Welcome to another tip for all you NaNoWriMo-ers out there. I’ll be dolling out writing advice every odd-numbered day of November, and Justine will take on the even-numbered days. Don’t forget to check out Justine’s tip from yesterday, about not skipping the tricky parts.
But before I get started, you might be interested in this essay by me on John Scalzi’s site, the Whatever. It’s about working on Leviathan with Keith, and about illustrated books in general.
It also reveals a delicious new piece of art from Leviathan, so let me repost it here:
This is the captain of the Leviathan in his office, and that’s Deryn saluting. Notice the nautilus-shell theme running throughout the picture. Keith and I decided early on that all the Darwinist designs would echo living creatures, even furniture and jewelry. (Check out the captain’s cufflinks and hat.) Clanker design is, of course, very different, with everything echoing machines and mechanical parts. Not just two sides at war, but two aesthetics!
Okay, now onto the Nano Tip . . .
Let’s talk about “Passages of Disbelief.” That’s my own pet name for the part of a fantasy (or horror, or sf, or whatever) where the main character realizes that paranormal stuff is happening. The part where they say to themselves, “Holy crap! Vampires (or elves, or aliens, or whatever) are REAL!”
Passages of Disbelief (PODs) can be very problematic for a writer for the following reasons:
1) The average fantasy reader had already read dozens of PODs. Hundreds of them. We are bored with them.
2) The reader already knows that vampires, aliens, or whatever are real in the fictional world, because they read the back of the book. It’s not news.
3) If vampires really did turn out to be real, most people’s reaction would be to say, “Holy crap, just like in [insert name of fictional vampire franchise].” And there’s something unsatisfying about characters in books referencing other books of the same genre. Like when people in bad sf movies say, “Wow, this is like something out of a bad science fiction movie.”
Now, obviously there are many so-called “open fantasies.” In True Blood, everyone knows there are vampires. In Lord of the Rings, everyone knows there are elves. So if you simply decide to write an open fantasy, you can skip the POD.
But sometimes you want the fantastical elements of your story need to be “closed,” hidden from the world at large, mysterious and amazing. So how do you deal with PODs in an artful and interesting way?
Well, you can always steal tricks from other people. I’ve written a whole essay about how PODs work in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (You can read the essay online this week for free. It’s from an old anthology by SmartPop, who are the publishers of Mind-Rain.)
To make your thievery easy, here are the most common tricks for Passages of Disbelief:
One: Use Humor
Comedy can make a POD into something new and hilarious. You can take advantage of your readers’ familiarity with POD scenes, by taking their expectations and subverting them.
But this approach has a big problem: many, many writers have already done it. (See my Buffy essay above.) You will have to work hard to top them, and not sound like someone telling an over-familiar joke.
Two: Start Your Story After the POD
If your character has already been recruited into the alien-slaying guild before the first page, then there’s no need for a POD. You just start out with your character explaining alien slaying to the reader in a matter-of-fact-way.
Sure, a quick flashback to the day your protag first learned about the Secret Alien Invasion might be warranted at some point, but that’s much less onerous than a whole real-time scene.
The problem here is that in a closed fantasy, you’ll eventually run into a secondary character’s POD. Like, when your alien-slayer’s boyfriend (or mom, or parole officer) finds out about the aliens. Then you’ll have to deal with it anyway!
So here’s the ultimate answer the POD problem:
Three: Make Sure Your Ideas Are Mind-Boggingly Original
Here’s the thing: If you’re original enough, your reader will ALSO be going through a Passage of Disbelief along with the character. Whatever they’ve read on the back of the book or heard from friends will pale in comparison to your brilliant new take on fantasy. And they will NOT be bored.
Instead of saying, “Here we go again,” they’ll be shrieking, “Holy crap! Alien vampire werewolves from Poughkeepsie! I never saw that coming!”
I’m afraid that this little trick the only real answer to PODs. In a world swimming with paranormal stories, if you aren’t genuinely freaking your reader out, your main character’s little freak out will only be so much wasted ink.
