I’m finally moving to my own server,

so “Beaten To A Pulp” is becoming

http://www.StoryHack.com

Go check it out.

So if you want to see how Oasis turns out, that will be the place to go…

Speaking of which, hopefully tomorrow the next chapter will be up.

New name, same management.

Now its called munseys.com and it’s had a facelift. Then only difference in the content is that the copyrighted stuff (The Shadow and Doc Savage stories…) has been removed.

I honestly don’t remember much about the meeting that followed.

All I know is that there was a lot of yelling, swearing, and self-righteous pontificating by Andy and his cronies.

If we had known a little more about the infected, we would have kept our voices down, moved the meeting upstairs, or at least have closed the large garage style rolling door to the front entrance. Fortunatley, someone had the foresight to re-lock the gate after I had come in.

Andy had just finished giving the dumbest sports analogy that I ever heard, something involving the precision of a curling team, the power of water polo, and the “American-ness” of baseball.

Everyone present, even Andy’s friends, were temporarily struck dumb by the stupidity of what had just been said.

The silence was broken by an awkward groan.

We all spun around to see a man with glassy eyes pulling at the bars of the gate.

“The infected.” came a voice from the somewhere behind me.

Panic struck the Millers Crossing Apartment building. Several of Andy’s friends started pushing their way to the stairs. Andy shouted commands that no one heard. Several people screamed.

I grabbed the closest person, which happened to be the man that had accompanied Zeke before and pointed.

“Let’s get that inner door closed.”

We didn’t want to get too close to the infected man pulling at the door, so we stood on opposite sides of the entrance, and did our best to pull the bay door down. At first tug, the door barely moved. It was slow with misuse.

I spared a glance at the thing outside. It’s gaze fell blankly directly in front of itself. It was bracing on one bar with its left hand and pulling back with it’s right. No exertion was visible on its face, but the slight bend in the thick iron bar betrayed a terrible and inhuman force.

My helper lost his footing as he tried to put a little more weight into the door.

The infected dropped to its knees and grabbed my fallen companion’s arm.

I threw caution to the wind and stepped full in front of the entrance so that I could use all of my weight.

My new friend thrashed at the infected’s grip.

Something finally gave, and the heavy door came crashing down.

The infected man let go and reached up at the door, but the momentum was too much.

My friend pulled his arm out of the way just as the door slammed into the ground.

I yanked at the lever and the cross bar slid into place, locking the door.

Broken fingers stuck out from underneath and moved slightly as the infected man struggled to pull them free.

I turned to the man inside. “What’s your name?”

The man rolled over and sat up on the floor. “Steve.”

“I’m Corbin. How’s your arm?”

He shook as he held it up. It had a dark red hand print that would probably bruise, but the skin didn’t seem to be broken anywhere.

He looked up at me with a fear in his eyes. “Am I…”

I shook my head. “Probably not. It didn’t break the skin, so I doubt you’re at any immediate risk. Let’s get your arm washed off just in case.”

The closest bathroom was in Tim’s dental office, so we went in and washed him up.

Steve told me what I had already suspected, that Andy had called most of his drinking buddies as soon as the crisis had begun. He had also told everyone in the building that I had a violent history, and I should be locked out.

After I made sure that Steve had calmed down and was going to be alright, I went upstairs to see where everyone had disappeared.

I heard a tremendous amount of shouting behind the door that opened to the second floor hallway, so I just kept climbing and went to my floor.

Linda was in the hall talking to two couples that looked familiar. They all turned to me as I opened the stairwell door.

Linda’s eyes went a little wide. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. We got the inner door closed.”

Linda introduced me to the couples. They were “real” tenants that hadn’t made it out the door for work when the scene at the hospital happened.

They went back to discussing what to do about Andy’s regime. To me, the answer was simple, so I spoke up.

“Who else among Andy’s crowd are tenants?”

One of the men answered. “Just the dentist.”

“Good. Do any of you guys rent one of the storage sheds on the roof?”

Everybody shook their head.

A smile crossed my lips. “Well, I do. Listen to this.”

Next Time: Farewell to Millers Crossing (and I mean it this time) 

The infected Carlton clamped his arms around Frankie in a gruesome bear hug and sunk his teeth into Frankie’s shoulder.

Frankie screamed. He struggled against Carlton’s grasp, but could not break free.

Carlton bit him again, this time closer to the neck.

Frankie thrashed with renewed vigor, but it was to no avail. Carlton seemed to have unnatural strength.

I was shocked. Witnessing the brutality of the infected completely blew my mind. How is it that someone in so much pain can suddenly become a superhuman monster? I glanced back toward Zeke, only to find he was no longer there.

In the room across the alley, Frankie and Carlton collapsed on the floor.

I was desperate to know exactly what was going on, but from the screaming and thumping noises coming from across the way, I could get a pretty good idea. I wondered how long this could possibly go on.

Within in a few moments, Frankie’s screaming had transformed into uncontrolled sobbing. The thing that had been Carlton stood up. Blood was smeared around his mouth and his face was emotionless. He appeared to be staring at nothing at all.

Even so, I somehow felt that Carlton was looking at me. In fact, I was sure of it.

Carlton clumsily began to climb out of the window.

He’s going to jump across. I no longer had time to think. I had to act. I rushed to my window and slammed it shut. Out of the corner of my eye I spied Andy’s computer chair. Only a couple of feet away. I reached for it, returning my full attention to Carlton.

He was on the small ledge outside his window, crouching to jump.

My hands gripped the backrest of the chair.

A deafening crash shook the room as he jumped. The upper right window pane shattered outward just before Carlton’s right arm broke through the left.

I instinctively ducked down and spun around.

Andy’s bulbous form filled the doorway. He clutched a large revolver in his right hand. He was shaking.

