No, She’d Never Say It Like That

I write in washes, the way a watercolorist paints: one layer, let it dry, then the next. Rush it and everything turns to mud.

The first wash is almost always dialogue. I let the plot decide what needs to be said and get it down plainly, without worrying yet about who’s saying it. Then I go back and ask the harder question: what characters need to be part of this conversation? What would their position be, and would this character actually say that?

To answer it, I run the dialogue through a set of lenses, one at a time, revising after each.

Personality. Each major character has a Myers-Briggs type and an Enneagram number. An ISTJ might say it flat out. An Enneagram 2 might soften it, or bury the real request so deep the other person misses it.

Generation. Strauss and Howe’s The Fourth Turning gave me a way to ask what formed a character’s generation and what that generation assumes without noticing. A Boomer and a Millennial can say the same sentence and mean two different things.

Family of origin. For major characters I sometimes sketch a genogram. The way a family handled conflict, silence, and loyalty tends to come out when a person talks under pressure.

Time. Does this character live in the past, the present, or the future? Are they nostalgic, impatient, resigned? Is time a line for them, a circle, or just chaos? The answer shapes what they notice, what they argue about, and how fast a scene moves.

Only when the dialogue sounds like the person do I add setting, gesture, and interior thought. That’s the last wash, and I keep it thin.

So I’m curious how you work

• What usually comes first when you start a scene, and why do you think it starts there?

• How does a scene take shape for you, all at once or over several passes?

• How do you test whether a character sounds like themselves?

• What other lenses do you use to give depth to your characters?