See you in two days! In the meantime, don’t forget to check out Justine’s tip tomorrow. And if you haven’t already, click here to buy Leviathan, or grab it at your local bookstore.
As you probably know, Justine and I are doing writing tips for every day of NaNoWriMo. She’s doing even-numbered days, and I’m doing odd. Her tip from yesterday about the glories of square brackets reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while. And I think it’s going to be a multi-day thing.
So here’s the first of several essays on the subject of meta-documents! (And don’t forget to check below for my NYC appearance this Tuesday.)
Sometimes in the headlong fury of trying to make our word count, we writers forget to keep track of our characters’ scars and bruises, of their eye and hair colors, or even what day of the week it is. We forget, in short, to make meta-documents.
So what does this fancy term mean? Well, the main document your working on for NaNoWriMo is, of course, the Novel itself. But in order to keep that novel coherent, you almost certainly need meta-documents. That is, documents about the main document.
Think about it: novels are at least 50,000 words, and can be three times that length or more. That’s a huge project, and you, dear novelist, are the Project Manager. You need a clipboard with you at all times, or you will start forgetting stuff.
Of course, the most famous type of meta-doc is the Outline, the chapter-by-chapter plan of how the Novel will unfold. Some of us writers love to outline, some find it a chore, and some find that outlining is a novel-killer, destroying any need to tell the story at all. Finding your own place on that continuum is the job of every writer.
But heed this well: Just because you’ve given up on outlining, don’t think that you can throw aside all other forms of meta-documentation. The outline is actually quite an odd meta-doc, in that you usually work on it before you start writing. But most meta-docs are things you maintain while you write. They are maps of where you’ve been, not of where you’re going. They are the keepers of consistency and realness.
Trust me, the sooner you start making meta-docs in the writing process, the less you will be pulling out your hair later on.
So for the next few odd-numbered days, I’ll be giving descriptions of some meta-documents that I use while writing. Today, I cover the mighty timeline . . .
Timelines
Timelines are possibly the most important meta-doc for me. Without them, I have no idea what day it is. And without that, all sort of details get shaky. Bruises heal instantly. People go to school six days in a row. The moon stays full for a week and a half. This makes for an unconvincing novel.
More importantly, emotional reality breaks if you don’t know how much time has past. A horrible fight with your best friend feels very different a week later than it does the day after it happened.
And take it from me: Timelines are extremely easy to create along the way, and a ROYAL PAIN to reconstruct later on. So do them while you write. Start one NOW.
Okay, but what should your timeline look like? In the timeline for the first book in the Uglies series, I started every line with a chapter of the book, and then give a calendar date. (I use a calendar even if the characters never mention dates themselves, just to keep myself on track.)
I also annotate jumps in time and other oddities, especially these three:
1) What off-screen characters (Shay, in the case below) are up to while the main action is taking place.
2) Any cues about time that appear in the text. “three days later” “It’s taking too long”
3) If characters are saying something untrue about time. (In Part II, Tally lies to hide her departure date.) It’s tricky to keep fact and fiction separate, for the reader as well as the writer.
