Maryka Biaggio
If you missed Maryka’s talk from three years ago, I strongly suggest you look it up on our website (just type “Maryka” into the search on the left hand side of your screen).
You can find Maryka’s excellent PowerPoint presentation on Detail and Dialogue at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LanguageDialogue.2023.pptx and see her books at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screen-Shot-2022-04-10-at-10.24.30-AM.png And if you want to sign up for her newsletter, go to http://www.marykabiaggio.com/
Maryka provided excellent guidance on how to bring authenticity to our writing through the appropriate use of detail and dialog, and also introduced us to some great tools for researching the details of setting, period and dialog.
Things to consider
Before you write, consider the following:
- What time period are you writing in? There might be language and other differences
- Where is your novel taking place—what country and region? Is there a special dialect?
- What are the educational levels, races/ethnicities, occupations, and socioeconomic classes of your characters? If you have characters with different backgrounds, you might distinguish them by the use of different words in dialog
- What differences do you want to showcase among your characters?
- What mood are you trying to create? Humor will use different language from serious literature.
Then you’ll have an idea of what research you need.
How to Research
Relatively recent history can be researched using:
- Newspaper Articles. These can provide rich detail about events, prices of goods, even ideas for scenes. Newspapers.com is a subscription service.
- Diaries and Letters can provide information about daily life, habits, and sometimes surprising tidbits.
- Census and Vital Records can provide information about names of occupations, causes of death.
- Period Novels, Nonfiction Books, Movies, can provide a sense of language, customs, norms, and place.
More distant history might be researched using:
- Diaries and Letters. Can provide information about daily life, habits, and sometimes surprising tidbits.
- Nonfiction books. Can provide information about occupations, transportation, foods, etc.
- Travel and Local Tours. Can foster a deep understanding of place and its history.
- Period Novels or Nonfiction Books. Can provide a sense of language, customs, norms, and place.
- Look at books and novels that are adjacent to the one you thought you were looking for – they can be a treasure trove of unexpected information
And don’t forget, libraries and librarians are there to help you too!
Online Tools for researching language
- Online thesaurus and dictionary: https://www.thesaurus.com , https://www.dictionary.com
- Check and compare frequency of use of words and phrases at Google’s Ngram Viewer: https://books.google.com/ngrams/
- Check the etymology of words at https://www.etymonline.com
- Slang Dictionary for colorful language: http://onlineslangdictionary.com
Maryka recommends keeping thesaurus and dictionary open at all times. This is how you’ll learn whether it’s spilled milk or spilt milk. (Sheila found an interesting site: https://www.grammar-monster.com/ and Matthew suggested https://webstersdictionary1828.com/ as a good resource for older usages. Google is highly recommended – look for Webster 1822 and you will find the 1828 dictionary…). Maryka demonstrated the various tools for us, showing how:
- The ngram viewer gives cool graphs of word usage, so you can see which word was used more frequently when. Try following the link and look at spilled and spilt, and note you can choose American English, British English and more.
- The etymology page shows what words used to mean and how they have changed. Again, try typing in spilled.
- And the slang dictionary is a little complicated. Try typing “cop” into the search bar, then follow the link to words meaning police officer. The front page looks kind of obscure, but you can click on pages 1,2,3,4, etc to find lots of different words.
You should follow the links and test them for yourself.
Newspapers and Letters
Next we looked at a 1924 newspaper article, and a 1928 letter, seeing how they reveal use of language, and details of time and place. It can cost $19.95 a month for a subscription to https://www.newspapers.com/, but a 7-day free trial period might be useful if you already know what you want to look for. The library has research databases as well. Your library card gets you access to a wide range of resources: https://www.wccls.org/research/subject including genealogy resources. And Matthew pointed out that the Oregon Newspaper Archive is free: https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/
You can quote a newspaper article, especially if it’s over 75 years old. For a more recent article, you might want to check with the paper, but it should be public domain, therefore free to use. And you should always list your sources in the back of the book, even if they’re public domain, and even if you’ve given them in the headings in the text.
