Writing the Opening of Your Story - the TaDa Moment!

Your story starts with the first chapter.

I take that back. Your story starts with the first page.

Oh wait, I mean, your story starts with the first paragraph.

No, sorry, my mistake. Your story starts with the first sentence.

The first SENTENCE. Okay, that makes more sense.

Your first sentence is your "hook" to luring the reader to pause all that they are doing and read your book.

Your hook from the first sentence widens into the first line, the first paragraph, the first page, and the first chapter. All very important in gaining confidence in your writing and success in ensuring your reader.

According to Noah Lukeman, in The First Five Pages, "... the job of the hook is to set the tone for the book..."

Lukeman cautions that the "Hook" is more than a marketing tool. "It can establish a character, narrator or setting, convey a shocking piece of information."

Priscilla Long writes in The Writer's Portable Mentor, "Often a good opening consists of a small sentence that concentrates into its short little self the essence (sometimes the central dramatic conflict) of what follows.

Long lists various ways to use the first sentence:

• Begin with an aphorism.
• Ask the central question of the piece.
• State directly what the piece is about.
• Establish your protagonist's connection to the subject matter at hand.
• Begin with a telling anecdote or quote.
• Rely on the reliable What? When? Where? Why? Who?
• Begin with a good title.

Long suggests that writers collect openings written by others. Keep a sentence book and collect these passages and study from them, learning from them.

K. M. Weiland writes in Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding
Story, "The hook comes in many forms, but stripped down to its lowest common denominator, it's nothing more or less than a question. If we can pique our readers' curiosity, we've got 'em. Simple as that."

Writers want readers to ask, "What's going to happen?" Or, as K.M. Weiland writes, "Readers have to understand enough about the situation to mentally form a specific question. What the heck is going on here? does not qualify as a good opening question."

Your opening to your story must sell the story. You can have the best darn ending ever written but no one will ever read it if they're not hooked in your opening.

K.M. Weiland outlines the traits and parts of a good opening:

• Don't open before the beginning of the story. Don't dump your backstory in your opening.
• Open with characters; preferably the protagonist to connect your character with your reader.
• Open with conflict. Without conflict, you have no story.
• Open with movement. Keep your characters moving.
• Establish the setting to ground your reader in the physicality of the story.
• Orient readers with an establishing shot by presenting the setting and characters' positions within it in a sentence or two.
• Set the tone the reader to understand what type of story they are reading.

Openings give you the best and first opportunity to make a profound statement about your story. It should include as many of the following five parts as you can:

• Inherent Question
• Character
• Setting
• Sweeping Declaration
• Tone

Work on your opening lines. They should introduce your story’s character, plot, setting, theme and voice and send the reader on an unforgettable adventure.

James V. Smith, JR., outlines what a great opener might contain, in The Writer’s Little Helper:

•      A great first line
•       Excitement: high action, high drama, high anxiety
•       An intro to the heroic character
•       An intro to the worthy adversary
•       Problems that stand in the way of the heroic character achieving a worthy goal
•       Your best writing style, to set the tone and to show you can write: action, conflict, imagery, dialogue, irony
•       A feel for the story’s setting and atmosphere
•       Foreshadowing of things to come
•       Above all, a single overwhelming central problem that will only get worse until it appears incapable of being solved, a problem that will defeat the heroic character unless she defeats it in the Closer

A final word of caution from Smith, “Don’t press too hard with these opening words. Just as in trying to meet someone you admire, it’s possible to go breathless and appear needy if you try too hard. You’ll be tempted to overwrite an overwrought opener if you’re not careful. Be cool. Be natural. No matter how hard you have to work at it, make it look easy.”

REFERENCES:

The Writer's Portable Mentor by Priscilla Long

The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story by K. M. Weiland

The Writer’s Little Helper by James V. Smith, JR.

First Drafts - You Have to Start Somewhere

 We all want to write a book, that's why we feed the passion inside of us. But, how many of you have started writing a book, then put it away and started another and then another? Many writers have a "stop, start, stop, start" mentality about their writing. Every time an idea about another book comes into their head, they stop the book they are currently writing and start on the new idea. Then, another idea sweeps into their mind, so they stop their current book again, and start on another new book, again.