Check it out:
Part I
Chapters 1-3 “New Pretty Town,†“Best Friends Forever,†“Shayâ€: late June 7
C. 4 “Wipe Outâ€: afternoon June 14
C. 5 “Facing the Futureâ€: afternoon June 25
C. 6 “Pretty Boringâ€: afternoon June 28
C. 7-9 “Rapids,†“Rusty Ruins,†“Waiting for Davidâ€: late June 28
C. 10 â€Fightâ€: morning Aug 26
C. 11 “Last Trickâ€: late Sep 2
C. 12-14 “Operation,†Special Circumstances,†“Ugly for Lifeâ€: morning Sep 9
C. 15 “Perisâ€: a few days pass, Peris comes in dawn of 9/12
C. 16 “Infiltratorâ€: morning of 9/12
NOTE: Shay (off screen) leaves to go to the Smoke late 9/2, and gets there early 9/8, 5.5 days later. (Same as Tally, basically, with a slower hoverboard but with David’s guidance.)Part II
C. 17 “Leavingâ€: night 9/12
C. 18 “SpagBolâ€: night 9/12 through morning 9/13
C. 19 “The Worst Mistakeâ€: starts sundown 9/13
then three days’ travel on bottom p.121
sundown 9/16 on p.122
C. 20 “The Side You Despiseâ€: very late 9/16
9/17 dawns on p. 127
C. 21 “Firestormâ€: late afternoon 9/17
C. 22 “Bug Eyesâ€: sunset 9/17 through wee hours 9/18
C. 23 “Liesâ€: morning 9/18
Tally arrives at Smoke
She claims she left late 9/8 (night before birthday) and took 9.5 days.
She actually took 5.5 days.
C. 24-27 “The Model,†“Work,†“David,†“Heartthrobâ€: all 9/18
C. 28 “Suspicionâ€: on p. 172 two weeks pass until 10/1 morning
C. 29-32 “Bravery,†“The Secret,†“Pretty Minds,†“Burning Bridgesâ€: night of 10/1 except last paragraphs , which are dawn of 10/2Part III
C. 33-37 “Invasion,†“Rabbit Pen,†“In Case of Damage,†“Run.†“Amazingâ€: early morning and onward of 10/2
C. 38-39 “Ruin,†“Maddy and Azâ€: morning 10/3
C. 40 “The Oil Plagueâ€: night of 10/3
p. 259 is daybreak of 10/4
C. 41 “Familiar Sightsâ€:
reach edge of desert during night of 10/4 p. 263
reach sea “three days later†on 10/7
travel for “a few daysâ€
hunker down for storm from 10/10 to 10-14 p. 264
p. 265 is morning of 10/14
reach Rusty Ruins night of 10/17
In this chapter, David predicts they will make it to the city in ten days, but it takes 14 due to the 4-day storm, which is why he says (during the storm on p. 264 ): “It’s taking too long.â€
C. 42 “Accomplicesâ€: night of 10/17
C. 43 “Over the Edgeâ€: as darkness falls on 10/18
The book ends 21 days later, the night of 11/8.
See how that works?
One quick note: Tally’s culture doesn’t use days of the week, but normally I keep careful track of those as well, just so no one goes to school/work on Sunday for no reason.
Another great thing about timelines is that they show you how your novel is paced. You might have three chapters in a row all set on the same morning, and then a series of chapters where time flies faster. Maybe this little pattern keeps happening again and again. Now, maybe that’s okay, or maybe it’s getting monotonous. But without a timeline, you might not notice the pattern at all.
Uglies is paced in a very particular way. Each book has a few intense days in the beginning, but then time spreads out as the characters go on a journey, allowing them to absorb the lessons they’ve learned. The timeline helped me recognize that pattern, and use it to my advantage.
Two days from now, I’ll talk some other types of meta-documents.
Take it away, Justine!
Also, don’t forget that I’m appearing with Justine and many other fabulous writers in New York City tomorrow!
Tuesday, November 10 6:00PM
Books of Wonder
Libba Bray – Going Bovine
Kristin Cashore- Fire
Suzanne Collins – Catching Fire
Michael Grant – Hunger
Justine Larbalester – Liar
And me!
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
Click here for all tour details. And click here to buy Leviathan.
Just got back from a wonderful mini-tour in Canada. Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, and I had a great time, and Keith Thompson enjoyed a warm welcome into the world of bookstore appearances. I think he will do more!
But now I am SLEEPY. So I’m cheating and pulling another old writing advice out of the e-drawer. It’s from January 10, 2006, so only you old-school blog-stalkers will have read it before.
I promise to do a fresh one for Monday! And don’t forget Justine’s excellent advice from yesterday.
