remember one line vividly: "ET phone home." This one line of dialogue—three words— contains the essence of what ET is all about. This little creature just wanted to go back home. Desperately.
Now, it's up to you to keep throwing obstacles at your protagonist to keep him from easily getting what she wants. These obstacles come from within and without the character. The other characters come against your protagonist. The protagonist sabotages herself. This is called story conflict, and you can reveal it and keep intensifying it through dialogue. You want to use dialogue to keep reminding the reader just how desperate your character is to achieve her goal.
Every scene of dialogue, in some way, needs to move the story conflict forward. We need to be in a different place at the end of a scene of dialogue than we were at the beginning. The situation should grow continually worse every time our characters open their mouths to talk to one another. Our protagonist is becoming more desperate. Our antagonist seems surer of victory; we know because of the confidence we give to his tone of voice. Our supporting characters keep reminding our protagonist of his goal, of where he's headed on the Hero's Journey. This is dialogue that does not stand still but moves the story forward with each scene.
In Jude Deveraux's romantic suspense novel High Tide, the protagonist, Fiona, is being set up for murder. A businesswoman, she is visiting her wealthy client, Roy Hudson, on his boat, when he starts hitting on her. She fights him off, eventually falling into an exhausted sleep on the boat and waking up in the middle of the night with his body on top of hers—his very dead body. The hero, Ace Montgomery, and Ellen are talking about the murder in the following scene of dialogue.
She took a deep breath. "I want to know what's going on," she said as calmly as she could. "I am wanted for murder. The newspaper—"
"No, we are wanted for murder." He'd put the frozen packages back into the freezer and was now looking in the cupboards. "You know how to make pancakes?"
At that Fiona put her arms straight down to her sides, her hands in fists, opened her mouth, and let out a scream.
Ace had his hand over her mouth before she'd let an ounce of air escape her lungs. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "If someone heard you, they might investigate." Slowly, he removed his hand and nodded toward the countertop in the kitchen. "Now sit down while I make breakfast."
She didn't move. "So help me, if you don't tell me what's going on, I'll scream my head off."
"You really do have trouble with anger, don't you? Have you thought of seeing a counselor?"
At that Fiona opened her mouth again, but this time he didn't move. Instead, he just looked at her speculatively.
Closing her mouth, Fiona narrowed her eyes at him. "So why aren't we at the police station, Mr. Do-Gooder? Just hours ago you were telling me that I couldn't be a fugitive from justice, that I had to turn myself over to the police. But now that you're also accused, we're hiding."
"You want blueberries in your pancakes?"
"I want some answers!" she shouted at him.
Since this is a romantic suspense, Deveraux has to do double duty in intensifying the conflict in each scene; she has both the plot—the murder— and the relationship between the hero and the heroine to develop. This scene works well on both levels as Fiona is screaming at Ace to give her some answers about the murder—she's scared to death at being a suspect— while furious at him for not being more direct with her. As you probably know, when writing romance, the hero and heroine often start out intensely disliking each other. A scene of dialogue showing this is a lot more fun than the protagonist simply telling us from inside her head.
creates tension and suspense
As a writing coach, I have worked with hundreds of fiction and nonfiction
writers over the years, and the weakness I see most often in scenes
Now, it's up to you to keep throwing obstacles at your protagonist to keep him from easily getting what she wants. These obstacles come from within and without the character. The other characters come against your protagonist. The protagonist sabotages herself. This is called story conflict, and you can reveal it and keep intensifying it through dialogue. You want to use dialogue to keep reminding the reader just how desperate your character is to achieve her goal.
Every scene of dialogue, in some way, needs to move the story conflict forward. We need to be in a different place at the end of a scene of dialogue than we were at the beginning. The situation should grow continually worse every time our characters open their mouths to talk to one another. Our protagonist is becoming more desperate. Our antagonist seems surer of victory; we know because of the confidence we give to his tone of voice. Our supporting characters keep reminding our protagonist of his goal, of where he's headed on the Hero's Journey. This is dialogue that does not stand still but moves the story forward with each scene.
In Jude Deveraux's romantic suspense novel High Tide, the protagonist, Fiona, is being set up for murder. A businesswoman, she is visiting her wealthy client, Roy Hudson, on his boat, when he starts hitting on her. She fights him off, eventually falling into an exhausted sleep on the boat and waking up in the middle of the night with his body on top of hers—his very dead body. The hero, Ace Montgomery, and Ellen are talking about the murder in the following scene of dialogue.
She took a deep breath. "I want to know what's going on," she said as calmly as she could. "I am wanted for murder. The newspaper—"
"No, we are wanted for murder." He'd put the frozen packages back into the freezer and was now looking in the cupboards. "You know how to make pancakes?"
At that Fiona put her arms straight down to her sides, her hands in fists, opened her mouth, and let out a scream.
Ace had his hand over her mouth before she'd let an ounce of air escape her lungs. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "If someone heard you, they might investigate." Slowly, he removed his hand and nodded toward the countertop in the kitchen. "Now sit down while I make breakfast."
She didn't move. "So help me, if you don't tell me what's going on, I'll scream my head off."
"You really do have trouble with anger, don't you? Have you thought of seeing a counselor?"
At that Fiona opened her mouth again, but this time he didn't move. Instead, he just looked at her speculatively.
Closing her mouth, Fiona narrowed her eyes at him. "So why aren't we at the police station, Mr. Do-Gooder? Just hours ago you were telling me that I couldn't be a fugitive from justice, that I had to turn myself over to the police. But now that you're also accused, we're hiding."
"You want blueberries in your pancakes?"
"I want some answers!" she shouted at him.
Since this is a romantic suspense, Deveraux has to do double duty in intensifying the conflict in each scene; she has both the plot—the murder— and the relationship between the hero and the heroine to develop. This scene works well on both levels as Fiona is screaming at Ace to give her some answers about the murder—she's scared to death at being a suspect— while furious at him for not being more direct with her. As you probably know, when writing romance, the hero and heroine often start out intensely disliking each other. A scene of dialogue showing this is a lot more fun than the protagonist simply telling us from inside her head.
creates tension and suspense
As a writing coach, I have worked with hundreds of fiction and nonfiction
writers over the years, and the weakness I see most often in scenes
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