I covered my ears and spun back to the window.

Carlton was thrashing to seemingly tear out the window and enter the room. His arms were already shredded bleeding heavily. It didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Andy fired again, this time striking the wall above the window. He fired again, finally catching Carlton in the left shoulder.

Carlton reeled from the impact, nearly falling from his perch. With inhuman strength he held on and swung his left arm back toward the window.

The gun roared twice more, and this time the bullets caught him square in the chest.

The force of impact was too much. Carlton had lost his grip. He fell backwards to the street below and landed with a sickening crunch.

Andy fired one more shot through the window where his brother had fought to get in.

I exhaled and turned back to Andy, prepared to actually thank him.

I would have thanked him too, but when I had turned around, I saw that Andy had not lowered the gun. His hand was still shaking, and his face was twisted up in a painful grimace. The gun was pointed at me.

“This is your fault.” He extended his arm a little more.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I was pretty sure he had already fired six shots, but it’s still pretty hard to keep your cool when someone has the gun pointed at you.

“Don’t be an idiot.” I shuffled a little back toward the chair.

He took a step toward me. “This is your fault!” As he moved I could see a wide-eyed Zeke and another man’s shoulder in the hallway.

I took a deep breath. “You know that’s not true. He got bitten by one of the infected at the hospital. You know that. He was too far gone by the time you asked me to help. I never even got a chance to treat him.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“Look, I’m sorry about your brother, Andy. But he’s gone now. And this isn’t going to help anyone.”

No sooner had the words left my lips than I knew that was a mistake.

Andy’s nostrils flared. “My brother? That fairy hasn’t been my brother for a long time.”

“OK, fine. Just put down the gun and we can talk.” I shuffled a little closer.

“Since when do you order me around, Core?” A look of pure hatred crossed his face. Whether it was hatred of me, hatred for his brother, or hatred for what he had done, I may never know. All I know is that it pushed him over the edge.

Andy a clenched jaw he said “You’re off the team.”

Click.

Empty.

I could have been relieved. Instead, I was furious. He would have killed me. I reached for the chair and flung it with everything I had.

Andy was either too stupid or too slow to duck. The chair caught him in the upper chest and face. He stumbled backward and slammed into the open door. The two men in the hall jumped back.

I wasn’t about to give the slob a chance to react. I sprung at him. He looked up at me only an instant before my right fist made contact with his face.

He wobbled on his feet and threw a clumsy punch with his right.

I easily dodged and quickly followed up with a left to the side of his head.

He bent over slightly and covered this head with his arms. His nose was bleeding freely.

He tried to say something, but I was too frenzied to listen. I just kept swinging.

I had every intention to just keep punching until I could no longer lift my arms, but within a moment the two guys in the hallway snapped to, ran in, grabbed my arms and pulled me back.

Gasping for breath, Andy dropped to a knee.

I kicked at him, but I had already been pulled out of range.

The fat idiot picked up a filthy shirt off the floor and pressed it to the side of his bleeding nose. He held it there for a minute. He was recovering swiftly from my attack.

He struggled to his feet. “You’re lucky…”

“I’m only lucky you’re so stupid you can’t count to six.” I jerked against my guards. “And you’re just lucky you have friends here.”

I sensed the two men who were struggling to hold me cringe at the word friends. My limbs were shaking. I fought to calm down and slow my breathing. I watched for his next move.

After a few moments, Andy pulled the shirt off of his nose and looked at the blood. “I tried to like you, Corbin, I really did.”

“No, you tried to kill me.”

He looked up from the shirt. “I do what I think is best for the team.”

“Shut up!” I jerked again and almost got free. “Who do you think you’re kidding?”

Andy raised an eyebrow. “Who do I think…”

“You use these insipid sports metaphors all the time, like it makes you look smart or something.”

Andy raised a hand and opened his mouth like he was going to speak.

I cut him off again. “But the truth is that you’re just a big, dumb, washed up jock. I have no idea how you conned your way into having the people downstairs fulfill your little ‘mayor’ fantasy. All I know is that you can’t fool everyone for very long. It won’t take long for them to see how stupid, arrogant and irrational you are.”

Andy set his jaw and stood up. “I’ve heard enough out of you.”

He took an awkward step through the mess toward where I was being held near the doorway.

I squirmed against my captors.

Andy pulled a fat fist back and drilled it into my stomach.

I tried to give with the punch, but it didn’t work so well. The punch took my breath away.

Almost immediately after contact, Zeke must have had a change of heart. He dropped my arm. He other guy followed his lead and dropped my left arm.

Unsupported, I fell to my knees. I fought to get my breath back.

Zeke took a step forward and Andy took a step back. He raised a finger and pointed it at Andy. “Look, I’m not going to just help you bully people.”

The other guy chimed in. “Zeke’s right. I only helped pull him off you so that he didn’t get a chance to really mess you up, not so you could take cheap shots.”

Andy turned to the side and spat onto a the pile of his own dirty clothes and garbage. “Now you guys look. Corbin here is never going to follow anybody’s game plan.”

Zeke spoke up again. “Well, when your plan is to shoot him while he’s trying to help, I can see why he might not want to follow along.”

Andy sneered at the three of us. “I have to make the hard calls. You’ll never understand. I was the one who was prepared and shot that thing that tried to blitz us.”

I shook my head. I did my best to speak.“The only thing you were… prepared… to do is steal other peoples stuff when you got the chance.”

The room fell silent.

I was still pretty mad, but it helped that a couple of guys were on my side. Well, at least I knew they weren’t on Andy’s any longer. Each breath came a little easier, but my stomach still hurt pretty bad. I pulled myself off my knees.

I glared at Andy. “I think the Mayor needs to be recalled.”

