“We should do something fun and healthy, like run the marathon in Paris.”
“I know this weekend is going to be something, even if it’s not the something I expect. You know what I mean?”
“I lost my shoe this morning and had to find a store at eight this morning that had flip flops. My apartment is so small, I don’t even know how I could lose it. Sheesh.”
“Have you eaten there?”
It’s easier than ever to listen in on other people’s conversations because everyone is walking around and talking on their fucking phones. I’ve always loved eavesdropping, especially in restaurants. Sometimes I even have to be snapped back to attention from the diners I’m with because I’m too focused on the conversation in the next booth. I especially love it when things get heated and might possibly turn ugly. It’s almost orgasmic for me.
What’s this post about? Dialogue. That’s what I’m getting at. Do you really listen to how people speak? It sure ain’t in full sentences or even sentences that follow one another. How do you create effective dialogue in your books? It’s obviously different for non-fiction and fiction. So for the purposes of this blog, let’s talk about fiction since I trust all the non-fiction writers would never make up dialogue. How in fiction do you make people sound real? I was once told that dialogue should never advance the plot, only enhance it. Any thoughts, wisdom?
Better yet, if you leave a comment, what was the best dialogue you overheard today?
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I didn’t write as much as I wanted to. I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I didn’t sleep as much as I wanted to. I ate more than I wanted to. I obsessed about work more than I wanted to. I had more catastrophe fantasies than usual, and I have a half dozen at least on an average day.
As of tomorrow, I’m doing it: I’m unplugging. No blog, no email, no vibrator. I’m taking off until Labor Day. I’m giving myself two writing weeks to revise my screenplay and turn it into the perfect vehicle for Marisa Tomei and Andrew Garfield. I will miss our nightly lovemaking, but I hope everyone hunkers down with their writing as well. Or, does something really fun like go to the beach or roast corn or see the new Planet of the Apes movie. 
This is a post about something very difficult to come to grips with that no one likes to talk about — it’s about hitting the wall. And by that I mean when you are stuck, whether you’re crashing into the wall or the wall is crashing into you. I’m not talking about a bad day or even a few months of writer’s block. I’m not talking about a string of rejections or seeing your book on the remainder table where no one wants it, even for $5.99. What I’m talking about is something deeper and more terrifying. It’s when you realize you’ve been writing the same book over and over. Or when you can no longer stand writing in the register you’ve been writing in and don’t know how to get out. This isn’t a slump, a bad patch, a bush-league case of writer’s block or stage fright. This isn’t about not being able to come up with a new idea. This is bad. It’s when you understand the limits of your imagination, intellect, creativity, skill, or drive. It’s when you no longer know when you’re faking it; when you’ve succeeded at fooling yourself. I’ve seen it in writers over the years. You can’t say anything. It would be cruel, like waking a sleepwalker. You know the writer is in agony even if he can’t admit it to himself, even if he’s on the couch five days a week, it’s almost impossible to admit.
I’ve always been turned off by people who say they can’t write certain things until their parents die. Does that mean they go around hoping for mom and dad to choke on a pecan at Thanksgiving? I don’t think you can hijack your writing for the sake of people’s feelings. And who are you really protecting? And I’m not just talking about confessional or autobiographical writing. All writing has something at stake, or should, in my humble. You don’t have to engage in character assassination, or pen a Mommy Dearest, but you have to take me there. I want a manuscript to take me somewhere I’ve never been, or somewhere I’ve been a million times and show me something new. I don’t like polite writing, polite conversation, or conversation about weather. I want a writer to be fearless because I’m a pussy.
Hi Betsy,
I think I was in the third grade when my best friend Lisa Zimmerman and I snuck a fat paperback by Harold Robbins from her mom’s room. I had no idea what was going on, but the title was oh so appealing, The Betsy. I think I was in the fifth grade when The Godfather was secretly circulated around my class, with a page number that referenced a hot sex scene between Sonny and a bridesmaid. I was in twelfth grade when I read a book because of the title, A Spy in the House of Love, and decided that I wanted lovers instead of boyfriends. Then Marguerite Duras’ The Lover. Then, the motherlode, Henry Miller. Tropic of fuck me dead.
Betsy Lerner 