How to Write Action Adventure Novels

by Michael Newton

  A final word on dialogue mechanics, and we’ll break for recess. Some quotation marks are single (‘) instead of double (“). These are used in dialogue to indicate a quote within a quote, as follows.

  Tommy said, “I heard John shouting, ‘Wait! Don’t shoot!’ ”

  Again, pay close attention to the placement of assorted punctuation marks, and don’t reverse quotation marks by accident. They are reversed (with singular quotation marks beginning normal dialogue) in several foreign countries—chiefly Britain—and by certain publishers in the United States who seem to pride themselves on careless errors. Editors are, by and large, familiar with the rules of proper English. If you find yourself with an eccentric on your hands, intent on shifting all your punctuation marks around, my best advice would be to play it cool. (You’ve signed the contract, after all, and they do have the right to edit your material.) Do not, at any cost, give up your proper writing style. Next time around, the chances are a different editor will be delighted to receive a manuscript that’s clean and literate in presentation.

  Variety: The Spice of Life

  You have probably encountered various “experimental” novels that dispense with normal punctuation, sentence structure, and the like. Their “freedom” may appeal to you, but think again before you try to crack the market with avant-garde manuscripts. Your safest bet, hands down, is to accept the standard rules of punctuation, learn them, and impress your editors with what a slick professional you are. There will be time enough to dabble in experimental prose when you’ve got several titles on the New York Times best-seller list and publishers are lining up around the block to bid against each other for your latest hot idea.

  Concerned about the possibility of tedium in conversation circumscribed by rules? Relax. If you begin to feel confined by “Robert said” and “Jane replied,” take heart. My handy desk thesaurus lists four double-column pages of alternatives to “said” and “say,” from “argue” and “assert” to “wheedle,” “wail,” and “whine.” (A note of caution, here. It’s tempting, sometimes, to insert a different verb for every line of dialogue, but don’t. Unless you’ve got a real dramatic point to make, simplicity is normally the safest way to go.)

  The fact is, you’re not obligated to identify your characters each time they speak. Max Franklin, in The Dark (Signet, 1978), presents two homicide detectives in discussion of an ex-con whose daughter has just been murdered:

  As the outer door closed behind Warner, Bresler asked, “Who’d he kill?”

  “Guy in the sack with his wife.”

  “Her, too!”

  Mooney shook his head. “Just him. How’d he take it?”

  “Looking at the kid? Good enough, considering it was his only kid. Considering I didn’t want to look at her again.” Mooney grunted.

  “Not a bad dude,” Bresler ventured.

  Mooney glared at him. “Screw him,” he said coldly.

  In Child of Blood, my leading character, an Amerasian youth, encounters a belligerent policeman in a ritzy San Francisco neighborhood:

  “You live around here, sport?”

  As he plainly knew the answer before he asked the question, there seemed no point in lying. “No, sir.”

  “Work around here, maybe?”

  “No, sir.” Thinking fast, he added, “I was visiting my uncle. He works there.”

  The officer ignored his offhand gesture toward the northern end of Parkwood Drive. “I’ll needta see your driver’s license.”

  “I don’t have one,” Tony answered truthfully. “I rode the train.”

  “The train?”

  “BART.”

  “Mmm. Some other kinda I.D., then, let’s go.”

  “My wallet is at home.” He had no wallet, but it did not seem to matter now.

  “Where’s home!”

  “I live on Mason Street.”

  “In Chinatown? You lost, or what?”

  “I came to see my uncle,” he repeated. “He works there.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I heard that. Has your uncle got a name?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m waiting, boy.”

  “His name is Anh Nguyen.”

  “Vietnamese?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Must be a Yankee in the woodpile, huh? And you are?”

  “His nephew.”

  “Your name.”

  “Tony Giap.”

  “Tony Jap?” The cop grinned maliciously. “I thought you were Vietnamese.”

  The lack of tag lines—“he said”; “she replied”—is perfectly acceptable, provided that your characters are readily identifiable without the tags.

