The Order of Narrative Bits and Dialogue
In Today's Journal
* Quote of the Day (and Commentary)
* Correction
* The Order of Narrative Bits and Dialogue
* If You Don't Follow Dean Wesley Smith
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
"It’s not the process of writing I love, it’s discovering something new and then telling others about it." Dr. Mardy Grothe (see Of Interest)
Commentary
Dr. Grothe went on to write, "For me, reading and researching is like panning for gold and writing is like sharing the nuggets."
He was talking about discovering, compiling, and sharing with others quotations on various topics.
But it struck me that what he describes in the Quote of the Day above is exactly what we who write fiction into the dark do also: we discover something new (our characters' lives) and then tell others about it.
Of course, we love the process AND the rest, but then everyone loves magic, don't they?
I enjoyed the Cartoon of the Week too, in which is featured one of the more pervasive myths. Be sure to catch Dr. Mardy in Of Interest.
Correction
In yesterday's issue of TNDJ, I included a link to "100-year-old predictions about 2025." But the link led to a 404 Page Not Found error.
This is the correct link. (Thanks, Ann S.)
The Order of Narrative Bits and Dialogue
This is important.
Recently, in my current novel, I wrote this paragraph:
In my mind, the imaginary Imelda frowned. “Escuse me?”
Note: The dialogue is in dialect. The word is not misspelled or a typo.
Writing that passage brought to mind an exchange I had with a student writer some years ago.
I have always maintained—and taught—that any descriptive narrative should occur before the pertinent line of dialogue so the reader can 'hear' the tone of voice as the character speaks.
If the descriptive narrative comes after the line of dialogue, it will often interrupt the reading.
The reader will read the dialogue, then 'hear' the tone of the character's voice, then go back and re-read the line of dialogue with the new information in mind. You've probably done this yourself as you're reading.
And yes, the same is true for dialogue tag lines (he said, she said). Those too should come ahead of the dialogue, or at worst, interrupt it. And for the same reason: Give the reader the information he needs about which character is speaking up front.
But my student argued that the reverse was actually true. That the narrative 'beat' should come after the line of dialogue.
I should note, that advice came from another writing instructor for whose course she had paid a lot of money.
Now, I love a good argument about writing, so I suppose I should thank that writing instructor for handing out such bad advice. And if I could "fix" that bad advice for everyone he passed it along to, I might thank him.
But of course I can't get to all of them, so the damage is done. And that writing instructor should be selling shoes or on a dock offloading ships or doing something else constructive instead of handing out bad writing advice.
So I asked the student writer why she agreed with that instructor's advice.
She said, "Because as he pointed out, the POV character can't possibly hear the tone of the other character's voice until after she's spoken."
Okay, that's wrong too. The other characters in the scene (including the POV character) actually hears the dialogue character's tone of voice AS s/he's speaking.
As I told her, that should be your first clue.
Still, on the surface, the faux instructor's advice sounds valid to some.
But as I patiently explained to my student, the POV character and other characters are IN the story—and in the scene—with the character who spoke, so they're fully aware of that character's tone of voice or mood because they actually heard it as s/he spoke.
The reader, on the other hand, is not in the story anymore than the writer is.
Therefore, the narrative description isn't there for the POV or other characters. They don't need it. The narrative description is there for the readers so they too can hear the character's tone or mood.
As I wrote at the beginning, if the reader reads the dialogue first and then learns the tone of the character's voice, he will in all likelihood go back to reread the dialogue with the new information in mind.
And the writer will have broken the first rule of fiction writing: Never interrupt the reading of your own work.
Every interruption, intentional or otherwise, provides the reader with a convenient opportunity to put your book down and go find something else to do.
TNDJ is an instructional blog, so I welcome any dissenting opinions. Avidly. Leave a comment or email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
If You Don't Follow Dean Wesley Smith's Blog
now would be the time to start. As he talks about his story-a-day challenge, he's dropping gold nuggets all over the place.
I recommend reading
Talk with you again later.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week: “The Best Thing Ever Said on Writing"
Help! I’ve Been Replaced by AI! A True Story
How to Build an Email List from Scratch
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 890
Writing of Blackwell Ops 34: Soloman Payne
Day 1…… 2005 words. To date…… 2005
Day 2…… 2992 words. To date…… 4997
Day 3…… 3998 words. To date…… 8995
Day 4…… 4591 words. To date…… 13586
Fiction for January…………………… 13586
Fiction for 2025………………………. 13586
Nonfiction for January……………….. 5000
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 5000
2025 consumable words…………….. 18586
Average Fiction WPD (January)……. 3397
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 0
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………….... 104
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 270
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
Thanks for your heartwarming words about my recent Substack post, Harvey. I had never before thought of myself as "Writing Into the Dark," but I'm now delighted to be member of the club!
I think this description of narrative and dialogue finally made it into my brain. I'd gotten parts of it before but it all clicked this time (and will hopefully stick). I'm going to go back right now and read it all again to help.
Good "of interest" also.
Thanks Harvey!