That type of writing can be exhausting and infuriating. I can tell you how I handle the numerous ideas that flit in and out of my head every day. Whether they be dreams, articles, words, newspaper articles, overhead conversations (yes, we all do it) or that "must write" book of your passion.

I keep binders with plastic inserts so I can put the things that inspire me about a topic or idea. I write a few words or a sentence or two to help me remember why I was so inspired and put that in with the other items. Then, I close the binder and go back to the current book I'm writing. 

How many binders do I currently have on my shelf? Four 4-inch binders. Packed so full, they are overflowing. 

I know. 

I get a lot of ideas. 

So, now that I went off on that little tangent, let's get back to first drafts. Be truthful, how many first drafts of articles, blog posts, or books do you have cluttering up your desk, computer, head?

Bernard Malamud gives us a great quote about the purpose of first drafts. 

Do you consider this true about your first drafts?

Do you treat your first draft as something that must be written and finished, editing comes later?

Why or why not?

If you edit as you write, will you ever truly finish your book?

For some writers, editing can take a lot of time. Why? For a variety of reasons:

1. They expect their editing to make their writing perfect.
2. They think they are the only writers who can truly appreciate their words and the only ones who can edit appropriately.
3. Editing is "rewriting" and for some writers that could mean a whole "new" book!

BuzzFeed posted a great article of 27 famous writers giving writing/editing advice.

27 Pieces Of Advice For Writers From Famous Authors

Celebrated authors, editors and illustrators write advice to young writers on their hands for “Shared Worlds,” a two-week creative writing summer camp at Wofford College. 

The article is unusual because each author wrote their advice on their hand. 

Another blog post I found extremely helpful comes from YA Science Fiction author, Beth Revis.

The Master List of Writing Tips

I like her website and blog so much, I'm adding it to my Recommended Links.

This button image gives you the greatest advice about First Drafts.

Don't you think? 

Important tip to know: A book cannot be properly edited until the first draft is written. I know that there are a lot of authors/writers out there who will disagree with me, as they write and edit as they go. But, honestly, can you really focus on the story you are writing and making sure there is consistent continuity if you are always changing something?

Don't let this happen to you.

Writing and editing is a slippery slope. Your characters are already trying to write the story the way they think it should be written. If you aren't paying attention, they will run off and either change the outline of the book, or disappear all together. They may even band together and attempt to fight you.

Yes, I do believe my characters have life. My characters talk to me all the time. While I'm writing, after I've written, and before I've started the next book. Get to know your characters. Inside and out. Once you know them intimately, you'll be able to write their story.

Once you've discovered all of your characters' stories, only then than you let go of the control you hold over them and they will be able to tell their own story.















In conclusion, I'll let Nora Roberts have the last word.

Happy Writing,

August Writing Challenges: Day 14 - Your Life by the Numbers

August. The summer is nearly over. Kids are going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the fourteenth challenge we're going to dig into your past:

Here is your challenge:

Start your sentence with "It was a ..."

Now, pick a number between 1 and 10 and write it down so you don't forget it.

Look below at the list and find your number. This is the time of your life through which you will  dig to find a story.

1. While you were still in the womb (based on what family members have told you.)
2. After your birth, but before your own memories kicked in (as told to you by family)
3. When you were four years old.
4. When you were five years old.
5. When you were six years old.
6. When you were seven years old.
7. When you were eight years old.
8. When you were nine years old.
9. When you were ten years old.
10. When you were eleven years old.

Now, write for ten minutes.

Try to find a story that sparks your interest and excitement.

TIP: Tell your story exactly as it happened, or use it as the basis for a piece of semi-autobiographical fiction. 

Have fun with this challenge. It might even start some memory walks among other members of your family.

August Writing Challenges: Day 7 - Story From Image

August. The summer is nearly over. Kids are
going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the seventh challenge we're going to see how well we can create a story from an image:

Here is your challenge:

Find a visual image that makes you feel. Tape, staple, glue, paper clip, whatever, this image to the top of a piece of paper. Write, for thirty minutes, about what's going on with your connection of the image and yourself, and what is going on in the image. Tell a story. 

