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How do you write such wonderful dialogue? Do you have a method you use? My hang up has mostly to do with the fact that I involve "real people" in a lot of what I write, and I get stuck feeling uncomfortable and wondering if they would actually say that. Any thoughts?

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I don’t doubt that your dialogue "hang-up" is probably related to the fact that you’re involving real people. I’ve tried to do that myself and I’ve hit a wall every time, for exactly the reasons you mention. Fifteen years ago, I stopped trying to model characters after real people because I could never make the characters “work” well.

I tried one more time though in STWOM—I have a friend who is a famous astrologer, and I told her I was going to use her as the model for “Sybil.” It didn't work when I tried that. In the festive party scene in STWOM where Sybil is introduced, I needed the Sybil character to be witty and a little outlandish in order to introduce humor and some colorful characters at a time the story needed both those things. However, my real-life astrologer friend is a lovely, gracious woman who does NOT joke about astrology, so I tried for days to model Sybil after her. The harder I tried, the more the character--and the entire mood of this very important scene--suffered. I finally gave up and created the character I needed for the sake of the scene and the story.

My friend the astrologer read the book recently, and although she didn’t say it, I know she saw absolutely no relation to her—or to her view of the science of astrology—in the Sybil character I created. Nevertheless, I did the right thing—for my story and my readers. If you're hoping to become a published novelist, then "doing the right thing for your story and your readers" has to be your primary goal. If you're hoping to become not merely published, but also to write stories that your readers will someday cherish, then this will have to be more than your primary goal--it must become your only goal. Actually, I'm not phrasing that strongly enough. The word "goal" implies a target that you should merely strive for. The reality is that if your writing is important to you--and if you truly want it to have genuine meaning to readers--then "doing the right thing for your story and your readers," isn't merely your goal, it's your obligation.

Trying to use real people as the model for fictional characters automatically creates all kinds of real and perceived problems—so much so that I don't even name major characters after people I know. Just the use of a “real” name of someone you know well can cause you to start feeling confused and uneasy when you’re trying to work with their fictional namesake. You start worrying that the living person won't approve of something his fictional namesake does or says, then consciously, or unconsciously, you start trying to do what’s “right” for the person, even when it’s “wrong” for the character and story. Eventually, you'll sense that your character isn't "working" and then you'll agonize over it and experiment with "acceptable" ways to fix the problem, but you can’t fix it because the truth is, you’ve created a character with a split personality. And unless you intended to write about a schizophrenic, or hoped to create an unbelievable--or unbelievable boring character, you've now created some insurmountable obstacles for yourself and your manuscript.

I have found, however, that there are some exceptions to the above--at least for me--so I'll share them with you. These are my personal exceptions:

(1) I can name adult characters after children without a qualm or problem. For example, Whitney and Clayton were 10 and 9 when I wrote WHITNEY MY LOVE, but because there was no possible way for my children to remind me of my 19th century adult hero and heroine, I had no problem with it. Conversely, I had to wait 20 years before I could name a hero “Michael” after my deceased husband, and even then, the only way I could work with this was to create a hero with a background that was completely, diametrically different in every respect from that of my real Michael. If that hadn’t been true, I’d have had to abandon the namesake idea or else the whole manuscript because it wouldn’t have been good.

(2) I can often name very minor characters after people I know, probably because their roles in the story are so small and nonessential.

(3) I can always use names of people I don’t know well for fictional characters—probably because I don’t know these people well enough to feel obliged, or able, to be true to reality.

(4) This last exception isn’t really an exception, it’s a trick: If I especially want to use a close friend or family member’s name for a character, I use a different name while I’m working on the manuscript. When the manuscript is finally finished, I do a “Search and Replace” on my computer.

However, if you or anyone reading this decides to try the above trick, here are two ESSENTIAL WARNINGS: First, keep a back-up copy on the computer of the finished manuscript with the original name on it. Second, be SURE to put a space after the name you want to replace and after the name you want to use instead of it. Otherwise, your Search and Replace will pull fragments out of every word with the same combination of letters. I once tried to change a “Pris” to “Laura.” When I did it, this sentence went from, “She was apprised of the consequences,” to “She was aplauraed of the consequences.”

