I took a Playwriting class a few years ago and one of our first assignments was, you guessed it – dialog. Face it, theater is mostly spoken, there are no narratives to explain the character or situation. What happens is spoken or acted out physically. Back to the lesson: our professor said for each of us to go to a public place and eavesdrop. Write the dialog we hear, verbatim. (How cool is that?)

I went to a coffee shop and it was very enlightening. Two young ladies of high school age were talking about dates and looking at fashion magazines. They appeared to be very good friends and spoke in incomplete sentences, finishing thoughts for each other. One or the other often responded before the speaker finished, assuming they knew exactly what was going to come out of their friends mouth. What I heard were fragmented sentences and interuptions and thoughts that hopped from one topic to another.

SO, I used what I heard in a scene where two teen siblings were arguing and bating one another. You can really speed up the story by clipping sentences off, and interuptions are fabulous ways to show emotion in your characters.

The key is “listening” to others speak wherever you go. How do mom’s talk to their toddlers? How do couples in love speak and act? How do old married couples converse? It’s amazing what you will observe. USE IT! You are experiencing real dialog in your day-to-day lives. Recreate it in your story.

Have you noticed that most people don’t speak grammatically. Now days they often speak in a kind of short hand and don’t even complete what they say, punctuating it with body language or a physical act. Here’s an example, teenage Derrin is slouched on the couch with ear buds in his ears, an X-box controller in his hands, eyes glued to the television, feet on the coffee table that is littered with an array of food and drink remains. Mom’s mad. Her hands are on her hips, the dish washing sponge is in her hand and she yells, “Derrin Michael Smith…” splatting his head with the flying sponge. He drops his feet to the floor along side the controller, yanks off one earbud and says, “WHAT!” Mom grits her teeth and says,”Clean up this mess.”

Do you see what I mean? Clipped sentences. Body language. Incomplete thoughts. You will seldom hear mom say, “Derrin, get your feet off of the table, put down the remote, pull out your earbuds, and clean up the mess.” He only hears Derrin and mess anyway, everything in the middle is noise.

Think about it. Try eavesdropping. Try writing a short scene like this and read it aloud. Does it sound realistic? It’s worth a try. Enjoy the writing journey, my friends.

One of my college professors was the inspiration for Regina. She was tall, wore broomstick skirts, had long salt and pepper colored hair, and she didn’t walk, she glided across the room.  A dear friend of mine battled cancer years ago and won, despite being five foot nothing and eighty pounds soaking wet. Her spunk and small stature inspired the character of Tillie. The over weight, abused grandmother, Annabelle was a compilation. She’s soft and loving like my grandmother, she struggles with self confidence like many of us do, but she finds the strength within to stand up against abuse and being controlled by others. I know a lot of fabulous women who have learned to be soft on the outside, but solid rocks on the inside – in order to survive.

I took these special qualities and embedded them into the characters. It was hard to keep their voices straight in those first few pages of the first draft. A character interview revealed a lot of interesting things which affected their dialog. Regina was a haughty control freak like her mother. She was well off financially and suffered from a sense of entitlement. Her parents were not affectionate, so she tends to be aloof.

Tillie became even feistier as I interviewed her. Her parents had died and left her with nothing but debt. She’d never been married, because she helped her folks with their business. To keep sane and have a potential career option she became a chef, and boy can she cook! (Unfortunately, neither my friend Kim nor I are great cooks, so I had to use my imagination and the cooking channel for that trait.)

Annabelle’s parents were poor farmers. Her mother was Regina’s mother’s sister, and her opposite in every way. She was earthy and enjoyed simple things, especially nature. But Annabelle’s dad became abusive. He physically hurt her mother and verbally abused Annabelle. She grew up hearing she was fat and stupid and began believing it. Annabelle married a man very like her father, as is often the case with abused people. For a long time she was convinced she deserved the beatings, but when her daughter began to beat her grandchildren, Annabelle found her spine and put a stop to the abuse.

Most of this came from my imagination, experiences I’ve had growing up and as a feature article journalist. The news tells us about stories like these happening all over the country. You might call FEISTY FAMILY VALUES a slice of life novel. I wanted it to be about growing old graciously, finding inner strength, and forgiveness. But mostly it’s about family and change. No family is perfect, but we can change things like abuse and alcoholism, so future generations do not follow the same path.

If you’re lucky your characters will become almost alive in your mind and on the page. I have a friend who occasionally sees Annabelle at the mall or in the grocery store. Get to know them and they will help you write your story. Promise!

Patience is to endure and to be steadfast. (This P is the First requirement of any goal, ESPECIALLY writing for publication. Keep trying. There’s a lot of rejection in this business and it is tough to take. But if you want to succeed, keep on writing, submitting and learning. Stay on the path to your goal.)

