Binary Seven #2

To read Binary Seven #1, click this link.  It'll open in a new tab.

You know what, screw it.  Cutting and pasting exactly 2,000 words is a pain.  Here's the next 2,312 words.

(twisted pieces of) metal. 

Botone looked up at Aldon from her position the table.  She lifted up her hand.  Aldon looked at it.  She placed it at her throat and tugged.  Her finger caught a wire.

Aldon gripped her hand. 

“Careful.  You’re not programmed with the knowledge to fix yourself.”  He paused.  “Are you?”

Botone closed her eyes.  She reached down into Aldon’s tool box with her free arm, and lifted it up onto her stomach.  She opened her eyes and surveyed the tools within.  She took out a pair of tweezers and began to pick at the wires in her throat.  Aldon stepped back.  His eyes went wide. 

“You know how to fix yourself?  Are you—“  He bumped up against his bed—“are you an overlord?  Do you have something to do with the overlords?” 

Botone stopped her hand.  Her eyes crinkle at the edges in a fit of laughter.  Sparks jumped out of her open throat.  A crackle sounded.  Botone turned her head to Aldon and smiled.  She held out her tools to Aldon. 

Aldon shook his head. 

“No, if you can do it, do it …”

Botone raised one eyebrow. 

Aldon narrowed his eyes. 

“What are you?  Why do you have the ability to repair yourself?  Why didn’t you do that before?” 

Botone pointed a sharp tool at her throat.  She waved it in front of Aldon.  Aldon nodded. 

“You didn’t have the tools.  That …  that makes sense.”  He put his finger to his chin.  “But why would someone program you to do that …  if it’s illegal … and they didn’t give you the tools to do so ... why would—“

The door to Aldon’s apartment pounded.  Aldon jumped back.  Botone twisted her head towards the door.  Her pupils dilated.  Her face read surprise.  She drove her sharp tool into her throat.  Her hands moved with blurry speed.  She picked up tools and tossed them back to the desk.  Aldon looked between her and the door. 

“What are you doing?  Who’s there?” 

The door pounded again.  Aldon faced it.  He did not expect anyone.  He put his hand against the doorknob.

“Hey!  You!  Let us in!  Or we’ll bust this door down!” 

Aldon gripped the doorknob tight.  He keyed up the monitor beside his door, and looked through an external camera.  Paint covered most of the screen, close up.  A small sliver of light showed three men in black suits at Aldon’s door.  Aldon’s blood went cold.  The union. 

The center man brought out a device the size of his hand.  He pressed it against the door. 

“We warned you!” 

Aldon swept the door open.  The middle man stumbled, past Aldon into his apartment.  The other two men gripped stun batons in their meaty hands.  The middle union thug gave a big grin.  He looked around the room. 

“This is a nice place you got here.  It’s a shame we’ll have to trash it.” 

Aldon stepped back.  He kept his body between the thugs and Botone.  He held out his hands. 

“Guys, guys, you don’t have to be this extreme, I mean—“

The left-most thug slammed his stun baton into Aldon’s stove. The baton flashed white.  The stove smoked.  An explosion thumped on the inside.  The room smelled of burnt meat.  The thug gave a huge grin. 

“Ha, that was fun!  Why don’t we—“

“What is that?” 

The head thug took a quick step back.  His eye widened. 

Aldon glanced behind himself.  Botone stood up in front of the desk, her throat open, one hand inside with a pair of electrostaplers.  Her other hand laid against Aldon’s arm.

The three thugs regained their composure.  Their faces went grim. 

“You know that’s illegal.”

Aldon took a step back.  The center thug lifted up his black doorbuster.

“You know that that’s punishable by death.” 

Aldon took another step backwards.  He reached his arm behind himself, for his soldering iron.  His fingers touched hot metal.  He gripped it.  He kept eye contact with the center thug.  The thug brandished his weapon.  Lightning snapped on its front end.  The thug grinned. 

“You like it?  This thing will bust down any door you use it on, no matter the material.”  His grin grew wider.  “You wouldn’t believe the mess it leaves behind.”   He pointed it at Aldon. 

Botone leaned her head around Aldon’s neck.  Her lips moved, dry air moved through them. 

“Kiss me.” 

Aldon dropped his soldering iron.  The point sizzled his arm.  He leaned back against Botone, against the desk behind her.  The thug stepped closer. 

“That android’s gonna have to go, you know.  If you would kindly step aside—“

Botone twisted Aldon’s body around so that he faced her.  She held him close.  She met his eyes. 

“Kiss me!” 

Her voice gained volume, became lyrical.  The incised skin of her neck melded back together.  She reached her arm around Aldon’s head. 

“Kiss me!” 

A fat, meaty arm grabbed Aldon’s shoulder. 

“What, are you giving your pet robot one last goodbye kiss?  Too bad she’s gonna—“

Aldon kissed Botone. 

