Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation

In last week’s podcast we started to talk about how to punctuate dialogue because we’re sexy like that. And we’re continuing that discussion this week.

A great source of how to to punctuate dialogue is from theeditorsblog.net

They are calm and lovely and explain things really well.

And for a reminder: A dialogue tag is just the bits like “they said,” “she whispered,” “he yelled.”

So, for this, you’ve got quotation marks around your dialogue with the dialogue tag following what was said. But before that, right before the end quotation mark, you have a comma. There’s no capital letter for that dialogue tag. Why? Because it’s the same damn sentence, that’s why, and you can’t just randomly capitalize things in there. A period goes at the very end of the action or beat.

“Shaunie is a cutie face,” she said, hoping Shaunie would look her way and smile.

Quotation Marks + Capitalized First Word + Comma + End Quotation Marks + Lowercase First Word in the Dialogue Tag + Comma (usually) + Action/Beat + Period.

You can switch that around and start off with the action/beat and the dialogue tag.

Hoping Shaunie would look her way and smile, she said, “Shaunie is a cutie face.”

Action/Beat + Comma + Dialogue Tag + Quotation Marks + Capitalized First Word + Period + End Quote

This is when the dialogue is all the same sentence, but it’s interrupted by the dialogue tag. When that happens, you want a comma before the last quotation marks in the first part of the sentence and then again after the dialogue tag.

“Shaunie is a cutie face,” she said, hoping Shaunie would look her way and smile, “but he doesn’t ever notice me.”

Or

“Shaunie is a cutie face,” she said, “but he doesn’t ever notice me.”

Quotation Marks + Capitalized First Word + Comma + End Quotation Marks + Lowercase First Word in the Dialogue Tag + Comma + Action/Beat + Comma + Quotation Marks + Lowercased first word + End Punctuation (not a comma) + End Quotation Marks.

Or you can get all emphatic and make it two sentences because it’s dialogue. Then the first sentence has a period before the end quotes and dialogue tag. The dialogue tag ends with a period. The second quote section starts with a capital letter. Whew. That’s a lot. Ready?

“Shaunie is a cutie face,” she said, hoping Shaunie would look her way and smile. “But he doesn’t ever notice me.”

Quotation Marks + Capitalized First Word + Comma + End Quote Marks + Lowercase First Word in the Dialogue Tag + Comma + Action/Beat + Period + Quotation Marks + Capitalized First Word + End Punctuation (not a comma) + End Quotation Marks.

Whew, that was a lot. Our brains are fried? Your brains okay?

Be sexy. Know your punctuation.

Don’t just bark at people. It’s easy, but it doesn’t get you what you want.

https://omaha.com/news/national/roadrunner-going-faster-ends-up-in-maine-after-hitchhike/article_4ce788b0-ef17-50ea-b260-36325130663c.html

https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-hitchhiker-stories/isadora-teich

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

Here’s the link.

A great source of how to to punctuate dialogue is from theeditorsblog.net

They are calm and lovely and explain things really well.

But if you’re a little weird, you’re in the right place.

Let’s get started for this two-part podcast that we’ll finish next week.

And for a reminder: A dialogue tag is just the bits like “they said,” “she whispered,” “he yelled.”

You put the whole sentence inside those quotation marks.

“Shaunie is a cutie face.”

Quotation Marks + Capitalized First Word + Period/Question Mark/Exclamation Point+ End Quote

This time you put the dialogue inside the quotation marks and also a COMMA of MAGIC right before the last quotation marks. Then after the dialogue tag you put a period like this:

“Shaunie is a cutie face,” she said.

Why is this?

It’s pretty simple, the whole thing is a sentence, but it’s a sentence in two parts. Part one is the stuff someone is saying aloud. Part two is telling the reader who is saying it. It’s all one big thing and that’s why you don’t have a period inside the last quotation marks before the dialogue tag.

Whoa. Mind blow, right?

And that’s the same reason we don’t capitalize SHE in the dialogue tag of SHE SAID.

Quotation Marks + Capitalized First Word + Comma + End Quote + Lowercase First Word in the Dialogue Tag + Period.

