Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

What I’m (th)Inkingabout

Learning from the Masters series: Robert A. Heinlein Knew Dialogue

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The art of writing dialogue

I have always enjoyed reading Heinlein’s books, but it is his dialogue that holds my attention the most.  His characters play with words and by doing so demonstrate relationships and conditions.

This excerpt from The Cat that Walks Through Walls is a great example of how his dialogue clearly separated and defined his characters.  Gwen and Richard have just crash landed on the moon and are hanging upside down still strapped into their seats.  It has been a rather eventful landing, the end of which finished with the space vehicle twirling in a wobble on its rocket end until it lost momentum and fell over.  Not once does Heinlein use a tag other than the initial first person reference to the conversation continuing after the landing, yet it is obvious who is speaking.


    I added, “That was a beautiful landing, Gwen.  PanAm never set a ship down more gently.”
    Gwen pushed aside her kimono skirt, looked out.  “Not all that good.  I simply ran out of fuel.”
    “Don’t be modest.  I especially liked that gavotte that laid the car down flat.  Convenient, since we don’t have a landing-field ladder here.
    “Richard, what made it do that?”
    “I hesitate to guess.  It may have had something to do the processing gyro…which may have tumbled.  No data, no opinion. Dear, you look charming in that pose.  Tristam Shandy was right; a woman looks best with her skirts flung over her head.”
    “I don’t think Tristam Shandy ever said that.”
    “Then he should have.  You have lovely legs, dear one.”
    “Thank you, I think.  Now will you kindly get me out of this mess?  My kimono is tangled in the belt and I can’t unfasten it.”
    “Do you mind if I get a picture first?”

The dialogue supplies all sorts of details.  Not only are they upside down, but Gwen’s outfit has left her revealing her legs and the borrowed kimona is doing more than just causing a little embarrassment.  Her view is obstructed, she cannot extract herself from her upside down position and it has provided more about her personality and relationship with her newly acquired  husband.  She is handling the situation calmly and able to banter back and forth.  Richard’s response to the whole thing is humorous, playful and providing them both with a way to vent off the frustration they are feeling.  Remember they are somewhere on the moon currently upside down in a craft that has not been functioning properly.  The deck has been stacked against them, yet they behave as if being together is their ace in the hole.  How does this affect the reader?  The reader can’t help but fall in with them.  They are going to get out of this situation, somehow, and it is going to continue to be humorous even when things get worse.

Another feature of this dialogue is the word choice.  Richard describes Gwen’s appearance as “charming.”  Clearly he appreciates the view, but he also appreciates the lady he is viewing and repeatedly uses endearments that support that he would view the whole impression as “charming.”  The allusion to Tristam Shandy lends spice as well; it is a compliment Gwen takes with a grain of salt.  “Thank you, I think.”

Heinlein creates distinct characters, though he has been accused of using the same characters over and over again.  It is more, in my opinion, that he uses the same character type for his main characters: strong, resourceful, nonsensical with a purpose.  But they are not the same character; if they were, the above dialogue would lose its anchor.  There are several cues which assist the reader in tracking who is speaking, but they smooth the reader along.  Richard discusses the appeal of a woman with her skirts over her head, Heinlein describes her reaction to Richard’s statement about her landing the craft, and Gwen calls him by name and demands he help her with her belt that she believes is caught in her kimono.  All these help the reader maneuver through the dialogue.  It is a fun piece of dialogue that lets the reader know the conditions and the characters’ response to it and each other with ease and without a lot of description or overloaded dialogue.

Learning from the masters series: Jasper Fforde & world building

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Always looking at a master’s work before tackling your own world building is a good way to not just see the process in action but immerse yourself in it, so when you dive into your own work, the spell has been cast, a sense of the cape of good building has been settled like a lawn about your shoulders.  The magic seeps in and passes out through your fingertips.  Well, maybe not, but paying attention to when it is done well, can teach you how to do it right.

Jasper Fforde builds worlds with aplomb, as though the place and characters were just out there, and he was writing it out as it lay before him, mesmerizing, real.  The first book of Fforde’s that I read was The Eyre Affair.  I had just reread Jane Eyre, so I had a fine time revisiting the characters through this new lens.  The setting was a familiar place, and the premise was comfortable to swallow.

I followed the Thursday Next series through to the end and went in search of his next work.  I settled on Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron.  This new world was thoroughly out there, fully realized, different from any real or created world of my experience.  Fforde integrated everything: politics, social interaction, the scope of visual intake, family structure, love, oddnesss within the very strangeness of the world itself which was more than weird enough, might I say “quirky?”  Look at this excerpt.

