James Byrne's "Deadlock," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Deadlock: A Thriller (A Dez Limerick Novel, Volume 2) by James Byrne.

The entry begins:

This challenge is really fun for me. I teach mystery writing occasionally, and I often tell new writers to “cast” their books. I always do. Not only do I cast the major parts, but I create a PowerPoint with images of the actors, and keep it up, visible, next to my Word document, as I write first drafts.

The reason: It helps tremendously with dialogue. I don’t want any character to sound like, well, me.

Your readers should take this test: Imagine a quick scene of heated dialogue in your head. Anything at all. Got it? Good.

Now imagine that the female protagonist is played by Dame Judi Dench. OK, write it in your head (or write it for real, it’s a good test). Sound pretty good? Sure.

Now imagine that the female protagonist is played by Margot Robbie. Write the exact same scene of heated dialogue.

Did the dialogue change? Of course it did. You’d never write the exact same words for Dench and Robbie. So by writing for a specific voice, you differentiate your dialogue.

Neat trick, yeah?

You can use actors from the past (I recently cast David Niven in a manuscript; his death in 1976 didn’t hinder me much) and people who aren’t actors (I once cast my high school principal in a book).

As for a director, how about...[read on]

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My Book, The Movie: Deadlock.

--Marshal Zeringue