We’re going to do just one more and continue on next week.

So, it’s totally the same concept. It’s all one sentence, but this time the capitalization gets a bit wonky. You want to capitalize the first spoken word inside the first quotation marks and put a COMMA OF MAGIC right before it to separate the spoken words from the tag. Ready?

She said, “Shaunie, you are such a cutie-cutie face, my little coco-puff.”

So, you have a capitalized SHE at the beginning of the sentence, a comma at the end of the tag, quotation marks, then a capitalized first word.

Tag + Comma + Quotation marks + Ending punctuation (period, exclamation point, question mark) + End Quotation marks.

Know your dialogue punctuation because it gets super confusing if you don’t.

When you know the rules, when you know how to communicate your wants, you should be able to get your people to understand you AND you can understand your people.

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

Here’s the link.

https://time.com/6115335/spacex-astronauts-200-days/

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/20/1057698279/cash-spill-san-diego–california-freeway

These next few podcasts, we thought we should get all nitty-gritty with some quick grammar tips or style tips for people writing fiction.

It can help you nonfiction writers, too, we swear.

• Use quotes.

• Have the dialogue tag (who the speaker is, the he said/she asked) in the actual same paragraph as the dialogue.

• Punctuate it all correctly. (That’s a lot of knowledge right there.)

Don’t go screwing around with those dialogue tags, also known as speaker tags.

“Said” and “asked” are your besties here. If you do anything else? You look like a crappy writer who is trying too hard and the tag becomes more attention-grabbing than the very important words your character said.

“I love you,” she said reads a lot differently than “I love you,” she murmured and bellowed and hissed.

That can be your intention, but you don’t want to keep doing it all the time.

“I love you,” she murmured.

“I love you,” he cat-called.

“I know,” she bellowed.

He screamed, “Of course you do.”

“And what do you mean by that?” she enthused.

So, the other big thing to remember is this: You can’t sigh out or smile out words, so don’t use them for speaker tags. You can use them for dialogue beats, but that means you have to punctuate them differently.

“I love you,” she said. – Requires a comma after the word ‘you,’ and a lower-case S for ‘she.’

“I love you.” She sighed. – Requires a period after the word ‘you,’ and an upper-case S for ‘she.’

Oh, and romance and horror writers, we all love to make our characters hiss especially when our lovers are shapeshifters, but you can’t hiss out a bunch of words if there are no s-sounds.

Make sure your reader knows who is speaking by putting the dialogue tag next to the dialogue.

Only call attention to the things you want to call attention to.

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

Here’s the link.

https://shepherdexpress.com/puzzles/news-of-the-weird/news-of-the-weird-nov-11-2021/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/new-words-in-the-dictionary

Everyone tells you to raise the stakes in your writing.

And that’s a lovely, easy thing to say when you are the editor and not the writer. But what does it actually mean?

You hear this and think, “Yeah. Yeah. High stakes equal important. Cool. Cool.”

But then you start thinking about dinner or something.

But it’s important. Carrie’s first breakout novel was NEED and it was a series about pixies trying to cause an apocalypse. Those are high stakes, right?

Agent Donald Maas says it pretty well, “High stakes yield high success.”

He suggests knowing exactly where the stakes increase. What page does this happen? Can those stakes be higher? Do those stakes make it harder for your main character to get what he/she/they want to get?

 A really, beautiful way he puts this stakes question out there is by asking authors to ask themselves, “So what?”

What’s the so what question?

It’s this: IF YOUR MAIN CHARACTER DOESN’T GET THEIR GOAL THEN SO WHAT? Does it matter? How much does it matter?

And that brings me to what I think of I think is Maas’s most important point about stakes:

The stakes in your story don’t matter unless you’ve built in human worth about your main character. If your character’s life doesn’t matter to the reader, than the stakes don’t matter, and this is even true for life-and-death stakes.

So, that brings us to the question of what is human worth and how do you make it happen in your story. That’s obviously a big cultural question, right? And this isn’t meant to be about philosophy, but about writing, and yes it’s all intertwined.

Who is she?

Why do we need to care about her?

