How to Write Internal Monologue

by C. Patrick Schulze

Listen to a PODCAST of this article.

Internal monologue, a CHARACTER’s thoughts, is a tool by which you can improve your writing to a dramatic degree. Once you learn how to write internal monologue, you can infuse your novels with added dimensions of intrigue and emotion.

Despite its difference from spoken dialogue, internal monologue should conform to the basic tenants found within the craft of writing. By this I mean you should still show instead of tell, maintain the character’s voice, stay in Point of View and all the rest. You mustn’t think a character’s thoughts changes any of the basic “rules” within the craft of writing.

As I alluded to above, internal monologue is all about the character and his voice. Is your character the type of person who would express his thoughts in the way you indicate? And if so, do his thoughts fit his personality? Does he think the same way he would speak? Ensure his monologues match who he is.

Things you do NOT do with internal monologue:

1. Present the information before its time. When the reader needs to know it, then present it.
2. Employ thoughts as a substitute for conflict. Conflict and dialogue drive your story, not thoughts.

Things you DO with internal monologue:

1. Incorporate your monologues between your CONFLICT. When the ship is about to sink is the time for your character to think about the home. Home has more significance if it’s wrapped around the conflict.
2. Pick your opportunities to utilize internal monologues with care. Your character should be in a situation that drives high emotions.
3. Choose those times to insert the monologue for when they’ll have the most affect.
4. Make sure your reader understands the character is done thinking. Nothing slows a novel like a readers who wonders, “Huh? What did I miss?”
5. Include details that touch the reader’s senses. After all, you want your reader to feel what is going on, right?

The classic opportunities to incorporate internal dialogue into your writing is when your character comes to a momentous decision, makes a startling discovery, sees a new opportunity or tries to hide his emotions.

How might you punctuate internal monologue?

If you use a word or phrase to replace the word, “said,” to show your character is thinking, you format like regular dialogue. Or you can simply italicize his thoughts. Both of the following examples are correct.

“But, I assumed I was right,” he thought.
But I assumed I was right, he thought.

The secret to internal DIALOGUE? The best examples intrigue your reader. They make your reader feel compelled to read on and learn more.

Anyone care to share any tips they’ve learned about internal dialogue? I’d love to hear them.

Until we speak again, know I wish for you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze
Author of the emerging novel, “Born to be Brothers.”

9 Essentials for Writing Your Climactic Scene

by C. Patrick Schulze

To listen to a podcast of this article, click HERE.

Every novel requires that final, explosive scene where the protagonist and his villain struggle with each other to the certain demise of one or the other. It matters not if you hero is a working mother trying to make ends meet, or the commander of the forces ready to invade Omaha Beach on D-Day. Every novel should have this climactic scene and you should consider certain criteria to make it as powerful as you can.

Here are nine tips to help you when writing that all-important scene.

This scene should be an epic confrontation with a clear winner and a clear loser. Someone gets the girl and someone goes home from the party by himself.

Your hero must confront his most worthy of adversaries. Secondary evil doers simply won’t do. Make this clash between the biggest and baddest.

Your reader expects your hero to win and so he should. However, his victory need not be what they expect. Regardless the sour taste of your hero’s success, a victory he should have.

Your hero should win something of value for his trials. It could be the realization that “The Girl” just ain’t worth the work, or it may be real estate garnered by an incredible battle. Whatever he learns or wins, it must make him a better person, or creature, as the case may be.

In this scene it is not the time for surprise arrivals of any sort. The cavalry, in any of its many forms, should not jump into the story at this point. All that should be set up earlier in your novel.

Have your hero save himself. Imagine if your hero is fighting the villain in hand-to-hand combat and just as the bad guy puts the sword to his throat, an unmentioned meteor streaks from the sky to obliterate the bad guy in a magnificent blaze of fire. Don’t you think your readers will be disappointed in that? Now, that’s not to say the beautiful model can’t Kung Fu in and save him earlier in the story, but at this time, he’s on his own.