Lighting crackled between her lips and his.  The skin around her body shimmered.  Cracks appeared.  Synthrubber tendons pushed up around platsteel bone fibers and mesh metallic muscle.  Botone’s body opened up from the inside out.  Her legs clapped against Aldon’s legs.  They melded around his calves and his thighs until they formed a shiny metal coating, soft artificial skin on the inside and sharp plasteel on the outside.  The rest of Botone’s body followed.  Her eyes moved up to meet Aldon’s, and he saw through a heads-up overlay.  He opened his mouth to breathe, and Botone’s body responded.  Aldon staggered.  His motions pulsed with mechanical power, and he slammed into the thug behind him.  He twisted his body around and brought his arm up to steady himself.  It slammed into his bed and cracked it in half.  It moved through the floor and smashed a hole up to the elbow.  Red outlines surrounded everything.  They flickered, then changed to all colors.  The thugs stayed red.  The room and everything in it outlined blue.  Lines of hyper-quick code scrolled down next to dots that pointed to pieces of equipment.  The thugs’ weapons highlighted green.

The center thug stumbled back onto his tailbone.  He lifted up his arm to shield himself.  His eyes opened with terror. 

“What the hell are you?”

Aldon opened his mouth to speak.  He raised up his hand in an instinctive gesture.  Fire exploded through his limbs.  A mass of energy blasted out from his palm and incinerated its way through the thug, and the rest of the building.  Sparks crackled.  The blowback shot aldon against the far wall of his apartment, through the metal plating inside, through the layers of insulation, and out into the world beyond.  He tumbled.  Adrenaline arced through his bloodstream.  His eyes blurred.  Botone’s face appeared in a thumbnail screen at the edge of Aldon’s vision.  She gave a huge grin. 

“Fly!  Kick out your feet and fly!” 

Aldon kicked out his feet.  Fire coursed through his spine.  His feet exploded with force.  The world twirled around him.  He lifted out his hands for stability.  His twirl slowed.  Skyscrapers rushed past.  Aldon experimented with movement.  Every motion he made translated into an intuitive effect.  He twisted his body up and rocketed into the air.  Botone’s artificial skin pressed into his body around the hinge points of the suit that covered him.  It absorbed the sharp metal and replaced it with sensual feeling.  Aldon kicked out his feet.  He soared over the top of the city.  A blue dot appeared in his vision, on top of a helicopter pad on the side of a space elevator.  Lines of code flew past.  Botone pointed from her thumbnail in the corner of Aldon’s vision. 

“Land there.” 

Aldon swept his feet over and pointed them at the landing pad.  A quad-copter buzzed past underneath.  It veered to the right.  The blast from its rotors caught Aldon from an angle.  He twisted through the air.  His feet pointed up at the sky for a second.  They came back down.  He threw out his arms.  His rotation slowed.  A little triangle icon appeared over Botone’s picture, in the corner of Aldon’s vision. 

“Do you want me to engage in flight-assist?”

Aldon jittered his way down to the landing pad.  His feet connected with the white-painted metal and sounded off two metallic clicks.  The synthetic skin shock absorbers that cradled his body muted the impact of the landing.  Aldon staggered for a few steps, then found his balance.  He held his hands out in front of his vision.  Black plasteel plates surrounded a synthmesh underlay that glowed in the indirect Harunian sunlight with a deep blue tint.  Aldon glanced down at Botnone’s picture. 

“I’m fine.” 

Botone pointed up at the rest of the view screen. 

“You don’t have to look at me.  I can see you fine from there.  Keep your eyes on what’s in front of you.”

“Did I kill him?” 

“Kill who?” 

“The man.  The one I shot with my hand.  Did I kill him?” 

“I don’t know, the energy readings were too bright.  I couldn’t get an organic reading.” 

“The energy readings?  Where he stood a second before the blast hit?” 

“The steel in the floor melted and interfered with my readings.  I’ll have to get them calibrated.” 

“So I killed him.” 

“I can’t say.” 

“He’s dead.  Because of me.”  Aldon lifted his hand up and stared at the palm.  A bright blue circle of light stared back at him.  It pulsed. 

Botone pursed her lips.  A facial recognition program sputtered about Aldon’s view.  Green lines intersected with red, transparent on top of what he saw in front of him.  A yellow icon flashed in the center of his view.  Botone folded her arms. 

“You’re psychologically damaged.  You need some time to recuperate.”

Aldon tossed his arm out to his side. 

“Damaged?  Recuperate?  What the hell are you talking about?  Thirty minutes ago I find you in a dump, and now you make me kill a man?  Maybe more?  Who the hell are you?  What are you—“

Botone’s eyes went wide.  She leaned in close to the screen that pictured her.  Red icons flashed all across Aldon’s view.  Sweat beaded on Botone’s brow. 