Answer these questions in your descriptive story (If the image has people in it.)

• Who are they? 
• Where are they?
• To whom do they belong?
• What are they doing right then and why?
• What will they be doing later?

These are bare ideas. Think about some familiar images from our / your culture and try to concoct a narrative from them.

Tell a story.  Let your imagination fly. Whatever you pick, you will be using your ability to pull a story from a frozen, static moment - kind of like a baker pulls a hot tasty baguette from a shapeless lump of dough.

This is an important writing challenge. I believe that the instant your characters and their destinies take shape on a page, they have life. They exist. And it is entirely up to you to make that world a valid place.

IMPORTANT POINT: This is not to say that your fictional world is obliged to be a rational, realistic world. If that were a requisite for literature, then Alice would have have dropped down the White Rabbit's hole.

So, find a picture of something and write about it. Make up a story of what's going on in that moment in that world right then. Fill in with as much detail as you can.

I hope you enjoy this challenge. I enjoy visual journaling. It's like telling a story with only images and words cut from magazines or other papers. 

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The Writer's Secret Magical Genius Part 2

In our recent post, we've discovered that in all writers there is a "genius" that exists of some sort that can be harnessed and used. In this post, we are going to go through the steps on figuring out how to do that.

1. First, to get your genius into action, you must quiet your mind. Learn to hold your mind as still as your body. You will have to practice this. But, there will come a time when you'll be able to do with with some consistency.

2. Practice in Control. Repeat the procedure once a day for several days. Just close your eyes with the idea of holding your mind stead, but feeling no urgency or tension. Once a day, don't push it or attempt to force it. As you begin to get results, make the period a little longer, but never strain over it. If you cannot do this, choose something simple, like a child's rubber ball, (gray is better than something shiny.) Hold the ball in your hand and look at it, confining your attention to that one simple objet and calling your mind back to it quietly whenever it wanders. When you are able to think of nothing but the object for some moments,  take the next step.

3. The Story Idea as the Object. When you have succeeded, even a little, try holding a story idea or a character in your mind, and letting your stillness center around it. You'll see almost incredible results. Ideas will take on color and form; a character that was a puppet will move and breathe. Consciously or unconsciously every successful writer who ever lived calls on this faculty to put the breath of life into his/her creations.

4. The magic in operation. Choose a story at random. Since we are practicing, you may either choose one of your stories or a character from a well-known book. Make a rough outline of the book.l Decide on the main characters, then the secondary characters. See as plainly as possible what crucial situation you would like to put them into, and how you would like to leave them at the end. Don't worry about getting them either in or out of their dilemma; simple see them in it, and then see it resolved. Remember, we are just seeing it set in motion, the means to the end. Think over the whole story in a sort of pleasant indulgent mood, correcting any obvious absurdities, reminding yourself of this or that item which you would like to include if if it could be brought in naturally.

Now, take that rough draft of a story out for a walk with you. You are going to walk till you are mildly tired, and at the time you should be back at your starting place; gauge your distance by that. Get into a smooth and easy swing, not vigorous and athletic - a lazy, loafing walk is better at first, although it may become more rapid later. Now think about your story; let yourself be engrossed in it.-- but think of it as a story, not of how you are going to write it, or what means you will use to get this or that affect. Refuse to let yourself be diverted by anything outside. As you circle back to your starting place, think of the story's end, as though you were laying it aside after reading it.

5. Inducing the "Artistic Coma". Now bathe, still thinking of the story in a desultory way and then go into a dim room. Lie down, flat on your back: the alternative position, to be chosen only if you find that the other ma kew you too drowsy, is to sit not quite fully relaxed in a low, large chair. When you have taken a comfortable position, do not move again: make your body quiet. Then quiet your mind. Lie there, not quite asleep, not quite awake.