What are the stakes that make it necessary for us to care that she gets her goal. There needs to be an extra burst of value in why us readers care about your character. Are they super moral? Are their morals and ethics at risk?

Honesty

Bravery

Kindness

Empathy

Love

Goodness

Truth

Honor

Friendship

So many books that are break-out books and movies are about friendships. Think about Harry Potter and Tolkein and Star Wars and even Marvel movies. There is a link that happens between the characters that show their worth through their caring for others. This isn’t just true for fantasy. But even in the specificity of contemporary realistic novels.

In realistic novels, we don’t necessarily deal with those blatant and beautiful archetypes that happen in science fiction and fantasy, but if there is anything that the Covid-19 pandemic teaches us is that there can be the heroic in the mundane. Hand washing and mask wearing can be an act of kindness and of power. But no matter how big our landscape needs to be then we have to make sure that our characters worth snags our reader into caring.

Some characters are unsympathetic and there is a tiny bit of redeemabilitiy in them. They have to somehow be likable. There’s got to be an element about them to latch onto. This varies in different cultures, but in ours currently, we can deal with a jerk of a character if they are funny or brave or super smart or charismatic. I mean, seriously, think about some popular celebrities that we latch onto. Charisma is a big deal thing and it lets you get a way with a lot.

Every reader has a slightly different threshold for the poopy behaviour they’ll put up with from a character.

Make your characters matter. Make them redeemable. Make them have human worth.

Choose the people who see your good, not just your bad.

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

Here’s the link.

Carrie’s teaching a class at the Writing Barn for the next six weeks about . . . character!

That means we’re talking a lot about character in our house.

Of course, we’re also being characters because being characters is more fun than talking about them. It’s like the difference between telling in your writing and showing.

And in the writing world one of the big annoying things writers hear about their characters is that the character is “too static, man.”

The opposite of a static character is a dynamic character. That’s a character that grows and evolves.

In most stories (but not all) our protagonists grow and change and are dynamic dynamos. They are characters we root for or follow, right? The evil miser who hates Christmas becomes a generous benefactor. A little boy wizard who hides under the stairs becomes a wizard leader in the fight against darkness.

But if you think about the James Patterson series’s protagonists, most of them are like Sherlock Holmes and they don’t really grow and change. They are pretty consistent a lot of times.

And then there is the bad guy/antagonist.

Some editors will want your bad guy to grow and be dynamic too, but a lot of times those baddies and a lot of your side/secondary characters will be pretty consistent and static. Think Hannibal Lecter. Think Gaston in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

To be foils to the main character.

To make fun of tropes and stereotypes or shallow people in society.

To get pulled along in the main character’s fun.

To sometimes have contradictory goals that create obstructions for that main dynamic character’s quest.

There is a place for dynamic and static characters in stories, but you know, you should know what the words mean.

Don’t be static, dude. Grow. Become.

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

Here’s the link.

https://www.today.com/parents/toddler-brings-his-new-best-friend-skeleton-everywhere-t192612

https://www.fox44news.com/news/weird-news/police-warn-woman-not-to-wear-halloween-costume-as-protest/

You’re writing a book. And that book has to start somewhere. Where it starts? That’s called the opening scene and this little baby has a lot of work that it has to do.

It’s like the first moments of a blind date, but instead of a blind date between two people, it’s a blind date between the book and the reader.

Will they like each other?

Will they want to spend time together?

Are they meant for each other?

Only … it’s really will the reader like the book. Nobody cares if the book likes the reader. The reader has all the power.

According to Les Edgerton, who wrote the craft book, HOOKED, that opener has ten important components to grab that reader’s attention and make them want to chill on the couch with your book.

The Inciting Incident – Les believes that this needs to happen in the first scene. Other people do not agree with this.

The Story-Worthy Problem – That incident makes a problem that is going to propel the plot of the whole damn book.

The Initial Shallow Problem – This problem happens because of the inciting incident and makes the protagonist do something (take action), but it’s not the real problem of the story.

The Set-Up – Kind of makes the reader know what’s going to happen next and also helps the reader know what the heck is going on.

Backstory – You do not want a lot of this, which is the events that have happened before the story starts.