My all time favorite blooper that resulted from one of my last-minute computer generated name changes nearly made it into the book because the copy editor thought it was deliberate. I’d originally named a character Mary and then switched it to Jennifer. As a result, in a dramatic scene where a Catholic character whispers reverently, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the published book nearly contained this line instead: “Jesus, Jennifer, and Joseph!”

To those of you on our board who are reading this, but who have never tried to write a novel, most of what I've just said about the difficulties of choosing names and creating good, believable characters will seem vastly overstated. You will surely wonder why I'm making a relatively simple task seem very complicated and a little treacherous. You may even recall times when you noticed flaws in characters that you would have known how to fix if you'd been the writer.

To that, I can only say with a smile of heartfelt amusement: "Try it. But first, make very sure that your fix wouldn't in any way whatsoever, harm--or conflict--or confuse--impair--or negatively impact anything else the character has done, or will do, in the rest of the novel.

When you've accomplished that, and when you're absolutely certain your way is an improvement, then post it on the board and ask for honest, informed critiques. LOL

Oh, before you read the responses, make sure you know how to accept lavish praise with humility. And be equally sure you can accept being humbled with a degree of dignity. ROFL

What a delight to read one of your emails.

I always wondered about using celebrities in your books like you did in Perfect. Do you have to ask for their permission?

Again, I'm not clear on the legal guidelines anymore, but I checked with my editor to make certain I could use Barbra Streisand (and Barbra Walters, etc.) as characters in PERFECT. As I recall there's something about being a "Public Figure" that makes this okay so long as the work itself is clearly termed a "Work of Fiction."

In fact, I was so concerned about the ethics and legalities, that at one time, I pointed out to my editor that there's a disclaimer in the front of all novels, including mine, that states all the characters are "fictional," yet I'd used real, identifyable movie and television personalities in PERFECT.

I was assured that my use of them, under the specific circumstances of PERFECT, didn't infringe on their rights or on any laws.

HOWEVER, as I also discovered when I wrote PERFECT, there are very stringent laws that require advance permission and financial payment for the use of any identifyable lyric from any song.

In order to obtain those permissions and make certain all the legal requirements are fulfilled, publishers employ people who specialize in doing that, but there's a long waiting period to go through busy publishing chanels.

Unfortunately, when we realized I'd need to do that for the three snippets of songs I used in PERFECT, the manuscript was being rushed into production, and there wasn't time to go through those chanels.

I either had to remove the lyrics and/or references to the songs--which I didn't want to do, because I loved them where they were and they had an emotional impact--or I had to find a quicker way to obtain the legal permissions and get them to Pocket in a form and content that satisfied Pocket's legal department.

By an amazing fluke, I was having lunch with my CPA the day I got that disturbing news from Pocket. By the time I put my cell phone away and started explaining the frustrating quandary I was in, my CPA was already making a call on his cell phone. He was calling a close friend of his--an attorney--who had specialized in this very thing in Los Angeles and who had close ties with the three music publishers from who I needed to get permission.

He obtained the permissions for me within a week, and I wrote checks to the publishers to cover the stipulated fees. The fees varied. I can't recall how much they all were, but I think one of them was $1,500, while the other two were substantially less.

If you're curious enough to bother, open PERFECT to the page where the ISBN number, and all the other publishing/publisher details appear. At the bottom of that page, you'll see the phrase, "Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:" What follows is the permission information for each song.

Did I mind paying for the right to use one sentence from an old song lyric? Not in the least. I'm a writer, too, remember?

You cannot believe how excited I feel for getting a response from you and so fast. I think I am going to be the envy of the board for weeks to come, ok for a day or two .

And such valuable information. Thank you for generously sharing it with us.

I noticed the time you posted this topic and had to hope that you are somewhere in Europe. I can't imagine being up at that time of the morning anymore!

Funny that the topic was about names. I have many stories buzzing around in my head and they all give me pleasure to create them and re-write them constantly, but the one thing they all have in common are the hero and heroine's names: Zack and Julie! Coming up with new names has been uncomfortable. Every name I pick is wrong for some reason or other. I have never written a word of these stories and probably never will. I don't have a way with words, but I do recognize and appreciate your talent.

What great insight! I am fascinated by the writing process, the way a writer's mind works. I am working on a novel right now, and some of my character's traits are based on real people, and I have found it to be frustrating. . . I have not found the way to keep my fictional characters and real people totally separate yet, but I am working on it.

