When the first and crucial chapter of your book has been put to bed and your scenario is in position, you will do something so radical that it might scare the pants off you: Commission Your Characters to Take Over the Plot… Look upon your plot or central theme as the engine room and the characters you have invented as technicians maintaining it and driving the engine. You will have already recorded snatches of conversation between them (you ought to a bundle of these by now) and you will have involuntarily ‘listened in’ on the occasional tête-à-tête emanating from this team of virtual co-workers. Now hand over management of the plot to them; lock stock and barrel. Something magical occurs when the characters take over. They edge the storyline along in directions you would never have imagined, and mystically expand the overall theme and sub-plots. Don’t worry, you are still in command of the story, but you are being fed on a regular diet of gold nuggets gathered up by your virtual co-workers from the inner labyrinth of your subconscious while you have been asleep… Let the Characters Craft the Dialog Now they are doing the walking, let them also do the talking. You wouldn’t send a lawyer into a court of law with a statement written by you to plead in your defence. Treat your characters with the same respect. They have by now perfected their own individual voices; allow them to express themselves in their own way; say what they want to say, not what you want them to say. This is how to cultivate what the pundits call ‘a natural ear for dialog’ where the discourse matches the original voice of the character. Paint Word Pictures o Allow the amazing power of words to illustrate scenes in your story;
o Ultilize your words like the colors in a paint-box to flesh out the action. Compare this brief text with the embellished version immediately underneath… “As they walked along the prom in high spirits, the pretty young lady linked arms with her youthful companion." “As they walked along the prom in high spirits, the pretty young lady in pink cloche hat and purple pleated short skirt linked arms with her youthful companion. He wore outrageously wide yellow Oxford bags topped by a candy striped blazer." Do you see the difference? o The first is a bland statement of fact;
o The second a word picture that sets the action in a definitive period in time and engages the reader to the full in the scene you are painting.
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