In Which A Line of Dialogue is Written

 The woman came back, followed by a man Menger had seen before.  Kirby.  It came to Menger that the man's name was Kirby.

The name brought more fragments of memory.  Denver.  The jewelry exchange.  The job that went sideways.

"It's about time you woke up," Kirby said.  "I was just about ready to start digging a grave."

I stop writing.  I read back over the last few paragraphs.  The voices in my head start chattering.

"Clumsy dialogue," the Editor says.  "Wordy.  And that repetition of 'about' is just ugly."

"Blech," Distraction chimes in.  "Hey, it's been a while since you checked your email.  You never know, there might be a story acceptance.  Plus you're waiting on your Bouchercon panel assignment."

"Probably won't even get one," Doubt moans.  "Certainly don't deserve one, since this is only the sixth story you've written this year."

"You could take a break and grade some papers," Responsibility timidly ventures.  There's a chorus of boos and he retreats to a back corner, resentfully planning to wake me in a cold sweat at three in the morning.

"Everybody pipe down," I order.  "Let's take a look at this."  I lean back in my chair and read through the last few paragraphs again.

"It's about time you woke up," Kirby said.  "I was just about ready to start digging a grave."

"Quick review," Exposition offers.  "Menger and Kirby were part of a heist that went wrong, and Menger got shot.  Now he's waking up, not knowing where he is or what happened.  Right?"

General murmurs of agreement.

I read the problematic line of dialogue yet again.  It sounds, to my ear, friendly, almost jovial.  It makes me picture Kirby as a big, grinning guy in a Hawaiian shirt.  "Is this the Kirby we want in the story?" I ask.

"No," says Kirby, who isn't exactly thrilled to be living in my head but at least wants a say in how he's depicted.  "I'm a survivalist, remember?  I think the world is on the brink of complete societal collapse.  I'm not walking around chuckling at people."

"Are you absolutely sure you didn't steal that character from somewhere?" Doubt puts in, leaping at another chance to ruin my day.

"Ignore him," says the Editor.  "Remember the tone you want here.  Tense, suspenseful.  Tighter dialogue moves you in that direction."

Okay.  I put my fingers on the keyboard.  Let's get rid of that extra about.  Which one to cut?  The problem is that Kirby's first sentence needs the word to make any sense.

"Why do you need the first sentence at all?" the Editor asks.

"I was just about ready to start digging a grave," Kirby said.

I read the line out loud.

"Still wordy," says the Editor.  "That 'just' isn't doing any real work.  Neither is 'start.'  How many times do you have to remember this?  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if you write that a character starts to do something, you can cut the 'starts' and just have them do it."

"I was about ready to dig a grave," Kirby said.

Everybody thinks about this.

"Still doesn't quite sound like me," says Kirby.

"It's better," says the Editor.  "Still sounds more casual than I'd like, though.  Plus, since he's no longer saying the thing about Menger waking up, it's maybe not completely clear that the grave would be for Menger.  He could just be saying that's what he was doing when Lucia came to get him."

"Sure," says Doubt, who's being especially bratty today.  "The guy just hangs around the house thinking about digging graves.  That makes perfect sense.  What ever made you think you could write?  You'll probably never finish this one anyway."

"You want me to maybe kill this guy?"  Kirby asks.  "I'm going to be living in here, I might as well earn my keep."

I wave all this aside.  I'm almost there, I think.

"I was about ready to dig you a grave," Kirby said.

The Planner, pleased, pipes up.  "Now the line has a little bit of threat to it," he says.  "Kirby's letting Menger know that his death wouldn't be a problem.  That works well, given what we know is eventually going to happen between these characters."

The Editor is almost satisfied.  "I'm not crazy about 'about ready.'  It's too passive, like he was just sitting around waiting to do something.  That's not the Kirby we need in this story, right?"

"Right," says Kirby.  He was in the shadows before, but he's starting to emerge into the light.  He's not jovial, and he doesn't wear Hawaiian shirts.  He's a hard, lean man who rarely laughs, a man who approaches the world as a series of problems to be solved as efficiently as possible.

"I was about to dig you a grave," Kirby said.

The Editor reads this a couple of times, first on its own and then in the context of the previous few sentences, listening for rhythm and pace.  He gives a grudging nod of approval.  It will do for now.  Kirby, having been entirely remade, is satisfied that this is something he would say.  The Planner approves of the slight foreshadowing of future conflict.  Doubt isn't happy, but he never is.  Distraction is momentarily silent, because, at least for the moment, I'm fully engaged, living in the world of the sentence I just wrote.

"Okay," I say.  "Onward."

The first version of the sentence was eighteen words; the final version is ten.  I've successfully written a ten-word sentence that I'm happy--or at least momentarily satisfied--with.

Now all I have to do is write ten words I'm happy with five hundred more times, and I'll have a story.  Nothing to it!

***

If you're dying to hear more of my deep thoughts about writing fiction, I'll be at the 2024 Bouchercon in Nashville, starting just a few days after this is posted.

Saturday morning at 9:30 in the Bayou E Mezzanine, whatever that may turn out to be, I'll be on the panel "Is It Over Now?: Bringing Characters to Life in Short Stories," with moderator Meagan Lucas.

Thursday night, in my capacity as president of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, I'll be presenting this year's Derringer Awards as part of the opening ceremonies.  Fellow SleuthSayer Barb Goffman is receiving the Edward D. Hoch Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement, so be sure to congratulate her if you run into her!

The Shamus Awards will also be presented at the opening ceremonies, and my story "Making the Bad Guys Nervous" is a nominee for Best PI Story.

Other than that I'll be wandering about, so feel free to say hi.  Hope to see a lot of you there!