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I noticed the time you posted this topic and had to hope that you are somewhere in Europe. I can't imagine being up at that time of the morning anymore!

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I'm not in Europe, I'm in Houston, and I shouldn't have been up posting messages on our board. Often, when I visit my "virtual home" here, I become so engrossed and involved, that I stay up all or most of the night, with absolutely no sensation of time passing. At 7:30 this morning, I suddenly realized that bright light was coming through my closed draperies.

My assistant woke me up at 11:30 AM. It wasn't easy. I'm semi-comatose as I write this.

every time I see a post that has been posted by you I get happy and excited because after reading PERFECT I always felt the urge to say something to a wonderful writer like you and now that I have the chance I really want to do it even though it is kind of difficult , I don't know why.

To my delight the PERFECT is the topic of one of your posts and I don't want to miss this wonderful chance to say that PERFECT was just PEFECT and I'm sure I'm not the only one who said that to you. I loved that book so much that I started searching for the characters to be mentioned in your other books and I expected to read about them in Paradise but I didn't and I really have to ask you Why didn't you include Zack in Paradise, I know Julie couldn't have been mentioned but why Zack wasn't either? Is iit because Julie wasn't with him at the time and you couldn't use the hero without the heroine? I would be so grateful if you could answer this question.

Your devoted Fan,

Mariam

P.S. I just want to THANK you once again for willing to spend some time with us.

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Funny that the topic was about names. I have many stories buzzing around in my head and they all give me pleasure to create them and re-write them constantly, but the one thing they all have in common are the hero and heroine's names: Zack and Julie! Coming up with new names has been uncomfortable. Every name I pick is wrong for some reason or other.

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In that case, the solution is very simple: Use the names "Zack" and "Julie." Odds are, that combination of names appeared in some novel before PERFECT, and I have no doubt they'll pop up in subsequent novels by other authors--including authors who never read PERFECT.

It would be impossible for you, or me, or any author to come up with good, reasonably common names that were never used before. So long as your characters don't closely resemble--in any significant way--the characters who had those names in another author's book that you liked, then you're on safe ground, ethically.

When I wrote KINGDOM OF DREAMS, I spent weeks going through reference books, searching for an authetnic and suitable name that I liked for a medieval hero. When I came across the name "Royce" I was jubilant. It was perfect, and as an added bonus, I'd never come across that name in any other historical novel.

Within two years after KOD's publication, there were several medieval historicals with heroes named "Royce."
The fact that KOD came out first doesn't necessarily mean that the other authors got the idea from my book. They may have found the name the way I found it. And even if they didn't, it doesn't matter.

The only time I have any reaction at all is when I pick up an historical novel that contains a mixed assortment of several of the first names and surnames I've used in prior historicals. At that point, I have to wonder why an author would want to do that when my historicals are so widely read, and their characters so well known, that duplicating several of their surnames is bound to be noticed by readers who will then wonder at her lack of imagination.

However--and this is a very BIG however--it is also possible that those multiple duplications are purely accidental/coincidental. That possibility isn't nearly as far-fectched as it might seem.

To give you an example, I was half way through a manuscript many years ago when, for the first time, I mentioned the hero's name to my editor.

"I love the story," she immediately replied, "but you need to come up with a different name for the hero."

I was adamantly opposed to the suggestion. "It took me weeks to come up with a first and last name that works for him," I replied. "I love his name."

My editor laughed. "So did Jude Deveraux. She wrote a whole series about a family with that surname and one of her heroes also had the same first name."

I was mortified, not because I'd "invented" the same name on my own, but because I'd read those books of Jude's years before, and I should have realized I'd "heard" that hero's name before.

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I have never written a word of these stories and probably never will. I don't have a way with words, but I do recognize and appreciate your talent.

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Thank you very much.

First of all, thank you for the warm compliments. I'm happy to have had this opportunity to "meet" you here.

Now, on to your question which was:

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I loved that book (PERFECT) so much that I started searching for the characters to be mentioned in your other books and I expected to read about them in Paradise but I didn't and I really have to ask you Why didn't you include Zack in Paradise, I know Julie couldn't have been mentioned but why Zack wasn't either? Is iit because Julie wasn't with him at the time and you couldn't use the hero without the heroine? I would be so grateful if you could answer this question.