   “You!” I cried.  For standing on the doorstep was the quirky rude girl who had threatened to break my jaw back in Vermillion.  I felt a curious mix of elation and trepidation, which came out as looking startled.  And so was she.  A second’s worth of doubt crossed her face, then she relaxed and stared at me impassively.
   “You’ve met?” came a stern voice. Standing behind her was a woman who I assumed must be Sally Gamboge, the Yellow prefect.  She, like Bunty McMustard at the station, was covered from head to foot in a well-tailored bright synthetic-yellow skirt and jacket.  She even had yellow earrings, headband and watch strap.  The color was so bright, in fact, that my cortex cross-fired, and her clothes became less of a fierce shade and more the sickly-sweet smell of bananas. But it wasn’t actually a smell; it was only the sense of one.
  “Yes,” I said without thinking.  “She threatened to break my jaw!”
   It was a very serious accusation, and I regretted saying it almost immediately.  Russets don’t usually snitch.
   “Where was this?” the woman asked.
   “Vermillion,” I replied in a quiet voice.”
   “Jane?” said Gamboge sternly. “Is this true?”
   “No, ma’am,” she replied in an even tone, quite unlike the threatening one I had heard that morning.    “I’ve never even see this young man before–or been to Vermillion.”

Everything is suffused with color references, literally soaked (hmmm, unexpected pun; take it as intended.  Fforde would appreciate it).  I love that Russet’s cortex cross-fired, resulting in the unpleasant smell of overripe bananas.  This world of chromatic status and underground color-exposure sneaking renegades rides a tight pencil line.

I cannot imagine the degree of planning and research that went into its creation, but I can appreciate it.  The plot, characterization,  names, development of relationships, economics, politics, medicine, education system, and so forth, all drove the conflict in a slow buildup that felt by page 105 a normal flow of the world this novel developed from.  It was that country next door; you know, that one with odd ideas, but they manage to run the nation that way.  Totally believable, quirky and real.

So how did he do it.  I am sure he has some system of development.  Surely, this did not just fly from the fingertips day after day without the groundwork being laid months in advance.  Time.  He must have used lots of time and thought on this work.  Surely, much was supported by the inspired moment of writing, but planning and development had to come first.

  • Who has power and how does it relate to color recognition?
  • The list of names for people, places, occupations, conditions, social status, common phrasing must have been a tremendous effort to create.  The fashion industry, yearly function of having to come up with unique names for the new year’s favorite colors, has to be envious or else rubbing their hands with relish since they now had a text that would be their quintessential resource for decades to come.
  • What is the ultimate degree of a color and what the minimum before stopping at grey?
  • The punishment for not following the rules, or breaking tradition or going against social expectation.
  • What are the dangers to stepping past your designated chromatic level?
  • What type of person would attempt to break the rules?
  • How would the hero cope with the conflict against such imbedded protocol? 
  • What would be the benefit of breaking from the rules of society, the legal system, occupation, family position and structure?
  • How does love fit into this? Does it not have a place at all or is it warped?
  • What is the underlying logic of the descent of chromatic recognition?  Did it have a beginning or is it a steady state now reaching an end to the balance due to some new evolution?

The list of questions goes on and on.   But to build a world so different from the one we live in so much must be thought through and committed to paper before the story can begin to tell itself.  I read with pleasure, but a part of me spent a lot of time just being awed by Fforde’s creation.

What author’s world has held you captive, impressed and blown over?  What important questions must she or he had to have asked before the story could gain traction?  What was the underlying difference it fed from?

Learning from the masters series: Building Character with Kim Headlee

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The pen is my sword.

I have written before that writers are readers.  We read for our own enjoyment and to learn techniques, both through exposure to well-written work and through examination of the works we read.  Lu Chi’s Wen Fu (which I have cited in the past) said it best: 
When cutting an axe handle with an axe,
   surely the model is at hand.

With that sage advice, I am looking closely at how author Kim Headlee designs character.  One could say she has a head start since she makes use of the King Arthur legend, but it is more of a base of familiarity her readers can walk in with, for she is by no means married to it.  Her characters carry the names and much of the fame, family affiliations and general motivations delineated in the legend, but Headlee deepens, defines and evolves these basic character requirements far past those initial mythological underpinnings.

There is very little background on Guenevere (choose your favorite spelling; there is sure to be one that will fit your fancy).  Headlee builds off this strong character from mythology and adds backbone, a fighting spirit and self-determination.  But first she introduces the character in Dawnflight (Book 1 of the Dragon’s Dove Chronicles).  After the prologue setting up the heartbreaking birth that ends with the mother dying, Gyanhumara (Headlee’s chosen version of the famous name) arrives in full form in Chapter 1.

     “Keep up your intensity!” Ogryvan swiped at his opponent’s midsection.  “Always! Lose your battle frenzy, and you’re dead!”
     Neither was fighting in true battle frenzy,, but the younger warrior understood.  Smiling grimly through the rivulets of sweat, the student danced out of reach, whirled, and made a cut at Orgyvan’s thigh.  The blunted practice sword could not penetrate the leather leggings but was sure to leave a bruise precisely over the wound he had taken at Aba-Gleann two months before.
     Although the swordmaster gritted his teeth against the pain, his opponent sensed satisfaction in the accompanying nod.

