On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [106]
Julia Quinn is particularly gifted at creating effective dialogue, including this example from her Regency-period historical When He Was Wicked. In a society in which male—female friendships were limited and certain topics simply weren't discussed, the heroine confides her desires to the hero, a long-term friend but not a lover, with predictable results:
"I beg your pardon?"
She'd shocked him. He was sputtering, even. She hadn't made her announce ment to elicit this sort of reaction, but now that he was sitting there, his mouth hanging open and slack, she couldn't help but take a small amount of pleasure from the moment.
"I want a baby," she said with a shrug. "Is there something surprising in that?"
His lips moved before he actually made sound. "Well ... no ... but ..."
"I'm twenty-six."
"I know how old you are," he said, a little testily.
"I'll be twenty-seven at the end of April. I don't think it's so odd that I might want a child."
His eyes still held a vaguely glazed sort of quality. "No, of course not, but—"
"And I shouldn't have to explain myself to you!"
"I wasn't asking you to," he said, staring at her as if she'd grown two heads.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I overreacted."
He said nothing, which irritated her. At the very least, he could have contradicted her. It would have been a lie, but it was still the kind and courteous thing to do.
Finally, because the silence was simply unbearable, she muttered, "A lot of women want children."
"Right," he said, coughing on the word. "Of course. But ... don't you think you might want a husband first?"
In this example, Quinn uses attribution ("he said," "she mumbled"), actions ("His lips moved"), silence ("He said nothing"), adverbs ("he said, a little testily"), and paragraphing (alternating paragraphs between the two characters) to make clear who's talking at any given time. If there is any possibility for doubt about who's speaking, as in the next-to-last paragraph, which falls after a long silence, Quinn tells us who's talking.
STYLES OF DIALOGUE
Though Julia Quinn's When He Was Wicked is a historical novel, the subject and tone of the dialogue has a contemporary feeling. Move the characters to a present-day setting and they could have essentially the same conversation—and that's true of much dialogue across the range of romance novels. People talk about much the same things, whether it's the thirteenth century or the twenty-first.
In other ways, however, dialogue in various kinds of romance differs. Historical romances are more likely to use the dialect and slang of the time, and in those cases it's very important to be sure the readers can pick up the meaning of the words from the context, as in this example from Elizabeth Boyle's historical single title, set in 1801, This Rake of Mine:
"Well," Lady Oxley huffed, "I suppose there are worst things than having some cit's daughter marry into your family, but for the life of me, I can't think of it. Our bloodlines will be tainted by this forever."
The Duchess of Cheverton, seated next to Lady Oxley, couldn't agree more. "I fear for your standing, my dear, I do, indeed."
"If there is some consolation, she did go to Miss Emery's," Lady Oxley conceded, though grudgingly.
"Miss Emery's, you say?" The duchess twisted in her seat and looked at the girl in question, eyeing her from top to bottom, as if she were gauging the quality of a length of silk. "A mite young, wouldn't you say? I daresay she's fresh and innocent."
"Oh, she looks innocent enough," Lady Oxley declared, ignoring the hot glances from the people in the other boxes, who were actually watching the opera. "Gads, the trollops these merchants pass off as daughters is just appalling. My greatest fear is that Oxley will marry the chit and discover she's been ruined. Oh, the shame of it."
No reader can mistake that conversation at the opera for one happening at a modern movie theater—even though the fear that a child will marry the wrong person is just as current a topic of conversation among parents today. The specific