The beauty of Big Time – and a dialogue request
I was going to talk dialogue this week, only then I noticed the date. The last Friday of August, a tipping point for the year. The last golden breath of summer. The last week of vacation, before:
- Return to school
- Blackberry collecting
- Apple scrumping
- Hello again to socks
- Hedges gather little jewels of purple and red (haws, sloes, damsons, crabapples, all of which are abundant near me)
- Tints of yellow in the leaves
- The long poles of cow parsley have dried out
I live rurally in the fine county of Oxford and – if you have the misfortune to live anywhere else at all – my experience of late summer and early autumn will be different from yours. So, I don’t know, if you live in Australia, you probably associate this season with even more massive spiders than usual, yellow dust storms that last a month, the croc vs kangaroo Olympics, and the chatter of wallabies high up in the eucalyptuses. (Disclosure: I have never been to Australia, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got the country nailed.)
Now we’re talking about time this week, but first a little announcement:
Dialogue
We’ll talk about dialogue next week, and we’ll do that via your own submissions.
Give me some chunks of dialogue to examine next week. Here are the rules:
- Drop your offerings into the comments below this post.
- Max 300 words per submission, please.
- One submission per person.
- Make sure you give us a line or two of explanation first off, so we can understand the context of your scene.
- Don’t email me anything. If it ain’t on Townhouse, I ain’t looking at it.
- If you pop anything in the comments below, I’m gonna assume you’re OK me RIPPING YOUR WORK APART MERCILESSLY IN PUBLIC. If you’re not, then keep your tin hat on and your head below that sandbag parapet.
- Specifically, your work and my comments on it may appear in an email to a lot of people, here on Townhouse and potentially one day in a book. If you don’t want that happen, then please see above in relation to tin hats and parapets.
I only pick work that I basically like, though, so if I pick your work, you’re doing OK.
Okiedoke …
Now back to time:
Movies struggle with Big Time. They can do day to day stuff easily. We see a character going to bed. We see them eating a croissant and drinking coffee. The audience easily conjectures that this is the morning after. Boof.
But Big Time? For movies, that’s hard. The old Hitchcock era movies used to handle those things by pages flipping off a wall calendar, shots of the changing seasons. (Wind! The universal signal of autumn. Snow! The universal signal of winter. And so on.)
Now all that’s a bit crass, a bit heavy. These days, movie makers attempt something slicker, even if it’s just a caption at the bottom of the screen or a speeded-up, CGI of the wind-snow-crocuses model of passing time.
You, a novelist, don’t have the same problem. If you want to tell the reader it was two years later, you can just say “Two years passed.” That’s simple, clean narration. It doesn’t have that CGI, calendar flying clunkiness. No one will resent your simple captioning.
But time offers so much more. It’s not a problem to be dealt with, but a dimension to be embraced. Think of it like place, a silent character, a huge extra richness in your broth.
Here are some examples of how you can use it – but there are a million more. Think of these examples as mere appetite prompters.
Cold Time
Changes in weather is a technique so obvious, it could come close to a flipping calendar in terms of crassness. But it really doesn’t have to be like that. The novel of mine that made most use of the weather was Love Story, with Murders. There, I carefully seeded the earlier chunks of the book with hints of chill and forecasts of something much colder on the way.
Then, before the cold had actually arrived, my character was fussing around with giant red snow shovels and the like, but in a context where those things felt odd and out of place.
Then – the snow arrived. Canadian levels of snow and cold in a country that doesn’t normally get much of either. The snow wrought huge changes in the landscape, but also in Fiona’s life.
Alone in a remote cottage with inadequate provisions, she is forced to adapt her diet:
Make tea. There’s nothing herbal here, so I make do with a regular tea-bag. No milk either, so just brew a pint of hot, black tea in a huge pottery mug. Contrary to my usual habit, I add sugar, to take away the taste of the metallic mountain water, the strongly tannined tea. It tastes like sweetened bog-water, but is nevertheless somehow welcome. A comfort against the cold.
