Dialogue to Die For ... Again

Due to a medical issue, I am rerunning a column from 2017. If you love dialogue, it is worth reading--even if you read it seven years ago. After all, great dialogue is one thing that lures readers and viewers back over and over and over ...

Remember the TV show Name That Tune? The idea was to see how few notes of a song a person could hear and correctly name that tune. I don't know how well I'd do on that show, but if there were a Name That Movie show, I would clean up--assuming they asked about movies I've seen. Spoken dialogue, I've found, sticks with me. I adore snappy and heartfelt dialogue in books too, but for whatever reason, I don't retain it the way I do dialogue from movies and TV shows. (You'd think, then, that I would have good recall for dialogue from audio books, yet not so much.)

Anyway, I started thinking about ear memory the other day when I turned on the TV. I wasn't looking at the screen. All I heard was, "Always," and I knew it was the late Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. (I might have seen that movie a few times.) That one word transported me back right to the exact scene in the movie. Rickman delivered it perfectly, revealing so much about Snape's character. Even now, recalling the scene breaks my heart a little all over again.

Alan Rickman

 

Of course, Rickman had help. His dialogue was written for him. Great dialogue depends on the team of great writers and great actors working together, as well as the folks who add the background music that adds drama or tugs at your heart. When done right, dialogue can be magical. I only need hear certain words or a sentence in the right voice, with the right rhythm, and I know the film. I'm transported in my mind right back to that scene.

Here are a few examples. They may not be the most well-known from each movie, but they certainly stand out:

"I want the truth!" "You can't handle the truth." Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men

"You can't kiss her!" Sally Field in Soapdish

"Why can't I write shit like this?" Whoopi Goldberg in Soapdish

"Shall we play a game?" Joshua (computer) in War Games (even a computer can make dialogue memorable)

More Alan Rickman

"There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?" Emma Thompson in Love Actually

"Oh jeez. I'm getting pulled over. Everybody just pretend to be normal." Greg Kinnear in Little Miss Sunshine

"I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying." Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption

 

"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that?" Frances McDorman in Fargo

"You don't really know how much you can do until you stand up and decide to try." Kevin Kline in Dave

"Here's looking at you, kid." Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

"A toast to my big brother, George, the richest man in town." Todd Karns in It's a Wonderful Life (It's interesting that one of the most memorable lines in the film is from a minor character.)

And even more Alan Rickman

"I'll have what she's having." Estelle Reiner in When Harry Met Sally (another minor character who steals the scene)

"By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Warvan, you shall be avenged." Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride


"You're going to the cemetery with your toothbrush. How Egyptian." Robin Williams in The Birdcage

"Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?" Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark

"It was like ... magic." Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle 

"I'm not crazy. I've just been in a very bad mood for forty years." Shirley MacLaine in Steel Magnolias

"But I don't want to be a pirate." Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld

"I'm not insane. My mother had me tested." Jim Parsons in The Big Bang Theory

Alas, not Alan Rickman
but still wonderful

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." Gordon Jump in WKRP in Cincinnati

Inspired to go watch a great movie or to try to write your own memorable dialogue? Great. But before you go, please share your favorite movie or TV show line(s) of dialogue. The lines that stick with you, that you remember sometimes out of nowhere. The words that transport you and make you smile. And if you know how to make dialogue on the page stand out in memory the way spoken dialogue does, please let me know. I'm open to any and all tips.

 

If You Think Your Life is Going to Pot, Call Annabelle ...

Where do you get your story ideas? I don't usually have a good answer to this question. They often seem to come from nowhere. I'm sure something must have sparked them, but what exactly, I would be hard-pressed to pinpoint. Still, sometimes I can tell you exactly where a story idea came from. My newest story is a prime example. 

A few years ago, a friend was posting somewhat regularly on Facebook about the people who rented the home to one side of her own. They were selfish people, not caring about how their actions affected the people who lived near them. One day, my friend wrote about how these neighbors often smoked pot outside, so close to her own home that even with the windows closed, the smell crept inside, and her house reeked. She felt without recourse. I decided to give her some fictional justice.

