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.
Richard ( who works for MI6) has been hunting his father, wanted for terrorism offences. He is talking to his girlfriend (Becky) who is carrying his child and who doesn’t believe he will settle down and play the dutiful father.
‘How do you know he’s dead when there’s no body?’
Richard stared blankly at Becky and nodded. ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m just trying to say it’s over with my father. We believe he’s dead, but you’re right, we haven’t got a body.’ He smiled. ‘ All I care about now is being with you at the birth of our baby…do you think I could come in? Just for a few minutes to talk about it.’
Becky shrugged her shoulders and stepped aside, pulling the cord of her dressing gown, hardly the welcome he’d hoped for. He tried not to notice the general mess of dirty dinner plates and flowers dying in a vase on the table.
‘You better be quick. I’ve got to go to the doctor for a checkup. I haven’t got long. You’re lucky to catch me.’
He looked around, uneasy about what to say. ‘‘Can I do anything to help tidy up a bit…while you’re out at the doctor’s?’
Becky groaned. ‘You didn’t come to be my house maid.’
He tried to hug her, but she pushed him away.
‘Look Richard. I want to believe it’s over with your father,’ she said. ‘But what if he is dead? I don’t believe it will make any difference. You won’t let it go, will you?’’
‘I’ll pack in the job. Will that convince you?’
She let out a cynical laugh. ‘You don’t seriously expect me to believe that, do you?’ She started combing her hair. ‘You are your father’s son. Addicted to danger, only you’re not as good as him, playing silly games. You could no more settle down to an office job or play the dutiful father. Just like your dad.’
‘I want to change.’ He knew he sounded unconvincing.
‘Face the reality, for fuck sake. The chances of us working out as a couple are zero. I’ve thought a lot about it while you were away. Forget it. ’ She looked at her watch. ‘Is that the time? I’ve got to get dressed.’
The dialogue below is a scene from my memoir written in my childhood voice of an incident that happened when my childhood love and I were very young with a tenant in the compound where we were raised.
Then the next morning was when it started. Jimmy said, “Betcha he’s still drunk.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Betcha you’re ‘afraid to knock on his door!”
So Jimmy beat on the door.
Then, I heard the lock being undone. I thought we should run but we didn’t.
“Well, lookie here, did ya two just come to pay be a visit now?” Beacon said, real smirk looking.
He was cleaning his guns. He said we could watch. He told us where to sit like he was making us. I had to sit next to him in this booth with Jimmy across from us. He had all these guns out, with boxes of shells all over the place.
“You kids is always watchin’ me, ain’t cha? Gigglin’ at me. Answer me, boy! I said ya was always watchin’ me!
“Un-uh.”
“Is that all you can say boy, uh-uh?”
“NO!”
“You’re a real brave one, now ain’t cha? Well now, let’s jus’ see how brave ya are?”
Then he called me Hon.
Said, “Come on Hon, bet ya ain’t never held no gun before. Come on now, just you run your little paddy over that nice cool metal now. Put your finger right on that trigger. Don’t that feel good, huh? Bet ya never aimed a gun at no one neither, huh? Just look right through that sight there right between the eyes of your little brat friend there whose daddy thinks he’s such a smart ass big shot.”
Love the voice!
Jagger, a young actress, has ended up in rehab following an accidental drug overdose. She was adopted into a famous Hollywood family as a baby.
‘Do you think being adopted has left you with a fear of abandonment?’ her therapist asked during one of the second week’s sessions.
Jagger stared at the floor. She wasn’t accustomed to thinking very deeply about her life and didn’t feel particularly interested in analysing it now either.
‘I was just having fun, there’s no deep meaning to it. I’ll stop taking drugs if that’s what everyone wants.’
‘But what do you want, Jagger?’
‘I want everyone to leave me alone. I like going out, I like feeling out of my body sometimes, what’s wrong with that?’
‘Well, might I suggest that some adoptees feel a void inside them, which they may try to fill with substances. Do you understand what I mean by a void?’
‘Er, no, not really…what has this got to do with enjoying going out? That’s perfectly normal for someone my age surely?’
‘Of course it is, but if you think about it some more, are there any other slightly dangerous behaviours you might be indulging in too?’
Jagger thought about Miggy, all the weed she smoked, the tattoo, and the fact she regularly got into cars driven by intoxicated friends.
‘Not really, this was a one-off, I’m usually working really hard.’