  Good dialogue is like the perfect introduction of a character: you know it when you read it, but it’s not the kind of thing you can define, per se. We recognize good dialogue on sight—and sometimes recognize the other kind by smell—and yet there are no paint-by-number guidelines to ensure you get it right. It’s trial and error, for the most part, but we can identify some elements of decent dialogue to help you in your quest.

  Smooth Talk

  For openers, dramatic dialogue should be both realistic and appropriate for characters in any given situation. Think about precisely who and what your people are, in relation to the story. How are they likely to address each other at their first meeting? Over dinner? While making love? As they prepare their weapons for a life-and-death engagement with the enemy?

  As always, we can learn from bad examples. In an excerpt from Behind the Door (Warner, 1988), Frank Lambrith treats us to his version of an Ozark sheriff’s deputy interrogating an employee of the local funny farm:

  “Mr. Rogers, the doctor has told you why we wanted to see you. It seems you’re the last known person to see our ambulance.”

  “Well, what does that make me, copper?”

  Mainwaring’s voice developed a distinct chill. “Mr. Rogers, I would suggest that you adopt a more reasonable tone. I told you Skystone intends to cooperate with the local authorities in every way we can.”

  In the lounge, the orderly assumed a smile that was more sickly than acceptable. “I’m sorry, sir. Guess I’m tired—didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, either. What can I tell you?”

  Cobb opened his notebook. “The ambulance left here at about twelve forty-five—right?”

  Rogers smiled again. It was a better effort, if not totally convincing. “Why, I couldn’t rightly say. I know it was long enough before one o’clock for me to get back inside by then.”

  Cobb nodded. “You went outside to assist them backing out of the porte cochere and then followed them down the drive to take care of the gate. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s what Dr. Mainwaring told me to do, and I did it.”

  Let’s forgive the plodding, awkward execution of the sample for a moment. Does it strike you as peculiar that two Ozark hill-dwellers, selected at random, would drop terms like “porte cochere” in normal conversation? Is its use in dialogue appropriate, considering the circumstances? (Usage isn’t Lambrith’s only problem here; he also leaves the mandatory hyphen out of “porte-cochere,” and dumps its standard definition in an effort to insert some culture into his dialogue. The sanitarium described by Lam- brith has no courtyard that would make the presence of his “carriage gate” a possibility.)

  An awkward, pompous tone can murder dialogue, as amply demonstrated in Joe Rosenberger’s Slaughter in El Salvador (Pinnacle, 1982):

  “We might be able to give you more assistance if we knew the nature of your mission,” Major Masmerta said decisively, his tone expectant.

  “My orders are explicit.” The Death Merchant turned to Donald Fey at the end of the table. “Not even Fey knows the nature of the mission, and he’s the CIA Chief of Station here in San Salvador. For that matter, the Americans who will go with me are in the dark; they won’t even see twilight until we reach Leon—sunlight when we get to Managua.”

  Compare that bulky sermonette with something more compact:
/>
  “You want to brief me on your mission?” Ryker asked.

  The tall man shook his head. “It’s need-to-know. You don’t.”

  In two short lines, we’ve weeded out the excess verbiage, cut redundant introductions to established characters, and shed a pound or two of literary chaff. Admittedly, we’ve also lost the “poetry” of twilight, sunlight, and the rest, but I suggest it’s a loss we can afford to live with.

  Bungled dialogue is like a pothole in the street; it jars your audience off course, and if the highway gets too rough, you may be left to finish on your own. In Stone: M.I.A. Hunter (Jove, 1987), author Jack Buchanan stumbles on a bit of conversation between mercenaries who’ve just rescued several American prisoners from enemy hands. As we join them, the POW’s have refused to continue the march, and their benefactors—like the readers—are justifiably confused:

  “Figure it out?” Loughlin asked.

  “Yep. Jack Mason, one of the M.I.A.’s, is dying. Tonight or tomorrow.”

  “So we pull back a few miles and wait?”

  Stone nodded.

  “Goddamn!” Wiley spat.