That’s not strictly about either weather or time, and yet it is both. By compelling us to register change, we notice both the cold and the time. And those changes register not just in feelings-of-being-chilly and making-of-log-fires, but also in unexpected ways – earthenware cups and sweet, tannined tea. Time and the cold become multidimensional: they disrupt habits, force giant earthenware cups into our hands, change the taste of tea.
And then, of course, time and the story proceed.
Fiona almost dies in the cold. And then the snow melts, and she encounters her normal landscape, post-snow with its dirty urban water and gritted streets.
Because the changes of weather were viscerally felt by the character herself, the timescape in the book also registered acutely. And the felt passage of time is so close to the actual experience of story, the reader ends up having a deeper experience than they otherwise would. It’s kind of magical, but it definitely happens.
Big Time
My Lieutenant’s Lover began a love story in St Petersburg in 1917 – separated the characters for a quarter of a century – then brought them together again in post-War Berlin.
Any love story needs to achieve the ache of longing, and there are probably more subtle techniques than the one I used. But dropping two world wars, one revolution, plenty of gulag, and a thousand miles of separation between the two characters certainly did the trick. A character only had to glance back over that past – a sentence, two sentences – for the reader to feel the scale of the loss and the longing.
And all those little markers of age – an attractive seventeen-year-old girl turning into a middle-aged Red Army sergeant – made that weight of time present on every page
Also, my choice of time and place meant that the physical world always reflected the passage of time. The Berlin of my love story was a place of rubble. The factory that had once belonged to my male protagonist was so completely bombed out that virtually nothing remained. A youth using its slim remaining shelter christened it the Nichtsfabrik, the Nothing Factory.
That book with its huge, tragic timescape, just felt big to a reader. It wasn’t (by my standards) massively long, but the love story took on an epic quality simply by virtue of the passing years – and the weight with which the readers felt those years.
Precise Time
One of my books, some time back, was struggling in its near-to-final draft. Everything that needed to be there was there. The story had no fundamental problems, but it didn’t yet have the iron hardness of something ready to print.
A couple of things fixed that book. One was just hard editing. Literally, an edit that looked for and deleted spare words, eliminated unwanted sentences. My character’s voice is always taut, even if my writing’s only at 95%. But that extra 5% brought that tautness to a line of constant tension. A glittering brightness.
But the other thing was: nailing the timeline. Figuring out if the gap between Event A and Event B was four days or five days and being explicit about it. The surprising thing about correcting that timeline was that I’d unconsciously been avoiding proper description, because I knew I was blurry about time. So if my character was out and about in central Cardiff, and I didn’t know what day of the week it was, I’d pull back from really describing the streets. A Wednesday quietness? Or a Saturday bustle? The hubbub of a rugby match at the Millennium Stadium? Or pensioners enjoying a discounted Thursday morning haircut?
The precision of timing didn’t just help my readers sort timings through in their heads. More important, it helped me. That last twist of the lens helped achieve that final, defining focus.
That book turned out a good ’un in the end.
***
That’s it from me. The blackberries are early this year, but not sweet. I think we need a day or two of sunshine. Which, oh my merry non-British friends, is something you can completely and utterly rely on in the fine county of Oxford.
Don’t forget I want to see your dialogue snippets. Chuck em below. Follow them thar rules above.
Alistair continues his quest to find the Sun Orb, and the woman who stole it, and arrives at the township of Chead where he is half-heartedly challenged upon entry
‘Purpose for travel?’ the guard asked, for the first time looking straight at him.
‘I’m looking for a woman.’ the guard’s eyes widened then he laughed.
‘A woman? Any woman or one in particular?’
‘A particular one. I reckon she’s the stuff of legends.’ said Al truthfully.
‘There are many women like that one in the world lad.’ Smiling to himself he seemed to come to an internal decision. ‘The goose farmer told me that you were acting strange on the road. Stopping and starting unexpectedly. He thought you were quite mad. I personally think he’s right but you’re not a danger to anyone else so I’ve no reason to stop you. Where are you heading in Chead?’
Al decided to take a chance; ‘A drover mentioned Big Bess at the Crown?’
