Rewrite half a dozen exchanges of dialogue you've already written. Drop the headers. Let them roar. Make it crystal clear that each character thinks the other's position is beyond stupid. It's ridiculous. You're not going to use these heated, overwrought arguments in your WIP anyway. You're getting yourself into a CONFLICT IS mindset.
Get the basest 'I want this and you must give it to me' out in front of you on paper where you can SEE it twisting, turning, and thundering. Make it THAT uncivil and be amazed at how many previously unguessed character quirks you'll invent, how much more meat you'll have dressing those bare bones of that thin blonde youth named Bill and his fat, out of shape just joined a gym, friend Andy.
Those (just short of?) knock down drag out fights will discover huge portions of future chapters/plotting FOR you. The positions/WANTS they're both so vehemently attached to FORESHADOW/DETERMINE their future actions, interactions with, and reactions to, each other and your other characters, each with their own different and differing wants.
It doesn't matter whether you're of the "just follow your characters around and see what they do" or the "I impose structure on chaos. Characters are just ink in my pen." school. It works either way.
Arguments are more than one level.
Arguments are not all words.
Body language is every bit as insulting and threatening as screaming "You idiot. You lying son of a bitch."
"If you catch an adverb, kill it." Mark Twain
Rules are made to be broken and while this one isn't my 11th Commandment, it is a major consideration. Adverbs as speech tags, (she cooed, lovingly) are particularly annoying when they're so common your page looks like a target you used to pattern your shot/adverb gun with.
Body language, even without words, says a whole lot more.
Folded arms and a raised eyebrow, in the right place, scream without uttering a syllable, "You're full of shit."
Use body language to reveal the relative power positions/structure between antagonists.
Especially effective coming from a character in an inferior position to the other. Insult the one in the superior position WITHOUT crossing the line. Get through the superior's guard to land a blow WITHOUT getting hit in return for it.
Scaling Body Language.
Just HOW exasperated is one character with another, or events?
Does it merit just one raised brow?
Does it call for a furrow between brows?
Is it a sneer that raises both cheeks and wrinkles the sides of the nose?
How about the good old hard set jaw with eyes and nostrils widening?
Is it a "I'm showing you my teeth as I growl through them for a reason." moment?
Tight pursed lips and squint while pulling gently at their own earlobe?
And that's just the face. Think of how much more you can do with rest of that body.
It doesn't take much and the VISUAL image LASTS LONGER with MORE IMPACT than using adverbs as emotion tags.
The rule of threes.
With body language you can spread it out, one VISUAL IMAGE at a time. It's CUMULATIVE. A character balling their fists does NOT drive the previous scowl you gave them out of the reader's minds eye. It REINFORCES the first image and ESCALATES the CONFLICT.
After 2 or 3 more verbal exchanges the (1) scowling (2) fist clencher (3) shoots out a middle finger, POINTING it at the other character. Body Language act number 3 is the equivalent of picking up a weapon and toying with it.
Something, is going to explode and the reader will keep reading. They have to SEE IT EXPLODE.
If you PACE IT correctly, the reader has no choice. They can't just walk away from this scene. You have written what's called a REAL PAGE TURNER.
What's in a woman's mind when her guy comes in late and she cuts off his first words by turning her face away as she takes a deep breath and puts one hand on her opposing hip?
Do you want to be in his shoes as he starts running a finger between his collar and neck WITHOUT loosening his tie first?
Watch people. It won't take you more than a couple of sideways glances. Boil down what you see into SHORT PHRASES, not sentences. It's easier to remember/FEEL/give VOICE to the IMPACT that way till you get to your pad and pen which you FORGOT in your car's glove box.
Want to make more detailed studies without staring?
Got a TV set and DVDs?
Whose to know that your Saintly grandma is actually Braveheart AND Hannibal Lector?
Once you've got your characters on paper wanting to strangle each other, THEN you can start throttling it back.
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and all that jazz. Still on top after 500 years, and what is it? He's wondering if it might be easier to just kill himself than continue dealing with all this CONFLICT.
Live it out, ON PAPER.
Every conversation, every situation.
Don't just let the monster out of the cage.
Club it out. Beat it out. Torture it out.
Start with nuclear war, sarcasm so caustic it's a flesh eating virus, and trim to fit. It's beats painting pseudo life onto a dept. store mannequin archetype and ending up with psycho zombie, blood drinking Gumby.
If you're still with me at this point, you want something. A Shortcut? An Easier way? Perhaps a Cheat Sheet? Don't laugh. I don't say Cheat Sheet as an insult. CHEATING in a Fight is a Life and Death WINNING STRATEGY.
Nobody gets in a fight to show what a noble and gracious LOSER they are.
People Lie And Cheat.
Authority Figures Don't Care That You Know They're Lying.
So why would your characters be above it?
It was written, multiple choice License Renewal test at DMV year in a major city. Big sign on the front of the 100 foot long counter 'Languages Spoken' from top to bottom read:
1: Cantonese
2: Spanish
3: Tagalog
4: English
As I'm standing in the 'turn it in' line I've been standing in for half a freaking hour, a young Chinese guy ahead of me hands his test over the counter to the examiner.
It takes the examiner two seconds. His eyes widen and his brows rise. I'm 30 feet from him and I catch it. I can't miss it. It's that obvious.
He holds up part of the paperwork the young Chinese guy handed him as a visual aid/evidence accusing this applicant.
"Where did you get this?" he asks the applicant.
"My cousin." The applicant tells him, with an accent you could cut with a knife, POINTING to another guy, a DMV employee, working farther back behind the examiner. There's no hesitation in it. I'm seeing the back of his head and his tone of voice tells me he's smiling. His cousin is 'Doing OK' in America. He's an Insider with a Govt. paycheck.
The examiner storms off to have words with his co-worker, the cousin of the applicant who just handed in the Cheat Sheet his insider cousin gave him, with his Test.
If you read anti Asian, anti Chinese bias into this, take heart little buckaroo. That PC knee jerk, I promise you, will NOT count against you if hitting the Old Gray Whore's (the NYT) Best Seller List is your aim. It's probably a plus.
Months later, when you open that year's car insurance bill, and it's gone up again just like every year, you remember this DMV scene. Boy do you ever remember it. You remember it after you narrowly miss getting T-Boned in an intersection because the other driver can't even read the word STOP on a huge red sign, or understand what only 3 different Colors of Traffic Light mean.
You remember it when your guest gets a $100 plus ticket for parking in your driveway at 3 AM - not from a meter maid but from a uniformed cop - because some disabled person in a wheelchair needs MORE than the 4 feet of clearance your guest left them between their car and your garage door.
You remember it when the uniformed cop tells you it's because 'Someone' called and complained. Your friend is not being ticketed/robbed because that uniformed cop is not revenue gathering. He's doing what a Cop is supposed to do, enforcing the law. Someone out in their wheelchair at 3 AM an hour after the bars close, called, because 'Someone' had to put their Life at risk steering their wheelchair out into the street to get around your friend's car, . . . and it's so quiet that you can't even Hear another car in any direction.
Life truly is a Fight, and then you die.
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