“This is bad.  This is very bad.  That’s a lot of hyperspace signatures.  That’s too many for—“

A massive triangle shape shot out of the sky high above the city of New Tokyo and snapped off three space elevators in quick succession.  They ripped away under the force of gravity and smashed down through a row of skyscrapers that stretched across the horizon.  Explosions rippled through the air.  Air raid sirens whirred to life.  The triangle spaceship let loose a thick swarm of circular shapes.  They sprouted wings and took to the air.  Missiles streaked up to meet them.  Explosions rippled.  Jet planes streaked in from outside the city.  The overlord spaceships moved to engage.  Lasers arced from the bottom of the mothership. 

The space elevator that Aldon stood on trembled.  Debris fell down from orbit.  Aldon clenched his fists.  He looked up at the overlord mothership.  He opened up his palm.  He lifted it and pointed it at the ship’s broad underside.  Fire coursed through his veins.

Botone gave a determined grin. 

“You can do it, Aldon!”

Aldon clenched his jaw.  He muttered to himself. 

“Maybe they would have died anyways.” 

A blast of light shot from his arm.  He braced his legs against the floor to catch the blowback.  His arm spurted to the right under the pressure.  The laser arced through the sky.  The bottom of the mothership rippled red.  Debris separated from the wound and crashed down to earth.  The ship lilted.  A swarm of spherical fighters darted towards Aldon.

Botone brought her arm down in a gesture of triumph. 

“It worked!  Go get them!” 

Aldon set fire to his feet and blasted off of the platform.  He gritted his teeth. 

“I’m not a child.” 

He twisted his body around to avoid a burst of lasers.  His body motions translated into complex maneuvers with no effort on his part.  He swung his feet around and flipped sideways.  A spherical spaceship shot past.  Panels of metal resolved, between layers of red lines that pulsed light.  A gun port swiveled around on an axis that surrounded the sphere. 

A red light flashed in the center of Aldon’s view. 

“Clap!”

Aldon clapped.  The gun fired.  A layer of blue energy popped up in front of Aldon.  The lasers billowed into clouds of energy that then dissipated along the curvature of the shield.  Aldon twisted his arm around and shot a blast from his hand cannon.  The spherical fighter exploded.  Bits of metal slammed against the blue energy shield.   Aldon twisted about and headed in the direction of the mothership.  A flight of jet planes sallied up beside him. 

A triangle marker flashed next to Botone’s picture. 

“The commander of D-wing seven wants to talk to you.”

“I don’t know!  Tell him that I know as much as he does!”

“You talk to him!  I can’t run another process, you’re taxing me enough with your stupid flight maneuvers!” 

“I told you I was fine!”

“You’re obviously not!” 

Aldon spiraled around a spherical fighter and blasted it out of the sky.  A jet plane burst through the smoke.  The pilot lifted his hand from his joystick to wave at Aldon.  Aldon twisted around. 

“Fine!  Patch me through.”

A picture appeared on the other bottom corner of Aldon’s vision, opposite Botone.  A pilot in a pilot’s mask. 

“Who are you?!” 

Aldon remembered all of the sudden his childhood, the cartoons he liked to watch then.  He remembered the tattoo on Botone’s shoulder.  Binary model 0111.  0111, in binary.  Seven. 

“I’m Binary Seven.”  

Action Sequences

The car rounded a sharp corner.  It swerved.  Its wheels skidded.  Rubber screeched.

Gunshots peppered the car's trunk.  The latch popped.

The car made another turn.  Its wheels lifted. The trunk cover waved. The car righted itself. The cover slammed.

Sirens sounded.  Hard concrete walls echoed the noise.  Shattered windows glared blue and red.

The car zoomed though a busy intersection.  Its window rolled down.  Wind blew.  A hooded figure leaned out.

What will this figure do?  What do you want him to do?  Do you feel the action?  The tension?

I do.  But, I'm the one who wrote it.  How can I be sure you feel it too?

I'm not.  This scene has a whole lot of things wrong with it, all of which I see clearly.  But I don't want to spend too much time writing it, because it's short.  And all of the problems I have with it are nitpicky.  They're things that bother me, a synestesiac.  They might not bother you so much.  I'll get deeper into explaining this in another post.

First off, a great starting point was given to me by the book "Techniques of a selling writer," by Dwight V Swain.  It's a great book overall, but this one piece of advice is the best thing I got from it.

Motivation Reaction Units  

I'll summarize here.  Motivation reaction units are parcels of text that contain an action by one party, and a reaction by another.  The action motivates the reaction.  A motivator must be clear.  It must come before the reaction.  The reactor can not feature syntactically before the motivator, as in an "I saw" or "He sees."  In other words, no nesting perceptions.  That makes for an unclear motivation-reaction-reaction-reaction-et cetera chain.

Example from the above sequence:  

The car made another turn.  (Motivator 1)  Its wheels lifted.  (Reaction 1, Motivator 2)  The trunk cover waved.  (Reaction 2)  The car righted itself.  (Motivator 3)  The cover slammed.  (Reaction 3)

This can be applied across any scope, along any time frame.  It's all relative, anyways.  