The guard let out another laugh, this time from the bottom of his belly. ‘Woman of legend indeed! Big Bess is a legendary woman that is true. Go down the street and take the first major left, that’ll lead you down to the Tanners. Keep going until the stench is nigh on unbearable and you’ll find the Crown there. Watch yourself though, it’s not that it’s a rough pub but you’ve got salt of the earth people who drink there and they get a little enthusiastic. Oh and be nice about Bess; they’re rather protective of her.’
1263, the Holy Land and Ralf de Capo is ordered to ensure the peace treaty with the Sultan is maintained. He comes across a number of the Sultan’s men who have been killed and the survivors are about to be executed.
Ralf de Capo, Knight Commander of the Order of St Peter, snapped his head from left to right, staring in disgust at the unbelievable sight before him, ‘What in the name of God do you think you’re doing?’ he snarled.
‘I’m killing our enemies,’ de Chauvigny growled, ‘in the name of God.’
Ralf shook his head in disbelief, ‘You’re breaking the treaty, and risking war with this obscenity!’
‘I risk nothing.’ Standing proudly with his hands on hips, de Chauvigny’s eyes gleamed at what was to come, ‘The only obscenity is the peace, and when these turds are discovered with stakes up their arses, there will be war again, and we will sweep through this land and rid ourselves of these pagan bastards.’
‘You’re insane!’ Ralf could not believe what he was hearing. The peace had taken years to achieve, and this one act could destroy everything his King had worked towards and bring the hordes of the Sultan Qutuz screaming for revenge. Tens of thousand would die, and Ralf could not allow that to happen. He turned to his men and screamed, ‘Prepare!’
As one his men moved forward in line abreast, halving the distance.
De Chauvigny’s men shouted angrily at the provocation and pulled their swords as they prepared to fight men who should have been allies.
‘Hold your blades!’ Robert de Balon shouted the order as de Chauvigny raised his hand for calm. Being on foot they were at a disadvantage, and even they would be hard pressed to survive a mounted attack.
‘A wise move,’ Ralf said as he moved his horse closer to de Chauvigny. He looked at the prisoners again and saw their expressions were a mixture of confusion and hope. It was possible the peace could yet be saved, but he knew some form of retribution would be demanded, ‘This day’s bestiality is over, the prisoners are now mine, and you had better pray you do not hang for this madness!’
This is close to the beginning of my novel, ‘The Kanchenjunga Manifesto’. Four climbers preparing to attempt the legendary Old Man of Hoy have just witnessed it being toppled by an explosion.
Suddenly we were all talking at once.
“What just happened?”
“That didn’t happen. Did—not—happen.”
“I don’t fucking believe it.”
“Half an hour later and we’d have been on that thing.”
And then Dino turned to me. “Did you get any pictures, Si?”
I looked at him a moment; then laughter was almost torn from me. “Fuck me, I videoed the whole fucking thing.”
“That vid’s going to be worth some serious money,” he said.
I just looked at him. I couldn’t deal with it all yet. My knees went wobbly and suddenly I was sitting on the yellow grass trying not to weep. “I can’t believe this just happened,” I said. “Some fucker just blew up the Old Man of Hoy.”
“Blew it up?”
“Are you serious? I thought it just…”
“You have got to be fucking kidding, mate.”
“I’m not kidding. There was an explosion. You all heard it. You felt it. And I fucking filmed it.”
They were still staring at me. “Look at this if you don’t believe me,” I said angrily—though it wasn’t really them I was angry with.
This dialogue takes place between the two protagonists toward the end of the novel. Jewel has just had a nightmare/flashback of the accident that lead to her daughter’s death. She’s locked herself in the bathroom. Her boyfriend is trying to help her through it.
“Jewel?”
She rested her head against the bowl. Cole’s voice was far away but it pulled her back to her surroundings. She was safe at his house, not on a dirt road watching the car that carried Izzy away from her, not in the ER watching a child’s life slip away.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“It’s not nothing. It’s a big deal. Is there anything you want—”
“No! I don’t want to talk about it. Just let it go. Please.”
She heard him messing with the lock and then felt herself gathered into his arms.