Opening Lines – Because duh. The story has to start, but you want them to be snazzy and make an impression.

Language – Because again, duh. Books are made of words. The words you choose and how you group them together make an impression.

Setting – Because the story has to take place somewhere. Let the reader have a sense of the physical space, the time, the culture.

Foreshadowing – This is the magic, my friends, because this is part of the hook that keeps the reader with you—the knowledge and hint that something is coming up next.

1. You have to hook the reader.
2. You have to have a story-worthy problem.
3. You have to let the reader know what kind of story this is.
4. And tease that ending out a tiny bit.

That beginning of your story is super important. Spend some time on it.

Set the scene. Establish your goals. Show them your character and do it right away.

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

Here’s the link.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-couples-are-having-less-sex-during-pandemic-214715201.html

Just like hanging out with a friend, or listening to an instructor drone on and on about the beauty of a mullet, the keys to controlling your novel’s pacing are language and conflict and scene sequence and stakes. We’re going to talk about those today.

What’s pacing?

It’s how fast or slow the story goes for the reader.

Let’s start with word choice. The words you choose can speed up the reader or slow them down. The way the words are grouped on the page? Same thing.

• Dialogue.
• Short paragraphs.
• Short sentences.
• Action.

Those four things speed things up.

And these things below? They slow that story down.

• Descriptive passages.
• Long paragraphs.
• Long sentences.
• Abstract language.
• A lot of talk about feelings.
• Flashbacks.
• Information dumps.

Special Help: If all your sentences are the same length and are constantly parallel in construction, you lull the reader to sleep. No sleeping readers, okay? You fall asleep, you run the risk of getting a mullet.

In the scenes you choose, there needs to be some stakes and some conflict.

Stakes happen when your reader cares about the character and is worried about what might happen to them if they don’t reach their goals. In every scene that stays in your book, there needs to be a stake and a goal.

You can’t just have your character chilling with her bestie if there’s no point in that chillin. You need obstacles and tension and the reader needs to think, “Yikes! What happens if they fail?”

It’s really one of the biggest things about pacing. Because not having conflict and stakes and tension? It makes the reader stop reading.

And here it is. The big one. In your story, just like in your life, there will be action moments and turning points and then moments where you think about those big action moments.

Dwight Swain called these moments in a book scenes (the action moments) and sequels (the reflective moments).

Or as I like to call them, LOUD scenes and QUIET scenes. And you want these scenes to be balanced so that the reader doesn’t get bored or the opposite, scream “THIS IS TOO MUCH!!! AH! ANXIETY!”

Randy Ingermanson of the Snowflake method gives three components to each:

• Goal
• Conflict
• Disaster

• Reaction
• Dilemma
• Decision

Pretty cool, right?

1. You want to look at the structure of your story and break it down. Make scenes and chapter cards or just a list.
2. Look at where the story ramps up and slows down.
3. Use those sentences and paragraphs and chapters and scene lengths to manipulate that pace.
4. Think about if your characters are too introspective.
5. Think about if your writing lacks any detail or does it have too much? Do you wax poetic about the mullet on your main character for 12 pages?
6. Think about each of your scenes. Do they show character or plot development? Are there obstacles going on? Does your main character want something in the scene?
7. Have people read it and ask if the story felt rushed or too slow and where?
8. Remember we need slow paced scenes, too! Not just fast ones!

Control your pacing; control your story.

Humans are always go-go-go. Life is too fast paced. Slow your roll so you can enjoy your belly rubs, walks, and treats.

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2021/10/10/pasco-4th-grader-in-the-running-for-america-s-best-mullet?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslocal_tampa&stream=top

https://mulletchamp.com/

https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/kid-mullet-champion-named-meet-allan-baltz-2021s-winner/I47UA62EZJAINHKCMEW2PJEN3Y/

https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/head/article/44884/1/mullet-subculture-hair-history

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. 

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.

Here’s the link.

IT’S BE BRAVE FRIDAY WHERE SHAUN OR I (FROM DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE AND LOVING THE STRANGE AND JUST BEING AN AUTHOR IN MAINE) SHARE PEOPLE’S UNEDITED, UNFILTERED STORIES, SO WE CAN ALL CELEBRATE THE BIG AND LITTLE BRAVE THINGS WE DO ALL THE TIME.