Now, to build on these with my own experience.

Associations 

What did you expect the man who leaned out of the window to do?  

Pull a gun?  Jump out, maybe?  Make a lewd gesture?  

Certainly not become a unicorn.  

Ok, maybe a unicorn would work.  I think it might flow.  There's not enough context, anyways.  Here's what really might stop a reader up:

The car barged through a tiny intersection.  

Do you feel it?  That subtle, ever-so slight difficulty that your mind has comprehending that statement?   

A car is normally large.  Intersections normally happen on streets--they're open.  A car wouldn't need to barge.  Tiny does not describe at all our experience of automobiles or traffic law.

But you would say that the sentence works on some level, yes?  It might make for good metaphor.  

But the associations are wrong.  Tiny and car do not fit together, though they are related to different subjects within the sentence.  You shouldn't have to barge through an intersection (maybe the word would work for a busy one).

Another example.  

The car zoomed onto a straight lifted highway.  The police followed close on its tail.  The car's window rolled down.  A figure leaned out.  He yanked at the steering wheel.  The car turned a sharp corner.  The chase continued.  The police tried to follow and spun out.  Only three cars righted themselves in time.  They gunned their engines. 

Did you see it?  I embedded it deep, so you could feel the disconnect that it caused for the later events.  

Truth be told, it's not that strong of an example.  I think it's too obvious, and it doesn't work as well as it should.  The car makes a turn that can't exist, and in so doing breaks the immersion that a reader would feel.  But the implication made by elevated highway is a little too weak for my taste--as in, the break from reality doesn't have as jarring of an effect as it would in real life.    

The point is, in your own writing, you should expect things that are at the same time more prominent, and harder to detect.  I simply hope that in making you aware that these things exist, I may be able to further your discovery of them, and your quest to ultimately become a better writer.  

Cutaways

Sirens sounded.  Hard concrete walls echoed the noise.  Shattered windows glared blue and red.  

That's a cutaway.  A point in the flow of writing where the focus shifts to something other than the main events.  Perhaps to reflect or distort them through the lens of another perception.  In a quick action sequence, a misplaced cutaway can be deadly.  

The car rounded a sharp corner.  It swerved.  Its wheels skidded.  Rubber screeched.

Gunshots peppered the car's trunk.  The latch popped.

The car made another turn.  Its wheels lifted. The trunk cover waved. The car righted itself. The cover slammed.  Shattered windows glared blue and red.  The car zoomed though a busy intersection.  Its window rolled down.  Wind blew.  A hooded figure leaned out.


Notice that when you read the word "shattered," after "slammed," you involuntarily pull away.

There are two reasons for that.

One: The motivation reaction cycle is interrupted.

Two:  The scene has not been set up to contain shattered windows.

Let's fix them in order.

One: The motivation reaction cycle is interrupted.

This one's pretty obvious.  The car didn't do anything to warrant blue and red flashes on a window.  (In the immediate sense.)  There is no reason for those flashes to occur.  While they can be easily integrated into the scene after the fact, by way of association (Red and blue--speeding car--high speed chase---police are in pursuit--they're the ones who are making the flashes) doing so takes the reader out of the immediacy of the moment.  They are forced to jump through mental hoops to make the connections that you should be giving them.  

Of course, there are far worse forms of this problem.  But, it's easy, because this problem scales in a logical fashion.  More hoops = more time spent thinking = a further disconnect.

Two: the scene has not been set up to contain shattered windows

This one is similar to the first problem, but different.  Whereas the first was a problem of mechanics, the second is a problem of association.  A big picture problem.  

But, like all problems, it can be approached in a methodical fashion.  

Imagine for a second a chase scene set in a desert.  There is sand, there is sun.  It's a flat, baking interstate.  

The car rounded a sharp corner.  It swerved.  Its wheels skidded.  Rubber screeched.

Gunshots peppered the car's trunk.  The latch popped.

The car made another turn.  Its wheels lifted. The trunk cover waved. The car righted itself. The cover slammed.  Shattered windows glared blue and red.  The car zoomed though a busy intersection.  Its window rolled down.  Wind blew.  A hooded figure leaned out.  

Did you catch that?  I did.  

There's nothing in the lines before the entrance of the windows to suggest anything but cars and guns.  They could be anywhere.  On a bridge, under the ocean, in space.  You, the writer, don't know that the reader just happened to spend all last week on a road trip across the western US desert, watching old movies featuring high-speed car chases across open interstate.  There are no shattered windows there.  (On the car, maybe, but then again, I don't want them to be there, so the problem is the same.)

This can be fixed by slow association.  Word creep.  Rubber leads to black asphalt leads to concrete leads to big buildings leads to broken windows where you want them.  Ease the reader into the scene.

Or, stop the action and make the scene explicit.  Your choice.   

The car rounded a sharp corner.  It swerved.  Its wheels skidded.  Rubber screeched.

