’t let go, plane hits, all goes dark

2. Airport runway or wreckage site
   a. smoke clearing, EMT all around, blood, wreckage, triage, yelling.
   b. Ann and Chris looking in disbelief, sounds muffled in and out, vision blurry at times
   c. They’re perfectly clean, most others are a mess
   d. Both know something is wrong, not sure what, see a few others like them
   e. Some others walking away, looking back at them, waving for them to follow
   f. Still holding hands, pull apart, big Zap! Touch again, painful Zap keeps them away
   g. Ball of bright light, others going in, Ann and Chris refuse
   h. See man crying, bloody, next to lifeless body of wife, kids too
   i. Leave area, run quickly, not looking, ambulance goes through them.

3. Random places away from crash site
   a. Panicking, crying, debating what to do, to go into the light or not
   b. Agree they not finished on earth, things to do still
   c. Discuss movies, ghost clues, rules, what they can and can’t do?
   d. Ann tells him to be more of a “man” when he cries. He admits he’s not.
   e. Do we eat? Sleep? Piss? Guess we’ll find out.
   f. Where did others go? why didn’t we go? people say spirits don’t know they're dead
   g. But we know. But we not ready? Tired. Do we sleep? Mental detox.

This is not exactly how the story went, but it was the first, maybe second version of an outline. Although the original outline only had 14 chapters, I eventually ended up with 18. I always print my outlines so that I can keep them in front of me on the desk as I type. I constantly check each line to make sure I’m going in order, although there’s always room for changes and improvising. I also print the outlines because I like the visual of crossing off numbers and letters as I write. It helps give me a sense of progress and accomplishment. Another part of my process is basically "watching a movie." When I type, I imagine that I'm watching a movie in my head, and I am simply writing what I am watching. It allows me to write a lot in a short period of time, but it does have drawbacks, such as a drifting point of view and too much dialogue. Oh well. That's what revising is for.

So, the crash was in November of 2011. I had an outline finished by January of 2012. Normally an outline doesn’t take that long, but I was still teaching then and didn’t have a great deal of time to work on it. However, as January began, I knew that I was about to leave the profession, so that motivated me to work more quickly and enjoyably on the outline.

I started typing the first draft somewhere around February 1, 2012, and I finished that somewhere about the first week of March. It was right about then that I started working more at blogging, having just gotten my first few followers. That’s when I first started posting chapters as blog posts for feedback. There were some incredibly nice people who seemed to be reading and greatly enjoying the chapters. Not a lot of critical feedback, but a lot of polite praise. A few people even tweeted out my chapters for others to read, and I was gaining more and more blog followers. It was nice.



Somewhere in June of 2012 I began revising. The story was too short and the ending was too easy. I had rushed it and nobody was interested in the queries I had e-mailed.  I knew I had work to do and spent the summer revising heavily. But that’s when I was really starting to enjoy the blog following that was growing. Between chapters, I was writing humor, essays, posting photography, and I had also gotten hooked on the flash fiction thing. Writing and revising were pushed aside, far aside. I had an audience to feed, and it felt nice.

I won’t recount that episode because I have already spelled it out in Writing 2.0, which brought me back to writing fiction. It had been a year since I originally wrote the story, and it wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was I. That’s when I did two things at once:

1. Revised the chapters a second time in the form of a third draft.

2. I posted the new chapters for a new audience who immediately helped me revise it further for a fourth draft. It grew from 18 chapters and 50,000 words to 25 chapters and 76,000 words in about six weeks, and I could not have done any of it without an outline.

In January of 2014 it was accepted by a small print, Whiskey Creek Press, and was set to be released in July. However, Whiskey Creek was sold to Start Publishing, a small company that has bought up a handful of small presses and is in the process of re-prioritizing their publishing schedule. So I have no idea when it might actually be released. But that's now what we're here for today.

One last example of the benefits of outlining is the currently outline I am writing, which includes the page above.  It's a time travel story, and my outline was written out to 20 chapters.  Although I felt ready to start the first draft, I still followed my process of typing the outline.  A fortunate choice because, while typing it out, I realized there were several holes in my story's timeline.  It's a time travel story, and there are going to be continuity issues.  While typing, I realized that I had the wrong target year in the past for my character to visit.  Once I changed that one element, I realized the domino effect waiting to happen and then had several other necessary changes.

Had I started the first draft without typing the outline, I likely would have written thousands of words that would have eventually been scrapped.  Another good reason to outline - revisiting your story and making sure your story is going to hold water.  Or beer.  Do yourself a favor and try an outline.  It's like revising but a lot shorter, and I could save your character from ending up in 1993 instead of 1990.  I don't even want to think about how embarrassing that could have been.

How about you? Do you use outlines?

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