That is great characterization.  We don’t know yet that the young warrior is Gyan, the lady who will marry Arthur Pendragon, but we already know a lot about this character: warrior, quick, skilled.  Lines later we see her bested by her father, but we don’t know that until the line, “The Chieftainess of Clan Argyll hated to lose.”  Even that line informs us well of the spirit of this character and the heavy mantle of power she wields. 

Headlee develops character through action and reaction, intimate knowledge of the mind of the character and well-chosen dialogue.  “Ogryvan whispered, “‘Pay attention, Gyan.  This is my favorite part….. All hear and beware!  The Ogre takes no prisoners!'”  What is to follow is a ceremonial pretense of beheading.  But Gyan responds by noting her father’s boasting to the watching crowd has drawn his attention away from the “enemy.”  She twists out of the role as the defeated and turns the sword on him, shouting, “‘Neither does the Ogre’s daughter!”

In that moment, the reader will never expect Gyanhumara, Chiefteness of Clan Argyll, to ever be bested for long.  Character realized in just a few pages.  What I can learn from Headlee will take pages and pages to explain and practice.   But I am working on it.

Recommendation: read this book and the next one, too.  I am getting ready for number three.

Smashwords Read an E-Book Week is in full swing

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Read an E-Book Week

I love Read an E-book Week at Smashwords, and as of March 2 thru March 8 it has begun.  I along with a huge number of other writers make use of this opportunity to invite readers to check out our books.

Take a look and find a new author to enjoy and follow.

So if you like time travel novels, short stories or are interested in a text about narrative frameworks for fiction novels and shorts stories, you’ll find my books set at 25% off with coupon REW25.

Follow this link to Smashwords promotion page to check out the catalog on the enrolled books:  Smashwords Read an E-Book Week

 

Advice: How I keep myself from getting all mixed up about who I am

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All me, just different.

Like most writers, I have a day job.  I am a teacher.  I am also a wife and mother, so adding a writing life just increases confusion to the standard complicated life of this everywoman.
I have to keep them from overlapping.  My teaching is about the student, not about what I do in my spare time. (Did I actually say I have spare time?  Little pebbles of time I can sometimes shaped into a useful mound is more like it.)  And when my husband needs to rant on about politics, house building, or the barking dogs next door, I can’t be Mrs. Teacher Lady or the Don’t Bother Me Now I’m Creating person.  Same goes when my daughter needs to talk boys or fashion or Minecraft, where she wants to go to college or,…..  Back to keeping them from overlapping because I think you get the picture.
I found
that setting up different accounts on my computer helped.  Each is named specific to that person, has a
unique password, and the desktop and Firefox persona are designed to express the
habits of the individual.  The bookmarks
for each personality are only on the login they belong to.  So if I get confused and want to go to a
particular site, I won’t find the address in my bookmarks which is a quick hint
to me to check who I am.  Each email is
unique and won’t have the same contacts either, so I don’t have to check my
email to make sure the right name is at the bottom.  (I had one awful panic thinking I had not clicked on the write persona for an email I was sending when I kept everything on one login.  Not going through that again.)  My phone is rigged to check all the email
traffic, but they are not lumped together.  I keep them separate with different
signatures.
So when I am L. Darby Gibbs, my desktop is an ever changing landscape of mountains, trees and flowers that remind me of New Hampshire.  The mom/wife in me has a more organized setup: a single landscape of an old stone house with a bright red door and roses by the stoop.  Teacher lady sports a cubist environment.  These personalities are reflected on my Mozilla page design as well.  The profile picture for each personality is different, too.
That is my simple solution.  The person I login is who I am.  It is particularly easy on Windows 8 to have all three personalities logged in.  I can moved from one to the other fairly quickly, yet it is clear which is which. 
So if you are juggling emails, platforms, website logins, and audience, try creating different computer logins.  There is no law stating that each person must really be a different person.  Just like when you set up that account for the child/ren in your life, you can also set them up for the different aspects of your life without feeling as if you have a split personality.
Do you have a simpler way of doing this?  I am all about simplicity, and I would enjoy hearing how you manage your different selves.

You can’t wear a bowler hat in 1861, just in case you were wondering

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I write time travel novels, and one of the features that stands out when a character travels in time is fitting in with the culture.  That includes clothing, behavior, hair styles, social interaction and such.  Since my characters move about in time, I have had to research to make sure that Mick is wearing the right kind of hat (top hat, not bowler, by the way) when he takes a stroll in Boston 1861 or Emily’s hairdo is appropriate for 1634 in Stepney, England.