  “Our timing was terrible,” Loughlin said. He stood and turned away, shaking his head. “Where the bloody hell are those boots we brought! We had six pair spread out in packs. I’m going to find them and try to fit the guys.”

  Stone waved him on and Hog finished sharpening the small throwing knife from his boot before he stood.

  “I want to meet this Jack Mason.”

  What’s wrong with this picture? Plenty. Since Loughlin, Stone, and Wiley have just rescued the captive Americans, is it really necessary for our hero to introduce Jack Mason as “one of the M.I.A.’s”? Who else is hanging around the camp, for pete’s sake? Why does Loughlin say their timing was terrible? And why does he insert a minilecture on the missing boots, when everybody knows they brought six pairs along? (A subtle hint: we call it padding.)

  Repetitious use of names in dialogue is hokey and distracting. Think about your normal conversations with a friend. How often do you call them by their given names while speaking face-to-face? (“Hello, Tom. Are you well, Tom? See you later, Tom.”) And do you ever call them by their full names, as when Jack Buchanan has a hero’s girlfriend tell him, “I’ve been waiting weeks to see you, Mark Stone”? We hear a lot of this on daytime soaps; it comes off sounding silly there, and it’s no better when you put the words on paper.

  Saying What You Mean

  But enough, already. Now that we’ve examined what you shouldn’t do, let’s all enjoy some dialogue that works. In “Children of the Corn,” we meet a married couple with some problems, courtesy of Stephen King:

  Burt turned the radio on too loud and didn’t turn it down because they were on the verge of another argument and he didn’t want it to happen. He was desperate for it not to happen.

  Vicky said something.

  “What?” he shouted.

  “Turn it down! Do you want to break my eardrums?”

  He bit down hard on what might have come through his mouth and turned it down.

  Vicky was fanning herself with her scarf even though the T-Bird was air-conditioned. “Where are we, anyway?”

  “Nebraska.”

  She gave him a cold, neutral look. “Yes, Burt. I know we’re in Nebraska, Burt. But where the hell are we?”

  “You’ve got the road atlas. Look it up. Or can’t you read?”

  “Such wit. This is why we got off the turnpike. So we could look at three hundred miles of corn. And enjoy the wit and wisdom of Burt Robeson.”

  In King’s skillful hands, the repetition of names serves a dual purpose, introducing new characters and clinching a tone of anger for the conversation.

  In Small World (Macmillan, 1981), Tabitha King eavesdrops on a bitchy mother-in-law, plotting against her son’s bride:

  “Dear, dear Lucy,” she purred. “She’s so sweet.”

  She shot a quizzical glance at Roger.

  “Doesn’t she just make you want to gag?”

  Roger, loosening his tie, and trying to ignore seismic hunger pangs, sensed he was on shaky ground.

  “She’s… cute, “he said, covering himself with a word with notoriously broad shadings.

  “Fat ass,” Dolly pronounced. “Peasant.”

  It was unclear to Roger whether she meant her daughter-in-law or himself. Either way, he decided it was safer not to dignify it.

  “Isn’t it typical, though. Men. My son, marrying a woman so completely opposite to his mother.”

  If your aim is realistic dialogue, you have to know your people inside-out—their backgrounds, social status, present situations, any special slang or jargon used in their professions. Talking to yourself may help; feel free to act out different roles and get the feel of dialogue before it goes on paper. If the words ring true, the chances are you’re doing fine. If not, you’ve still got ample time to start from scratch and get it right.

  With Tongue in Cheek

  A touch of humor couldn’t hurt, from time to time, and when judiciously applied, it brightens up the darker moments of a melodrama. Watch as one of Robert Daley’s slick D.A.s fends off a lawyer seeking leniency for a suspected rapist, in Hands of a Stranger:

  “He comes from one of the best families in Pakistan,” said the lawyer. “Have you had occasion to look into his family connections as yet?”

  “I knew there was something I meant to do,” said Judith, and she watched him.

  The fat man gave another laugh. “I happen to know he’s very well connected. You may recall the name Prime Minister Zia!”