She could keep this game up forever if necessary, but had to figure out which approach would get her out of here most quickly. ‘Look, I know I made a mistake, and I’m very sorry I scared my mum and dad, but I really don’t have a problem with drugs or anything else. My life is pretty cool.’
The therapist smiled gently. ‘Ok, Jagger, we can speak again tomorrow. Have a think about what I’ve said though.’
Here’s the ending of a short story I’m trying to improve. It’s about Ange, who has a difficult relationship with her mother, and finds some complicated emotions surfacing during her mother’s cancer treatment.
When she went back to the hospital, Joy was awake.
“How’re you doing?” Ange asked her. “You look better.” Ange’s plastic apron rustled as she sat down, near her mother’s head, her knee against the bed.
“Got my appetite back,” said Joy.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I could murder a chip butty.”
“Huh.” Ange was silent for a moment, not thinking about cancer or obesity or emotional labour or the role of food in the lives of women and their relationships with their mothers, but about chips and bread. “We’ll get you a chip butty from the Battered Cod when you’re out of here,” she said.
“I never like to buy a chip butty from the shop already made, though,” said Joy. “I like to buy a portion of chips and take it home and make it myself. You can use what bread you like, then.”
“What bread d’you like?”
“For chip butties? You know what, I quite like wholemeal. I do! Something about the rough bread with the soft potato. It works. You should try it.”
“I will. White bread for crisp sandwiches, though.”
“Oh, always. Salt and vinegar crisps and the softest white bread you can find.”
“It’s the contrast.”
“Yeah.”
In the silent moments between sentences Ange wondered if this might be enough, now. The meals cooked and the cupcakes baked, the visits and the Facebook posts and the blood, and now this: to sit here, absently patting her mother’s arm through the baby-blue hospital blanket, and to talk about food, as the rack next to Ange drained fluids out of her mother and pumped other fluids in, and the fan on the bedside table droned faintly, and from time to time the nurses spoke in low voices, unseen but nearby.
The narrator of my novel, The Name in Shadow, has recently arrived in Moscow to investigate a childhood trauma, and is feeling anxious about his new surroundings. His host has suggested he contact a journalist friend of his, and he meets him for the first time in a posh hotel bar…
‘Tea? You want tea? Come on!’ He mutters to the waiter, after which Yuri turns to me. ‘Here they make great vodka cocktails. You should try.’
I force a lame smile. ‘OK.’
‘Why do you smile?’
‘I… Being polite, I suppose.’
‘You should have reason to smile. In Russia, we say anyone who smiles without reason is a fool. Are you a fool?’
‘No. It’s—’
Before I can finish, he slaps me hard on my thigh and lets out a roar of laughter. ‘Don’t worry! This is not serious!’
‘Absolutely.’ I drop my shoulders. Must relax. ‘By the way, how should I address you? The naming convention here—’
‘Yuri! What else? Maybe old bastard?’ Another roar.
‘I thought Yuri might be short for a longer name.’
‘Yuri is Yuri. Diminutive is no shorter: Yura. So, Yuri is fine. Or you can call me George. Is same.’
‘Oh, right. I’ll stick with Yuri, then. I ought to be learning a little Russian.’
‘Good. My name is same as first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. True hero. Ah, our drinks.’ The waiter places them on the table. Yuri’s seems to be neat vodka; mine is a lurid pink.
‘You’re not having the same as me?’
‘No. Pure vodka. Is good.’ We both pick up our glasses. ‘Why do you watch me that way? You think because I’m journalist I must always drink? It’s… What is right word?’
‘Stereotype?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Typical?’
‘Yes, but typical journalist or typical Russian?’
‘I really couldn’t say.’ I’m beginning to sound like a demure heroine in a Jane Austen novel.
Yuri polishes off his vodka. ‘I like this bar,’ he says.
‘I’m not surprised. It’s beautiful.’
‘No, because is open twenty-four hours. Very useful. Here I can lubricate my contacts with drink. Like oil in car engine.’
Here’s an extract from my novel, Social Death, which is about a snarky barmaid who has to find out how long she can stay dead on the internet when she’s alive in real life.
When Morgan’s shadowy ex-boyfriend David posts on Facebook that she’s dead, she sees this as a test to prove that she is worthy of his dubious love. She has been pretending to be dead, but got freaked out when she thought the police were after her, so has run to her friend Delia, revealing that she is alive after all. In the lines before this, Delia and Morgan have yelled at each other, then both apologised. Delia is now trying to find out what’s going on.
