Dialogue – Nastasya Parker

Prescription for Description

This Week’s Bit of String: Bluebell woods

For several blissful minutes on Sunday, I was alone in a bluebell wood, without even being rained on. The freshly unfolding flowers formed a bright, periwinkle-coloured carpet beneath beech trees. Underfoot, leaves crackled and beech nut husks split like sparking embers, and birds sang with pheasants occasionally interjecting a cough. There were so many blooms I could smell them, a beautiful faint perfume akin to hyacinth. I sat against a mossy tree trunk.

“This is as good as it gets,” I thought. How often do I have time to just sit, and amidst such wonder? The colour of bluebells revives like a charge of electricity.

But to recharge a depleted object, said object ought to keep still. And I did not. I couldn’t surrender my quest to capture the stunning colour in an iPhone photo (spoiler: not possible) and I was checking my FitBit steps, already past 13,000, and mentally inventorying my remaining chores of the day. My brain is an action junkie.

It’s like this when I read as well. I love reading, I love being engrossed and being transported elsewhere. But I get a bit itchy, so to speak, when entering a thicket of dense paragraphs. This translates somewhat to my writing. I feel that writing dialogue is my favourite and my best.

Is this a character flaw? I’ve always worried it’s unintellectual, this reluctance to immerse myself in long, lyrical descriptive prose.

A Little Less Conversation

I do like descriptions of course; I’m not a complete philistine. I had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne in high school and loved The Scarlet Letter. I’ve gotten through plenty of other classics. It’s just a relief when a story whizzes through dialogue, especially since I do a fair portion of my reading while on the treadmill. Got to keep up a good pace!

Over the years I’ve had to realise that snappy dialogue doesn’t equal efficient plot development. I interpreted “show don’t tell” to mean you let readers watch a conversation unfold, and decide for themselves what’s going on. But there’s a lot more weeding and pruning required, as well as tactful planting.

A reasonably-sized paragraph can convey actions that took place, sometimes more naturally than having characters discuss it. This also establishes narrative voice: how does the story’s speaker sum up what’s happened? Same with world-building. Since I’m writing Eve’s story, her observations about the setting in Eden versus exile are key. But she’s not about to spend time going on about it when she has heaps of children, grandchildren, and so forth to keep an eye on.

Part of my editing process is to look at paragraph patterns. Check narration isn’t a litany of subject-led sentences (“She did this. He did that.”) Avoid extended conversations, which can sometimes feel like watching a tennis manage. (She said this. He said that.) I look for short, quick paragraphs to give way to long, and for longer reflective passages to be punctuated with pacy interaction.

That’s probably something I need to do better in life as well: accept the occasional quiet moment without freaking out about the next, sometimes self-imposed, deadline.

A Few Favourites

I revel in rich descriptions, particularly when they don’t travel in packs. They can be threaded throughout a piece. Here are some methods I love:

Make it multisensory: Readers will hardly be immersed if using only their eyes. We need to know how it sounds, smells, feels, as well. Some of us might not have full command of our senses! I enjoyed helping elderly, sightless Eve identify people by their voice and sometimes odour. These provide extra hints to secondary characters: “Her voice was softness on a flinty foundation.” “I listened to waves whisper like sighing logs, tossing seashells like crackling sparks.”

*Graveyards are spectacular to describe…*

Metaphors drawing on everyday life: Even the grandest sights can be relatable. What we decide to compare things to says a lot. The poet Simon Armitage provides a gorgeous example of balancing the spectacular with the mundane in “The Civilians:”
“The golden evenings spread like ointment through the open valleys,
Buttered one side of our spotless washing.”

Stand-in for character turmoil: I often prefer setting descriptions to character ones. Character-driven stories rock my world, but while doing all that driving, said characters probably won’t have much time for self-analysis. They can project ourselves onto their surroundings; any description of place will indicate something about its people. Not just cliched rainy funerals or sunny meet-cutes, I mean places of isolation and toughness, or chaos or tenderness. People trying to make it in deserted rural settings in Lulu Allison’s Salt Lick. The depressed town in Carson McCullers’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and the few inner chambers or the out-of-town lake that transcends this.

The fast-forward: I love time passage marked with carefully-selected details squished right up together. JK Rowling was great at this in Harry Potter; using the helpful device of plotting by school calendar, the holidays marked a chance to fill in story detail in a fun way. Harry’s first Christmas at Hogwarts, for example: “The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban…” I do this with my chapter beginnings at each new generation Eve witnesses.

I aim to be better at appreciating the Pause function of observation and description, not just the fast forward. How do you feel about long paragraphs and slow bits? What sorts of description do you enjoy reading, and put to use in your writing?