Take it away, me from three and a half years ago:
While I was finishing Specials my fictional brain started to break, so I decided to take some time off from narrative. Fortunately, a collection of letters written by the great hard-boiled writer Raymond Chandler leapt from the depths of my Sydney storage unit and into my hands.
Chandler’s technique for writing letters was to stay up at night drinking and talking into a tape recorder (a wire recorder in those days, actually). The next day his secretary would type up his rantings and send them in the mail. This led to many a drunken tongue-lashing, and a fair amount of solid writing advice, being preserved for posterity.
As I re-read the letters, I realized that I’ve stolen a lot of Chandler’s writing techniques over the years, especially his “four-hour rule” (see below), which I’ve expounded to many a writing class. So I figured it was time to ‘fess up and show all of you the source material.
So here is the unalloyed Raymond Chandler on the subject of writing:
1. Letter to Frederick Lewis Allen, editor of Harper’s Magazine
7 May 1948
My theory was that [the readers] just thought they cared about . . . the action; that really, although they didn’t know it, they cared very little about the action. The things that they really cared about, and that I cared about, were the creation of emotion through dialogue and description; the things they remembered, that haunted them, were not for example that a man got killed, but that in the moment of death he was trying to pick a paper clip up off the polished surface of a desk, and it kept slipping away from him, so that there was a look of strain of his face and his mouth was half opened in a kind of tormented grin, and the last thing in the world he thought about was death. He didn’t even hear death knock at the door. That damn paper clip kept slipping away from his fingers and he just wouldn’t push it to the edge of the desk and catch it as it fell.
That paper clip image is very goosepimple-making, a classic noir example of the crumpled little guy facing oblivion. Of course, we all know that a guy trying to pick up a paper clip on a hoverboard would be cooler. And like, especially if the paper clip exploded . . .
This next motivational technique is one I always tell aspiring writers to try:
2. Letter to Alex Barris, an interview by mail
18 March 1949
The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn’t do anything else but write. He doesn’t have to write, and if he doesn’t feel like it, he shouldn’t try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Write or nothing. It’s the same principle as keeping order in a school. If you make the pupils behave, they will learn something just to keep from being bored. I find it works. Two very simple rules, a. you don’t have to write. B. you can’t do anything else. The rest comes of itself.
Put those two rules on your refrigerator and you’ll have a novel within a year. Or at least someone else who uses your refrigerator will.
The letter below reminds me of something Kingsley Amis said: “Sometimes the hardest part of writing is getting the characters out of the pub and into the cab.” Writers don’t just get stuck at the earth-shattering, life-changing decisions that our characters make; the little details of reality management are actually quite tricky and frustrating. Never assume you’re a crap writer just because you can’t get someone across a room—it happens to all of us.
3. Letter to Paul Brooks, a publisher working on a Chandler collection
19 July 1949
When I started out to write fiction I had the great disadvantage of having absolutely no talent for it. I couldn’t get the characters in and out of rooms. They lost their hats and so did I. If more than two people were on scene I couldn’t keep one of them alive. Give me two people snotting at each other across a desk and I am happy. A crowded canvas just bewilders me.
This letter to Alfred Hitchcock contains fantastic advice for writers as well as film-makers. Just substitute the words “wicked-cool sentence” or “scintillating simile” for “camera shot.”
4. 6 December 1950
As a friend and well-wisher, I urge you just once in your long and distinguished career . . . to get a sound and sinewy story into the script and sacrifice no part of its soundness for an interesting camera shot. Sacrifice a camera shot if necessary. There will always be another camera shot just as good. There is never another motivation just as good.
Beyond his anti-Agatha Christie snark, there is an excellent point below about the difference between novels and short stories. A lot of writers who excel at the story level don’t think to “turn the corner” when attempting the longer form.