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I'm happy to answer that, particularly because it's an easy one to answer:

The reason the characters in PERFECT never appeared in PARADISE is because PARADISE was written about two years before PERFECT.

Moreover, when I wrote PARADISE I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write next. I knew I wanted Matt and Meredith to appear as secondary characters in the next novel, because I loved them. However, I had no idea how well PARADISE was going to go over with my readers. I'd been writing historicals for nearly a decade, so I anticipated a very vocal outburst of ojections and outrage from a large segment of my historical readers. And I heard it.

The bookstores heard it.

My publisher heard it.

There was no internet back then, thank God, or PARADISE would have been damned in advance in every romance site as a "bad book, a terrible book," by the same die-hard historical readers who often fail to mention that they dislike all contemporaries. Without that last vital bit of information--that disclaimer about not liking ANY contemporaries, even contempary readers would have been prompted to shun PARADISE.

Without the internet to use to vent their ire, thousands of my historical readers immediately deluged me with letters filled with scathing criticsms of every element in PARADISE, including its main characters, its plot, and my writing style. But, universally, there was one thing they held back until the very end of their letters--and that was the information that they don't like, and won't read, contemporaries!

Fortunately, however, there was no internet where scathing reviews might have doomed PARADISE before it had a chance to be bought and read--and evaluated--by contemporary readers. As a result, PARADISE had a chance to succeed or fail on its own merit. And succeed it did! As I recall it spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, and although I lost sales to a sizeable faction of my historical-only readers, I gathered a vast new following of readers who'd never read anything like it and loved it.

Having said all this, you might be amused to learn that this year, during my book tour, I did many "Question and Answer" sessions at bookstores where I was also doing a booksigning. And I don't think I did a single signing where at least one person didn't say something like, "I don't think your recent books are nearly as good as your early ones were."

And every time I heard that, my heart sank while I waited them to answer my question: "Are you referring to my historicals?"

Every time the answer was exactly what I expected: "Yes. They were much better than your contemporaries."

And each time I heard that, I asked a version of this same question: "Who are your favorite contemporary authors? Which contemporary novels do you especially enjoy?"

Their reply was always the same--(Thank God! ) "I don't like contemporaries. I like historicals!"

I want to quickly add here that there's a big difference between the unpleasant scenario I just described and the perfectly pleasant one in which a reader begins by saying, "I prefer historicals--" and then says all the same things that I mentioned above.

Do you see the difference, everyone? If not, then let me know and I'll try to explain it better, because I would never, ever want anyone on this board to feel she can't/shouldn't state her preferences or opinions openly.

Actually, having visited here often, unnoticed, I don't think there's much chance of that. LOL

JM

I myself have heard many say they prefer historicals but I do not really care as long as it says JUDITH MCNAUGHT on top of the title. I have read you historicals and contemporaries and my all time fav. is PERFECT.

I do not know if this happened to all the other fans of yours but when I read your books your heroes and heroines leave an undescribable influence on me, I love all the heroes and would never trace them with any other heroes from books by other authors. It is a feeling that I can't describe with words.

I have told this story many times but I'm going to do it again. While I was reading Perfect something very unusualy happened to me. At the scene where Zack is being arrested and Julie is actually the one who hands him over to the police, I got so emotional that I lost my voice while I was crying. That scene was so beautifully written and so dramatically presented that it got me involved emotionally and I lost my voice and started feeling pretty bad, so bad that my MOM made me stop reading and tell her the story. With my lost voice that sounded like a screech I told her the whole book up to the part I was on and my MOM said "I wish we had this book in Armenian so I could read it too."

At the end, I just want to say that your contemporaries and historicals are both magnificant , the new ones and the old ones, I love every word, every scene, every describtion in your books and wish that you could write more and release new books because since the last sensational book I read from your collection I haven't experianced the same marvelous feelings and I'm starving for another book writter by you.

Now, I have to go and share my joy with my mother, I can't wait to tell her that Ms. McNaught herself has written to me

I can say that once upon a time I thought I only liked historicals. I resisted reading your comtemps for years because I just couldn't see how they could measure up to my expectations.

I was so WRONG! I picked up "Perfect" on day while searching for something new to read. When I was done, I went out and bought all of your other comtemps. You have changed my perception on this genre.

Thank you!!!!!

ReneeE

[This message has been edited by ReneeE (edited 11-04-2003).]

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