After a while -- it may be twenty minutes, it may be an hour; it may be two -- you will feel a definite impulse to rise, a kind of surge of energy. Obey it at once; you will be in a slightly somnambulistic state indifference to everything on earth except what you are about to write; dull to all the outer world but vividly alive to the world of your imagination. Get up and go to your paper or computer, and begin to write. The state you are in at that moment is the state an artist works in. Genius.

6. Valedictory. How good a piece of work emerges depends on you and your life: how sensitive, how discriminating you are, how closely your experience reflects the experience of your potential readers, how thoroughly you have taught yourself the elements of good prose writing, how good an ear you have for rhythm. But, limited or not, you will find, if you have followed the exercises, that you can bring forth a shapely, integrated piece of work by this method. If will have flaws, no doubt; but you will be able to see them objectively and work on eradicating them. By these exercises you have made yourself into a good instrument for the use of your own genius. You are flexible and sturdy, like a good tool. You know what it feels like to work as an artist.

Now, as homework, read all the books you can find on writing fiction. You are at last in a position to have them do you some good. :-)

Resource: Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

The Writer's Secret Magical Genius Part 1

All writers have a third component to their nature - genius. I know, you're mother knew it all along, right?

But, any writers go their entire lifetime, without even recognizing it. Without liberating it. Without working with it. Without understanding it.

So sad.

In Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande says this magnificent statement, "No human being is so poor as to have no  trace of genius; none so great that he comes within infinity of using his own inheritance to the full."

The average man knows nothing of the genius he carries within him.

Others may labor arduously for a glimpse of inspiration. That is not genius.  There is an energy release. Authors know of it. Artists understand it.

Many call it "getting in your stride," "hitting the zone".. or my favorite, "the voices started talking."

Every writer has their own experience of that burst of genius. That sense of clarity. Their own method of releasing the faculty by some trial and error process that they've discovered works for them. It's what starts their "rituals" in their writing. Lighting only strikes when the coffee cup is set here, and the sun is just setting or rising, and the melodies of so and so are playing and the chair is adjusted so.

Am I right?

There is a common denominator if you look at it hard enough. Rhythmical, monotonous, and wordless. That is the key.

As if by putting oneself into a light hypnosis, a writer has found the key to tapping into his/her genius and writing the story to the bones.

Next week we'll discuss the formulaic way into the Writer's Genius.

Writers Resource:

Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

15 Proofreading Tips for Writers

Let me ask you a question: How do you feel when you find a grammar error or typo in a book you are reading? Are you sad for the author? Sad for the editor? Do you feel a bit smug that you found the error and obviously no one else did?

What if it were your own writing and someone else caught the error? How would you feel then?

I'm going to give you some proofreading tips to help reduce the amount of errors or typos found in your writing.

Just follow these tips and hopefully one of your readers won't come across an error and feel a bit superior that they found an error you didn't.

Remember this, Mark Twain said, "The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning-bug & the lightning."

1. The first thing you can do is let your writing rest. For how long? For however long it takes to really get away from it and not have it in your head when you go back to re-read it. According to Hemingway, he wrote the ending to Farewell to Arms 39 times before he was satisfied.

2. Expect to do some rewriting. Leo Tolstoy wrote, "I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again." Rewriting is the best way to learn to write.

3. Proofread in hard copy only. Reading on a computer is too easy to get lost in the writing and not see the errors.

4. Are you sentences properly constructed and clear?

5. Have you checked all questionable spellings?

6. Is your punctuation correct?

7. Have you used proper transitional expressions to tie your paragraphs together? Your chapters together? Does the continuity of the story flow throughout?

8. Does each scene have one clear and concise point of view?

9. Does your dialogue work with the story theme and move the story along or is it stagnant and conversational?

10. Have you read your story aloud? Have you had someone else read your story aloud to you?

11. Silently read your story backwards. This will help you catch many errors that are "hidden" in the story. You will not be caught up in the story and can focus on the words.

12. Proofread for one kind of error at a time. You will have to read your writing several times, but it's worth it if you can concentrate on only finding one kind of error at a time.

13. Always make sure you have double-checked your facts, figures, and names. There are many times I've read a book where the main character is named something like "Carl" in the first 5 chapters, and later changes to "Charles" in the remaining chapters. It can be very confusing to the reader.

