Tuesday, August 14, 2012

"Wish I could write dialogue like that."

I received a message from a new fan. I'll call her Mary since that was the name she signed on the note. Mary credited me for making my characters "very human, believable" with the "enviable talent of creating dialogue." After replaying the compliment for the feel-good after glow I gave thought to characterization and dialogue, both common threads in reviews written for Among the Jimson Weeds.

I've reached the conclusion that characters and dialogue can't be separated:
  • You must know your character before dialogue can be written (translate effective).
  • Characters are identified by their dialogue. 
I'm going to tell you how I do it and why. We're as different as our fictional characters and their dialogue, so it may not work for you. Then again, maybe it will.

I don't write a word until I know my characters inside and out. Although important, I don't limit the characteristics to favorite foods, hobby, religion, age, height and eye color. I crawl right up inside their head and don't relent until I discover how they think, their quirks, what pisses them off, their deepest darkest secrets and habits good and bad--eating habits, sexual habits, sleeping habits.

Once I know what makes my characters tick, I put them in the story plot and away we go.

My brain may be wired differently due to ADD/HD, and the characters of my novels get in my head and talk to me whether I want them to or not. It's good. It's good because they let me know when I have them doing something they wouldn't do. It's good because they tell me what to say and how they would say it.

They come to life, and that makes them believable.

This is how I do characterization and dialogue. Perhaps the minds of creative people--writers, artists are weird in their own way. Think of Toulouse-Lautrec and his Parisian shady haunts or VanGough and his missing ear.