Andy started to say something, but I ignored it, turned, and walked out.

If you like this info, check out his novel writing materials.

In the last four issues of this e=zine, I talked about
why dialogue is not like “real conversation”, about
what makes good dialogue, about the importance of using
dialogue tags, and about why Point of View is essential
to great dialogue. I made the point repeatedly that
dialogue is war.Let’s remember that there are hot wars and there are
cold wars. You don’t need bombs and bazookas to have a
war. Sometimes war is a subtle thing, with spies and
tea-time diplomacy and softly muted threats on the Red
Line to Moscow.

In this issue, I’d like to talk about the use of
subtlety in dialogue. In a word, I’d like to talk about
subtexting.

The message received is not always identical to the
message sent. For two reasons: People don’t always say
what they mean. People don’t always hear what they’re
saying.

Let’s look at an example of this in the work of a
master of subtexting — Jane Austen.

We’ll take a passage from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. To
summarize the story, our heroine Lizzy Bennett meets an
eligible but extremely arrogant and wealthy young man,
Mr. Darcy. They clash immediately, and Lizzy is sure
he’s the last man on earth she’d ever want to be
involved with. She treats him with such a bold
impertinence that he is gradually attracted to her.
When he finally asks her to marry him, she rejects him
flat out, causing a crisis in his life which teaches
him to learn to control his pride. Meantime, Lizzy is
learning from Darcy’s friends that he is quite a bit
warmer on the inside than he is on the outside. When
Lizzy learns that Darcy has paid a large amount of
money to quell a scandal in her family, she realizes
that she has seriously misjudged him. But neither he
nor she seems able to break the interpersonal logjam
between them. Until . . .

Darcy’s wealthy aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, hears
rumors that Darcy wants to marry Lizzy. Lady Catherine
is shocked and outraged, since she intends that her own
daughter should marry Darcy. She assumes that these
rumors were begun by Lizzie, based on her belief that
Lizzie is like herself — willing to do anything in
order to get what she wants. Lady C. immediately
travels to Lizzie’s home in the country to confront
her.

Lady Catherine completely lacks any tact or civility,
and in the scene that follows, she says exactly what
she thinks, never hearing her own message that Lizzie
is no more than a worm to be squashed. Lizzie defends
herself with calm politeness. The subtext of her
message is that Lady Catherine is a complete idiot –
which is true enough.

It’s a battle of wits between two strong personalities.
Lizzie’s words are all politeness, but make no mistake
– she returns every insult of Lady C.’s with compound
interest. My commentary on the subtext will be shown in
square brackets.

To the text, then, with Lady Catherine launching the
first volley:

“You can be at no loss, Miss Bennett, to understand the
reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own
conscience, must tell you why I come.”

Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment.

“Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at
all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.”

[Randy sez: Lizzie is perfectly polite here, but she
feels no honor in seeing Lady C. here. The irony goes
right over the Lady's head, however.]

“Miss Bennett,” replied her ladyship, in an angry tone,
“you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with.
But however insincere you may choose to be, you shall
not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated
for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such
moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from
it….”

[Randy sez: It's typical of Lady C. that she
characterizes her own amazing rudeness as "sincerity
and frankness". As we noted last month, everybody
thinks they're the good guy. Lady C. interprets
Lizzie's ignorance of the rumor as "insincerity"
because she assumes Lizzie knows as much as she does.]

“… A report of a most alarming nature, reached me two
days ago. I was told, that not only your sister was on
the point of being most advantageously married, but that
you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all
likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my
own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I know it must be a
scandalous falsehood; though I would not injure him so
much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I
instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that
I might make my sentiments known to you.”

“If you believed it impossible to be true,” said
Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, “I
wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What
could your ladyship propose by it?”

[Randy sez: Touche, Lizzie! You've called her an idiot
while affecting to be concerned for the trouble the
lady has gone to.]

“At once to insist upon having such a report
universally contradicted.”

“Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family,”
said Elizabeth coolly, “will be rather a confirmation
of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence.”

“If! do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it
not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you
not know that such a report is spread abroad?”

“I never heard that it was.”

[Randy sez: Lizzie has scored another point by noting
the obvious fact that Lady C.'s visit will only fan the
flames of this rumor. Again, her subtext is that Lady
Catherine is a fool. Here, it feels like the two are
reading from different scripts. Lady Catherine assumes
Lizzie is behind the rumor. But Lizzie really has never
heard of the rumor -- though she welcomes it.]

“And can you likewise declare, that there is no
foundation for it?”

“I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your
ladyship. You may ask questions, which I shall choose
not to answer.”

[Randy sez: The subtext of Lady C. is that Lizzie is so
low-born that such a marriage is not even possible.
This is an insult and is not true. Lizzie is the
daughter of a gentleman and has the same social
standing as Darcy, only less wealthy. Lizzie picks up
the word "frankness" from Lady C. and with heavy irony
uses it as a replacement for "rudeness".]

“This is not to be borne. Miss Bennett, I insist on
being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an
offer of marriage?”

“Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”

[Randy sez: Lizzie scores a direct hit. Only an idiot
would ask if an impossible thing has occurred. But
again, it's subtext. Lizzie politely reminds Lady
Catherine of what she said earlier.]

“It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the
use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may,
in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what
he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have
drawn him in.”

“If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it.”

[Randy sez: Lady C.'s subtext is, "Lizzie, you're just
a slut who lured my poor nephew in." Lizzie's subtext
is, "You're an idiot to think a slut would admit to
such a thing." The ground is bloody here with subtexted
insults. We skip the next couple of paragraphs to get
to more subtext.]

“Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you
have the presumption to aspire, can never take place.
No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now
what have you to say?”

“Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to
suppose he will make an offer to me.”