Gunshots peppered the car's trunk.  The latch popped.

The car made another turn.  Its wheels lifted. The trunk cover waved. The car righted itself. The cover slammed.

Sirens sounded.  Hard concrete walls echoed the noise.  Shattered windows glared blue and red.

The car zoomed though a busy intersection.  Its window rolled down.  Wind blew.  A hooded figure leaned out.

This one's a bit arbitrary.  The word "hard" has a soft tone, and the word concrete can still be associated with open interstate, or any road, really.  But hard concrete is not something usually used to describe roads.  It's used to describe walls.  But, it's not explicit.  It's a duality.  Hard desert.  Desert concrete.  Hard concrete.   Hard concrete walls.

Summary (TLDR):

1: Motivation reaction units are chains of nouns that do causing, to each other.  Each action has a reaction.  Each motivator must be declared, explicit, and concise.  No "I saw X do Y to Z."  X did Y to Z.  

2:The moving parts in your story must conform to popular societal norms.  Sorry.  If people don't expect it, they won't believe it.  Unless you give them a reason to.  

3:When changing perspectives in a hot action sequence, always be sure to ease the reader into your change of frame.  Otherwise, they'll get disoriented.  And who wants to be disoriented when they would rather see characters being shot, stabbed, gunned down, run over, run through, run into, run down, running around, and just plain running?

I hope you enjoyed my post on writing mechanics!  I'll be here all week!  

New writing mechanics on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  New story updates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. 

Come back next time!

Those Pesky Dialog Tags

Dialog is hard.  We all know that.  Not because it’s hard to write, but because it’s hard to tag.  You all know what I’m talking about.  “He said, she said, they said, we said, you said, he said,” over and over again is ugly.  Just like how single clause sentences over and over again are ugly.

After writing for some time, I've managed to break down dialog tags into a discreet set of facts, categorized by effect.  In order to explain them, I must first explain something about flow.  

Flow is that state in the reader's mind that is achieved when the words on the page disappear and are replaced by an inner "movie."  More accurately, a virtual reality that renders everything from smells to the pull of acceleration to wrenching emotional sadness.  This "flow," as I will call it, is the desirable state.  All books should aim to place the reader squarely in this state.  

When in flow, a reader does not read individual words.  He or she does not skim, either.  The reader in a state of flow absorbs information on the syntactical level.  Which is to say, they don't pick up words, they pick up sentences, and paragraphs.  Words become garnish along a two-dimensional plane.  I know you've had the feeling before.  When you're reading, and you're not picking up individual words, when you're looking at a paragraph and you see in you mind everything that that paragraph stands for at once.  That's the state of flow.  That's the goal that I believe writers must achieve.

Imagine for a second a piece of music.  Imagine that you're listening to it, and that you drift off into that space where your mind fills with the visions of that music.  Do you notice the A sharp at the third downbeat of the fourth 4/4 bar at measure 23?  Of course not.  You hear instead a modulation of the major chord progression into a minor one.  You hear the effect.  You don't hear the note.  Your mental image of the music gets gritty, dark.  A sense of pressing is imparted by the change to minor key.  

The same with words.

So what does this have to do with dialog?

Tossing aside the music metaphor in favor of straight mechanics, dialog has two jobs: communicate what the character says, and maintain the state of flow.  Pretty simple, right?  Well, let's consider this.  

You're coming out of a long paragraph filled with explosive action.  Your first spoken character rolls underneath a bunker, and sidles up to the second spoken character.  We'll call them one, and two.

One wants to deliver this line: "Get up!  Get up!  They're coming over the ridge!"  

Two wants to deliver this line: "I don't want to die!  I can't get up, they'll kill me!"

One wants to finish like this:  "You'll be worse then dead if you don't get up now!"  

So how to approach this scene?

Option one: use the "said" tags.  

One rolled down underneath the bunker, where Two huddled against a dark corner.  

"Get up!  Get up!  They're coming over the ridge!" One said.  

"I don't want to die!" said Two. "I can't get up, they'll kill me!"

One said: "You'll be worse then dead if you don't get up now!"

Did you notice what I did there?  There are three ways that tags--of any kind--can be inserted into a statement.  Let's play with that a little.  

One rolled down underneath the bunker, where Two huddled against a dark corner.  

One said: "Get up!  Get up!  They're coming over the ridge!"  

"I don't want to die!  I can't get up, they'll kill me!" said Two.  

"You'll be worse then dead," said One, "if you don't get up now!"  

Did you notice how the conversation flowed different?  Even the meanings change.  The tag in the middle of the third line of dialog casts One's words in a sinister light.  I feel like the exclamation point doesn't belong anymore.  Maybe One is threatening Two, instead of warning him, as in the first example.  

And all because the position of the tag changed.  Readers don't "see" these tags, per se.  Rather, they take them in like that A# inside of the C major chord progression, that single note that signals that something much bigger is afoot. 