5. Letter to Dorothy Gardner, secretary of the Mystery Writers Association
January 1956
The trouble with most English mystery writers, however well known in their world, is that they can’t turn a corner. About halfway through a book they start fooling with alibis, analyzing bits and pieces of evidence and so on. The story dies on them. Any book which is any good has to turn the corner. You get to the point where everything implicit in the original situation has been developed or explored, and then a new element has to introduced which is not implied from the beginning but which is seen to be part of the situation when it shows up.
Speaking of snark . . . bet you didn’t know that Raymond Chandler’s brief foray into science fiction actually predicted the rise of Google as an information search service. Check this out:
6. Letter to H.N Swanson
14 March 1953
Did you ever read what they call Science Fiction? It’s a scream. It’s written like this: “I checked out with K19 on Abadabaran III, and stepped out through the crummaliote hatch on my 22 Model Sirus Hardtop. I cocked the timejector in secondary and waded through the bright blue manda grass. My breath froze into pink pretzels. I flicked on the heat bars and the Bryllis ran swiftly on five legs using their other two to send out crylon vibrations. The pressure was almost unbearable, but I caught the range on my wrist computer through the transparent cysicites. I pressed the trigger. The thin violet glow was icecold against the rust-colored mountains. The Bryllis shrank to half an inch long and I worked fast stepping on them with the poltex. But it wasn’t enough. The sudden brightness swung me around and the Fourth Moon had already risen. I had exactly four seconds to hot up the disintegrator and Google had told me it wasn’t enough. He was right.”
They pay brisk money for this crap?
Yes, Mr. Chandler, they do.
You can buy the collection, edited by Tom Hiney and Frank MacShane, from Amazon, B&N, or Indie Bound, or from your bricks-and-mortar local bookstore.
I’m on tour in Canada this week, so today’s Nano Tip will be a blast from the past. This post is from early 2005, when this blog was young and tiny. (It got a whopping seven comments, and I was well pleased with that.) And yet its ancient caveman wisdom is as true today as it was then!
So here it is again . . . “Write Your Way Out.”
People in writing groups often ask me, “What do I do when I get conflicting advice? How will I ever decide which way to go?”
My answer is: “Try it both ways and see which works! Don’t just write one ending, write three!”
It’s a medically proven fact: Writing the same scene several different ways won’t kill you.
Take a cue from visual artists. They make a hundred pencil drawings of a subject before even starting with the paint. They paint the same dang pot of flowers a dozen times, with only slight variations. They doodle in their sketchbooks all day, making stuff no one will ever see. But they rarely sit there and just complain about a compositional problem without putting their hands on a brush/pen/piece of clay.
In my second novel, Fine Prey, I actually wrote a scene that I knew wouldn’t be in the final draft, just so I could visualize what had happened “off screen” in the story. Weird, but it worked.
In another case, I lost a short story and had to write it again from scratch. Then I found the original again. (Argh.) Guess what? The combination of the two–taking the best elements of each–was better than anything I would have reached by fiddling endlessly with that lost original. And the experience of writing a story twice and then comparing the two versions helped me understand it in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise.
You see, paper is magic: Making marks on it changes your brain. So, don’t sit around trying to think your way out of problems, write your way out of them. The best place to find answers is on a piece of paper or a glowing phosphorus screen.
Of course, thinking about writerly issues in the shower or while jogging is a fine habit to get into, because otherwise that’s just wasted time.* Please understand that I’m not against thinking; I’m only against thinking that thinking on its own will get you out of a hole. Shovel also needed.
*Except for the being hygienic and fit, which is somewhat useful.
So there’s my blast from the past. Don’t forget to check out Justine’s excellent tip from yesterday, and she’ll have tomorrow’s tip as well. I’ll be back on Saturday.
Ottowans and Toronto-ites, don’t forget to come see me, Holly Black, and Cassandra Clare tonight and tomorrow night. We have buttons!
Ottawa
with special guest Keith Thompson,
illustrator of Leviathan
Thursday, November 5th 7:00PM
Chapters Rideau
47 Rideau Street,
Ottawa, Ontario
Toronto
Friday November 6th 7:00PM
Trinity St. Paul’s United Church
427 Bloor Street West
(Because this is an off-site event, admission is five Canadian bucks. You can buy the tickets right here. You can also pay at the door, if there’s any room left!)
