I am writing my first novel and am having some difficulties. For starters, the MC, Basil, has been through a lot of mental trauma and I want to show without telling. Here is an excerpt: “Why do you insist on calling dad, Charles? He was your father too.” Lillian said, holding her cup with both hands up to her face. “He may have been my father but he was certainly no dad. I swear that he was waiting for every chance he got to throw me out.” Basil snipped back. “He loved you, you were his son. At least respect the dead a little.” “The old schmuck deserved it, shoving me around like that.” “Both of you were at fault and it’s no good to talk like that about him. Just because he wasn’t your best friend doesn’t mean he was a horrible father. Maybe you’re a schmuck for not letting it go.” She stood, roughly dropped her cup in the sink and propped her hands up on the counter. “I just wish you would see some light in the world. It would do you some good.” The young woman stomped off up to her room. “Well, it’s hard to see the light if it’s been burned out of you.” He said softly to himself, alone in the kitchen.
To me, it feels like you're over-expressing a bit. I mean, maybe your characters have had a lot of therapy and they're actually this self-aware and open, but... I think most characters hold more back. It can be a bit scary to have characters NOT say things, but I think it ends up feeling more realistic and satisfying to readers.
“Why do you insist on calling dad, Charles? He was your father too.” Lillian said, holding her cup with both hands up to her face. No comma after dad. It sounds like someone named Charles wanted to make a phone call to dad. Dad should be capitalized. I'd put Charles in italics or put quotes around it, e.g., Why do you insist on calling Dad "Charles"? The way you describe her holding the cup is awkward. How I picture what you wrote is not what I think you intended. You're right, you are doing way too much telling. The info is good but needs to be revealed differently and in a much more interesting way.
I think problem here is the lack of expression. We hear the words, but we don't see the faces. Lack of imagery on the character's nonverbal communication is what kills the dialogue and causes the inflection to be very flat. Show us the feeling that thought of his father brings to Basil's face and his body. Show the physical aspect of disagreement from Lillian, and the disgust Basil's terse response to her inquiries bring to her character.
Lillian said, holding her cup up to her face with both hands. or better: Lillian said, raising her cup with both hands. "Holding it up" sounds like it's been there and she's using her hands to keep it there. As to your original question, @BayView is right. It's good stuff, but it's too much, too fast. Less is more, and subtlety is important in character development. Try to find ways to suggest the deeper meaning of an understatement, like having a character say less than they really mean or even the opposite of what they mean, and indicate what they're hiding with actions, like looking away, fidgeting, storming out of the room, depending on the emotion you want to portray. If you can figure out ways for two characters to talk about something without precisely talking about it, then you've really got something. Nothing in dialog beats great subtext. Again, it has to be subtle though, and it's certainly not vital. Plenty of great authors are fairly strait forward in their dialog. It's also good to stretch out the revelations. Indicate early on that he and his father had problems, but don't tell us what they are exactly all at once. We'll assume certain things and then maybe enjoy the reveal when we find out precisely why he feels the way he feels. Think of books you've read that revolve around contentious relationships in the character's past. They usually aren't immediately clear about the exact nature of the relationship or specific incidents. @EFMingo is right. Adding facial expressions is a good call. Use them sparingly though. Don't tell us every twitch between every line. You have something here. keep it up. ETA: Nice avatar, by the way. One of my favorite pair of chucks features 2D.
Well, what is she doing? Why does she have a cup up to her face while she's talking? Why is she using both hands. I didn't get it.
This dialouge needs to happen while something else is going on (subtext). One of the best scenes in "Ordinary People" was when the father was taking photos of the mother, the boy and the grandparents and then when it was just the mother and the boy there was all this tension. The mother kept telling the father to hurry up, then telling him to just give her the camera. The father kept fumbling around, and when the boy noticed his mother's unease of standing close to him he just yelled, "give her the goddamn camera", shocking everybody.
What bothered me: It's two people doing nothing but complaining. The story doesn't seem to be moving. It seems like the same person having a debate with him/herself. A difference in personality would be nice. But, lets face it, what do I know?
I think the issue is that the dialogue doesn't sound natural - it doesn't sound like two siblings talking about their difficult relationship with their father. As I read it, I can see the author trying to give me information using the characters as puppets (also known as, "As you know, Bob..." dialogue, where characters say things they have no reason to say for the benefit of the reader). They both know what their father was like and how the other feels about him, so why are they discussing it like it's the first time? Maybe you should just let them talk naturally and allow the reader to infer what's going on.
Perfect version 1 “Why you call him Charles? He was your daddy.” Lillian held her cup to her face. “He was certainly no father - waiting for every chance to throw me out.” “Respect the dead a little, you shitballs.” “The old schmuck deserved it, shoving me around like that.” The woman stomped to her room like a woman in clothes something. “Well, ” he said softly, alone in her kitchen.