Here's where the state of flow ties in.  Words, when read in a state of flow, are nothing but tags for mental images.  When in a state of flow, all writing reads like dialog.  We search for the tags between the information to tell us what's happening.  We don't read all of the information.  Just as, when you read dialog, you don't read each word.  You hear the word combinations.  The sentences spoken by the character.  And the tags keep you oriented.  They're like road signs.  

Incidentally, this is also why verbs are so important, and why it's bad to split your infinitives.  Tags need to be clear, concise, and close to the thing that they tag.  That's also why adjectives are not good in bulk.  Not because they're just 'bad', but because they push the tags apart from each other.  It's like stuffing.  Too little is bad.  Too much is bad.  You have to get things just right.  Maybe I'll talk about this at a later time.  

Back to dialog.  

There are actually two types of tags:  explicit tags, and implicit tags.  Now, to explain implicit tags, remember what I said before about flow: tags punch an image into the reader's mind.  If that tag is of the character that speaks, regardless of the action, and is not otherwise consumed in the flow of a motivation-reaction rhythm (more on this in another post), then that tag will perform the same job as a "he said:" that is, to punch the image of the character to speak into the reader's mind.  Do you see the difference?  Imagine explicit tags as a subset of implicit tags.  Explicit tags are tags where the character in question performs an action that could be called speaking.  (Talking, spurting, crying, sobbing, yelling, performing, are a few examples.  The fabled "other saids.")  Whereas, implicit tags are tags where the character performs any action.  

Note here that it's not the action that makes the tag.  A tag is a tag, regardless of what the character does.  There are implicit tags that mesh more with speaking than others, but that has to do with common association, as well as the flow of the conversation.  (Again, a topic for another post.)  Not whether or not the character speaks inside of the tag.  

An example of an explicit tag: 

Sheldon spoke.  "What is this?"

An example of an implicit tag:  

Sheldon pressed his finger down against the hard shell.  "What is it?"

This segues me nicely into my next topic of discussion.  Did you notice how there was a tension in that implicit tag example?  How it felt, wrong, somehow?  Well, you were right.  Implicit tags are implicit because they imply.  They imply a lot of things, as a matter of fact, besides dialog.  So, one needs to make sure that the tag implies the right thing.  How?  

Like this.  

Sheldon pressed his face against the glass.  

"What is it?"

Better, but not quite.  Let's try some more.  

Sheldon pressed his face against the glass.  

"What is it?"  

His breath fogged the window.  

There we go, do you feel the subtle tension forwards?  Do you feel that very slight implication that there is something after that last word, "window?"

Here, I'll make it more obvious.  

Sheldon pressed his face against the glass.  

"What is it?"  

He turned aside.  

Did you feel it?  That need to resolve the action?  That's good.  That's mechanical tension.  That is desirable.  

To review (TLDR):

There are three places you can place a tag: beginning of line, middle of line, end of line.  They all affect the dialog in subtle ways.  

There are two types of tags: explicit, and implicit.  Explicit tags are a subset of implicit tags that only tag dialog.  Implicit tags can add tension to conversations.  

There are two ways to separate tags from dialog: space-bar, and return.  Spaces force a slowdown.  The tag is less prominent.  They are good for simple explicit tags.  Indents require a quick eye movement to be made.  Thus, they imply motion.  They are a good tool in the finessing of tension.  Implicit tags work well with them.

More on Friday, perhaps an expansion on this topic, perhaps on some of the others I mentioned throughout the post. 

I hope you enjoyed this exposition on writing technique.

Leave comments below.  Ask for clarification.  I will gladly answer.   

Exactly 2000 words at a time (Binary Seven #1)

So I'm going to post the novel that I'm writing right here on this blog, 2000 words per day.  Exactly.  To the dot.

Even if the installment ends in the middle of a sentence.

I'll be doing this until it's over, which may be a long time, considering the fact that the average length of my novels is 90,000 words.  So, buckle up.  Get excited.  Here it comes.

Binary Seven

0001: Binary-0111

“No, I don’t want to join your union.” 

Aldon Jax stood underneath a scaffold, which stretched up to the top of an unfinished planetary defense cannon, pointed at the skies of the planet Haruna.  Two small white suns rotated around the horizon and cast healthy light on the skyscrapers which filled the city in which the cannon sat.

Three men in black suits and yellow plasteel hard hats stood in front of Aldon.  The first one lifted up his sunglasses.  He looked straight up at the suns above.  He didn’t need to blink.  He grinned. 

“Are you sure?  You know, what with the Overlords coming and all, things are going to get pretty hectic.  You might need your job security then.” 

Aldon kicked at a stray bolt on the ground.  It rattled.  He looked up at the smaller white sun, Gemini. 

“When they do come, job security will be the least of my problems.” 

A poster curled in the wind above Aldon’s head.  It unfurled to reveal a robotic monster, with six legs, a scorpion’s tail, and the face of the devil in chrome plates. 