[Randy sez: Again, Lady C.'s subtext is that Lizzie is
a conniving little home-breaker. Lizzie's subtext is
that Lady Catherine is irrational, since Darcy is an
honorable man who would never make an offer to one
woman while engaged to another. But Lizzie holds a high
card here that she hasn't shown Lady Catherine. Darcy
has already proposed to Lizzie some months earlier, and
she rejected him then. So Lizzie knows that Darcy's
"engagement" to Lady Catherine's daughter is no
engagement at all.]

The scene goes on for a few more pages, but we’ll let
it rest here. Lizzie has won this battle — decisively.
Note how restrained her words have been. Lizzie does
not need the F-word, the B-word, the A-word, or the
S-word. She uses her wits and a forceful subtext to
deflect the full frontal assault of Lady Catherine’s
wrath.

The scene is all the more powerful for it.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 5000 readers, every month. If
you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com . Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

If you like this info, check out his novel writing materials.

In the last three issues, I talked about why dialogue
is not like “real conversation”, about what makes good
dialogue, and about the importance of using dialogue
tags. In all three cases, it comes down to showing
conflict, not telling it. Dialogue is war and you need
to show the battle in all its gory glory.This month, I want to add another dimension to this
discussion. The key point is that every war has a “good
side” and a “bad side.” (That’s the theory, anyway. In
practice, it ain’t necessarily so.)

The “good side” is Us. The “bad side” is Them. War is
all about Us against Them. And so is dialogue.

More precisely, dialogue is about Me against Them.

And that brings us to the topic of Point of View (POV).
Those of you who’ve ever heard me speak or have worked
through my Fiction 101 series know that there is only
one goal for the novelist: You must give your reader a
Powerful Emotional Experience. Period.

There is no substitute for this. Everything you do as a
novelist should be directed to creating that Powerful
Emotional Experience.

Remember that emotion is centered in a character, the
POV character. In any given scene, there will be ONE
POV character. Your goal as a novelist is therefore
extremely simple: Put your reader inside the skin of
that POV character and give your reader the same
Powerful Emotional Experience that the character is
having.

Do that and you are a novelist. Fail to do that and you
are forever a wannabe, because even your mother will
yawn through your writing.

I’m being dogmatic here because I’m right and every
published novelist in the world knows it.

How does this relate to dialogue? Simple. In your
dialogue, there are two sides: Me and Them. “Me” refers
to your POV character. “Them” refers to everyone else.

You MUST show your dialogue through the lens of your
POV character. You must.

Remember the wretched dialogue we looked at last month?
(If you’ve forgotten, you can look it up in the
archives on my web site:)

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/ezine/index.php

Last month, we buffed up that wretched dialogue by
adding in action tags. This month, we’ll make it better
by choosing a POV character and showing the entire
dialogue from within the skin of that POV character. In
fact, we’ll do it twice, from two different POV
characters. (Warning: it’ll still be wretched dialogue,
because you just can’t rescue this abomination, even
with proper technique.)

Dialogue #1, from Dilbert’s POV:

“Why are you late again?” Bossbert leaned back in his
chair and twirled his pointy hair with his pudgy
fingers.

Dilbert smoothed his tie again. The thing still
wouldn’t lie flat. This had to be that laundry woman’s
fault. She hated him — that was it. “What makes you
think I’m late? By Hawaii time, I’m early.”

“Go help Wally.” Bossbert bit into a donut. Jelly ran
down his fingers onto the carpet. “He’s behind again.”

Dilbert was sick to death of helping Wally, but he was
even more sick to death of arguing with Bossbert.
“Where is he?”

Bossbert shrugged. “How should I know? Just find him!”

“OK, OK, no need to get huffy.” Dilbert tossed his
briefcase into his cubicle, grabbed his coffee cup, and
scurried down the hall. At least he was rid of the
pointy-haired demon from –

“Alice has the design documents.” Bossbert padded along
behind him.

Dilbert wondered if life could possibly get any better
than this.

Asok the intern raced out of the coffee room. “Dilbert,
help us get Wally out of the trash compactor!”

Dilbert’s heart began racing, but he was pretty sure
Asok’s news was too good to be true.

Bossbert whacked his hand against his pointy hair.
“This place is a zoo.”

Dilbert stared at him. Could you die of irony?

* * *

Dialogue #2, from Bossbert’s POV:

“Why are you late again?” Bossbert leaned back in his
chair and twirled his hair with his fingers, wondering
what kind of sad excuse Dilbert was going to make this
time.

Dilbert smoothed at his tie like he did every day. It
sprang back up again like it did every day. “What makes
you think I’m late? By Hawaii time, I’m early.”

And how was a boss going to get anything done with an
employee like that? Maybe the only hope for Dilbert was
osmosis off the star employee in the group. “Go help
Wally.” Bossbert bit into a donut. Jelly ran down his
fingers onto the carpet. Alice had probably sabotaged
the donuts again. “He’s behind again.” And no wonder,
when all Wally’s teammates were such screwoffs.

Dilbert got that helpless look on his face that could
drive you nuts if you let it. “Where is he?”

Bossbert shrugged. He was not going to let Dilbert get
to him. He was NOT. “How should I know? Just find him!”

“OK, OK, no need to get huffy.” Dilbert tossed his
briefcase into his cubicle, grabbed his coffee cup, and
scurried down the hall.

That kind of evasion was just typical of the little
worm. Bossbert wasn’t going to let him off the hook. He
hurried after Dilbert. “Alice has the design
documents.” You had to spell things out for a guy like
Dilbert.

Asok the intern raced out of the coffee room. “Dilbert,
help us get Wally out of the trash compactor!”

Bossbert whacked his hand against his head. Thirteen
months and fifteen days till retirement. IF these
monkeys didn’t give him a stroke first. “This place is
a zoo.”