Keeping Warm

This Week’s Bit of String: Fruit cocktail upstairs

When I was growing up my family rented part of a large, New England lakeside farmhouse. It wasn’t the most meticulously renovated building, and sometimes the winter stole in, down the stone chimney (which bats were also known to use as a passage) and between the log walls. Some mornings were so cold my mother wouldn’t let us come downstairs.

Instead, she’d carry up a little wooden table with peeling paint, and our metal-mesh chairs, and some bowls of tinned fruit or yoghurt. We’d have breakfast like a doll’s tea party in the bedroom, clustered round the small table. We loved it.

*Old England snow doesn’t compare to the New England* *stuff, but it still feels a bit exciting.*

For our mom, it was probably stressful, worrying about our health and having to rearrange things when she had 3 preschool kids with another on the way. But we just enjoyed the thrill of it, while she took care of everything.

Some of my favourite childhood memories involved keeping warm. Car rides wrapped in afghans crocheted by great grandmothers and aunts; coming in from snowball fights to find Dad making pizza with his records blaring. To appreciate these, we had to be cold first. But warming up after is well worth it.

Warm-Up Writing

Warmth is the quality I most cherish in a book, film, or TV series. Some people might say chemistry but that’s a little volatile, and can be cold, manufactured. I’m not just referring to cosiness and security either. I like a crackle beneath the surface. Maybe it’s just a few embers which a piece occasionally circles back to, or steady driving heat.

A warm story doesn’t require the complete absence of cold. Far from it—without hostility or loneliness, how would we appreciate the pockets of warmth?

The heat source is usually a relationship, though not always a romantic or conventional one. It might be acceptance of a friend’s or sibling’s quirks, or devotion to a particular place (love of home is still a form of relationship), or a driving faith in an idea, even if misguided.

Often, we get a combination of these. Of Mice and Men, for example, is about friendship, tolerance for disability and racial differences, and also the unabashed pursuit of pet rabbits. My favourite writers: Dickens, Chabon, Atkinson, AM Homes, John Irving—I love them for the vast, diverse casts of characters they use but it’s not as if they’re just ticking identity boxes. They’re portraying authentic idiosyncrasies, and other people’s attractions to them. Same with TV shows, I love the recent shift toward ensemble casts, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Brooklyn 99, because it feels appreciative and supportive.

Turning Up the Heat

I’m not reputed for the cheeriest of writings. My two most successful short stories are about a brutal invasion, and a grieving mum. But I think part of what commended those stories to judges and readers was maintaining a dash of warmth. How can we make sure it’s included?

Including all reality: Even during the most terrible events, small good things will still happen. Sunrises, embraces, a cup of tea. It’s not necessary to only show the bad.

Detail work: Quick lines about a character’s manner or appearance can endear them to us. Dickens and Disney understand this; giving even villains catchphrases or sidekicks. It makes us not hate to see them, and maybe even root for them.

Honesty: Fair presentation of our characters’ faults mean they can be more fully embraced, by other characters and by readers. Bonds that have been tested can come out stronger, so we needn’t gloss things over. My latest novel is about Eve, and while she and Adam had seen each other fail spectacularly, this made them rather appreciate each other’s support at new levels.

Relatability: If we recognise something in a story, even in the midst of unpleasantness, we warm to it. And as writers, adding familiarity makes us feel a situation more deeply, and that comes through. For example, in “The Apocalypse Alphabet,” along with the stress of rationing and an approaching invasion, I included images resonant from childhood and parenthood: a little boy with his nightshirt flapping around his knees, battling with wooden spoon weapons.

Imagination: While we like glimmers of familiarity in our reading, what really entices us is that those relatable details clue us in to something bigger. We want to feel part of a grander adventure, so there’s no need to hold back from introducing the weird or wild. Contrast is key. There’s a reason I remember the Upstairs Breakfasts rather than any other picnic at our little wooden table—they were unexpected, urgent, exciting.

Dialogue: Spoken exchanges are some of the clearest ways to communicate warmth, not just because someone’s saying something, but because someone’s listening as well. I miss overhearing dialogue, since my life is so home-based now. Even my walks have to come very early, before anyone is about. Last week I “treated myself” to a lunchtime walk and took my earbuds out while I strolled up the High Street. A scruffy bearded man in pyjama bottoms and worn red trainers boasted to a dog-walking lady with a More Beer hoodie about his wife’s special mince pies. A couple of men with foreign accents talked earnestly outside a closed-down pub about how much one man loved his van. “Dis car is my workhorse, you know?” Nothing intriguing or witty, but it warmed me to know that people are still interacting kindly with each other, right there on the street.

What are some of your favourite sources of warmth in the literary world?

Playing God

This Week’s Bit of String: Tidying up the building materials

Once when my son was about six years old, I looked in on him during his evening tidy-up to see him gloomily tossing his Lego into their bucket, punctuating their impact with sighs. ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I’m just…angry at God.’