Period Novels
Fiction and non-fiction books will all provide details that you might not have thought of. You might want to compile all the things you learn into a (large) folder on your computer.
- The website “The Books of the Century” was compiled by Daniel Immarwahr at UC Berkeley and lists top sellers of the 20th Century: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/%7Eimmer/booksmain
- Wikipedia has a list of novels published in the 1800s at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1800s_novels For other years, use the search in Wikipedia.
- To find novels about different places, try Goodreads →Browse →Lists and search the lists for places. https://www.goodreads.com/list?ref=nav_brws_lists On a computer, the Browse button will be at the top of the Goodreads screen when you enter.
And don’t forget, librarians are a great resource and can help you find out lots of obscure things, like whether there really was a skating rink in this place at this time.
If your research pulls up contradictory information, don’t forget to check your sources, and keep looking to determine what’s true. And remember, the librarians can help.
What to Include
So, now you have your huge compendium of information. What do you put into your story?
Don’t include:
- Everything you’ve learned about the setting or period
- Details that bog down the narrative
- Business-as-usual details
Do include:
- Details that readers expect for your genre
- Details that show important settings for the story
- Details that paint a scene that matches novel’s mood/feelings
- Details that enlighten character’s perspective
- Details that highlight story theme/big idea
And refer to your compendium, looking for places to insert details, greetings, heated discussion, dialog, description etc.
Dialog
Your research will have given you lots of details, and also lots of ideas about dialog. Maryka showed us examples of how dialog is used in several different novels, and invited us to guess the sources. The dialog showed:
- character relationships through the ways they spoke to each other and the ways they spoke of other characters
- background information as characters said how they had come to be somewhere
- conveyed conflict or threat if a character says she is “deathly afraid of him” for example
- suggest subtext (which can add depth)
Dialog Conventions and Development
Some authors can break all the dialog conventions. But don’t break them unless you at least know them and know why you’re breaking them.
- Give each character their own paragraph; some white space is appealing.
- Put at beginning or end of paragraph.
- Use “double quotes” for dialogue (unless otherwise recommended by publisher).
- Internal dialogue can be set off by “she thought” tag, by italics, or by context.
Things your dialog should do:
- Ideally, use it to accomplish more than one thing (see subtext)
- Keep it short and concise (no lo-ong paragraphs of speech)
- Give individuals different styles of speech.
- Push to deepen dialogue—writers can revise dialogue, real speakers can’t, so don’t go for the mundane approach. Dialog matters, and is well worth editing.
- Read dialogue aloud to check for authenticity.
- Use contractions freely.
Things to avoid:
- Avoid obvious dialect, e.g., goin’ fishin’. It used to be popular, but it’s hard to read. Instead, focus on word choice or cues.
- Don’t include mundane dialogue—unless you want to highlight the mundane.
- Don’t overuse dialogue to convey information, and especially don’t use “As I told you yesterday” to repeat information.
- Avoid on-the-nose (overly direct) dialogue. Instead, pay attention to subtext.
Subtext
Subtext in dialog is where things aren’t said directly. The conversation moves obliquely around the subject, like a dance. The more dialog you read in (good) books, the more you will see this dance.
Dialog Tags
- “He/she said/asked” are the most straightforward dialogue tags and are almost invisible. This should be primary tag used. BUT
- Don’t use “he/she said/asked” for every line of speech. Usually only needed every few lines.
- Action tags can provide a picture of speaker’s behavior.
- Internal dialogue can show what speaker is thinking and not saying.
When there are multiple speakers, you need to make sure the reader knows who is speaking – maybe use dialog tags every 3 or 4 lines.
How dialog conveys time and place
- Use details specific to the time/place. “Let us make the fishmonger our last stop.”
- Signal a different time period with formal or anachronistic speech. “Of the many people who thronged my life, I counted him the most engaging.”
- Use jargon/sayings of time/place. “God’s teeth, he’s foiled us again.”
Maryka answered questions at the end of her presentation. I’ve attempted to include the answers in the notes above.
Thank you so much for joining us Maryka. We really enjoyed your presentation.