That is part of taking on a time travel novel; it is just the nature of the beast.  But I love history, so any reason is a good excuse to immerse myself in the past.  It is time consuming and it is inspiring.  The simple endeavor of describing the sound of horses pulling a carriage down the street led me to learn what kind of paving stone was used on early Boston roads.

I wanted to know if Boston had dirt or cobble roads in 1861.  It is a simple question, but the answer carries a significant difference.  The thud of hoof on dirt is quite different from the sharp plod of a shod step on stone.  But I learned even the diction mattered.   There is a big difference between a sett and a cob, and which was used on the street effected horses and carriage wheels, too.  A sett is a flat granite stone laid in rows which were kinder to horses and did not wear out carriage wheels too quickly, while cobs, round stones that were not just awkward to walk on but dangerous due to their slipperiness, produced an annoying rocking motion.  And that effort to be accurate is meant to add authenticity to my novels.

Though my books are part of a series, they are not focused on one character but on a family of characters who are close in friendship or in family connections.  Brent Garrett is the main character in the first book (In Times Passed).  His daughter Misty picks up the time traveling bug in the second book (No-Time like the Present), and Mick and Emily, Brent’s brother- and sister-in-law and Misty’s foster parents, take up the baton in the third book.

The third book is where I had the most fun working with “costuming” because Mick and Emily are searching for Renwick, who has gone missing during a jump, and they are following clues as Misty finds them and forwards them on.   Since it’s a bit of a mystery where he could have landed, and they have all of time to search, there are bound to be coincidental matches as well as reliable clues, but they are tough to tell apart.

So this detecting, time travel couple find themselves going to places unfamiliar.  Now I can’t do research on times that have not come yet, but I can create such a place and time.  Still it must be unique and grow logically from what human beings do with fashion and interaction.  This excerpt is from the costuming room that Mick and Emily use to prep for their jumps.  In this excerpt, they are getting ready to go to Poukeepsie, New York, in 2082.

     “It’s probably best we get dressed, Mick.  I think these outfits are designed to go
together.  What do you think?” 

     Mick pulled his gaze from the empty doorway and looked at
the clothes hanging on the closet extension. 
He raised an eyebrow.  “I was
hoping that one was yours, but I see now it must be mine.”

     “They’re not bad, Mick.”  The two stood examining the outfits. 

     “I’ve never worn orange before,” Mick said.  “Always thought it was illegal for a
redhead to wear orange.”

     “The brown coat and the tan pants probably keep it from
overpowering the look.”  Emily stood
before the set provided for her.  On the
shoe carousel, she saw a pair of tall black boots her size beside a set of
brown ankle high stouts she knew were for Mick. 
He stood to her right staring at the lower portion of the pants he would
be donning.  “We’ll figure those out
when we get to them, Mick.  Start high
and work down.  Ready?”  She started by taking off jewelry and
emptying her pockets onto a tray.

     Mick nodded and removed his suit jacket, tossing it to the
closet for return to the proper slot.  He
continued to remove clothes until he could put on the first layer hanging
before him.  It was a bright orange tunic
with a V-neck collar over an under sheath of butter white.  The tunic tapered in, starting at the chest
without being snug and stopped at the hip. 
The long sleeves had butter white frills at the wrist.  Mick looked to Emily for comment, but she was
busy pulling her pink tunic on sans trim and deep V-neck.  Another difference was that it stopped at just
below her waist.  The material, a soft
suede, was the same though.

     “If I put the coat on next, I’ll feel like a flasher in
a park,” said Mick.  “I am
going for the pants, but I am going to ignore those orange attachments at the
ankle for now.”

Emily nodded reaching for the knickers before her.

     After pulling the deep-waisted pants on, Mick shrugged into
the calf-length overcoat in heavy brown suede. 
“Must be going to Poughkeepsie in the early spring or late
fall.  This is a warm outfit.”

     “I think so, too. 
These pants look like they stole the pattern from Louie the
fourteenth.”

     “Is that better or worse than genie windpants?”
grumbled Mick.  Emily turned to look and
laughed out loud.

     “I’m going to be armed and dangerous, little lady, so
can the laughter.”  Then Mick looked
at her and choked and snorted.  “I
feel much better now.  No one is going to
shoot at us. You can’t kill a man with a grin spread across your face.  What’s that little black thing?”

     “It’s a skull cap, and stop laughing at me.”

     “I don’t have one. 
I don’t have a hat at all.”

     “Are you complaining?”

     “Don’t get me started, woman.   I can complain about a lot more than not
having a skull cap.”
I love those two characters.
Book 3 publishes in July 2014
These two links provide access to the first two Students of Jump novels, my anthology of short stories and my non-fiction narrative frameworks text.  And I am off to research some more.

 My Amazon author page

Smashwords Author page