This is clearly revisiting a long-standing argument. Both participants already know where the other stands, so there's way too much exposition. They already know all the context, they wouldn't repeat it all. It might work better with a third person present: Basil held the door for Anne. "What a lovely home!" Anne pointed to the large oil portrait over the hearth. "Is that your father?" "That's just Charles." He led her into the kitchen, where Lillian was pouring tea for herself. Basil introduced her to Anne. "Delighted to finally meet you, Anne. Basil, Charles was your dad, and he loved you." Basil snorted. "Father by blood. He was never a dad. The only thing he loved was seeing me leave." He started a fresh pot of tea for him and Anne. There's no benefit in spelling it out further at this time. You've planted the seeds.
It also occurs to me that you aren't doing much with POV in this scene. If you firmly place yourself in one character's POV, you can include a lot of the information you want to get across as thoughts or narrative. Like, in your first few lines... “You're still on that? Calling Dad by his first name?” Lillian said. The bastard might have been Basil's father, but he was certainly never 'Dad'. Not when he was looking for every chance he could get to throw Basil out. But Basil didn't want to have the fight, again. "Don't worry about it." Of course Lillian couldn't let it go. “He loved you: you were his son. At least respect the dead a little.” "Respect him for what? Dying?" Or whatever. Your own voice, obviously. But I think you're trying to put too much information into your dialogue, and it's making it hard for you to put emotion into it.
There are a lot of chickens on this forum! But out of all the advice I agree with BayView the most. That is a really good option to use narration to get feelings across.
“Why do you insist on calling dad, Charles? He was your father too.” Lillian said, holding her cup with both hands up to her face. Wordlessly Charles poured the remains of his coffee down the drain, rinsed the cup, placed it in the rack and stepped out the kitchen door to the small garden behind the house. Once there, he dunked his head into the rain barrel that loitered under the downspout and willed himself to leave it there until all thoughts of self preservation perished. This hadn't been the first time Lillian had broached this question, and this seemed the only reasonable way to make it the last. As his muscles relaxed and darkness began encroaching, he felt an unusually steely grip on the back of his collar that reefed him from the water and left him sputtering on the flagstones. "Seriously?" She looked down at him disappointedly. "Why," he heaved, "can't you just accept the decisions I've made for myself," he coughed, "and be happy for me."
That is bitterness. Trauma is wider, deeper and more focused. (Don't ask how it can be. I don't know. But it is.) If you mean PTSD or C-PTSD (Complex PTSD) then it helps if you show its most important hints in action. Some hints in dialog, some in behaviour and most important hints in reactive and proactive action. If you link sensory reactions and trauma you could use smell because that's the area of sensory memory that is really powerful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder If PTSSD or C-PTSD comes from the long time stress in childhood family, it can easily be as severe as one from war and much harder than one from some natural disaster. (So... Pick your childhood family well. Try not to get any narcissistic sociopaths to your family. Don't pick Lusy van Pelt to your elder sister if you want to live a happy life - or just live a life.) If you want to pick both dynamics and results of narcissistic father and a boy as his victim, then... Shine. I have not seen this, so I'm a bit hesitant, but maybe also...
He is a very bitter person in general. I have done minor research on PTSD and wrote it in as the MC being an insomniac and his mind shuts down at any reminder of the traumatic event. Charles had nothing to do with the event, I just wanted to hint at something furthur happening through Basil's dialogue. Thank you though!
Lillian never saw that side of Charles before, she saw an entire other man. Any description of their father from Basil's side is foreign to her. I understand what you are saying. I am definitely going to work with the dialogue more. I do want to mention that Basil chooses his words very carefully as a part of his character. He has refined his speech to fit around some mental triggers. Also, later in the book, he begins to drop his fixed talk to be more loose and improvised.
That is good & interesting situation in writing. (And hard in a real life.) If you want to "show, not tell" you could maybe take some of the information off the dialog and put it in action. P.S. If we sound negative, it is not that. We are not underrating you but taking you seriously. That means no fluffy and sweet things but something we think might be real. Your writing and thinking seems to be above certain level. It means you get comments that might be useful in that level. The same comments would be too harsh for a writer who can't climb over same fences. Inferior writer would get more whipped cream and sugar coating.
Thank you so much for all this advice! I am fourteen and hoping to get somewhere with writing! Every comment and tip is unbelievably helpful. Thanks!