“No. I don’t want you to see me like this. Go away.” Wrestling out of his grasp, she crawled to the counter and pulled herself up slowly, using the edge of the sink to steady herself. She splashed water on her face and attempted her breathing exercises.
He handed her a clean towel.
“I locked the door.”
“Right. But you can’t expect me to just stand on the other side of it and listen to you suffering. There’s nothing worse than not being able to hold you when I hear your heart breaking. I did that once and I won’t do it again.”
She stared at the bottom of the sink, couldn’t bear the sight of herself in the mirror.
“I get it if you want to plow ahead and show the world that you don’t need anybody, but you don’t have to do it that way. You’re not alone.”
Flinging the unused towel on the counter, she used her shirt to wipe her face.
Extract from Changelings
In a future Chile Allie is rescuing a street urchin from the police in the Mall who have shot the boy with him, managing to get him into the rear well of the embassy shuttle unseen and hidden by her purchases and a spray of flowers. Her friend, Helena, daughter of the American ambassador has not betrayed her, using her mother’s diplomatic card to prevent the shuttle’s inspection at the gate.
‘I didn’t know you were allowed to use the card.’ Allie’s voice sounded high and thin, contrasting with the idiot pounding of her heart.
‘I’m not.’ Helena chuckled. ‘But stupid Mom leaves it in the car. I don’t usually need it.’ She pressed some more buttons corresponding to the embassy compound on the Viejo de Avila and the shuttle slipped itself effortlessly into the flow of traffic on the main road.
‘So who’s our little pal in the back?’ She swivelled round to peer into the rear of the vehicle, seeing only the spray of flowers.
‘Didn’t you see the excitement?’
‘No. I heard someone saying there were two thieves loose in the Mall but I was too busy getting the shuttle.’
‘They shot one,’ said Allie shortly. She felt her heart constrict again at the thought of the little body lying on the atrium floor and her voice shook. ‘This one was trying to escape. . . . We’re helping him. They’re only children.’
‘Right.’ Helena made some minor adjustments on the console and the shuttle began its slow ascent of the Viejo mountain. ‘So what are you going to do with him?’
Helena at her most laconic, Allie thought.
‘Let him go.’
Her friend raised an eyebrow. ‘You English types are always such suckers for the underdog. I hope he doesn’t take all our bribe money with him when he leaves.’
Allie grinned. Her heart had finally settled into its normal rhythm.
‘You’re just pretending to be hardboiled.’
Helena laughed and then yelled at the small figure in the back who’d carefully lifted his head above the seat. ‘Hé, chiquito! Keep your head down. Cabeza abajo, okay?’
She turned to Allie. ‘So where will we let him out? There’s too many cameras on this stretch.’
Sorry, thick person tech question. I tried to post an extract but it says I’m over 5000 character limit. However I’m reading everyone else’s on here which all seem as long as mine. How do you clever people do this?
The dialogue takes place in 1961 at a Casablanca hotel bar between the ex-pat head of the secret service station in Casablanca, Dowling and the Agent, who dislikes the man he’s been forced to work with.
Dowling arrived looking like the cat who’d caught the canary – he couldn’t wait even for his drink to arrive before showing off his catch.
‘I’ve run the checks you asked me to do on these architects of yours and – well, they threw up a bit of a surprise – a coincidence really. Now, their main office is in Spain but it appears another office was set up in Casablanca a couple of years ago when the firm won a big contract here…’ Dowling paused (likely for impact – he appeared to be enjoying his moment), ‘And it certainly was a big contract,’ he concluded, theatrically casting his gaze out through the picture window, taking in the gentle sweeping curve of the hotel’s frontage.
The Agent caught his drift. ‘This place?’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
‘The fellow in charge runs a successful outfit – his firm not only designed the hotel but the casino as well.’ Dowling waited in vain for the Agent to react.
‘Anything more?’ he asked dismissively, hoping there would be.