* * *

Like I said, there’s not a lot you can do with a scene
this horrible, but we did our best here. In Dialogue
#1, we showed the war from Dilbert’s side, and Bossbert
was the bad guy. Everything Dilbert does has a reason.
Everything Bossbert does is inane.

In Dialogue #2, it’s the reverse. Now Bossbert is the
smart guy, and Dilbert is the dork.

We achieved these effects with a little interior
monologue woven into the dialogue. Interior monologue
is the train of thoughts inside the POV character’s
head. A little interior monologue goes a long way
toward getting your reader inside the skin of your POV
character.

Of course, you need more that that to write great
dialogue. You need stakes. And in the Dilbert/Bossbert
scenes above, there really aren’t any stakes. Next
month, we’ll look at some examples of scenes with
stakes that are a bit higher.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 5000 readers, every month. If
you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com . Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

If you like this info, check out his novel writing materials.

In the last two issues, I talked about why dialogue is
not like “real conversation” and about what makes good
dialogue. In both cases, it boils down to conflict.
“Real conversation” either lacks conflict or it lacks
the right kind of conflict. Good dialogue has
conflict — lots of it — and the right kind.

Let’s switch gears this month and talk about dialogue
tags. The trend for a good number of years now has been
to eliminate them, trim them, or change them to action
tags. Anything to get rid of that boring “Sally said”
at the end of a line.

Remember that you could do a whole lot worse than
“Sally said.” If you ever read those corny Arrow Joke
Books when you were a kid, you’ll remember Tom
Swifties. If you never heard of a Tom Swifty, let me
introduce you now, you poor naive thing, you. There are
two kinds, the strong kind and the weak kind.

Some examples of strong Tom Swifties:

“I’m a plumber!” he piped.

“I killed the rooster!” she crowed.

“More air on the fire!” he bellowed.

You get the idea. The dialogue tag is a verb other than
“said” which somehow fits the thing being said.

Weak Tom Swifties are easier because they replace the
verb with an adverb. Some examples:

“I’m a stonemason,” he said archly.

“Your son has the measles,” she said feverishly.

“These fries are just right,” he said crisply.

The possibilities for wretched dialogue are limitless.
So many adverbs, so little time!

In modern fiction, it’s considered bad form to use
adverbs in your dialogue tags.

Why are adverbs considered a no-no? (Randy asked
negatively.)

Simple. Adverbs are telling. Good fiction is showing.
I’ll pick on Tom Clancy just once more this month and
then give the poor guy a break so his sales recover.
Tom is famous for lines like this one:

“That dirty, filthy, rotten son of a b****,” Jack said
furiously.

Well, duh. Yes, Jack is furious here. The dialogue
shows it, so why insult the reader’s feeble little
intellect by telling it?

I suppose a worse crime would be this (which I have
never seen in a Clancy novel):

“That showed poor manners,” Jack said furiously.

Now we’ve got the dialogue showing Jack’s restraint and
then the adverb telling us that he’s furious –
entirely at odds with what we just saw. The reader will
generally believe what she saw and will ignore the
adverb, or worse, will disrespect the writer’s
competence.

In any event, the important thing to remember is that
adverbs need to be tossed in the toilet. (Mildred said,
flushing at the impropriety of it all.)

But adverbs aren’t the only crime against humanity.
It’s also considered bad practice to use any verb other
than “said” or “asked” in a dialogue tag. You’ve
probably read books where the author was scared to
death to use “said” or any of its synonyms more than
once per page. So you get dialogues that look like
this little abomination:

“Why are you late again?” Bossbert asked.

“What makes you think I’m late?” Dilbert queried. “By
Hawaii time, I’m early.”

“Go help Wally,” Bossbert snarled. “He’s behind again.”

“Where is he?” Dilbert questioned.

“How should I know?” Bossbert interrogated. “Just find
him!”

“OK, OK, no need to get huffy,” Dilbert stated.

“Alice has the design documents,” Bossbert informed.

“Dilbert, help us get Wally out of the trash
compactor!” Asok requested.

“This place is a zoo,” Bossbert spluttered.

The longer this kind of thing goes on, the more the
reader gets distracted by the increasingly imaginative
synonyms for “said” and “asked.” And you don’t want to
distract your reader from the conflict of the story.

Novice writers always object at this point that it’s
boring to keep using “said” all the way down the page.

Yes, it’s boring. You have two alternatives. First, you
can get rid of the tag altogether. If you read John
Grisham much, you’ll have noticed that in one-on-one
dialogues, he rarely uses “said” or any of its synonyms
at all. He lets the character’s voices tell us who’s
talking.

When you’ve got three or more characters in a dialogue,
that’s harder to do (but still possible if they have
distinctive voices). However, you can always use action
tags. An action tag eliminates the “Sally said” and
adds a new sentence with Sally DOING something. This
breaks up the dialogue and gives the reader something
to look at — always important to the video generation.

Let’s look at Dilbert and Bossbert again, this time
with action tags. It’s still a dumb dialogue, but it’s
a bit more interesting:

“Why are you late again?” Bossbert leaned back in his
chair and twirled his pointy hair with his pudgy
fingers.

Dilbert tried again to make his tie lie flat against
his shirt. “What makes you think I’m late? By Hawaii
time, I’m early.”

“Go help Wally.” Bossbert bit into a donut. Jelly ran
down his fingers onto the carpet. “He’s behind again.”

“Where is he?”

Bossbert shrugged. “How should I know? Just find him!”

“OK, OK, no need to get huffy.” Dilbert tossed his
briefcase into his cubicle, grabbed his coffee cup, and
scurried down the hall.

“Alice has the design documents.” Bossbert padded along
behind him.

