Massaging Your Technique

Writing Dialogue has convinced me that even experienced writers should massage their technique by reading a good book by an expert -preferably someone who teaches at a credible university like author Tom Chiarella. Like a good rubdown refreshes cranky old bones, such a habit will rejuvenate your perspective and technique. For beginners, it will work like essential balm, teaching what even careful reading sometimes fails to disclose.

The reason I am so sure of this is that I had occasion to spruce up an excerpt from my first novel, This is the Place. Connie Gotsch, host of a literary program on KSJE, a radio station in the four corners that includes Connie's "Write On!" that caters to readers, asked me to read from both my books. It reminded me of the days when the whole world tuned in to drama, a la "The Haunting Hour" and "Fibber McGee and Molly." I decided the chapter should be trimmed so it would entertain in the same way that these programs had in the Golden Age of Radio.

I had just read Writing Dialogue and was surprised at how many changes I made in my already-published dialogue as I was trimming the excerpt. Before reading Chiarella's book, I was convinced that it wouldn’t teach me much. I’ve studied long and hard -done my homework. That turned out to be hubris. The changes I made were subtle, to be sure, but I tweaked in ways that would not have been possible without Chiarella’s insight.

Since that experience, I have made Writing Dialogue a staple on the reading lists I hand out to the students in my classes at UCLA, for Chiarella covers everything from grammar and the punctuation of dialogue to listening. He is most valuable when he dissects dialogue and paints pictures of whole new ways to hear it before one begins to write it. He even includes tips like having characters interrupt themselves, back up and repeat, and suggests ways this can be used to better characterization.

Writers should not borrow this book from the library. It will be better read, dog-tagged, underlined, and sitting on their desks where they can reach for a kind of writing-massage on a moment’s notice.