  “My knowledge of Pakistan politics is a little weak,” said Judith.

  “My client’s family and the prime minister’s family are like that.”

  “As close as that?”

  “Closer. The prime minister—he’s like a second father to him.”

  “Have you checked into all this?” murmured Judith. ‘You didn’t just get it from him?”

  “Would you recall who happens to be the minister of defense back there in Pakistan?”

  “I used to know,” said Judith, “but I forget.”

  In John Katzenbach’s novel, The Traveler (Ballantine, 1988), detective Mercedes Barren interviews a serial killer suspected of slaying her niece:

  “I have nightmares,” he said. ‘You damn well ought to,” replied Detective Barren.

  “I see faces, people, but I cannot recall their names.”

  “I know who they are.”

  Tears started to form in the corners of his eyes and he rubbed at them.

  “God is not with me. No longer, no longer. I am abandoned.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t so damned pleased with what you were doing.”

  “No! He told me!”

  “You misunderstood.”

  Rhotzbadegh paused. He produced a tattered handkerchief from a pocket and blew his nose three times hard.

  “This,” he said in a tone suffused with despair, “is a possibility.”

  A major part of writing decent dialogue is learning what to jettison along the way to final copy. Realism doesn’t mean your dialogue should mirror daily conversation, with its small talk, lengthy pauses, hemming, hawing, and redundancies. (“Uh, gee, Frank, I don’t think… no, let me see … I mean … well, gosh…. “) That’s boring, and a flagrant waste of time. If you don’t learn to trim the dead wood early on, your editor will have to do it later. (That’s assuming she still cares enough to take the time.)

  Techno-Babble

  The dialogue in modern action novels often tends to specialize in military jargon, weapons nomenclature, coded names for high-tech hardware, and the like. Law enforcement jargon poses special problems of its own, as in this excerpt from Blood Testament (Gold Eagle, 1987):

  “Hal’s in deep. He needs a specialist.”

  “Explain.”

  “His family’s been taken, and the brass at Justice have him figured for a mole.”

  “That’s bul
lshit.”

  “Hey, I know that, but they’re talking evidence. Like phone logs, videos, the whole nine yards.”

  You’ll need to be conversant with the special language your characters would logically employ in any given situation. Much of what you need will be available from sources named in Chapter 6; the basic firearms nomenclature, details on equipment, vehicles and such, can be extracted from the references I list in Chapters 9 and 10. For basic, CIA-type jargon, I recommend Bob Burton’s Top Secret: A Clandestine Operator’s Glossary of Terms. The common slang of grunts in Vietnam is found in handy glossaries appended to The Thirteenth Valley or to episodes of the Chopper 1 and Vietnam: Ground Zero series. Relevant law enforcement terms are contained in an appendix to Sanford Ungar’s FBI. Depending on your subject matter, scientific, medical, and legal dictionaries may provide that extra touch of realism to your dialogue.

  Translation, Please

  Ironically, some problems arise when authors strive too hard for realism, flair, or drama in their dialogue. One common pitfall is the overuse (i.e., abuse) of foreign words and phrases in a bid to make the readers think they’re really listening to Arabs, Orientals, Africans—whatever. The results can be effective or disastrous, depending on the way a writer handles his material. Remember that a storyteller’s job is to communicate, and if you don’t accomplish that, you’ve failed your audience. There may be nifty little jokes or subtle clues concealed beneath the foreign phrases you employ, but if your readers never get the point, who cares?

  Most authors fall back on assorted dictionaries, phrase books, and the like for foreign phrases, and it shows more often than it should. Be cautious here. It doesn’t hurt to have a Spanish character respond with “si” instead of “yes” from time to time, but if you catch him rattling on for paragraphs, you ought to think again. If foreign phrases serve no purpose in your story—i.e., if they’ve been inserted as the springboard for an ego trip, to make the author (you) sound more sophisticated—they should be discarded. Likewise, if you have to salt the text with parenthetical translations, footnotes, and the like, you would be well advised to stick with English from the start.