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Avoiding Reader Confusion
- Part I:
Off with the (Talking)
Heads!
by
Marg Gilks
You are a storyteller. You may
call yourself a writer, or an author, or a novelist, but what
you do is tell stories. A true storyteller writes with an audience
in mind. A master storyteller writes to hold and entertain that
audience.
Unfortunately, there are many
ways that you can lose your audience. One of the most damaging
is by confusing your reader. In some cases, it can also be one
of the easiest problems to fix.
Editors and agents may read your
manuscript with a critical eye, but readers read it because they
expect to be entertained. If they're not entertained, if it's
too much work to figure out, they'll not only become confused,
they'll get angry. They'll feel betrayed. How dare the writer
not make the story clear for them? They'll definitely put your
story aside -- perhaps even hurl it at the wall in a fit of frustration
-- and they'll very likely vow never to read anything written
by you again.
You will have lost not only a
reader, but the reader's faith in you as a storyteller.
When I'm reading a manuscript
-- or less often, a published story or novel -- I shudder when
I turn the page and see a long string of dialogue. This is often
the sign of a "talking heads" story: no setting, no
description, little action, just people talking talking
talking to one another. This can be
exhausting for a reader. Sometimes readers like to pause and "look
around," to catch their breath.
Runaway dialogue is also a sign
of a hyped-up writer. So caught up in the information they want
to convey, so anxious to get it down -- but also remembering the
show, don't tell rule -- they dump everything into an endless
stream of dialogue without bothering to flesh out the scene into...
well, into a story. Worse, they're often in such a hurry to get
the information out of the characters' mouths that they don't
bother identifying who is speaking for the reader. They neglect
dialogue tags.
Dialogue tags are the "he
said" and "Mary asked" identifiers you see with
dialogue. They tell the reader who's speaking. "She said"
is the simplest form. Action combined with dialogue is often an
even more effective dialogue tag, because it shows; it gives a
sense of place to the speech, or conveys action or an element
of characterization:
Alibaba tightened a screw on the magic carpet. "There,
that should fix it."
Here, we learn that Alibaba
is a mechanically-inclined fellow; we learn he's living in a magical
place where carpets do more than lie on the floor, and we know
it's Alibaba
talking, even without tacking on "he said." And, we
learn all that without being told.
Yes, to fix runaway dialogue and,
in this instance, avoid reader confusion, all you have to do is
tag the dialogue with enough identifiers to keep the reader straight
on who's speaking. Not every line of dialogue, mind you, or the
tags will become intrusive, distracting. You just need enough
to keep the reader from getting confused.
Now, before you go ahead and tack
"he said" onto every other line in the conversation
between Tom and Jerry, also realize that generic tags are just
as bad as none at all. If you tag both Tom's and Jerry's lines
simply with "he said," who's speaking? Which he? Put
some thought into your tags. Better yet, get creative and convey
action as well as identification. That, more than dialogue, is
showing.
While we're on the topic (in a
roundabout way) of character names, don't equate creativity with
variety or, again, you'll confuse your reader. What do I mean?
Let's say you've named one of your characters Dr. Buffy Sardinski
(hey, it's original). The first time this character walks into
your story, she's referred to as Buffy. Okay, your reader thinks,
I know this character as Buffy.
A page later, one of your characters
gets Buffy's attention by yelling, "Hey, Sardinski!"
Your reader pauses. Who is Sardinski?
Well, only Buffy and Character B are in this scene, so "Sardinski"
must also be Buffy's name. Fine, the reader thinks, she's Buffy
Sardinski.
Still later in the story, walk-on
Character C is asking where "the doctor" is. Now your
reader is thinking, Huh? Who is this doctor that C's looking for? Your reader
is confused; he or she has pulled out of the story (eek! Bad
thing to happen!) to figure
this out. If the reader can't figure it out quickly, he'll get
mad. End of your story!
"I can't call my protagonist
just 'Buffy' throughout an entire novel!" you protest. Of
course you can't -- although it's not a bad idea to pick one name
and stick to it for a short story, where length is an issue. Go
ahead and use "Buffy," "Sardinski,"
and "doctor" interchangeably -- but first familiarize
the reader with the character's full name and title before chopping
it up later on.
This introduction of a character's
name doesn't have to be obvious, by the way. You don't have to
start your character's introduction with the rather stiff "Dr.
Buffy Sardinski walked into the office"
unless that is the opening that best fits. Get creative. You could
do something like this, and leave your reader familiar with the
character's various names in the end, too:
Buffy
felt a surge of pride as she hung the placard that read "Dr.
B. Sardinski" on her office door.
This Article was found at: http://www.articleblast.com/
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