‘Yes, I’ve a bit more for you. Your man is highly regarded in his own country as well as being highly respected abroad. Belongs to a school of architecture known as the ‘International Style,’ whatever that might be, but he’s certainly worked all over: South America, Portugal, France, Italy, Lebanon, Algeria – but the hotel and casino represent his first major North African contract. I’ve scribbled the address of the office down here for you.’ Dowling passed the Agent a carefully folded sheet of plain paper (all foreign stations – and not least the Agent’s own department – never used printed stationary unless it were fake).
‘Good work, Dowling,’ the Agent said, begrudgingly taking the note.
This is a piece from my novel titled Paris On A God Break. Just finished final edit. Paris Levesque, the main protagonist, has met a fake Reverend, Anthony Johnson, on a Greyhound bus heading to Los Querolos, hoping to find her estranged son. She has just arrived at his church for the first time and they are taking the first tentative steps towards what will be a lifelong friendship. She’d heard him playing the piano. (Dialogue section 300 words).
(The blackberries in Buckinghamshire need a little sugar as well).
Anthony Johnson was happier pretend preaching to the good souls of Los Querolos than skimming collection buckets at a revival, or, as in a former life, being an enforcer collecting impossible loans from hopeless souls in Poydras, New Orleans. He heard Paris moving about.
‘I’m in here, out back, past the piano.’
She came in and sat and was swallowed up in a deep old armchair.
‘You can play a piano, so what?’ she said.
He just looked at her.
Paris had her loose jeans and checked shirt on.
She said ‘It’s hot in here.’
Anthony Johnson rested his head back in the chair. ‘It’s hot everywhere.’
The room was stuffy, scuffed walls, paint spats on the bare wood floor and a window that half opened against a brick wall. It smelt dusty. Pamphlets were scattered on a low table between the two armchairs.
She said, ‘You don’t say much, do you?’
‘Too many wasted words, don’t you think?’
She asked ‘Why Los Querolos?’
‘God ain’t fussy.’
‘You don’t believe in this shit, do you?’
He said he believed in it enough.
‘So what don’t you believe in?’
‘This conversation.’
Paris said ‘What’s not to believe?’
‘It’s just a crock of slippery words.’
That stopped Paris. She knew it. Knew she was skipping around.
‘So how the hell else do you get to feel someone out?’
She leaned forward and picked up a yellow pamphlet on drug abuse, tossed it back, picked one on child abuse, turned it over and tossed it back. When she looked up, he was looking straight at her.
‘What you looking at?’
‘You don’t know me,’ he said, ‘ask around, I’m not a threat to you.’
She cupped her face in her hands, looked at the floor. Anthony Johnson stood up and went out.
MG fantasy. 12yo Amy’s just encountered a talking mirror on the back of a wardrobe door. It’s already insulted her once, now she’s just asked it what it is.
Amy’s reflection rolled its eyes. ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Tell you what Miss smart as a walnut whip, I’ll give you a couple of clues and we’ll see if you can guess.’ It leaned towards her and then said slowly as though to a toddler, ‘I’m not the wardrobe. And I’m not the wardrobe door.’
Remembering to be offended this time, Amy’s eyebrows came together in a frown so severe, they looked like two hairy caterpillars head butting one another. She eyed the mirror through slits, torn between ignoring its sarcasm and throwing in some of her own.
‘Oh, perfect,’ it added before Amy could decide which. ‘Now the bag of bones has got a monobrow to boot!’
‘You really are not very nice!’ was all Amy could think of to say.
Her reflection shrugged. ‘My dear young lady, the truth is rarely nice and seldom what we want to hear, but I’m afraid it is usually relevant and always necessary.’
Amy’s frown deepened even more if that was possible.
‘Well, I realise you’re a mirror, of course,’ she said, trying her best to keep the tone of her voice even, ‘but the mirrors where I come from don’t talk or move. They just reflect your image.’
The Amy in the mirror looked away, its expression puzzled.
‘For the life of me I positively cannot see why anyone would want that to be the case. What is the point of you seeing yourself exactly as you want to see yourself? Where’s the objectivity in that? Where’s the commentary or the feedback? And above all my dear, sweet, little monobrowed Neanderthal, where’s the artistic merit?’
Not my genre at all but clever and entertaining stuff. Well done!