“What’s David done now?” Delia asks.
“You’ve always had it in for him, haven’t you?” I say, taking a glug of my whisky. I try to make my voice jokey, but it doesn’t work.
Delia side-eyes me.
“Yes, Morgan, I have always had it in for David. And given the events of the past few days, I don’t think you can blame me. Why was he posting on Facebook that you’re dead, when you’re sitting here in front of me, totally fine?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” I say, and again, my voice sounds weaker than I had hoped it might.
“What does it look like, Morgan? How can it not be what it looks like when what it looks like is an incomprehensible mess?”
“It is an incomprehensible mess,” I say, agreeing with her as hard as I can. “I don’t know what’s going on either. But I’ve felt so bad about you thinking I’m dead, and I thought the police were after me, and – ”
“The police? Why would the police be after you?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe they weren’t, but they were outside the hotel, and maybe they were after me, cos you called them, didn’t you, so I panicked and, well, here I am.”
There’s a pause.
“Thanks for being here,” I say, looking at the plush cream carpet.
“It’s OK.” She sighs. And then, “Speaking of incomprehensible messes, what the hell have you done to your hair?”
I grin and put my hand up to my tiger-striped hair, which has developed a weird, matted texture.
“You don’t like it? I did it myself!”
“No kidding,” says Delia. “I thought Charles Worthington himself had been on the case. I wasn’t asking who had done it. I was asking why.”
Set during WW2. Angela left her aunt’s house after a blazing row but is forced to return six weeks later. Cynthia does not want her to be there.
‘Hello, Cynthia’ I said. After our last conversation I did not feel the respect towards her to warrant calling her aunt.
‘Hello, Angela.’ Cynthia returned to her pie-making then stopped what she was doing. ‘I suppose I will have to make this do for you as well’ she said as she turned round again.
‘I’ve got some coupons I can give you.’
‘Good. It’s not easy you know; everything rationed.’
‘I’ll help out as best I can.’
Cynthia turned her attention back to her pie then asked ‘How long are you back for?’
‘Only a week.’
Using her rolling pin Cynthia picked up the rough round of rolled pastry she had made and then draped it across the pie dish; the filling looked to be potato, cabbage and carrots. She deftly crimped the edge between finger and thumb to seal the top to the side then trimmed round the dish with a knife. She made a hole in the centre then carefully brushed the top with beaten egg yolk.
‘At least I’ve got enough eggs now; managed to get a few hens.’
Cynthia put the pie in the oven then turned to me, wiping her floury hands on her apron.
‘Where the hell did you go?’ she asked.
‘To London. Didn’t you get my letter?’ Timmy had insisted that I write whilst I was at Seryngton.
‘Yes, I got it. Gone to get a job was about all it said. So did you get the job?’ Cynthia asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Well?’
‘It’s not the sort of job I can tell you anything about. Sorry.’
‘Hm’ Cynthia said as she considered the import of my words. ‘Secret stuff, eh?’
‘Yes, secret stuff.’
‘Well bully for you.’
From my completed novel ‘Love Not Included’. Ava, having been encouraged by her mother to mistrust men, and determined never to fall in love, is invited to a dinner party by Bella and her mother, Miranda. Divorced Miranda, who is currently a reality TV sensation famous for having much younger lovers, has purposely invited a couple, Esme and Rupert, to prove to Ava that she is on her side.
‘So, do you still think married bliss is an impossible ideal?’
Ava started. The timing was uncanny. Or was she that transparent?
‘Miranda, what are you – a mind reader?’
Miranda ignored the comment, but continued, eyes twinkling mischievously.
‘If I say that one couple here is not all it seems, who would you suppose I meant?’
Ava shot her a questioning look. Miranda was giving nothing away. She was enjoying herself, revelling in her mysteriousness.
‘Jonty and Louise, of course. But everyone knows that.’
With a dismissive wave of her white diamond beringed hand Miranda instantly discounted the Chapmans. ‘Obviously, I don’t mean them.’
Ava began to feel worried. ‘If you say Bella and Tim, I’d say you were delusional. You can’t be suggesting that.’
‘Naturally not.’ Miranda smiled triumphantly.
Ava was astounded. ‘Then that only leaves Rupert and Esmé. I’ve only just met them, of course, but I was just thinking how devoted they seemed.’ That’s the understatement of the year, she added to herself.
Again, the air of mystery. ‘Never judge by appearances. Take it from me – all is not well in the Allen camp.’
