ON WRITING by Stephen King

pp 178-200.

Another informing section of "Writing for Dummies." Here King's subject under his scrupulous magnifying glass is dialogue; "what gives your cast their voices."

What I've learned is that speech is a much more vivid than straight narration as way of conveying a character across to a reader and other characters. You can tell the reader, but showing him is better. And this creates a characters voice better; if you learn about the character by 'watching' him, you'll be driven to read on and learn more even though you'll eventually be able to predict what the character would think or say in given situations.

Dialogue is the most sensitive part of writing. Your style of writing comes naturally, and there is no extra thinking involved other than thinking like yourself; dialogue calls upon a much more artistic ability. What makes is sensitive is that a reader can smell foul and poor character development before he opens the book. "When dialogue is right, we know. When it's wrong we also know it jags on the ear like a badly tuned musical instrument." King provides good examples of dialogue and speech that makes people cringe.

My favorite point of this section is his views on profanity in literature, or as his mother put it "the language of the ignorant." If you're willing to substitute PG rated nouns in exchange for good ol' fashioned cussing, that isn't giving the authenticity of your character, unless he or she is like Stephen King's mother. "The point is to let each character speak freely, without regard to what the Legion of Decency or the Christian Ladies' Reading Circle may approve of."