Asok the intern raced out of the coffee room. “Dilbert,
help us get Wally out of the trash compactor!”

Bossbert whacked his hand against his pointy hair.
“This place is a zoo.”

We draw this bizarre scene to a merciful close. By
getting rid of all the “said” words, we’ve put the
scene in motion.

But that’s not enough. There’s still something missing
to turn this into real dialogue. We’ll look at that
next month.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 5000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, make your writing more valuable to editors, and have FUN doing it, visit
http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com. Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

 The infected Carlton clamped his arms around Frankie in a gruesome bear hug and sunk his teeth into Frankie’s shoulder.

Frankie screamed. He struggled against Carlton’s grasp, but could not break free.

Carlton bit him again, this time closer to the neck.

Frankie thrashed with renewed vigor, but it was to no avail. Carlton seemed to have unnatural strength.

I was shocked. Witnessing the brutality of the infected completely blew my mind. How is it that someone in so much pain can suddenly become a superhuman monster? I glanced back toward Zeke, only to find he was no longer there.

In the room across the alley, Frankie and Carlton collapsed on the floor.

I was desperate to know exactly what was going on, but from the screaming and thumping noises coming from across the way, I could get a pretty good idea. I wondered how long this could possibly go on.

Within in a few moments, Frankie’s screaming had transformed into uncontrolled sobbing. The thing that had been Carlton stood up. Blood was smeared around his mouth and his face was emotionless. He appeared to be staring at nothing at all.

Even so, I somehow felt that Carlton was looking at me. In fact, I was sure of it.

Carlton clumsily began to climb out of the window.

He’s going to jump across. I no longer had time to think. I had to act. I rushed to my window and slammed it shut. Out of the corner of my eye I spied Andy’s computer chair. Only a couple of feet away. I reached for it, returning my full attention to Carlton.

He was on the small ledge outside his window, crouching to jump.

My hands gripped the backrest of the chair.

A deafening crash shook the room as he jumped. The upper right window pane shattered outward just before Carlton’s right arm broke through the left.

I instinctively ducked down and spun around.

Andy’s bulbous form filled the doorway. He clutched a large revolver in his right hand. He was shaking.

I covered my ears and spun back to the window.

Carlton was thrashing to seemingly tear out the window and enter the room. His arms were already shredded bleeding heavily. It didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Andy fired again, this time striking the wall above the window. He fired again, finally catching Carlton in the left shoulder.

Carlton reeled from the impact, nearly falling from his perch. With inhuman strength he held on and swung his left arm back toward the window.

The gun roared twice more, and this time the bullets caught him square in the chest.

The force of impact was too much. Carlton had lost his grip. He fell backwards to the street below and landed with a sickening crunch.

Andy fired one more shot through the window where his brother had fought to get in.

I exhaled and turned back to Andy, prepared to actually thank him.

I would have thanked him too, but when I had turned around, I saw that Andy had not lowered the gun. His hand was still shaking, and his face was twisted up in a painful grimace. The gun was pointed at me.

“This is your fault.” He extended his arm a little more.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I was pretty sure he had already fired six shots, but it’s still pretty hard to keep your cool when someone has the gun pointed at you.

“Don’t be an idiot.” I shuffled a little back toward the chair.

He took a step toward me. “This is your fault!” As he moved I could see a wide-eyed Zeke and another man’s shoulder in the hallway.

I took a deep breath. “You know that’s not true. He got bitten by one of the infected at the hospital. You know that. He was too far gone by the time you asked me to help. I never even got a chance to treat him.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“Look, I’m sorry about your brother, Andy. But he’s gone now. And this isn’t going to help anyone.”

No sooner had the words left my lips than I knew that was a mistake.

Andy’s nostrils flared. “My brother? That fairy hasn’t been my brother for a long time.”

“OK, fine. Just put down the gun and we can talk.” I shuffled a little closer.

“Since when do you order me around, Core?” A look of pure hatred crossed his face. Whether it was hatred of me, hatred for his brother, or hatred for what he had done, I may never know. All I know is that it pushed him over the edge.

Through a clenched jaw he said “You’re off the team.”

Click.

Andy pointed a finger at one of the guys. “Zeke, come with us. I want the rest of you guys to come up with some ideas for a game plan for tonight.”

Zeke stood up and all of the guys nodded.

I really wished they would stop doing that.

Andy lumbered to the stairwell door. He glanced back. “You coming, Core?”

I got in line behind Zeke and followed them up the stairs and into Andy’s apartment on the second floor. What I saw inside surprised me.

His front room looked like a sports museum. Jerseys and photos covered most of the wall space. Signed helmets, baseballs, basketballs and other autographed gear was crammed into three large bookcases. The room itself was carefully lit and immaculate.

It was so unlike Andy that I almost couldn’t believe my eyes.

I didn’t have time to look at anything as Andy just plodded down the hall to his bedroom.

I could smell the bedroom before I could see into it. It definitely reeked of Andy’s signature B.O. What a slob.

As we entered, it felt much truer to what I knew about Andy. The room reflected him almost perfectly: smelly, messy and generally offensive. In fact, it was messier than my room even after the ransacking.

Clothes and garbage were piled everywhere. The bed had no sheets, just a blanket piled up in a corner and a caseless feather pillow. A small desk with a computer sat next to one of the two windows.

Andy waded through the filth to the further window. He hesitated, took a deep breath, and then looked back at Zeke and me.

“His window is right across from here.” He pointed a thumb out the window.

Turning back, he shouted, “Hey, Frankie.”

With that, he suddenly became a little too nervous. He straightened up and made for the door. As he left, he called back to me, “Corbin, go talk to Frankie, and if you need anything, just send Zeke here.”

I wish I could say that he left and took his stink with him, but I can’t. The room was soaked in it.