‘No. I’d have put money on that couple growing old together. Don’t tell me Rupert has a bit on the side too. That’s shaken even my limited faith in human nature.’
‘Not Rupert,’ Miranda was obviously enjoying this. ‘He’s a sweetie if a trifle dull. No, let’s just say that Esmé is a little less than faithful.’
‘Esmé has affairs? You’re having me on.’
‘I swear on Bella’s life. Not with men, though. I happen to know she’s a closet lesbian.’
This was becoming more astonishing by the moment. ‘Are you sure? How could you possibly know?’
Miranda gave her a knowing glance. A light flicked on in Ava’s brain.
‘You? She tried it on with you? I don’t believe it!’
Miranda pressed her hand to her chest, feigning indignation. ‘Hey, don’t sound so surprised. I might not be your type, but I’ll have you know, some people tell me they find me quite attractive. Haven’t you been reading my publicity? By the way, in case you’re interested, I declined her advances. I don’t want to ruin my man-eating reputation, do I?’
Ava started to laugh. She laughed so much her stomach ached.
‘Thank you, Miranda. You don’t know how much you’ve set my mind at rest. And to think I nearly fell for all that happy-ever-after claptrap. I must be going soft. Now I know why you invited Esme; you really are on my side, aren’t you?’
Hi all, this is an extract from commercial fiction novel, Love Regained. Beth’s ex, Anthony, broke her heart when he moved to America. She has just started to move on with someone new when Anthony unexpectedly calls her. Due to a mobile phone mis-hap, the only number he has for her is her home landline. Beth’s dad takes exception to him getting back in touch.
‘I had the number changed. I was going to tell you.’ Dad puffed himself up like a pigeon after a mate, despite the look I was giving him.
I’d been to the shops, had tried to ring Dad on the home phone while I was there to see if he needed anything, only to find the number ‘unobtainable’. I collared Dad as soon as I got in. He’d been looking shifty for days.
‘When? And what the hell for, Dad?’
‘Telemarketers,’ he said with a smirk.
‘Telemarketers? Since when?’
‘They’re always ringing; double glazing, time-share, pensions … I’m sick of it, girl. And besides, I fancied a change.’
‘Don’t give me that rubbish. If you fancied a change you’d try a different beer or one of those Stilton and bacon pasties; you wouldn’t change your bloody phone number. I knew you were listening in my conversations!’
He’d clearly considered the ‘telemarketers’ explanation bullet proof and was lost for words now that it hadn’t stood up under scrutiny. ‘All right,’ he eventually said, ‘you got me. But can you blame me? I knew it was that Anthony you were talking to. I didn’t want to see you getting hurt again, that’s all.’
This is an extract from Grail Maiden Book 1: Awaking the Magic, a Middle Grade fantasy series. Aelwen, a young Welsh princess, is being given a choice of futures. (Welsh woman had much more autonomy than their English counterparts.) This section feels a little awkward to me – but it’s an awkward conversation (she’s a spiky young lady and her mother is worried about her reaction), so maybe that’s how it should be?
‘Perhaps now is a good time to talk about your future – what might happen when you’re better.’
Oh, that. I remember the discussion I overheard. I have definite views on this subject.
‘I’ve been thinking about that, Mother. I really, really, want to learn to be a bard.’
She nods. ‘Yes, Derwen told us. And I think you’d be good at it, I really do. But there is another option, and I want you to consider it very carefully.’
I don’t think I will.
‘Prince Rhion, the son of King Idwal of Clwyd, has made an offer for your hand in marriage.’ She sees my expression and hurries on. ‘I’m sure you haven’t thought of marriage yet – you are only 12 …’
‘I don’t want to get married.’
‘Please, hear me out. We may soon have need of allies. The Irish Vikings are raiding along the coast again, and your father worries it may get worse. Marriage is the usual way to cement an alliance, so we really need you to think about this offer.’
I can feel my forehead furrowing into one of my stubborn frowns. ‘I don’t want to get married. Not ever.’ It’s a flat statement that brooks no argument.
Mother sighs. ‘I can understand that, darling. I felt the same at your age. But it could be difficult to forge an alliance without this marriage. Please, think about it.’
‘I won’t change my mind.’
She gives up, for now. ‘Anyway, your father and I have been talking, and we think it may be helpful, whatever you decide, if you learn some of the skills we use in Court, and that Derwen also uses in his role as your father’s bard. They may be applied differently, but the skills are roughly the same.’