On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [100]
"So if the island is declared unfit for habitation," Grady said cautiously into the stillness, "you won't be too upset?"...
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"The infrastructure's been smashed. ... It'd be much cheaper for the government to pay for resettlement on the mainland. ... You don't want to be here."
"I didn't say that."
"I think you just did."
"Well, I didn't! ... I said I missed things. I do. ... But if I truly wanted to leave, you wouldn't see me for dust. ... It's not going to happen. We won't all leave."
In this brief conversation, the heroine goes from complaining about the isolation of her island home to defending it and swearing she won't leave, because of the announcement the hero made.
• Share backstory. Making a character talk about the significant events in his past is more effective than simply telling the readers what his life has been like. Not only is the dialogue more interesting than straightforward telling, there's an additional layer of emotion and suspense when the character himself shares events as he sees them. For instance, when you, as the author, tell the readers something, the readers assume you're sharing everything of significance, so they can take the report at face value. But when the character himself tells the readers
something through dialogue, they are left to judge for themselves whether he's telling them everything, and whether he's actually being straightforward and truthful or if he might be deluding himself.
• Foreshadow action, hinting at events that are yet to come. Because the readers usually think of dialogue as the cotton candy that rewards them for standing in line at the carnival, they tend to take it less seriously than narrative—which makes dialogue an ideal place to slip in those necessary hints that make future story developments believable, without running up a red flag that shouts, "Here! This is a clue! Look carefully!"
THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES
Men and women talk differently. Men tend to talk about things, women about feelings. Men tend to speak in shorter bursts and shorter sentences. A woman asks more questions and is apt to pursue a subject even if it's clear her friend would rather not talk about it, while a man is more likely to let it drop.
While not every man and woman follow these conversational patterns, most do. Since the readers are used to these patterns in real life, they will be uncomfortable if characters stray from the norm. They may not know why, but they will know that the dialogue doesn't seem real.
Though making your characters sound real is important in all kinds of fiction, it's particularly important in romance. If the dame in a hard-edged mystery talks like a guy, it's easier for the readers to overlook—she's a less crucial piece of the action-oriented plot, and maybe she is just a hard-edged sort of person.
But since so much of a romance novel involves interaction between a man and a woman, a large percentage of the book portrays the two main characters talking to each other. If your romantic hero sounds like a girlfriend instead of a man, your readers will be dissatisfied even if they can't quite diagnose the reason why they don't like him.
By the time you start writing, however, your own gender-based conversational habits are already so ingrained that you've probably stopped noticing the differences in the ways men and women talk. That makes it difficult for you to create natural-sounding dialogue for a character of the opposite sex.
So here are the main ways in which real men and women differ when it comes to talking—and how your characters should differ if they're going to be convincing.
Status vs. Intimacy
In general, men approach conversation with an eye toward maintaining status and independence, reporting or obtaining information, and solving problems. Women seek to establish intimacy and rapport, share feelings, and