Editing Stage #4: Utilities

As a quick recap, I'm posting a series on editing. In this series I am using a house as metaphoric language in describing the stages of editing. Last week we looked at stage three, the walls and floor, so this week we are focusing on stage four: the utilities.

The utilities in editing are: dialogue and actions.

Dialogue

Imagine a book without characters saying anything. Imagine a movie where no one talks, not even mouthing words. Boring, right? Our everyday life is full of dialogue. Ordering pizza, chatting with a colleague overwhelmed phone, a serious talk with a family member, sharing a joke with a friend. These are things we do every day, and it's hard to imagine life without them.

How we speech reveals a lie about us. Our words come from within us, from our thoughts, emotions, desires, hobbies, and other things such as where we're from, our extent of education, or religion, and more. And since these things vary from person to person, everyone has their own unique way of speaking, however subtle it may be.

Same with our characters. Each has his own way of talking, because they're all different. So if all the dialogue in our story is basically the same, we've missed a great opportunity to add realism. And, in turn, (as I've mentioned before, in previous posts) a lack of realism can pull your readers from the story. They might not know why, but the story might seem bland to them.

Character voices don't have to be obvious, since that can also pull readers out if it's taken too far. Instead, for each character, try to keep their unique person in mind. Include images that reflects their fishing business, for example. Or their worldliness, or their other-worldliness.

Actions

Life is practically defined by movement. Everything that is "alive" moves. Plants grow, animals scurry through the woods, children run around. Even in our stillness moments, we are breathing and our hearts are beating.

If your book is going to convey the realism of your characters, there has to be movement. They have to be doing something, even if they're just talking. There's body language, activities, fight scenes, you name it, and these all require movement.

The most challenging thing, in my opinion, when it comes to movement or action, is describing it. There's a joke that writing is 70% sitting at your desk and trying to find a better way of describing someone walking across a room.

That generic "she walked across the room" doesn't really help us picture it. "She danced across the room" or "she slouched across the room" convey the idea a lot better, and gives us even an emotion to go with it. In the example of the character dancing across the room, it sounds happy or fun. In the second example, the character sounds lazy or in a bad mood.

The trick to best describing actions in a story is to use strong verbs. Try to replace the overused words with ones that would communicate more. Be careful, however, that you don't sacrifice creativity or clarity. Clarity is just as important, possibly even more so, because if your reader doesn't understand the action, then your beautiful words have been wasted.

Conclusion

As small of changes as dialogue and actions might seem, they are extremely important. Change the way these function in the story, and you change how the story is told. It can make the story, but it can break it, too. Be careful not to take it too far, giving every character an obviously unique voice, and sacrificing clarity for creativity.

Writers, what do you think? What do you take into consideration with dialogue and actions, and which is harder for you?

Happy writing!