14. Don't always rely on your spellchecker, but use your dictionary as well.

15. Always double check our apostrophes and contractions. Make sure they are constructed properly and fused appropriately.

I'm sure there are more tips out there for proofreading but these tips have done me well when it comes to my own writing. My publisher was always happy to receive one of my manuscripts because they knew they didn't have to put in a lot of time editing it. My manuscripts were one of the cleanest they'd ever seen.

Reference: The Least You Should Know About English by Teresa Ferster Glazier

Copyright: bradcalkins / 123RF Stock Photo

Friday Christian Writing Prompt - Last to Leave Church

Fridays will be known as Friday Christian Writing Prompt.

You are the last one to leave church and you hear a loud thump between the aisles. What happens?

Can you make a story out of this exciting prompt? Does it make you think of something inspirational or do you lean toward something spookier or more supernatural?

Is it the second coming or did someone trip and fall?

What do you think?

Do you think you can turn this prompt into a story? Why or Why not?

Determining the Theme or Premise of your Story – What is Your Story About?

It’s a simple enough question. Can’t every writer answer it? What is your story about? Why are you telling this story?

What is your story’s theme?

Other names are theme, root idea, central idea, goal, aim, driving fore, subject, plan, plot, or basic emotion.

In How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey, he says this about premise, “If you think of conflict as the gunpowder of story telling, premise is the cannon.”

If writing a story without a premise is like rowing a boat without oars, we can assume that the premise drives or steers the story. According to Frey, “It is the reason you are writing what you are writing.”

William Foster-Harris, in his widely read The Basic Formulas of Fiction (1994) notes this about premise, “He claims the underlying principle is a “solved illustration of a problem of moral arithmetic,” such as Pride + Love = Happiness.”

The premise defines the story.

In the Gotham Writers’ Workshop Writing Fiction, theme is defined as the container for your story. “Theme will attempt to hold all the elements of your story in place. It’s like a cup. A vessel. A goblet. The plot and characters and dialogue and setting and voice and everything else are all shaped by the vessel.”

While in nonfiction, the author’s premise is a universal truth, it isn’t quite so in fiction. The premise is not provable and somewhat argumentative in the “real world.” Why? The premise of a fiction work is not a universal truth. It’s true only for the particular situation in the novel.

Frey puts it so succinctly, “ The premise of a story is simply a statement of what happens to the characters as a result of the core conflict in the story.”

The options for scene goals are endless and very specific to your story. According to K.M. Weiland, in Structuring your Novel, “your character can want anything in any given scene. But within that universe of options, you must narrow down the desires expressed within your scene to those that will drive the plot.”

According to Roy Peter Clark of, Writing Tools, he uses the analogy of a train engine. “Every writer builds his/her work around a key question: Stories need an engine, a question that the action answers for the reader.”

The engine drives the reader from the beginning of the book, through the conflict and onto the final climax and the end of the story.

To ensure you understand correctly, a dramatic story can have only one premise because it can have only one climax. Once the climax is reached in the story, the core conflict is resolved. In other words, the premise is proved. There are scene goals (subplots) that provide opportunities for goals that aren’t directly related to your primary goal. However, on the contrary, The Gotham’s Writers’ Workshop Writing Fiction,  tells us that stories can have more than one theme, but “it’s best for the writer to have a dominant theme in mind.”

According to Frey, here are some premises that won’t work because they are so generalized they are worthless:

• Strangers are not trustworthy
• Poverty is bad
• War kills people
• Life is good
• Existence leads to death
• Life is too short

However, the above themes can be made sustainable as follows:

• Trust (of a stranger) leads to disillusionment
• Unbridled greed (caused by bring brought up in proverty) leads to alienation
• War brutalizes even the most noble
• Love leads to happiness
• “Existence leads to death” cannot be made viable. It’s a simple statement. Everything dies.
• “Life is too short” also cannot be made into plausible theme. It can serve as the story’s moral, but not it’s theme.