This Be Brave Friday story is from the wonderful and brave and cool and talented Lenka Vodicka who writes the Forest Fairy Craft books, which you should check out!

I was a mellow baby that slept a lot. Then I was a clumsy child that fell a lot. Then I was diagnosed with a genetic disease called Charcot (pronounced shar-co) Marie Tooth (CMT) which has nothing to do with teeth. It’s named after the three doctors that discovered it. CMT is also called hereditary neuropathy. CMT is a glitch in the genetic code that causes nerve damage, muscle weakness, balance issues, and fatigue. It’s degenerative, meaning it worsens over time. There is no treatment, other than bracing and corrective surgery that may or may not work. And there is no cure. I have CMT for life.

CMT symptoms can vary widely, even within a family. Some people have mild symptoms that are barely noticeable into their 80s, while others have multiple surgeries and use wheelchairs as children. My case was in the mild category for a long time. I couldn’t wear flip-flops, or scramble up rock climbing walls, but most people had no idea that I dealt with any disease at all. I could be normal. My challenges were usually invisible. Situations like mine, where challenges are not easily seen, may be called invisible disabilities. 

Then, one day, that changed too. My feet hurt. Every day. Every hour of the day. Every minute of the hour. They ached like someone dropped a book on them. And they didn’t stop hurting. Fingers went numb. I never considered myself disabled before. The word was serious and full of baggage from sad movies. Facing the reality of my situation required a leap of bravery in itself. I wanted to run towards “normal” as fast as possible. Slowing down, facing my limits, and then asking, “How can I help myself? How can I make my life easier in this moment?” was big work.

I changed jobs and got a disabled placard for my car. Then the real bravery began. Because having an invisible disability means that every single time I ask for accommodations, I have to call on my inner brave self. Because my bravery is the opposite of heroes that step up to a moment of decisive action. It’s the opposite of heroines volunteering for a mighty quest. It’s the opposite of saying, “I think I can, I think I can. I believe in myself.”

My bravery is “No.” My bravery is approaching random staff person at a concert or event to ask if there is an alternative line or somewhere to sit that doesn’t involve steep stairs. Sometimes the information is online, but that doesn’t always translate to the location. And I’ve even had staff say, “I don’t know why the website says that.”

And because my disability is invisible, not apparent on first glance, I never know how they will react. Some staff say they have no idea. They need to radio another person that’s not answering the walkie-talkie. Or I give a museum feedback that more benches would be great, to hear, “Well, we want people to keep moving.” Trust me, I’d love to keep moving. I’ve heard many times that, “if we accommodate you, then everyone would want that too.” Again, trust me, they don’t want CMT. I’ve had a few meltdowns when a staff member insists that everyone must follow the same rules. I’ve missed events and left venues because the walk or the line wasn’t worth the pain that I would manage for days afterwards.

So why be brave? Why bother standing up to the hassle of disrupting the day for my friends, and the potentially embarrassing conversation, for nothing? Because, other times, bravery makes all the difference. Amusement parks became fun again. My niece said, “We need to come with auntie every time,” because we could stand to the side and enter though the exit instead of standing in winding lines for hours. I got to sit at concerts on a balcony where I could actually see the show instead of sitting in a sea of dancers. I’ve been able to drive to locations accessible only by trail unless you required disabled access. We avoid crowds and steep stairs. We park closer to the entrances or exits.

Asking for support makes adventures attainable again. 

Bravery can be saying, “not today, thank you.” Bravery can be found in little moments. In the decision to tell your friends that the hike is too steep. In researching accessibility options before booking a room or campsite. In holding your deep truth. And asking for what you need. Bravery is accepting your limits, then finding ways to help yourself thrive. Now, I am a unique mom that loves adventures. And I look forward to many, many more.

Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.

Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.

HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?

MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?

Email us at [email protected]

Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.

We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. 

Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!

Thanks so much for being one of the 263,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!

One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say?

And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass.

You can order now! It’s an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here!

It’s my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1.

And that one is called  THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series.  I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it!