And over the weekend, I’ll be appearing on my lonesome back in NYC:
NYC
Sunday, November 8 1:00PM
Thalia’s Book Club
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre and Café
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway (at 95th Street)
New York, NY 10025
The Symphony Space series is aimed at young writers. There will be a discussion, a few slides, a short reading, and a creative writing prompt. Then lots of Q&A. I’ve never done one of these, but it sounds like a cool format. Go here to buy tickets.
Want a free ticket? Write me and say why, and I’ll see what I can do.
Click here for all my tour details. And click here to buy Leviathan.
After all your great responses to Monday’s Nano Tip post, I though I’d spend one more post looking at the story. So many of you had cool interpretations and in interesting questions, so I thought I’d give you my own version.
(For those of you who haven’t read the Dialog Spine Story, and most importantly the comments, you should go do that now. And don’t forget Justine’s Nano Tip #2 from yesterday.)
Now, the author’s interpretation is privileged in some ways (people tend to give it extra weight) but that doesn’t mean that my version is “right” and any that differs from mine is “wrong.”
But here’s what I was thinking as I wrote the story:
Okay, that’s all I got. Thanks again for being such good readers.
Also, note that I didn’t even notice the resonance of “Don’t let me go down there alone” until El pointed it out in Comment 14. w00t!
See you in Montreal tomorrow!
Wednesday, November 4th 7:00PM
Chapters Pointe-Claire
6321 Trans-Canada Highway, unit 1410
(514) 428-5500
Click here for all tour details. And click here to buy Leviathan.
Update:
And don’t forget that my lovely wife Justine is in Chicago this week, talking about her new book Liar:
Wednesday, 4 November, 7:00PM
Anderson’s Bookshop
5112 Main St

Downers Grove, IL
First of all, thanks for all your fascinating thoughts on yesterday’s Nano Tip post. It’s been really cool hearing your interpretations of the story. All you Nanowrimo-ers should pay close attention to the comment thread; it’s really important for writers to realize how different reader responses can be.
I’ll be posting my own personal thoughts on the story tomorrow, but today you can read Justine’s Nano Tip #2! Remember, she’s doing the even-numbered days of November and I’m doing odd ones. We’re organized like that.
In other news, there’s a discussion about Leviathan between me and Joe Monti here at Tor.com’s Steampunk Month. And I’ve just learned that the book has been chosen as one of Amazon’s Top Ten Books of 2009. w00t!
Congrats to everyone else who made the list.
Now, as promised, here are THREE final dates in my US tour:
Sunday, November 8 1:00PM
Scott Westerfeld Discusses Leviathan at Symphony Space
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre and Café
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway (at 95th Street)
New York, NY 10025
The Symphony Space series is aimed at young writers. There will be a discussion, a few slides, a short reading, and a creative writing prompt. Then lots of Q&A. I’ve never done one of these, but it sounds like a cool format. Go here to buy tickets.
Then I’m doing a mega-event with five other authors at Books of Wonder, here in NYC. Check this out:
Tuesday, November 10 6:00PM
Books of Wonder
Libba Bray – Going Bovine
Kristin Cashore- Fire
Suzanne Collins – Catching Fire
Michael Grant – Hunger
Justine Larbalester – Liar
And me!
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
And finally, we finish up with an ultra-mega-event in Philadelphia:
Sunday, November 22 1:00-3:00PM
A NOVEL IDEA:
A benefit for the Philadelphia Free Library
summer reading program
Laurie Halse Anderson, Jay Asher,
T.A. Barron, Sarah Dessen,
Steven Kluger, Justine Larbalestier,
David Levithan, Lauren Myracle,
Jacqueline Woodson and me!
Children’s Book World
17 Haverford Station Rd.
Haverford, PA
Holy Guacamole, what a line up! Hope to see you there.