K.M. Weiland gives us options for scene goals:

Your character is going to want:

• Something concrete (an object, a person, etc.)
• Something incorporeal (administration, information, etc.)
• Escape from something physical (imprisonment, pain, etc.)
• Escape from something mental (worry, suspicion, fear, etc.)
• Escape from something emotional (grief, depression, etc.)

While you’re not creating themes that will solve the problems of the world, you just have to give your reader the ability to see what’s there. What makes them want to focus on your novel and read your story.

Ronald B. Tobias wrote in his article “The Question at the Core of Your Story” in The Writer’s Digest Handbook of Writing, that theme, “is the central concern around which a story is structured.” He goes on to say, “Themes shouldn’t be some fuzzy, in-the-back-of-your-mind idea, but a viable, working pattern.”

William C. Knott, in The Craft of Fiction, advises “that you start not with theme, but rather with characters who demand to be whatever life can create for them on the printed page. It is the characters who must galvanize you to write, insisting that you tell their story.” Gotham’s Writers’ Workshop agrees. “One way to avoid overemphasizing your theme is by not beginning there.”

Just start by telling your story.

That said, it must also be said there is no formula for finding the theme of a story. Start with a character or a situation, add a dilemma, and then figure out how it might move forward. This is where you let your imagination run wild. The possibilities are endless.

Lajos Egri, states, “every good premise should contain an element of character, which through conflict leads to a conclusion.” The three C’s of premise. “Character through conflict leads to a conclusion.”

It’s more than okay to use a premise that’s been used before. Someone once said there are no unique stories anymore. Premises are not trademarked or patented. They’re free for the taking.

Identifying your theme or goal, in the first draft of your story may seem easy enough, but as second and fourth drafts occur you are going to have to make sure that your theme touches everything in your story. Those choices you made about theme are going to influence how you revise your story.

A good writer will know which parts of the story to leave in and which to remove. He/She wants to remove those parts that don’t help prove the premise. Simple as that. Once your goal is in place, the rest of your story flows so long as each scene moves the story along and keeps the plot moving forward to achieve the ultimate climax and final goal.

Copyright: edwardsamuel / 123RF Stock Photo

References:
The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing
Gotham Writers' Workshop Writing Fiction
Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark
Structuring Your Novel by K.M. Weiland
How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey

Friday Christian Writing Prompt - List of Words

Fridays will be known as Friday Christian Writing Prompt.

Can you write a short story using the following words: angel, vineyard, shield, shepherd?

Can you make a story out of these words? Do they prompt you with something exciting or life changing?

What do you think?

Do you know of a story in the Bible already with these words? Extra kudos goes to the person who can find it and recall chapter and verse.

Do you think you can turn it into a story? Why or Why not?

Friday Christian Writing Prompt - Bible Character

Friday Five Minute Exercise has run its course. I've given you nearly 100 prompts to help you get your Friday started.

From now until I run out of prompts, I'm going to give you Christian Writing Prompts. We'll see how that goes. If you don't like them, don't do them. If they don't fit it in with what we're trying to do here, let me know and I'll work on something else.

Until then, Fridays will be known as Friday Christian Writing Prompt.

Pick a character in the Bible and describe his/her day. What here his/her struggles, joys, frustrations, etc. Write at least 500 words. Can you make a story out of this?

What do you think? Is there a character in the Bible that you can find to describe their day? Can you uncover their struggles, joys and frustrations? Do you think you can make it 500 words in length? Do you think you can turn it into a story? Why or Why not?

P.S. Once these prompts are completed, we'll work on more prompts. Send in your suggestions about what kinds of prompts to write about and we'll add them to the list.

Dialogue that Propels the Story Forward

"Blah, blah, blah," she said.

"Yup."

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"Didn't understand it, more life it."

"Why you...!"

Have you ever experience or witnessed a conversation like that? Read one in your recent books? Did it make you want to throw the book against the wall and yell, "just get to the point!"

Been there.

Dialogue should be about something. It should move the plot forward in some way or it's useless. Pretty much like the beginning of this blog post, eh?

As a writing coach, it's difficult not to tell my clients that their dialogue just doesn't work, and then try to get them to understand that it must connect with the theme and plot, include tensions and suspense, all while moving the story forward.

