The Taylor Stevens Show

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Thank you! We put out the call for dialogue from your work in process and you delivered!

A few weeks ago we asked that listeners send in some dialogue we could use as a concrete example for a future show and several of you were kind enough and brave enough to submit. Taylor selected a scene from a larger work for multiple reasons. One, because it was already very good. But more importantly, there were multiple examples of things we could cover that we felt would be useful to listeners, in addition to the dialogue.

We’ll be going over this scene in detail over the next few weeks, with Taylor making suggestions and providing actual copies of what she marked up for the shows, in addition to before and after versions of what we cover each week. We cover dialogue today, but over the next two weeks we’ll get into show versus tell and point of view issues.

This week’s episode begins with a review of Bouchercon 2016, where Taylor was presented with the Barry Award for her book, THE MASK.  Mystery author Carol Newsome took the following picture of Taylor accepting the award.

We discuss the award, which comes from Deadly Pleasures Magazine, and then discuss the reader / listener meetup, where this photo of Taylor and long time Taylor reader and podcast listener Joan was taken.

Then we get onto breaking down breaking down the dialogue in the submitted material for this week’s podcast.  We selected a few paragraphs from a larger scene.  The paragraphs we worked on this week are in italics.

“Look, baby,” the man growled around a cigar, “it’s not that you don’t have talent, you clearly do. But you bring too many problems, so I can’t work with you.” The man rocked back in his beat-up warehouse chair, its springs squeaking loudly while stuffing poked out of tears in the leather.

Michelle was incensed. “Such as?”

“Your music for one. I can’t sell it.”

“What’s the matter with my music?”

“Well, nothing, and everything. It’s pretty, and you’ve got a great voice. But you just don’t fit.”

“What does that mean?” Michelle had taken an instant dislike to the man, but at this point she’d gone so far down the ladder of possible agents she didn’t have much other choice. She was repelled by his office, which was filthy and grimy, and by the man himself, who, sadly, fit in with it.

Fat. Comb-over. Dirty fingernails and a stained white shirt with the tails out in back. Brown plaid jacket. What a repulsive mess!

“Look, honey, the music business is all about marketing,” the man said, totally oblivious to the irony he presented. “If I’m going to sell you I have to know where you fit. But you’re not country, you’re not rock and roll, you’re not rap. You’re not anything. I don’t know where to pigeon-hole your music, so I don’t know how to sell it.”

“What else?” Michelle simmered.

“Well look at you. You’re freakin’ gorgeous. That oughta be a huge plus. I oughta be able to use your looks to market you. But you’ve already said, ‘No photos.’ Now what the hell is that all about? You think half the women singing C-W would be as big if they didn’t market their looks along with their songs?”

Michelle’s anger began to bubble over. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, a biggee. You won’t listen. You don’t get to do that until you’ve gone platinum, gorgeous. For crying out loud, here I been trying to help you and you won’t listen to a damn thing I tell you. Oh no, you gotta do it your way!”

The man stubbed out his smelly black cigar and reached into a drawer to pull out another, which he quickly lit with a match that stank up the room nearly as badly as the foul smelling cigar. He blew out the flame with a cloud of smoke and tossed it in an ashtray full of butts and burnt matches.

Taylor scanned the notes she’d prepared for the show and those images are below:

The finished version (not the final – there is still work to be done over the next two episodes) with Taylor’s dialogue changes is below:

“Look, baby,” the man growled around a cigar. “You got talent, but you bring too many problems. Can’t work with you.” The man rocked back in a beat-up warehouse chair, springs squeaking loudly, stuffing poking out of tears in the leather.

Michelle was incensed. “Such as?”

“You don’t fit.”

“What does that mean?” Michelle had taken an instant dislike to the man, but at this point she’d gone so far down the ladder of possible agents she didn’t have much other choice. She was repelled by his office, which was filthy and grimy, and by the man himself, who, sadly, fit in with it.

Fat. Comb-over. Dirty fingernails and a stained white shirt with the tails out in back. Brown plaid jacket. What a repulsive mess!

“Look, honey, the music business is about marketing,” the man said. “If I’m going to sell you I have to know where you fit. You’re not country, you’re not rock and roll, you’re not rap. You’re not anything.

Michelle simmered. “What else?”

“You got looks, that’s a marketing plus. But no photos? What the hell’s that about? You think half the women in C-W would be big without looks to go with their music?

Michelle’s anger began to bubble over. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, gorgeous, a biggie. You don’t listen.” BEAT ONE. “You don’t get to do that until you’ve gone platinum.” BEAT TWO, BEAT THREE. “I been trying to help you and you don’t do a damn thing I say. Oh no, its gotta be your way!”

(The BEATS inserted between the dialogue above will make sense after you listen to the episode.)

Thanks so much for joining us again this week.

If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.

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If you write dialogue correctly, the reader is already going to know, from everything that came before the dialogue and came after the dialogue in that sentence, what the character’s state of mind is.”

                        — Taylor

Today’s show is part two of our three-part series on writing dialogue.  Part one was about writing internal dialogue and part three (in two weeks) will be actually breaking down a writing sample from a willing listener.

We begin this week’s podcast by exploring some of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of writing, specifically the three that deal with writing dialogue. Those are:

3. Never us a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois sparingly.

While we’re discussing those rules, Taylor shares some rules of her own, including an editing tip that uses with each manuscript.

Then we move on to a more general discussion of writing dialogue, and how the best dialogue sounds like real people having a real conversation. As an example, Taylor uses the following, grammatically correct sentence: “I don’t think that’s possible.” The sentence is fine, but she believes most people would say, “Not possible.”

We get into the danger of writing stilted conversation and ways of avoiding it, including the liberal use of contractions.

We finish our discussion with some thoughts on using beats to break up large blocks of conversation to avoid the dreaded wall of text. Then, since we all have our favorite dialogue beats (mine is the word glared), Taylor shares her technique for balancing them out in later drafts of your manuscript.

The show opens with a discussion of Taylor’s trip to Bouchercon, including her reader / listener meetup which will take place soon after her 3:30 panel on Writing Violence ends. The gathering will take place at 55 Fahrenheit Lounge / Bar on Friday, September 16th, at 5:00 (ish) o’clock.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week.

If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.

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