Defend against the Overlords!  Do your part in the defense of humanity!

The Navy needs you!

The poster furled back with the wind.  The pasty torn plastifiber sheet covered up the image. 

 Aldon looked at the men who stood behind the union boss.  He laid his hand against the side of the panel he worked on.  A riveting hammer leaned against the metal.  Aldon’s fingers closed around a half-punched rivet. 

“I don’t need what you’re offering.  I can make my own job security.” 

The union boss’s face flashed in anger.  He grabbed an electronic cigar from his breath pocket, lit it with the press of a button, and pointed the glowing end at Aldon.  The twin suns of Haruna distorted the light into an ethereal mess.  The boss put it to his lips. 

“You’ll regret that.” 

He took a long puff, placed the cigar back into the pocket of his suit, and turned on his heels.  His henchmen turned a half second later.  They clomped down the steel walkway and into the street below the cannon.  Electric cars hummed past.  Bits of plastifiber fluttered in the soft wind. 

Aldon turned back to his work.  He picked up his hammer and finished his rivet.  He picked up another rivet.  He pressed it against the metal.  He hammered, twice.  His muscled arms forced the hammer into hard contact with the metal heads.  The moist air of Haruna’s denser-than earth atmosphere beaded on his brow.

Later, the second sun of Haruna, Lupis, passed underneath the city’s thirteenth space elevator, at the far west corner of the city’s main street.  The other elevators stretched out behind it in a straight line, all in alignment with the planet’s equator.  Huge platforms sprinted up and down at high speeds. 

For thirty seconds, the City of New Tokyo went dark—from overhead.  Lights blasted out all over the buildings in crazy patterns of neon color.  The sun Gemini peeked over the horizon.  The lights of New Tokyo dimmed, then rescinded underneath the first sun’s soft glare. 

Aldon hung his riveting hammer in his belt.  Other workers rode the light elevators down from the scaffolding up above.  They held automatic equipment, some of it embedded in their flesh.  Power-riveters flashed in bold, bright colors.  Those who had them ignored Aldon, and the rest of those who did not have them.  Aldon ignored the ignorers, and clocked out at the company booth.  He leaned in for his retina scan and blinked when the bright lasers shot into his eye for a split second.  He stepped out of line and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.  He entered the elevated walkway above 5^th street.  Electric cars rolled beneath.  Skyscrapers towered above.  Aldon made the turn down to 34^th street, and changed walkways.  The world quieted down.  The skyscrapers grew squatter.  Denser.  Aldon stepped off of the walkway and into an alleyway between apartments.  Native weeds sprouted up from cracks with grey hooks that pushed the concrete further apart.  Aldon rounded a corner.

He faced a dump.  The place where people put their electronic equipment when they wanted to get rid of it but didn’t want to pay the processing fees.  Aldon stepped up the pile, over a familiar path.  He browsed the junk for anything new.  He spotted a green sheen.  A little jolt of excitement shot through his chest.  He moved in to inspect it. 

A holographic playing card deck.  Aldon picked it up.  His arm jolted.  He dropped it in a spasm of pain.  A shorted haptic system.  Impossible to fix.  Aldon kicked the box away.  He climbed up higher.  Grey concrete walls rose above him.  He reached the edge, still far below the squat skyscraper that towered above. 

A flash of blue caught his eye.  He lifted a beam of twisted metal.  More blue showed itself.  He kicked away a ball of plastifiber.  He dug through a days-old pile of rotten vegetables.  He tossed them aside.  Soft skin appeared.  Too soft to be real.  An arm.  With a number tattooed on the shoulder, behind a word. 

Binary-0111. 

Written in cheap ink below:

Botone.

Aldon pushed up a fat piece of rusted steel.  The rest of the body showed itself.  An android.  Female.  Blue hair, closed eyes, and a pretty face.  Of course.  All androids had pretty faces. 

Aldon pushed down his excitement.  He brushed off the android’s lips, and searched for an on button.  He found none.  He felt around her backside.  No button.  He ran his hand down her legs, through a wash of rotten vegetable pulp.  He shook his hand off.  No button.  He tried to lift up the android’s eyelids.  He pressed hard on her eyelashes.  He breathed on her face, and polished it.

The android’s eyes flicked open.

Aldon lost his balance.  He flung his arms up.  He tottered on the edge of a beam of metal.  Twisted rebar reached up to meet his back.  He grabbed at a chain embedded in the pile.  It came loose with a shuffle.  His weight shifted.  The rebar swooned up to meet him.

An arm caught his shoulder.  The android.  She lifted him up with robotic ease, in a fluid motion more human than a human’s.  She caught him.  She stood up from her knees, and she brought Aldon up with him.  She picked carrot peel out of her hair.  Aldon sat back and stared at her. 

“What’s your designation?” 

The android looked at Aldon with a curious eye.  It said nothing. 

