The Brooklyn Book Festival is back this year, and so is Overlook! All are cordially invited to stop by the Overlook booth to see our new releases for the Fall season and meet a few of our most charming staff members. The festival takes places this Sunday, September 14 at Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza. And don't miss our very own Warren Adler, who takes the stage at 4pm on the North Stage to read from his novel Funny Boys, where the thugs of Murder, Inc. move between Brooklyn and the Borscht Belt, back in the day.
Warren Adler's Funny Boys gets a rave review in - where else - Kaatskill Life: A Magzine for Kaatskill Living. In a full-page essay in the Summer issue, John Rowen describes Funny Boys as a "fast-paced novel about gangsters, comedy, and romance. . . Adler's writing is visual and vivid and he excels in dialogue, confident narration, a strong pace, and carefully drawn descriptions. He immerses you in the action, whether it is a gangster meeting on a city street corner or a dinner show in a resort dining room."
In a recent article in the Jewish Journal, Dr. Morton Teicher reviews Warren Adler's new novel Funny Boys: "The tumler, to follow Adler's usage, is a comic, singer, clown, actor, jokester, master of ceremonies, noise-maker, prankster, fun-generator, and over-all buffoon. Many of those who filled these roles in the Catskills went on to great fame – Danny Kaye, Sid Caesar, Joey Bishop, Buddy Hackett, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, Red Buttons, and Jackie Mason, to name just a few. Adler's tumler is Mickey Fine, a young man who is an aspiring comedian. He works in his father's ladies underwear store in Brooklyn and attends CCNY at night. For several summers, he has been a bus boy, a waiter and a "substitute tumler." As the story opens in the 1930s, he is hired to work as the tumler at Gorlick's Greenhouse, a Catskill Mountains resort near Fallsburg, which has a special clientele of Jewish and Italian gangsters who come for the weekends. During the week, their wives, children, and girl friends are in the hotel. The reality base for the story is reflected in the authentic names of these mobsters – Kid Twist Reles, Albert Anastasia, Pittsburg Phil Strauss, Louis Lepke (Buchalter), Bugsy Goldstein, and Frank Costello, among others. In any case, the fast-paced story holds the reader's interest as it inevitably reaches a happy ending. Author Warren Adler has written five collections of short stories and more than 25 novels, including The War of the Roses, which was made into a popular movie for which he wrote the screenplay. He grew up in Brooklyn so that he is familiar with the setting for part of his story. After graduating from New York University, he worked for several newspapers. He served in the army during the Korean War, stationed in Washington DC where he remained when he was discharged. He ran an advertising and public relations agency, owned radio and TV stations, and started a magazine. Since 1974 when his first novel was published, he has devoted himself full time to writing. He lived in Hollywood for many years, finally coming back to New York "from a forty-odd year exile in other parts of America." Referring to Thomas Wolfe's last book, You Can't Go Home Again, Adler refutes "the wisdom of this great title of the novel by Thomas Wolfe, the fabulous and favorite writer of my youth. Few read him now, although my guess is that one day he will have his long overdue revival." Adler has returned home to New York "And here I am. Home again." One consequence of his being back in New York is this latest novel which will make readers glad that Adler has come home again."
The New York literary landmark KGB Bar, will host Warren Adler, author of Funny Boys, and Nina Siegal, at this Sunday's Fiction Series, March 16, 7-9pm. Warren Adler is the author of 30 books, including 5 collections of short stories and 25 novels. He is known worldwide for his classic tale of battling spouses, The War of the Roses. His new novel, Funny Boys, will be published on March 26.
Warren Adler, author of Funny Boys, will be joined by comedians David Goldman and Tom McCaffrey for "An Evening of Funny Men" at the Telephone Bar & Grill on Monday, February 25, at 8pm. Funny Boys, Adler's 30th novel, re-creates the color, humor, excitement and authenticity of the Catskill Mountain resort era, and is a marvelous salute to the Jewish humor of the Borscht Belt. The event will be held in The Library Lounge at the Telephone Bar, 149 2nd Avenue @ 9th Street in Manhattan. There's no cover charge, and copies of Funny Boys will be available for purchase.