He explained his grievance to me: ‘While we were eating dinner, I asked God really nicely if he would please tidy up my room for me.’ Another sigh. ‘But He didn’t.’

I’d seen him in a similar predicament with the magic wand he’d received for his birthday. And when he was a toddler, just learning his manners, there were those agonised epiphanies that saying please—‘the magic word’—won’t get you extra sweets or a later bedtime.

So it didn’t seem the time to put God’s existence under review, anymore than I would tell him there’s no such thing as magic. ‘Sorry, mate. I don’t think He works that way; He likes to make sure we know how to do things for ourselves.’

Losing My (Bias Against) Religion

Religion—and, well, not relying too exclusively on it—has enmeshed itself into a few of my stories. In Artefacts, the first novel I wrote, talking about God embarrasses the protagonist, ‘like talking about someone and suddenly realising they stood behind you.’

I feel that way, a bit, penning scenes with God in my current novel. As it’s Eve’s story, though, and her family’s, He plays a prominent role. I guess it’s the first time I’ve written about a recognisable figure, an entity Who might (who knows?) actually exist. That changes things, doesn’t it?

Carvings of God on His throne — Above the door at Notre Dame Cathedral. Can omnipotence and love really go hand in hand?

Last week I wrote about reimagining the first humans in the Bible, as well as the angels, trying to de-stigmatise as far as possible. These days, at least in our fast-paced, ‘enlightened’ society, it seems God too has become somewhat stigmatised, the focus of blame and skepticism rather than adoration. I don’t want to get caught up in that, even while sympathising with Eve and other characters He punished.

One has to wonder, if God does exist, and is by definition omnipotent and eternal, do all our pleas and tirades sound to Him like a child not wanting to pick up his own toys? I’m trying not to be restricted by pro-human bias in my view.

He’s Got the Look

So far I’ve not gone into great detail about God’s appearance. That’s not the done thing, is it? In our art we tend to come at physical description obliquely, if at all. Likewise with my re-invented angels, apart from the odd mention of their scales, wings, and fire. The humans in the story accept these beings and have no reason to overtly describe them.

Flaming orange sunrise over a hilltop — Like this, maybe. I’m just throwing around ideas here.

There’s mention of God’s immense size, and lack of clear outline. I mean, He’s God. We can be justified in thinking he has humanoid aspects (or commonly manifests them), because He does say He’s made people in His image. But I don’t think He’s just a muscly older man with a flowing white beard, the way Michelangelo depicted Him.

For one thing, He’s not going to have a corporeal body. He’s energy, and why He would choose to generally have a human form, I don’t know. I suppose it has its uses, a certain organisation and compactness. But in my work there’s a glow to Him and a deep, shifting substance that defies boundary. His eyes can turn into oceans, His smile into sunrise.

The King (of King)’s Speech

What I have God say in the book is far more important than how He looks. And I haven’t a whole lot of source material to base it on. I’m not on board with the whole divine scriptures idea. Sorry, I’m a writer myself. I know how easy it is to make stuff up and then it feels like canon in my mind. That doesn’t mean it is. That’s possibly my human bias talking, but for the purposes of this project, I’m going with it.

I’m drawing the line at accepting God’s actual words as relayed in Genesis—but weeding out ideas that are merely imputed to Him.

For example, when He punishes Cain for killing Abel, He says Cain is exiled and will lose his knack for growing crops. He never says Cain is banished from His presence (that would be admitting some limitation to His power). It’s Cain who moans that he’ll be out of God’s sight, and then the narrative picks it up.

Granted, He issues curses at key moments, but He doesn’t just pronounce judgment. He questions those involved, giving them a chance to explain themselves or at least ‘fess up—all the while opening Himself to even more disappointment as they flounder around pretending they didn’t do that thing they really weren’t supposed to do.

He strikes me as part Albus Dumbledore, part Atticus Finch, giving people space and a bit of prodding to see if they’ll figure things out for themselves. Here, Eve’s daughter Ana recounts to Cain how God encouraged her to start her own family, while admitting she too would carry her mother’s curse.

‘So I told Him: “I think You are a brutal Master.”’
Cain gave me one of his rare, full-on looks, allowing me to see the Mark. ‘Then what?’
‘He said, “Well, at least you believe I’m your Master.”
“What choice do I have?” I asked. ‘You gave my parents life out of dust and bone.’
“You have every choice, Ana. You and all your future children and grandchildren, you have a choice.” And His glow seemed to dim slightly. I almost felt sorry for him.’

After all, I feel a certain sympathy with Him, too. Creating people, letting them bumble off on their way doing what they like, forcing You to spring up obstacles in their path to slow them down and get them to look about themselves for once…Ahem. Yes. Perhaps God and us writers have a thing or two in common. What do you think?