Hi everyone, as usual I have no idea where this post goes so I just stuck it in general writing—feel free to move it. Recently, while reading many other works of writing and then coming back to my own, I have found that the central problem with my writing is the lack of narrative. It is not balanced with the amount of dialogue, action, and physical descriptions I have. I do not have any paragraphs that allow my character(s) to think in monologues and such, I don’t have an abounding amount of background information, and my writing is certainly lacking. Does anyone know of any ways that I can practice writing these narrative-like pieces? Actually, backtrack—how do you write them? I hope my wording in this isn’t too confusing! Thanks to everyone!
You're not alone. If left to my own devices, my writing ends up being pretty much all dialogue with the most barebones of connective narrative to get you from one thing that gets said so the reason for the next thing that gets said. Part of the problem for me is that as a reader, when I see expanses of narrative, I tend to skim because too often it's woolgathering. Not always, obviously, but often enough that the habit has formed for me as a reader. My answer is to just be patient with myself and write it the way it comes to me and then go back and think long and hard about what would be going through the person's mind and to remember that what may feel inane to you is the detail other readers crave. That's not much of an answer, I know, but... know you're not alone!
There is a delicate balance between dialogue, narration and interior monologue, and that particular mix will emerge as your style. My advice to you is to do as @Wreybies said, write what feels best to you, and don't try to make the first draft perfect ... you can't, no one can. When you finish the story, you go back to do your first revision, and some of the narration may become dialogue, some dialogue may become narration. A lot of times in my first draft, I include a lot of narration at the beginning establishing the setting, weather, etc. That is "scaffolding" for me, it puts the scene clear in my mind so I can write the chapter. When I go back to do the first edit, I may keep the scaffolding and polish it a bit, get rid of it as boring unnecessary background, or turn it into narrative. Whatever happens to it, it served its purpose of helping me write the chapter. As an example in my Eagle and the Dragon, a Roman senator takes two Roman soldiers to visit his ship in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt (2000 years ago). The first draft opened with an overview of Alexandria, how the harbor was laid out, where the lighthouse was, even a bit of history. Good for me, but BORING! So why not see Alexandria through the eyes of the soldiers, as the Senator drives his carriage through the very wide central highway of the Canopic Way? Let them see the lighthouse in the distance, and wonder why it flashes brilliantly periodically in the daytime. Drive by a white sandy beach and watch little sailboats flitting in the harbor among big pleasure yachts, men and women lounging in the sand, swimming or playing ball, some of the women in two piece bathing suits (based on a thrid century mosaic I have seen) almost like San Diego Bay. THAT got the centurion's attention, and the reader feels like he is visiting the city with them, rather than getting a history lesson. I don't know if the Pharos lighthouse actually had a rotating beam but I had a plausible explanation from the senator, who had been to the top and seen it in operation, involving mirrors catching the sun, turned by a man leading a donkey around the top floor, and at night much better than moving wagon loads of whatever they burned up forty floors to the top ... I put the fire at the base, and reflected it from the top with the same mirrors.
I tend--not always--to insert the narrative later. Fairly frequently, a scene will go: First sweep: All headless dialogue, with the occasional absolutely mandatory action. "More beets?" "No. I'd take more chicken." "Mm." He tipped his head at the server, and the chicken that she was carrying toward the window table was deposited at theirs. "How do you do that?" "I express my appreciation. Reliably." "So you're nice, but to your own benefit." "Of course." Second sweep: Add tags, beats, a few actions bigger than beats, sometimes more dialogue. He put his glass down and surveyed her near-empty plate. "More beets?" A grimace. "No." She waggled her fork, considering the plate. "I'd take more chicken." "Mm." He tipped his head at the server, and the chicken that she was carrying toward the window table was deposited at theirs. She looked at the plate, then at the server's retreating back. Moving a crisp-fried leg to her plate, she said, "How do you do that? How do they always see you?" A shrug. He picked up his glass again. "I express my appreciation. Reliably. And in the form of hard currency." She frowned at the chicken, and stabbed it with her fork. "So you're nice, but to your own benefit." "Of course." Third sweep: More narrative. Let's assume that the rest remains the same. It may be at this point that I figure out why I'm writing the scene in the first place. ... She frowned at the chicken, and stabbed it with her fork. "So you're nice, but to your own benefit." "Of course." She cut off a crisp-skinned bite--with a fork, as always galled by the need to follow his standard of table manners. Chicken should be eaten with the hands. She studied him as she chewed. What, then, would make it to his benefit to be 'nice', to cooperate, with her? Not money, of course; that was all on his side. He seemed immune to flattery. He--ah. Cutting off another bite, she said, "Do I recall that you're almost out of that brandy?" "Mm? Yes. That vintage seems to be altogether unavailable." She nodded. "I've got a friend." Then the bite, and she made him wait while she chewed. I don't think I'm able to write it all in one sweep.