Perseverance is to persist. (I’ve said it before and have to remind myself periodically to not give up. You’ll never succeed if you quit trying. It took ten years for FEISTY FAMILY VALUES to go from concept to bookstore shelves. It received 100 rejections before it was accepted by Five Star. So, even though I’ve had one book published, it doesn’t get any easier with the next one.)

Pluck is courage and fortitude. (If you really want to be a published author, you have to be strong enough to weather the rejections, the criticisms, and the disappointments. You’ve got to believe in your work, keep inproving your craft, and research possibilities for publication. I have a plaque on my wall that reads: “Courage is being scared to death – but saddling up anyway.”~John Wayne)

The 3Ps have similar meanings, but they differ, depending on your perspective and where you are in your writing journey. (Right now I’m having some “patience” trouble with my computer and it is interupting my writing process. A paper notebook and pen allow me to make notes. I much prefer writing on my computer, though. I type faster than I write and no writers cramp.)

Really, the agent querying and waiting for responses is one of the hardest parts. So instead of staring at my email hour upon hour I started another novel. There are several ideas percolating in my brain, so it’s time to get one of them on the page. The acceptance (or rejection) will come whether I’m watching the Inbox or not. (Losing 2 weeks worth of emails due to my computer crash is a mixed blessing. Two were rejections. I made note on my submission log that they were a “no” but I don’t have the emails now to read over and over and torment myself with. This is a good thing.)

You can probably tell that this is a pep talk for me as much as you. We’ve chosen a tough profession, but I have to say “it can be a real fun trip.” Enjoy the journey, my friends. I’ll probably see you down the road.

Thank you to Bonnie Eaton and Hazel Hart.

“The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green (Dutton; ISBN 9780525478812, $17.99)

Review by Beth Golay

In March of 2005, I received a call from our Penguin Children’s Book representative inviting me to a dinner in Kansas City to meet author John Green who had a new book for teens titled “Looking for Alaska.” The week prior I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, but hadn’t met with any surgeons or oncologists just yet. I didn’t know how I was going to make that 2.5 hour drive with my mind racing with cancerous thoughts. Somehow I made it to the restaurant and during the next several hours I was completely entertained by this gentleman, giving me a reprieve from worry for a little while… at least until the drive back home.

I found John Green so funny and charming that for the next few years I would seek out all of his new releases. I cringed my way through “An Abundance of Katherines,” in which the protagonist is dumped nineteen times by girls named Katherine. (Not too far-fetched, considering John Green was dumped 53 times in real life.) And “Paper Towns” he had me clutching my sides while reading bits like: “Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children.” With writing like that, how could I *not* have an author crush on this man who could both make me laugh out loud *and* forget about cancer?

Then a few months ago, I heard a rumor that John Green had a new book coming out. I called the same rep that invited me to dinner all those years ago to see if I could get a preview copy. After signing my name in blood promising I wouldn’t release it to the masses, I received a bound manuscript in the mail. I started reading “The Fault in Our Stars” and… it’s about cancer.

Hazel Lancaster met Augustus Waters at a cancer support group. Hazel [16-years-old; thyroid originally, but now in her lungs] was there because her mother had decided she was depressed. (Hazel found it odd that depression is always listed among the side effects of cancer, when actually it’s a side effect of dying.) Augustus [17-years-old; osteosarcoma] was there to support his friend Isaac [17-years-old; “fantastically improbable eye cancer”] who had already lost one eye, and was about to undergo surgery to remove the other. So Gus and Hazel walked into a support group neither wanted to attend, and a passionate and beautiful friendship emerged that day.

“The Fault in Our Stars” has been embargoed for so long, I’m afraid of spoiling the book for future readers. I will say that John Green has a knack for creating situations that call for plausibly brilliant characters. (Since she was diagnosed at age 13, Hazel was able to get her GED in three years and is taking college classes. Of course she sounds smart. And there’s also something about cancer that makes one grow up in a hurry.) And Green’s plots are completely thought through, providing an extra buffer to criticism. (Hazel’s favorite book soon becomes Gus’s favorite, and why wouldn’t he use his Miracle-Network-ish-wish to fund a trip to Amsterdam to track down the author to see what happens next? It’s not like they have to attend school or anything.)

I once heard a statistic that one-in-three people will have some form of cancer in their lifetime. And with those odds, you can bet that every one of us will be affected somehow by the disease. “The Fault in Our Stars” is a make-you-laugh and make-you-cry book about cancer, but honestly, the subject matter doesn’t make the book. The writing does. And John Green’s writing ability will make you forget about the real world for a little while… at least until the drive back home.

Enjoy!