Dialogue

In revising my current work in progress, I found I focused more on the way a character slips a clue into the conversation or drops a telling point while engaged in an irrelevant activity and less on the dialogue itself.

In every conversation, in life and in fiction, two interlocutors have different goals. They could be lovers or best friends or enemies or co-workers—any two individuals—and no matter their relationship, each wants something different. This may not be spelled out for the reader, or even for the writer, but if the character has authenticity he or she will want something specific.

Consider a conversation between two co-workers who are on a team to develop a program for a fundraiser. They both want the fundraiser to succeed because if it doesn’t, each one will look bad but also their jobs may be in jeopardy. But under that umbrella are hidden other interests. One may be acutely aware of his subordinate position on the committee and want desperately to show what he can do. Another might be aware that there is a general air of competition around them, and this makes her nervous. She wants to focus on the work, and not on the interpersonal problems. Another member of the team may be struggling with a crush on one of the others and think twice or thrice on everything he says in order to not make a bad impression. And together they and the rest of the team have to come up with a plan. They agree on the over-arching goal but nothing else.

Two women have lunch together, and both work as editors in different publishing houses. But one wants to quit and find something less stressful to do, while the other is hankering after a raise and ways to impress her boss. As colleagues, it’s important they get along, but they are at opposite ends of the professional spectrum now.

One of the ways I ensure my characters sound different as they work their way through the dialogue is to match their vocabulary with their feelings. Of the two editors, only one will feel “trashed,” her suggestions “ripped to shreds,” and her editing “picked apart.” The other woman will hear instead which passages “missed the mark in her comments to the author,” and look for more sensitive phrasing she can use in her work. In her conversation, she wants “possibilities,” but not “dead ends” or “corners” with no way out.

The competitive co-worker on the fundraising team may be looking for a colleague’s weak spot by listening for “not sure that will work” or “we haven’t tried that before for a reason,” all those phrases that suggest timidity. This is his opening, and he’ll take it with “we can make this work” and “I’ve got a great strategy for this” enthusiasm.

For a mystery writer, any dialogue can be an exchange of significant information between a character and the reader, but it is different between the characters themselves, and that’s what I try to keep in mind as I write and revise.

Naming Characters

 

Revising my current work-in-progress requires one or two new characters, so I’m trying to come up with names that suit their role and personality. This is a task that is both fun and important. The wrong name can make the character feel like a misfire in the story, and throw off the reader.

Some years ago I submitted a manuscript to an editor I knew who had accepted other work from me, and when she returned it she pointed out that all the character names began with the letter P. Until she wrote that, I hadn’t noticed. How had I missed that? I was clearly in a rut.

Over the years I’ve tried whatever name comes to mind, which is what often leads to characters with the same initial letter, the same cultural background, or names so similar that they confuse the reader. Then I tried a couple of name generators, but they tended to produce names all from the world of WASPs.

Like any writer I have various print resources, including a book that brags it has 15,000 baby names organized by language, ethnicity, gender, and including definitions and some famous individuals by them. Reading through these lists can be fun and distracting, and not always productive.

Did you know that Mhairie, Scottish from the Hebrew Miryam, means “bitterness,” “rebellion,” and “wished-for child.” The last definition is lovely, but a child carrying the first one could resent her parents mightily. Dyami means “eagle” in a Native American language, and would perhaps carry the child to great heights.

Most of these techniques or devices didn’t satisfy me. When I used what I thought was an easy to accept but unusual name, one of my Beta readers struggled with it, so out it went. And yet I see more and more in print names that I’ve never encountered before and whose origins I can't begin to identify—a sign of our expanding world and cultural environment but one that doesn’t really help me.

Instead of looking around me for the perfect name I’ve taken a closer look at the character and tried to get a name that seems to speak about who he or she is. Hence the main character in the first book of my new series, Felicity O’Brien, is both Irish and endowed with happiness and occasionally bliss, but also with a love of knowing. She is the daughter of women who also bore unusual names that spoke to their character. Her mother, Charity, is shown to have an especially generous heart in the first book. Not every character has an unusual name, but I enjoyed calling the owner of the local sawmill Dingel Mantell, and his daughter Padma. 

Names that were once common seem unusual to us now, even idiosyncratic and peculiar, and among these I often find just the right one for a particular character. This is a task in the writing of a novel or short story that seems obstructive when I want to get writing, but in the end I generally feel so comfortable with the person I've uncovered with the appropriate name that I count the time well spent.