Click here for all tour details. And click here to buy Leviathan.
Welcome to Nano Tips, a month-long festival of writing tips from me and Justine. We’ll be posting daily, me on the odd-numbered days of November, and Justine on the even-numbered days. This is, of course, all in celebration of NaNoWriMo. (And I think you know what that is.)
So here’s my first tip: The Dialog Spine.
Many writers use the so-called “dialog spine” as a way of mapping out a scene. As a sort of “zero draft,” they write just dialog, with no setting, action, or even attribution. It’s a quick once-over of conflict and resolution in a scene, without any tricky bits to slow you down.
This, of course, assumes that you find dialog easy. For some people, writing the action/description/whatever first might make more sense. In any case, you don’t have to make your dialog (or whatever) perfect. It’s just a way of mapping out the main beats in a scene.
But there’s another trick that I use the dialog spine for: blowing out the cobwebs. And by cobwebs, I mean “writer’s block,” “general ennui,” or “an idea that just needs to be written down, but I don’t have time.”
For example, over the last three days I’ve had a small but persistent short story idea. Of course, I’m on tour and just about to start doing revisions on Behemoth, book two of Leviathan. I don’t have time to write a short story, but I want to get this idea down. Once I write the dialog spine, maybe I’ll realize that there’s not that much to it. Or at least it’ll be on paper and out of my busy, busy brain.
And occasionally, a dialog-only short story is a lovely thing on its own. This falls less into the “novel writing advice” category and more into “a weird writing exercise.” But it’s all useful. Quite often in the middle of a novel, it’s good therapy to write a simple short story.
So here are my personal rules to writing a Dialog Spine Story:
1) Only dialog. That’s it. Zero exceptions.
2) Only two characters speak. Other characters and their dialog may be implied, but their words do not appear on paper.
3) One character’s dialog uses quotation marks, the other doesn’t. (This saves fiddling with attribution, or spending a lot of time creating verbal ticks to tell the characters apart. Remember, the point of this is to be quick and dirty. Not astonishingly artful.)
So what do these stories look like? I thought you’d never ask.
Here’s one I did just yesterday, for Halloween:
Served Cold
By Scott Westerfeld
October 31, 2009Mind if I sit down?
“Oh, my goodness.”
Sorry to surprise you.
“But you . . . ”
I know. You didn’t expect to see anyone in town today. Least of all me.
“No, I didn’t. But of course it’s wonderful to see you. Please.”
For heaven’s sake, don’t get up! Does that arm hurt much?
“They say it’ll be fine. It throbs in a bit, but I’m full of codeine. Can I get you anything . . . ? Ah. That’s probably a stupid question.”
No, it’s not. Coffee would be wonderful.
“Really? You’re not just making fun of me?”
I would never make fun of you. Anyway, I always liked the smell of coffee better than the taste.
“Yes, I remember that . . . Excuse me, waiter, but could I have a coffee, please?”
Tell him black.
“Black, please.”
You’re very kind.
“Well, it’s the least I can do.”
Don’t be silly. It wasn’t your fault, you know. Just one of those things.
“Really? I mean, that’s what the police said. It was the ice.”
And they were perfectly right. It isn’t safe on those small roads out of town. Goodness, is that gin I smell?
“Yes. A bit early, I suppose.”
But it’s been a long week, as you always say. And look, you’ve hardly touched your salmon. It looks quite cold.
“The salmon is served cold here. But yes, it’s slow, eating with one hand.”
Poor baby. I wish I could hold a knife. Ah, here’s my coffee. Do you mind pushing it across, please?
“Of course.”
Yes, that’s a lovely smell. It’s the little things, you know. Even now.
“I’ve always thought so. Not that I would know anything about . . . ”
No, you’ve no idea. There must be lots of questions you want to ask.
“Of course.”
Well, don’t be tongue tied.
“I suppose . . . the main thing is, is it good? Or is it horrible?”