There should be no flashbacks at this point in your novel. Flashbacks are tough anyway, but they break the tension and can kill the entire scene. Once the scene opens, focus on the conflict in that scene. Your readers’ interest should be at its peak and they deserve a healthy portion of suspense, action and conflict.

Speaking of action and conflict, this scene should be resolved with action and conflict. Let them duke it out, metaphorically, emotionally or physically, but get the tussle going. Make this thing as exciting as you can. (For more information on the difference between action and conflict, read this ARTICLE.)

Clarification of anything is death to this scene. This is the time for action and your readers should have already received any explanations they need, although mysteries might get away with this to a point.

And finally, this scene should end in a rational fashion. Make it suspenseful, but logical. You never want your readers to say, “Don’t buy it,” at the end of your story. If they do, they’ll tell their friends the same thing; “Don’t buy it.”

Now, are there any aspects to the climactic scene I’ve forgotten?

Until my next post, you knows I wish you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze
Author of the emerging novel, “Born to be Brothers”

How to Write Your Novel’s Hook-Line

By C. Patrick Schulze

To listen to a podcast of this article, click HERE.

A hook-line is a one or two sentence summary of your novel. Although the term, “hook-line” is singular, it may consist of two sentences, but it should probably be no longer than that. It is the high-concept of your novel compressed into a few words and should enable your target audience to grasp your storyline at once. Think of it as an elevator speech for your novel or as a teaser on its dust jacket. You might even consider it a marketing tag-line.

The purpose of your hook-line is to grab someone’s attention and encourage them to learn more about your novel. The secret to it, however, lies in its hidden sales pitch. That pitch should suggest your novel is something they would want to buy. You’ll see what I mean when we outline the five elements of your hook-line.

Why do you need a hook-line? Well, consider the target market, or audience, you’ll want to develop for your novel. Your initial market is comprised of a single person, an agent. In this person’s case, your hook-line will often be the opening line of your query letter. Your hook-line should spark their curiosity in some way and persuade them to learn more about your novel. It should do the same with an editor, a publicist, wholesale book sellers, retail book buyers and eventually the consumer or reader.

So, how does a writer create their hook-line? It’s not as difficult as you might think as it need not encompass your entire storyline, just some critical aspects of it. All you need is enough information to peak someone’s interest. If you cover the five fundamental elements of a hook-line, you’ll be all right. The premier elements of your hook-line are listed below.

1.  Character: Who is your hero and what does he want?

2.  Conflict: What is it that keeps your hero from his goal?

3.  Uniqueness: What makes your novel stand out from all the others?

4.  Setting: Insure your setting, or at least your genre, is obvious.

5.  Action: Your hook-line needs to at least promise excitement.

Can you see how these five components would have the potential to tweak an agent’s or a reader’s curiosity? Might a compelling description that highlights these points encourage them to buy your book? If you know much about selling, you’ll realize it just might.

Let’s take a look at the tag line for my current manuscript and see if it fits the criteria.

Though Jak and Clay share a camaraderie known to few but brothers, each falls in love with Kate and requests her hand in marriage. Despite her choice of one, their brother’s bond remains intact until the American Civil War threatens and forces them to decide whether their loyalties lie with love, with friendship or with their nation.

Let’s evaluate this to see if it fits the criteria outlined above.

Character(s):

Jak is our hero and he wants to hold onto his friendship with Clay and have Kate for his wife. He also requires an honorable decision as to his personal loyalties when the war erupts.

Core Conflict:

This is the decision the characters must make relative to the war and their relationships.

Uniqueness:

How many love triangles do not tear apart the relationships? The fact the three remain close is most unusual.

Setting:

This novel takes place during the mid-nineteenth century in America, which is shown by the outbreak of the Civil War.

Action:

We have three lives that revolve around the love triangle, the war and the decision they all must make.

Do you agree or disagree this covers the five critical elements required of a hook-line? Have you come up with your hook-line as yet and would you care to share? I’d love to see it.