So, they usually throw up their hands in despair and ask, "Why write at all?"

I have a trick or two to help you. Actually my trick is Gloria Kempton and her book Dialogue: Techniques and exercises for crafting effective dialogue. The tricks are hers and now yours.

Your Dialogue Must Move The Story Forward
Move the plot forward. Sounds easy, right?
Dialogue is a means to an end, not the end itself. Don't get all caught up in your characters having a great conversation that you forgot what your story was all about and why these two characters were in it.

Simple tip: You engage your characters in conflict and use dialogue to increase their struggle.

According to Ms. Kempton:

Dialogue is one of the fiction elements you can use to propel your plot forward and integrate your theme into each scene. They way you do this is to set your characters up in an animated discussion scene that does any one of a number of things: 

• provides new information to the characters about the conflict, 
• reveals new obstacles that the viewpoint character must overcome to achieve his goal, 
• creates the kind of dynamic between the scene characters that furthers the story's theme, 
• introduces a pivotal moment in the plot that transforms the character(s), 
• set up the discussion so the character (and reader) are reminded of his scene and story goals, 
• and/or accelerates the emotion and story movement to increase the suspense and make the situation more urgent for the characters.

If you remember the seven purpose of dialogues, you can get through this.

Provides New Information
Have your characters talking and then have one of them add a new bit of information that takes the conversation and plot into an entirely new direction. Throw obstacles at your readers.

Reveals New Obstacles
When considering dialogue, an obstacle to a character's goal works the same and throwing in a new topic or conversation direction that creates immediate conflict. The character can express his discomfort verbally, but he's going to have to physically do something to move the story forward.

Increases Suspense
Suspense increases when you keep making it look worse for your characters. You can do this very well with dialogue because the character is already "in the moment" and the reader is "watching" how the character is going to handle the suspense that's been dropped on him.

According to Ms. Kempton: Suspense is achieved in dialogue when the viewpoint character gets "that feeling" about the other character in the scene. Or suddenly realizes that things are not as they seem.

Furthers The Theme
Gloria Kempton loves when an author lets a character reveal the story's theme in dialogue. In her book, "Dialogue" she tells about getting a "kick" out of observing how other writers do it, whether novelists or screenwriters.

She says: When a character announces the story's theme in the middle of a passage of dialogue, it gives the other characters the opportunity to respond and move the action in one direction or another. This can be very effective, because while the reader my not necessarily be able to recognize the theme as the a-ha moment in the story, subconsciously it registers as a pivotal moment and the reader holds her breath, waiting to see how the other characters will respond.

Shows Character Transformation
As writers, we should be changing our characters, in subtle ways, throughout our story. This is why we write fiction. We want to show how our character can change. For the better or worse. In order for a transformation to happen, and our characters changed forever, a profound moment has to happen. In dialogue, it happens with words.

Reveals/Reminds of Goals
Obstacles. That's an important elements when helping characters change and move the story along. Throwing obstacles at your character reminds him/her about their goal, their intention in the scene, and in the story.  To do this the best way possible, you use your protagonist to show these change with action and dialogue.

Gloria says: In every scene, you want to remind your reader of the main character's intention, as this is the way you engage your reader and keep engaging her as the story progresses. Using dialogue for  this purpose is especially effective because the character is stating his goal out loud.

Would you rather your character say around and thought about his passion or reminisced about his intention? Showing with dialogue is so much better. And it moves the scene along.

Keeping Your Characters In Social Settings
I know it sounds simple, but dialogue can't happen if there isn't more than one character. If you have your character talk to themselves too long, the story goes south and the reader becomes bored. So, how do we keep the story moving? Add more than one character to the scene.

Readers really enjoy when characters are engaged in dialogue and action.

Simple Tip: A scene of dialogue must always move the story forward in some way.

There is a strategy for bringing all three elements of the scene together: dialogue, narrative, and action. It's so the scene is balanced and focused on its purpose.

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Resource: Dialogue: Techniques an Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue by Gloria Kempton

Copyright: coramax / 123RF Stock Photo