Warren Adler, author of The War of the Roses, Random Hearts, The Sunset Gang, and many other bestselling novels, takes on the New York of his childhood in Funny Boys, coming next month from Overlook. In this darkly funny comedy of errors about success, the mob, and finding true love, Warren Adler's memorable story of a young comedian (tumler) in the Borscht Belt era is a sweeping American tale. For a sneak preview of Funny Boys, pick up a copy of Adler's short story collection New York Echoes, or visit the author's website.
By children’s author Jill McDougall
“How are you today?”
I’m very well, thank you.”
This simple exchange tells you plenty about the speakers. They are polite and well-spoken and they are unlikely to be close friends.
Imagine if the interaction had gone more like this:
“Hey bro. How’s it all hanging?”
“Oh. It’s er, … hanging nicely. Thanks for asking.”
How did you ‘see’ the first speaker in your mind? Most readers would imagine someone young, street smart and brash. Probably male.
And the responder? They could well be one of those polite acquaintances we met earlier. Only now they are seriously out of their comfort zone.
That’s a lot of information conveyed by a few spoken words.
Dialogue is one of the most powerful tools writers possess. It adds interest and vigour to the action, it breathes life into your characters and it conveys mood.
The following tips will help you use dialogue to full advantage:
TIP 1: Give your dialogue personality
Try matching the following dialogue to a teenager, an elderly person and a young child.
1. “Out of my way, love. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
2. “Bug off, pizza face.”
3. “Worms are yukky.”
Easy isn’t it? Different age groups and personalities have distinctive patterns and styles of speech.
To make your dialogue more distinctive, try some of these common techniques.
Drop a few letters when young children are speaking.
Come on becomes Cm’on.
Probably becomes Prob’ly.
Insert a favourite word into a character’s dialogue (but don’t overdo it).
“I saw ghosts, yes, and elves, yes, and dragons.”
Give a character colourful expressions.
“Well paint me purple!”
“Bless ma boots!”
TIP 2: Avoid fancy attributions
‘Said’ is the dialogue writer’s best friend. Since the reader’s eye tends to concentrate on the dialogue and scan the attribution, a bunch of ‘saids’ on the page need not make you nervous.
Don’t fall into the trap of using a dozen different words to replace ‘said’ when your character is speaking in a normal tone. You risk diverting the reader’s attention away from the action. It’s fine to throw in the occasional common attribution - ‘asked’ is as invisible as ‘said’ - but don’t slow down your story with irritating attributions such as ‘enquired’ or ‘responded’.
TIP 3: Choose attributions with punch
Make no mistake - while it is clumsy to substitute fancy words for ‘said,’ you can make your writing more vivid by using strong verbs when appropriate. Some examples might include:
blithered, demanded, exploded, grumbled, faltered, hissed, mumbled, purred, roared, spluttered, urged, wailed.
REMEMBER: less is more
TIP 4: Be aware of tone
New writers tend to concentrate on what is said more than how it’s delivered. Much can be conveyed through the speaker’s tone of voice.
Consider the difference between these two examples:
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
OR
“What are you doing here?” she asked as if she had just discovered something clinging to her shoe.
In the second example, the reader is left in no doubt as to the speaker’s mood.
TIP 5: Use action tags in place of attributions
Action tags refer to the character’s behaviour while they are speaking. For example:
She drew in her breath. “You saw me at the murder scene?’
If you use an action tag alongside the dialogue then the reader automatically knows who is talking and you don’t need to spell it out. I’m not suggesting that you should do without attributions altogether but you’ll find that your writing develops a more professional feel if you cut them down to a minimum.
Cleverly used, dialogue will breathe life into your story.
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© Jill McDougall 2007 http://www.jillmcdougall.com.au
Jill is the author of over 100 books for children. You can find more writing tips on her website as well as links to hundreds of publishers’ guidelines through her ebook Become a Children’s Writer: Insider Secrets
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The Brooklyn Book Festival is back this year, and so is Overlook! All are cordially invited to stop by the Overlook booth to see our new releases for the Fall season and meet a few of our most charming staff members. The festival takes places this Sunday, September 14 at Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza. And don't miss our very own Warren Adler, who takes the stage at 4pm on the North Stage to read from his novel Funny Boys, where the thugs of Murder, Inc. move between Brooklyn and the Borscht Belt, back in the day.
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