Until we meet again, you know I wish you only best-sellers

C. Patrick Schulze
Author of the emerging novel, “Born to be Brothers.”

The Keys to Effective Dialogue in Novels

by C. Patrick Schulze

To listen to a podcast of this article click HERE.

Dialogue is one of the premier aspects of your novel and every word of it should have a reason as to why it exists within your manuscript.

The reasons for dialogue in a fiction are varied, with the major goals listed below.

1. Provide backstory
2. Reveal a character’s personality, internal conflicts or mental state
3. Establish the tone or mood of a particular point in your story
4. Provide for character motivation
5. Build reader empathy
6. Build or expand on conflict
7. Move the plot forward
8. Increase or decrease the pace of your novel
9. Tweak the reader’s memory of past events within the novel
10. Foreshadow events yet to happen

If your dialogue does not perform one or more of the above functions, you can most likely delete it from your manuscript. A good test is to read the scene without the questionable dialogue and see if your story, or any critical plot points, are affected. If they are not, cut the dialogue.

Here are some tips for creating better dialogue.

Punctuation Counts

I hate to say this, but punctuation is key to effective dialogue. If you do not follow grammatical rules, your dialogue may not read as intended.

A quick example:

“Maggie said No I will not go with you.”

In this case, it’s difficult to understand if Maggie said the words or if someone else said Maggie said them. This distinction may have quite the effect on your story. As written, it holds little or no tension, whereas in the corrected sentence below, it implies danger and a more exciting plot.

Maggie said, “No! I will not go with you.”

For more on dialogue punctuation, read THIS blog post.

Dialogue is Different

Dialogue happens when a character speaks, of course, but the secret is to not write so your characters speak the way people do. The secret is to write so it sounds like people speaking. It’s a tricky thing to do, but an essential aspect of writing effective dialogue.
You’ll find people speak in clipped sentences peppered with, “um’s” and “ah’s” and the like. You’ll also find they speak in incomplete sentences, incomprehensible grunts and all sorts of other communication you cannot use in your manuscript. Further, and this is fact, ninety-five percent of the time people don’t answer the question asked. If you were to write as people speak, your reader would get bored at once and put down your book. Worse, they’d not recommend it to others.

So, how do you interpret speech to read as effective dialogue? The secret to translate natural linguistics into dialogue is, cut all the dull parts. (I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who first penned that phrase.) If you study the way people speak, you’ll learn the dull parts are most of what they say. Once you’ve identified and eliminated all the inconsequential words, which is most of any actual discussion, you’ll be left with the meat. And the meat is all that goes into your novel.

Here’s an example of how a real conversation might sound and how it could be altered to read as effective novel dialogue:

John said, “What did you do today?”

Mary answered, “Uh, nothing really. I went to the store, bought a pair of black slacks. What did you do?”
“Not much.”

“Oh, by the way, did you know I ran into Sara while I was shopping?”

“Sara!” John was surprised to hear her name.

When you read this exchange, you’ll notice the tension rose when Mary mentioned Sara’s name. In that case, Sara is the turning point to this exchange and the only part of this conversation necessary for novel dialogue.

If you compare their conversation with the purposes of dialogue listed above, you’ll see much of this exchange need not be included in your novel. If you eliminate the “dull parts” the result would cut fifty-one words to twenty-one and might read as follows:

John said, “What did you do today?”

Mary answered, “I ran into Sara.”

“Sara!” John was surprised to hear her name.

Compare this second exchange to our ten reasons to include dialogue in your novel and you’ll find it adheres to seven of the ten rationale on the list. Can you identify the seven it does match? If so, you’re well on your way to understand the use of dialogue in novels.

Once you’ve learned how to write effective dialogue, you’ll see there is a secret in how it relates to your plot. As with the mention of Sara, turning points are often found within your dialogue. That is, things don’t often just happen to characters, characters tell each other what transpires or is about to transpire.