Andy’s bizarre behavior was throwing me for a continual curve. I didn’t have time to muse on his insanity, though. There were more serious matters at hand.

As I reached the window where Andy had shouted, a man appeared in the window directly across the narrow alley.

He was thin and looked tired.

He called out, “So, Andy, you finally…” He stopped short when he saw that it was me.

“Sorry, I thought you were Andy.”

“Thank goodness, no. What’s going on?”

“Andy didn’t say?” I could see distaste on his face every time he said Andy’s name.

“He didn’t say much, and I don’t trust what that idiot has to say anyway.”

“Well, my, uh, roommate got bitten by one of those infected crazies outside the hospital today.”

I could not be shocked again by hearing it. I knew the virus had been spread, and pockets of infected could be anywhere in the city. I was getting into my regular ER mindset. Crisis is what I do, and I knew I could keep it together until this thing was over. I had to do what I could to help the patient.

“How is he doing now?”

Frankie’s voice wavered. “Is Carlton going to die?”

Visions of the infected crowd I had seen outside filled my head. I pushed them out.

“I don’t know. Let’s do what we can to save him. I just need you to help me out, OK?”

Frankie nodded. “OK.”

“How is he doing now?”

“He’s lying in bed. He’s burning up, and he must be in pain because he keeps moaning and grinding his teeth.”

“Has he taken anything for the pain or fever?”

“I gave him four Ibuprofen when he got in.”

“Did that help break the fever?”

“No.” Frankie gave a half shrug. “At least I don’t think they did.”

I turned back to Zeke and sent him to the hall closet up in my apartment to bring down the big first aid kit and every bottle of medicine he could find.

Zeke looked very relieved to have a job that took him out of the room.

“I’m sending Zeke to get him something a little stronger to see if we can’t make him comfortable. How long has he been this way?”

“He got in about twenty minutes after the power went out. Within the hour he had a huge headache and a fever. He came up here to lie down and has been getting worse ever since.”

“How is his breathing?”

“Shallow. At least between moans.”

“Have you been able to take his temperature properly?”

“Not yet.”

“But you’re sure he’s running a fever.”

“His skin is hotter than I’ve ever felt before. On anyone.”

“OK. Anything else you think I should know?”

Frankie looked down and shook his head.

I wondered how long it would take Zeke to bring my supplies. Frankie wasn’t looking too stable, and I knew that if he freaked out, there’d be absolutely no helping Carlton.

“So, why doesn’t Andy want to talk to you? He left in an awful hurry.”

Frankie clenched his jaw for just a moment, then sighed. “Carlton is Andy’s twin brother. They haven’t spoken since Andy found out, well, since Carlton came out. Now Andy hates Carlton and blames me.”

“Yeah, Andy’s not exactly tolerant of anybody who thinks differently than he does.”

“And Carlton never forgave Andy, either. He doesn’t think I hear it, but I know he still leaves messages on Andy’s phone calling him an uncaring redneck.”

I almost smirked. That’s why Andy had wigged out when I called him a redneck. I just sat and thought for a moment. I didn’t know what to say, anyway. Complex relationships have never been my thing. Emergency medicine is where I shine. I felt bad for the twin brothers, though. Inside me there was swelling a strong feeling that Carlton and Andy would never get a chance to make up.

I didn’t have to sit and think in that uncomfortable silence too long. Zeke burst through the door carrying a large white box with a red cross on it and a grocery sack full of pill bottles.

“Did Andy do that to your apartment?” He tossed his packages on the bed.

I went over to the first aid kit. “Yep. He’s a real class act.”

“But Andy said that… never mind.” Zeke shook his head.

I pulled the small glass thermometer from the kit. “Andy says a lot of things.”

I was about to launch into a tirade about how dumb Andy was, but a scream of pain from across the way cut me short. I ran to the window just in time to see Frankie leaving his post.

Within a few moments, the screaming turned into uncontrolled sobbing. Eventually it quieted to a painful moaning. It was a long few minutes.

“Frankie, what’s going on?” I called out.

A few seconds later, Frankie appeared in the window. His whole demeanor had changed. He was smiling. “I think he’s past it. His fever’s coming down.”

I looked up at Frankie. “I still want you to take his temperature. Can you catch?”

“I guess.”

Maybe on a regular day he could, too. I underhanded him the thermometer, throwing it as gently as I could. He bobbled it and it fell to the floor inside his apartment.

I watched him fumble for it a bit. My gut said that the fever breaking would be temporary, if it had really happened at all. Unless Carlton’s immune system was a miracle indeed.

Eventually Frankie got a hold of it and disappeared again from the window.

I wished I could see what was going on in there. Quite often in the ER, I knew that a patient was going to die, but at least I see what was going on, and could do something. From here I could only sit, guess and shout instructions. I felt powerless, and I hated it.

At some point, I became aware of the the fact that the moaning had completely stopped. As soon I a recognized that fact, a new scream cut the silence.

It was different than the scream before. I shouted for Frankie.

There was the sound of a door slamming, and Frankie again appeared at the window. He appeared to be having a full blown panic attack. He was shaking, gasping, shouting and hardly making any sense at all. From his frenzy, I could pick out a few phrases.

“Tried to bite me! What went wrong? He was cold to the touch. What do I… He bit through the thermometer and tried to bite me! What do I do? It broke… What do I do? What do I do?”

My heart sank. I knew it was too late. The only thing left to do was to get Frankie away from Carlton. “Get out of there! If you can lock the door, lock it, but go!”

Frankie wasn’t listening to me. If he didn’t listen now, he wouldn’t get a second chance.

“Frankie, you have to listen. You need to go now. It’s too late for Carlton, but …”

I froze.