Magic by example. Chicken, you are so good with examples. Amazing, you must have a story-mind that is several laps in front of your author-mind, mine is helplessly after.
Those are not separate things outside the "narrative". They are the narrative... You can practice by trying to tell a good story. Can you tell a joke? Telling a story is the same, only longer. There are writers who use a lot of dialogue, and writers who don't do much "character monologues" either. You can read more and read widely, various books and let it all sink in. Or you can start by reading books on how to write a good story, how to write descriptions, emotions, etc. Or, you can pick a book that you enjoyed and start analyzing it. Take notes. You see a description, try to find out what that description does for the book, why is it there, what does it add. Then you see a character monologue, or an action scene. Try to analyze how it's written, and why it's written that way. Compare it with other books. Hemingway is very different from Danielle Steel, for example. They are both great but they are also very different in everything, dialogue, descriptions, etc. The narrative of Lord of the Rings is quite different from the one in Lord of the Flies. And then we have William Burroughs, and William Gibson who do things very differently, too. They all do the narrative in their own way, so you don't have to worry that your way of writing books does not resemble somebody else's, that your writing has more dialogue and action and less of something that some other author may use. Those are not things to worry about. But you can work on things like how to write good dialogue and how to write good action scenes, or when to include character monologue, or even if you need it at all. Start with Google
What chicken said. Sometimes it takes a friend to read the chapter and say, 'You need to plush it out, a lot!' or leave it a while and you when you re-read it, hopefully it will come to mind that you need to expand on that section. Good luck with your writing. Rgds
One way to think about it is to imagine the pace dictated by the moment. If, for example, I am going to have the viewpoint think or get emotional, it will be at a point in the work wherein situation fits and space allows. When it is appropriate for the character to sit back and think, "Oh my God. That was so wrong. What am I going to do about Henry?" Otherwise the tendency is to spend entirely too much time in the head TELLING what the novel is otherwise SHOWING. The flip side of this is the writer who is basically writing the video game. Well of course that is going to be bad literature, and nothing more than choppy action and words. The solution to that is usually stopping the habit of writing like a video game and actually figure out who the main viewpoint is, limiting oneself to a closer view.
Think in terms of a movie. How great would it be if we only showed the dialogue bits. Only the bits where characters actually speak. Nothing that shows them doing something without speaking. Nothing that shows anything else at all. No landscape shots. No shots of the monster coming toward the group of unsuspecting teenagers. No pictures of anybody doing anything. Fight scenes would consist only of what people said. Just talking heads. Ooh, that would be exciting, wouldn't it? Erm.... It's been said you can write a story as if it were a movie playing in your head. If that's the case, you need to play (and describe) the whole movie! Including characters' physical activities, reactions, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, timing of speech, etc. All that plays into the overall story, as you depict it. Just the bare dialogue doesn't do it for very long, unless you are EXCEPTIONALLY skilled. And even then you have the problem of the thing whizzing past at too high a rate of speed. If your narrative picks out interesting things to focus on, the narrative won't be boring. It will ground the story and offer a framework for the dialogue to make sense, to make an impact and leave a strong impression.
Oh, I think this approach would be a mistake. Movies and novels have similar goals, but the approach taken to reach those goals is very different. Movies are a visual/auditory medium. They can convey things like physical activities, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, timing of speech, etc. much more effectively than we can in writing. 'A picture is worth a thousand words' and many films run at 24 frames per second--there's no way a novelist can effectively approach that level of visual/auditory detail, and trying to do so will almost certainly result in a lot of bloat. Where writing shines is in the ability to convey thoughts/background/other non-visual or non-auditory information. (Films sometimes try to use voiceovers or "As you know, Bob" speeches to address this gap, but those tend to be awkward.) A writer could spend page after page trying to precisely describe a landscape conveyed in a single second of film and still not get even close to the factual or visual impact. Using movies as models of characterization or plotting may make sense, but in terms of the details and techniques of writing? I think movies are a horrible example.