Hmm. It’s melancholy, more than anything. Like not being invited to a party, and all your friends are there. Speaking of which, you were invited to the funeral, weren’t you?
“Of course.”
And it’s today.
“Yes. It’s just starting now, I suppose.”
Then why aren’t you there?
“Well . . . I could ask you the same thing, you know.”
Ha! I suppose you could. And I was going to go. But you know what they say. It’s not for me; it’s for them.
“Well, maybe I’m not one of them.”
Don’t be philosophical, darling. You are one of them. You’re only here in town because you’re afraid.
“Well . . . not afraid, exactly.”
Yes, exactly afraid. Afraid that everyone will stare. With that arm still in a sling, who could help staring? And they’d ask if it hurts, like I just did. Really, how awkward.
“I’m so sorry.”
Don’t be silly. I told you, it wasn’t your fault. It was a patch of ice.

“Are you sure?”
About the ice? Yes. I took a good long look at it again this morning. It was back again, after melting in the sun yesterday! The roads are quite unsafe. Someone should do something.
“But there’s nothing I could have done, right?”
Well . . . perhaps there was one little thing.
“What?”
If I’d been wearing my seatbelt, I’d be sitting here properly, wouldn’t I? Having cold salmon with you.
“You hate salmon, and you never bothered with seatbelts.”
I would have put mine on, if you’d asked me. I’d have done that for you.
“Really?”
Yes.
“But it’s not as though . . . you’re eighteen, after all.”
Ah. You’ve been practicing that line, haven’t you?
“Don’t be crass.”
Sorry. But I was wondering if my parents had asked yet. About why we were out so late.
“No. They haven’t said anything.”
That means you’re in trouble, of course.
“Well, they’re still quite overwhelmed.”
No—you’re in trouble. Just look at you, sitting here all alone, pushing your lunch around with one hand. In trouble and drinking gin on top of your codeine.
“And missing you.”
And missing my funeral, you mean. The nerve of you. They’ll only talk more because you’re not there. It’s an admission of shame.
“I’m not ashamed.”
You were wearing a seatbelt.
“I . . . yes, I always do.”
And I’d have worn one if you’d asked. I did a lot of things for you.
“I know.”
Good. Then you’ll do something for me? One last thing?
“Of course.”
Go to my funeral.
“But . . . now?”
Yes, now. I know it’s already started, but funerals are always endless. Leave right away, and you’ll catch the main event. I want you to be there.
“I . . . I suppose I could still make it. Are you coming . . . with me?”
No, I’ll go ahead. But I’ll be beside you all the way, in spirit. Look, here’s the waiter.
“Check, please? Listen, I’m not quite sure your parents want me there.”
Of course they do. You’re their best friend! And I want you there, so steel yourself, darling. Here, finish your gin, that’s right. Look, he’s got your check already. Pay with cash, it’s quicker.
“All right. Don’t rush me.”
You’ll have to drive fast, won’t you?
“It’s rather tricky, with one hand. Do you really want this so much?”
More than anything. Please be there to watch them lower me. Don’t let me go down there alone.
“Of course. I promise I’ll be there. I’m so sorry.”
Don’t be silly. It was just the ice. Just go.
. . .
Drive safely.
Mwa-hah-hah! Like I said, it’s a quick-and-dirty Halloween story.
Anyway, feel free to discuss what you think is going on in the comments. And behold the power of dialog!
On my next Nano Tip day, November 3, I’ll discuss this story in more detail.
And here’s Justine’s post with Nano Tip #2!
Sort of Update:
Almost forgot the obligatory click here for Leviathan tour details. And here to buy Leviathan.
Shay's Story, a graphic novel version of Uglies, is OUT NOW!
The Uglies series has been adapted into graphic novel form, with the events of the trilogy told from Shay's point of view in three volumes.
The first one comes out March 6, 2012!
Click here to contact Scott Westerfeld.
Jill Grinberg
Jill Grinberg Literary Management
info@grinbergliterary.com