Out of the shadows behind Frankie stepped a thinner version of Andy.

Carlton. Infected.

Blood trickled from Carlton’s lip where the bitten thermometer had cut it. He had that same glazed look in his eyes that I had seen seen at the hospital.

There was nothing I could do.

Next time: “The Last Argument With Andy.”

Dialogue and the Art of War–Part 2

Dialogue, as I said last month, is war. It’s not fought
with guns and tanks. It’s fought with words. But it’s
all about the same thing. Conflict. If you don’t have
conflict, then you don’t have dialogue.

Dialogue, by the way, is a series of a special kind of
MRU, in which rational speech figures more prominently
than normal. (If you’ve never heard of MRUs, then you
can find out all about them in the following article on
my web site:)
http://www.rsingermanson.com/html/perfect_scene.html

Last month, I gave an example of poor dialogue by a
writer we’ll call “Tom Clancy.” This month, just to
show that I’m a fair-minded guy, we’ll work through an
example of sharp and snappy dialogue, and we’ll call
this writer “Tom Clancy” too. It’s a common name, after
all.

This excerpt is from the book PATRIOT GAMES. The
setting is the UK in the early 1980s. Our hero, Jack
Ryan, is in London on holiday and just happens to see
an assassination attempt in progress against Prince
Charlie and Lady Di. The bad guys are some IRA
terrorists armed with grenades and AK-47s. Jack barges
in barehanded and foils the attempt, wounding one of
the terrorists and killing another, thereby saving the
royals. For this service to the crown, he is given an
honorary knighthood.

In the scene we’ll be analyzing, Jack is the star
witness in the trial of the terrorist he wounded. He’s
given his testimony, and now the barrister for the
defense is launching a cross-examination on him. The
lawyer’s goal is to discredit Jack. Jack’s job is to
stay calm and not have his testimony voided by losing
his temper. He wants this terrorist put behind bars for
good.

“Tom” has set things up nicely. The conflict is sharply
defined. The two characters have opposing goals and the
stakes are high. If the barrister, “Red Charlie”
Atkinson, succeeds, then his client walks free. If Jack
convinces the jury, then the hood goes to jail for life.

We begin with Atkinson addressing Jack in the witness
stand:

“Doctor Ryan — or should I say Sir John?”

Jack waved his hand. “Whatever is convenient to you,
sir,” he answered indifferently. They had warned him
about Atkinson. A very clever bastard, they’d said.
Ryan had known quite a few clever bastards in the
brokerage business.

Randy sez: Atkinson begins probing Jack by referring to
his recent knighthood. The goal here is to make Jack
seem snooty to the jury, who are all commoners. Jack
counters by making it clear he’s not too stuck on
himself. Notice that “Tom” is writing here in
well-formed MRUs. The comment by Atkinson is objective
and external. Jack’s response is interspersed with
interior monologue, since we are inside his head.

“You were, I believe, a leftenant in the United States
Marine Corps?”

“Yes, sir, that is correct.”

Atkinson looked down at his notes, then over at the
jury. “Bloodthirsty mob, the U.S. Marines,” he
muttered.

“Excuse me, sir? Bloodthirsty?” Ryan asked. “No, sir.
Most of the Marines I know are beer drinkers.”

Randy sez: Atkinson now goes for the throat. His goal
is to persuade the jury that Jack is a violent man (he
shot two terrorists, after all) and therefore not to be
trusted. Jack parries this with politeness and humor,
making Atkinson look silly. Jack has scored a point
with the jury here, as we see next.

Atkinson spun back at Ryan as a ripple of laughter came
down from the gallery. He gave Jack a thin, dangerous
smile. They’d warned Jack most of all to beware his
word games and tactical skill in the coutroom. To hell
with it, Ryan told himself. He smiled back at the
barrister. Go for it, asshole . . .

Randy sez: Oops, a couple of boo-boos here, “Tom.”

First, you’re showing the cause AFTER the effect in the
first sentence. The cause is the laughter from the
gallery. The effect is Atkinson spinning back toward
Ryan. This is a minor glitch which takes your reader
ever so slightly out of the present, since the flow of
time is temporarily reversed.

The second problem is that you need a paragraph break
after Atkinson’s action (in which he gives Jack a thin
dangerous smile) and Jack’s reaction (his interior
monologue). A break would cue the reader to switch from
the objective to the subjective. Again, it’s a minor
glitch. A visual cue for the reader is nice but not
essential.

We pick up with Atkinson pressing his attack.

“Forgive me, Sir John. A figure of speech. I meant to
say that the U.S. Marines have a reputation for
aggressiveness. Surely this is true?”

Randy sez: Another attempt by Atkinson to make Jack
look bad. There follows some more back-and-forth in
which Jack explains what a bunch of good guys Marines
are and Atkinson expresses skepticism. We’ll pick up a
few pages further on, when Atkinson tries to make Jack
the aggressor against an innocent Irishman bystander
who might very well have been coming to the rescue of
the royal family.

“I don’t suppose you’ve been told that my client has
never been arrested, or accused of any crime?”

“I guess that makes him a first offender.”

“It’s for the jury to decide that,” the lawyer snapped
back. “You did not see him fire a single shot, did
you?”

“No, sir, but his automatic had an eight-shot clip, and
there were only three rounds in it. When I fired my
third shot, it was empty.”

Randy sez: Atkinson is working Jack hard, playing off
the fact that Jack didn’t actually see the terrorist
firing the gun. Jack is responding with both humor and
logic. He’s doing a fine job and the lawyer is getting
angry with him.

There aren’t many wasted words in this dialogue. No
small talk. No convenient exchanges of information.
Just war, straight and simple. That’s good dialogue.
Nice job, “Tom.”

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 5000 readers, every month. If
you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com . Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.