A “rule” found within the craft of writing says dialogue should comprise as much as fifty percent of your book, specifically your word count. Now we all know there are no rules in writing, but the idea does offer an indication of how powerful and meaningful dialogue is to your novel. Therefore, it is one of aspects to the craft of writing you should spend a great deal of your time to study and learn.

I hope you know by now I wish you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze
Author of the emerging novel, “Born to be Brothers.”

The Secrets to Conflict in Novels

By C. Patrick Schulze

 

As humans we tend to avoid conflict whenever possible, but as creators of characters, the use of conflict is one skill we must master.If your dreams of success include penning of The Great American Novel, then conflict is your friend.

Conflict is what makes your story worth reading and, in fact, is the key component that weaves all the elements of your novel together. Without it, you’ve simply written a series of facts and occurrences. Conflict is what gets your readers’ hearts to beat faster, sets their blood to boil and encourages them to turn the pages. It also is what generates buzz and book sales.

With few exceptions, every successful novel is grounded in its story and the story is grounded in conflict. Think of it as forces in opposition. That is, you create one character who exhibits some undeniable desire and you pit them against another character who wishes to deny that ambition. It matters not the form of your conflict, only that one person wants it and another wishes to keep them from it.

I feel there exists a major misunderstanding among writers, especially new writers, as it relates to conflict. Conflict is not the crisis or what happens to your characters. It is not the battle, the argument or the deception. Instead, conflict rests upon your characters’ thoughts and feelings toward the events they experience. Conflict is found within the moral choices your characters make, in their emotional reaction to the events that swirl about them.

Consider this example. A daughter tells her father a lie, but the father could not care less. Where is the excitement? Where is the energy? Where is the drama? Now, imagine if the father loses his temper over the lie and strikes out at his daughter. Now you’ve got conflict. It is not the action, it is your character’s response to an action.

Let’s look at some general tips about conflict.

There exists a delicate balance between too much or too little conflict. Have you ever read a boring novel or have one overwhelm and exhaust you? Only use that conflict that is necessary to your story.

In most cases, two opposing conflict points, one internal and one external, are enough to carry your novel. Can you put in more? Sure, but each new conflict point increases the potential loss of control over your story. Cut any conflict that is not necessary to your fundamental storyline. Though you may toss in a couple of other conflict points of lesser strength to keep raising the stakes, stick to a major conflict point or two for best results. Should you wish to add more conflict, think subplots. (For more on subplot, read THIS article.)

Your conflict should build in an upward trending line, with a couple of lesser peaks and their resulting valleys, towards the climax of your story. Think of the way your conflict builds as a line graph. It should rise and fall, rise and fall again and again until you’ve created a line that looks like an ever growing mountain range. Each of these peaks and valleys builds then releases the tension until you reach that highest crest where your hero and his villain clash in your most powerful scene. This series of growth and collapse sets an interesting pace to your writing, and further draws your reader into the story.

Every chapter in your novel should have someone wanting something. This want need not be anything of utmost importance, but each chapter should contain some level of conflict. It may be as simple as a young girl wishing her mother would allow her to walk to school, to the reactions of your hero as he is thrust into battle. Regardless, your novel requires some level of conflict in every chapter.

The true secret of conflict is that it begins and ends with desire. It’s all about who wants what and who wishes to keep it from them.

The essence of building tension is choice. Your hero must be forced to make choices in order to keep him moving forward on his quest. His choices, and the process of learning that results from them, are what keep your reader involved in your story. It also maintains the tension of your novel.

Fear intensifies conflict. Your hero must face his fears, so include doubt or worry at judicious points within your manuscript.

Use dialogue as a major tool in the building of your conflict. When used for best effect, dialogue increases the emotion, tension and tragedy.

If you spend the time to develop your conflict as you would your most important of characters, your novel will shine brighter.

Until my next post, I wish you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze

Author of the emerging novel, “Born to be Brothers.”