“All Talk and No Action”

guest post by Claudia Mills

          Oh, that boring word said. We do need to have some way to know which character is speaking in a stretch of dialogue, but to hear said, said, said, said, said, said is almost unbearable.

          The only thing worse, alas, is to switch out said for a bunch of “fancy” speech verbs. An occasional shouted, whispered, complained, retorted is a welcome relief, but a long string of hundred-dollar speech verbs calls attention to itself much more than plain old said ever did. Worst of all is modifying each said with an adverb: said sadly, said angrily, said wistfully.

          Solution: introduce brief bits of action into dialogue. Letting us know what characters are doing as they speak not only identifies speakers, but places readers fully in a scene. Instead of talking heads, we have living, breathing, moving human beings.

          For example, in my recent book about an aspiring seventh-grade writer, Write This Down, here are some instances where a speaker is identified simply by my showing what she is doing as she speaks:

 “That isn’t funny.” Now Kylee’s distressed enough that she puts down her knitting.

Or:

Kylee shrugs. “Okay.” But she crinkles her forehead in a skeptical way.

           One way to demonstrate this technique to your students is to create a short dialogue, written as in a play, just the words spoken. Here’s one I use when I teach:

“How are you?” 

“I’m fine. How about you?”

 “Just okay.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s my mom.”

“What about her?”

“I think she’s sick, like really sick.”

“Oh, no!”

          Have the students name the two characters. Now edit the dialogue (on the board) with each line tagged with, e.g., “John said” or Mary said.” Read it aloud so the students can hear how deadly this is. Next try replacing each said – every single one – with a fancy speech verb, or speech verb plus adverb. Read it aloud. Ouch!

          Ah, but now let the students offer suggestions about where the dialogue should take place: in a shopping mall, at the pool, in the school cafeteria? Once a setting has been established, a few of the speech tags can replaced by brief bits of action, specific to that setting. Vary their placement by sometimes having action precede a line of speech and sometimes follow it.

“How are you?” John asked Mary, as they walked toward the pool.

“I’m fine,” Mary said. “How about you?”

“Just okay.” John fiddled with the towel draped over his shoulders.

Mary stared at him. “What’s the matter?”

After a long pause, John said, “It’s my mom.”

“What about her?” A kid on the high board dove into the water with a huge splash, but Mary didn’t turn to look.

 “I think she’s sick, like really sick,” John whispered.

          “Oh, no!”

          Don’t let dialogue be “all talk and no action.” Small bits of interspersed action make the talking real. Action makes talkers come alive.

Claudia Mills is the author of over 50 books for young readers, including How Oliver Olson Changed the World (an ALA Notable Book of the Year) and The Trouble with Ants (which received a starred review in Publishers Weekly), as well as the Franklin School Friends series of chapter books from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Claudia lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her family and her cat, Snickers. Visit her at www.claudiamillsauthor.com.

The Essence of Everyday Life

by Jacqueline Jules

I have recommended Gary Soto before in a Pencil Tips post about his short story collection, Baseball in April. But when I recently came upon his collection of poems for young adults, A Fire in My Hands, I knew I had to write about Soto’s work again. A Fire in My Hands was re-issued in an expanded edition.  All middle school and high school English teachers need a copy of this book.

Soto is one of my favorite authors.  His words beautifully capture the essence of everyday life. Every poem in A Fire in My Hands is a wonderful example of how to create poetry from one’s life experiences. Soto shows us how to notice every detail of a visit to a drugstore with someone you care about. How to see a blimp float across the sky on a hot August day, “quietly as a cloud, /Its shadow dark enough to sleep/ Or dream in.” Soto elevates the everyday to palpable moments of epiphany.

In the introduction, Soto advises young writers to look into their own experiences for inspiration. This is not new advice for middle school and high school students. But Soto knows how to convince them. He says, “Some of you may argue that your life is boring, that nothing has happened, that everything interesting happens far away. Not so.” Soto’s poems demonstrate that every moment is worthy of being captured in a poem. Every feeling is important.

Each poem is accompanied by an anecdote, sharing the memory that inspired it. Soto is honest about changing the facts to capture emotional truth in his poems. This layout is a wonderful model, showing how a poem develops from its original inspiration.  

The interview at the end of the book “Chatting with Gary Soto” is a must-read for anyone interested in teaching poetry. Soto discusses his process and motivation. He explains the difference between a lyric poem and a narrative poem. But most of all, he reveals how writing poetry feeds his soul.

A Fire in My Hands models everything we want our students to emulate in their writing. Get it for yourself. Share it with your students.

www.jacquelinejules.com