Aldon muttered to himself. 

“Great. Broken.” 

The android touched Aldon’s shoulders.  She shook her head. 

Aldon raised one eyebrow. 

The android copied him. 

“Your facial recognition and speech software are intact, at least.” 

The android nodded. 

“What else can you do?”

The android looked up, then back down.  She shrugged. 

Aldon looked at the tattoo on her shoulder. 

“Is that your designation?” 

The android nodded, then shook her head.  She pointed to the tattoo below the numbers. 

Botone. 

Aldon read it. 

“Is that your name?” 

The android smiled.  She nodded. 

Aldon rolled the word on his tongue. 

“Botone.  What does it mean?” 

The android pushed herself up.  She turned towards the exit to the garbage patch, then began to climb down.  Aldon scrambled to his feet. 

“Hey!  Where are you going?  Do you have an owner, or something?” 

The android climbed down in silence. 

Aldon bumbled his way down the pile of trash, until his feet struck against solid concrete.  Botone stopped with him.  She glanced at him, and stood still.  Aldon looked down the alleyway, then at her. 

“Do you want me to take you home?  I might be able to do something about that voice box of yours.”

Botone shook her head.  Aldon frowned. 

“You don’t want me to take you home?  Or you don’t think that I can fix you?”

Botone held up two fingers. 

Aldon laughed.  He clapped Botone on the shoulder. 

“Come on.  I’ll show you what I can do.” 

He took her arm and pulled her along the alleyway.  She weighed less than a normal human, even for her size.  All androids did.  Her eyes stared out ahead, wide open.  She blinked in perfect rhythm.  Her blue hair rustled out behind her neck.

Aldon turned the corner onto the main street.  He slowed his gait.  He held Botone close to himself. 

“Do you me to fix you?”

Botone nodded.  She gave a soft smile. 

Aldon glanced around at the pedestrians in the walkway.  Advertisements glared down from half-clear windows.  Pedestrians ignored them and him.  He pulled Botone closer to himself. 

An advertisement jumped up close to where Aldon walked.  Aldon waved his hand at it. 

“No, I don’t want it.” 

The advertisement shimmered.  It chased after him.  A beautiful android with skin that glowed pointed at Botone.  The android’s body merged flat with the shape of the window.  Buildings showed through from behind it.  It opened its mouth to speak. 

“Are you having trouble with your current—“

The voice dropped, turned robotic—

“Error.  Reader ID unknown—“

It returned to normal. 

“model android?”

Aldon pulled Botone away from the screen.  He muttered to himself. 

“ID card must be fried.  Which means that the desultory matrix motherboard must be damaged.  That might explain the—“

The advertisement blew up huge on the window beside him.  Aldon increased his pace.  Botone stared at the android in the picture.  The android smiled, and pointed to its shoulder. 

Forge-XXXX

“Then you need a new Forge model android!  The latest in the award winning Alphabet android series, my model will—“

Aldon slammed his fist against the glass. 

“Go away.” 

Botone lifted up her finger and pressed it on the advertisement’s center.  The picture fizzled.  Linear visual artifacts appeared at the edges.  The voice went low.

“Will—will—will …” 

The advertisement flickered off.  The city showed through.  Aldon stared at Botone. 

“What did you do?” 

Botone pointed her finger at Aldon and smiled.  Aldon shrugged, and turned back towards his destination.  He led Botone beside himself.   

He took the 34^th street exit and entered into a run-down apartment building lobby.  A few other workers scattered around.  They came or went to their shifts across the city.  Aldon took the electric lift up to the 56^th floor.  He stepped out with Botone against his arm.  He led her down a dilapidated hallway.  A camera blinked in the corner of the wall.  Thick paint covered its lens.  Sparks ran down from wires exposed beneath it.  Aldon stepped in front of a door.  He lifted up a physical key, and put it to the lock.  The door opened.  Lights flickered on.  Aldon looked both ways, and then jerked Botone inside.  He closed the door behind himself and locked it.

He stood in the center of a single room, with a bed in one corner, a stove in another, bits of salvaged equipment in the third, and a desk underneath a bright headlamp in the fourth.  Aldon dragged Botone over to the desk.  He let go of her, and met her eyes.  They focused on his own in a precise fashion.  A piece of vegetable matter hung on her cheek.  Aldon wiped it off.  He leaned up close to her face and inspected it under his light.  He picked up a device from the desk and pushed it into her ear.  He took another device, with two sharp blades, and slit open her throat with it.  A blue line appeared, and Botone’s skin unraveled to reveal a dark plasteel interior.  Artificial tendons crisscrossed in front of ultra-light fiber spine disks.  Electrical wires bunched up in the corners.  Some of them sparkled.  Black spots encroached upon a white sythrubber tendon. 

Aldon shoved his desk clean.  A half-put together miniature computer tablet clattered to the floor among a shower of nuts and assorted pieces of 


That's not counting the title, if you're counting.