Topic of the day: Dialogue

Whoo-hoo! Thank god it's Friday, that's all I have to say. This has been like the longest week of my life it seems. My boss has been out of the office which has been great, because I've been able to freely sit here at work and work on the novel that keeps on ticking. The synopsis is done, stick a fork in it. It's still too long, but I'm not going to worry about at this point. I like how it's written, and I'm feeling really good about it. Probably the best I've ever felt about a synopsis truthfully.

I was watching the OC last night for work, and it got me thinking about dialogue. As a former actress, I've prided myself on writing good dialogue. But now I'm writing about teenagers, and they have a whole lingo of their own it seems sometimes. So, I'm watching the OC to get some pointers, although the show is so totally unrealistic. I mean I don't know that many high school seniors who seem to have an endless supply of older babes willing to sleep with them like Ryan does. But it was great to watch my two favorite characters Summer and Seth discussing Ryan and his dates body language.

Dialogue can reveal so much about the character, how they think, what they want, what they're hiding. When I write my first draft, the majority of the novel is nothing but dialogue. I go back during the revisions and fill in all the detail, like who's actually speaking. I read somewhere that if your dialogue is really sharp, you should be able to take away the character's, and the reader will still be able to know who's speaking. Elmore Leonard is a master at that. If you pick up one of his novels, he has pages filled with just dialogue and no tags, but you automatically know who's speaking.

I was feeling pretty confident about my dialogue until I read a YA novel called TTYL by Lauren Myracle that is told totally in IM. Three characters, Maddie, Zoe and Angela. You learn everything you need to know about these characters solely through their interaction with each other. You don't know what they really look like, very little description, just all dialogue. The way Lauren is able to differeniate the three characters is just brilliant. It's made me go back through my manuscript and really examine the way I have my characters talk. What quirks they might have, favorite expressions etc.

It's an ongoing process.

So the question of the day is: Who are your favorite writers in terms of dialogue? Who gets it exactly write for you?

My choices are: Marley Gibson, Eileen Rendahl, Lani Diane Rich, and the goddess herself, Jennifer Crusie.