Yesterday, several years after I penned the first draft of that story, it was published. The story is called "Gone to Pot." Here is what it's about:

Annabelle loves her next-door neighbor Micki like family. Not so much the couple who live on the other side of Micki’s house, who regularly smoke pot on their back deck and don’t care who gets a contact high, even when the victim is poor Micki’s cat, Chairman Meow. But Annabelle cares. She cares a whole lot. 

I told my friend yesterday about this story, and she was as happy with the surprise as I had hoped she would be. You may not be able to tell from the description, but this is one of my funny stories. You can read it in the anthology Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy. The anthology is the brainchild of fellow SleuthSayer Robert Lopresti. It is published by Down & Out Books.

Here is the book’s description:

The way we treat the world is a crime—fifteen of them, in fact. Some of the best and most honored mystery writers today have written new stories for this book dealing with environmental issues including pollution, wildfire, invasive species, climate change, recycling, and many more.

Authors include Michael Bracken, Susan Breen, Sarah M. Chen, Barb Goffman, Karen Harrington, Janice Law, R.T. Lawton, Robert Lopresti, Jon McGoran, Josh Pachter, Gary Phillips, S.J. Rozan, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mark Stevens, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

The stories cover a wide variety of styles including noir, comic, caper, psychological, police procedural, and even a tale inspired by comic books.

Putting their money where their mouths are, the authors have chosen ecologically themed non-profits that will receive half the royalties. 

Barb again. So my environmental issue is secondhand smoke, a type of air pollution. I set the story in my beloved Ann Arbor, where I attended college. And my charity of choice is American Forests, an organization dedicated to fighting climate change through the planting of trees. I am not a scientist, so I won’t try to explain how that works. But you can read about it and this great organization at https://www.americanforests.org/. 

If you read my story, you'll see a mention of a court case involving a woman who sued over secondhand marijuana smoke and won. That isn't fiction. You can google it if you want to learn more. But for now, I hope I've enticed you to buy this anthology. You'll be able to find it elsewhere, but here are Amazon links. You can get the ebook by clicking here and the trade paperback by clicking here. Or skip the middleman and buy it straight from the publisher by clicking here, thus ensuring the authors, as well as the ecological charities referred to above, get more money. Buying books and helping the planet at the same time. Winner!

Bouchercon Briefing

Last week I returned home from Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, having walked a million miles while there—not hyperbole, I assure you. That hotel was designed for long-distance athletes. Anyway, I attended a bunch of panels—that involved sitting, after all—and while I didn't take a lot of notes, I did write some things down. Usually it was something I knew but the author or editor had made their point in an interesting way. At other times, it was information I didn't know (Kathleen Donnelly, this means you). Here are those notes. Everything that follows is a paraphrase. Any mistakes are my own.

Mysti Berry - A short story is about a character with a problem and the consequences of the choices made to solve that problem.

It's a Mystery! (Oops, I failed to note who said this) - Cozy mysteries are books with hope, community, and trust--things that make readers feel good.

Clair Lamb - For books or stories with texting, an older character is more likely to use full sentences and punctuation. A younger character is more likely to use abbreviations and emojis. In regard to abbreviations and emojis, the author should try to ensure the reader can at least mostly follow the conversation. If there are small non-vital bits of a text conversation that a reader might not understand but could quickly move past, having gotten the basic gist of the text, that is okay.

Kathleen Donnelly - Dogs can retain scent memories for years. (She writes mysteries involving a K-9 tracker.)

Otto Penzler - To make characters sound different, vary their cadence and word choice.  

I am sure I must have said brilliant things on my panel, but it was at 8 a.m., so my memory of that hour is a bit foggy. If you were at that panel and I said anything useful, please share it in the comments. Or if you heard words of wisdom at any of the other panels, I would love to hear them. After all, you might have attended a great panel I missed. At conventions, hard choices often must be made.There were times when I would have liked to attend two panels at the same time, but I haven't perfected that skill...yet.

Before I go, I want to give my thanks once again to the Short Mystery Fiction Society, which honored me at the convention with this year's Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award, which is the society's lifetime achievement award. SMFS President and fellow SleuthSayer Joe Walker said really nice things about me as I walked onto the stage, but for the life of me, I can't remember what they were. Sigh. If only, like in the panels, I had been taking notes.

Next year in New Orleans!