Oh, of course you're right. In fact, I've always advocated that the two—films and books—aren't the same medium at all, when it comes to conveying a story. They require different skills to work a story to satisfactory completion. I was being a tad facetious in my example. By using the example of a movie with nothing but talking heads, I was attempting to illustrate that dialogue alone probably can't carry a story—at least not a long one—and to illustrate that the supporting 'narrative,' doesn't need to be boring or uninteresting, simply because it's not spoken.
Try writing pieces that use exactly one of those modes throughout: dialogue with no narration or action, narration with no dialogue or action, and action with no exposition or dialogue (action is narrative, so you need to be more specific in this case). Then study each to discover what the greatest strength and weakness of each mode is, and repeat the challenge, focusing on how to use the strengths to overcome the weaknesses. Not only will this lead to a greater appreciation of the best uses of each mode FOR YOU, you will also develop your own skills and flexibility.
I don't really think it's so much about balance but rather paying attention to what a story calls for. There are great stories that have almost no dialog while others rely on it heavily. I, personally, can't stand long character monologs. I'm also not a fan of writing that has too much dialog. You're telling a story. So tell the story. You are the narrator (even if writing in first person), so narrate the story. Don't try to think about balancing it. You're really not looking for equal parts to make it whole. You're looking for ways to communicate with readers. A lot of this becomes easier by reading widely. And then a lot of this comes through trying to focus on clarity. Clarity is far more important to focus on rather than any sort of balance. If something seems off, it's probably not an issue of balance. It's more likely an issue of clarity.
I wish I had that problem, lol. I have the opposite problem: I can write a-million-and-one narratives/asides, but sucks at dialogue, action, and descriptions. Like half my story is stupid, irrelevant asides. EDIT: Maybe I'm just stupid. I was thinking of exposition instead of narrative. Perhaps I can become the most inept author in regards to proficiency of the English language, to ever publish a book.
One thing that really helps me, personally, when I'm writing and/or editing is to think through what the character's experience is. What happens to them next, if I've already written a rough draft? What mental and emotional steps does the character need to take to get there? If they would never do what they 'need' to do to progress the story, or they wouldn't do x thing yet, the narrative itself needs to change, or they need to have no other choice in the matter. (For obvious reasons, I try not to overuse the tactic of giving my characters no other options.) It's all about character motivations for me. They shape the story almost as much as I do – partly my fanfiction roots talking, I know, but if we don't connect with the characters, it often breaks the entire story.
Dialogue can be used to put flesh on you’re characters bones and to keep the story line running. On the other hand a character discussing at length the delights over dinner of a bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Clos St Jean brings the storyline to a full stop. We all indulge in everyday chat and nothing talk and a writer has to acknowledge this for the sake of reality but the answer is to keep it short, very short. Another problem with dialogue is although we speak in the same language there are marked differences in the way we use language. A Politian speaks different to what a truck driver does; while this may seem a little picky the average reader will know. Dialogue can also be helpful in establishing a characters’ personality. Example, from a Short Story I wrote some time ago. A young newly wed couple who are very much in love. Lydia Hatfield hummed to herself as she prepared the early morning coffee. Through the open kitchen window the early morning shade had left the Hibiscus, rainbow dahlias lifted their heads to passing bees. A special morning, summer in September, she smiled and popped the breakfast eggs on to boil. Her husband wandered into the kitchen, his hair wet from his morning shower. Stifling a yawn he gave his wife a morning peck on the cheek. She turned and pulled him close into an intimate embrace. “There,” she told him with a smile, “I don’t accept perfunctory kisses, their very bad for my ego.” So what does this tell you or the reader about Lydia? She tells her husband he is wrong but with a touch of humour and in a way that he couldn’t possibly find any objection too, so avoiding any chance of an argument to start their day. A small incident but used as a paint stroke to establish Lydia’s personality to the reader, in short using her intelligence to diffuse a situation rather than her instinct. Hope this helps John12.
Reading long narration I usually feel bogged down. I sometimes want to lift my head and take a deep breath. That being said, I read Tom Clancy, and it’s hard to find a dialog run in his work. In my own work, I find that 30 to 40 percent of dialog seems to work for me. It wasn’t a planned number it was an evaluation after the fact.
I'm not sure there's a formula, and the only method I know of for that is intuition. I know you mentioned reading other stories before revisiting your own, but at risk of sounding arrogant maybe you should read a lot more in order to find the style that suits your writing. As others have mentioned, it's often the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary passes that fill in scenes and concentrate their meaning. " I don’t have an abounding amount of background information" That's okay. It only needs to be there if it's important, relevant, and/or explains motives.