If you are fourteen, I give you more tips. This time I try to take your age account. 1. Read. A lot. Widely. 2. Read what you like. Don't try to focus to "good" literary but everything you like or interests you. 3. Think and feel. Try to avoid intellectual and/or emotional laziness. Writing is thinking and thinking is like writing. And thinking matters only if it matters. Emotions and value structures make it matter. 4. Don't let anyone "find" you or ride in your back. Those who try to do that are clever and cunning. Try to find out if that is happening. Ride with others. Don't be anyones horse. 5. Learn to self reflect your own thinking and feeling. Build tools to that. 6. Make reading and writing fun. If you are talented, skill will grow and grow as long as your motivation is ok. 7. Do things. Thinking and writing has two legs. Abstract world is another, empiria is another. 8. Learn about humans, history, learn about everything that interests you. 9. Don't rush. You are now building the foundation. It is more important than going fast. 10. You don't live years but life. Live it. 11. "Write what you know" means "write what you know emotionally". Learn about emotional life - widely. 12. Visualising things can help writing. If you are interested in any visual art, go for it. (Drawing, photographing, videos...) 13. Fail early, fail often, fail with minimum investments in stake. Lear to fail so that you gain something. 14. "If you don't read news you are uninformed. If you do, you are misinformed." Learn to see why and how information is offered. 15. Don't read classics too early. 16. Creative working is a world of Pareto distribution and Price's model. 17. Majority is always wrong. It does not mean that minority is right. They are usually also wrong. 18. Aim to the top. But that does not mean hubris. It means that you need to work in more creative, more intelligent, more industrious way than 99% of published writers. "The top" means best possible working process for you, not places or situations it takes you. If you can get to the top of your working processes, other things will follow because your work brings them. 19. Help others by not helping them. Help them to help themselves if you can. Don't show how to do it but how to find a way to do it. 20. Meet all kinds of peoples. 21. Don't look at the identities. Look what is the self, the essence, the core inside those identities. 22. Rethink. Don't just rewrite. Rethink. 23. If you are young female, it might be wise to keep distance to those who try to get familiar with your sensual and sexual part and keep up some barriers. (Emotional & intellectual are very close to sexual. Be careful. Don't trust too easily to people who tell that they can help your career or anything like that. 24. Don't try to get an agent too soon. It might be better to get better agent later than a lousy one too soon. 25. Make your working conditions as good as you can. 26. Develop your workflow in the beginning as much as you can. 27. Take care about making backups. 28. Print what you write. Read it aloud. 29. Take risks but take good care about your personal safety while doing it. Don't risk anything you are not ready to loose. Taking risks means you might loose it. 30. Be you. Don't be or become anyone else. Lear who and what you are - deep, deep inside. Be you, but grow to be more you, bigger you, better you, more real and original you. 31. If someone challenges you intellectually, learn to pay attention is there social challenge included. If there is, it's not at all intellectual but 100% social and hierarchical challenging. Learn that. And learn that who ever is challenging you does not know or admit the truth about his/her motives. I'll give you some reading hints: 1. Scott Adams: How to Fail in Almost Everything and Still Win Big. 2. Aki Hintsa: The Core 3. Dr. Carol S. Dweck: Mindset 4. Blake Snyder: Save the Cat. 5. Terry Pratchett: Almost anything that you find funny. But: Don't read anything of that short list if and when it does not interest you. If it does not grab you, you are not ready for it. And an video clip: Make Good Art!
To add to the already good feedback: don't overdo the stage direction (i.e. the description of what people are doing.) And don't put it in unless it's necessary (e.g. someone walking away) or communicates something about what's going on (e.g. someone looking away.) The issue with Lillian's cup, for me, is not that you used a lot of words to describe how she held it, but that I didn't get anything more out of it. It didn't tell me anything about Lillian, it just seemed random. Compare to: Lillian held her cup up in both hands, pretending to study it. I hope you get the impression from that description that Lillian is using the cup to avoid making eye contact with Basil, or at least that the POV character (Basil) thinks she is. That tells you something, right? Regarding Lillian's line, "insist on" implies that Basil has previously faced resistance to his calling Dad 'Charles." Compare to "Do you have to call Dad 'Charles'?" "Why do you have to call Dad 'Charles'?" "Why do you always call Dad 'Charles'?" "Why do you call Dad 'Charles'?" Each conveys something slightly different, and the use of capital-D "dad" signals that Lillian is Charles' daughter or daughter-in-law. The first one, for example, signals Lillian's annoyance. The last one might signal that 'Charles' isn't even Dad's first name, or that Lillian doesn't know that it is (perhaps Dad lived under an alias and Basil knew it). Which to use (and there are others you could) is up to you. You don't have to use more words to say more -- a few carefully chosen words can speak volumes. That why, as the saying goes, it takes longer to write shorter.
Wow! You're 14? My first, best advice is "Don't listen to us!" Read, write, experiment. Get feedback but don't take it too seriously. Try little stories about little things, not grand fantasies, you're not going to write the next Lord of the Rings right out of the box. Like everyone else, you'll learn to write well by writing badly.
