Tag: Write-Dialogue

Writing Exercise: Write and Rewrite

Erin Penn

Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

Write and rewrite were sitting in a tree, write fell down and who was left? REWRITE. Write and rewrite were sitting in a tree, write fell down and who was left? …

In April, during the A-to-Z my brain went stupid. I could no longer write good, but I could rewrite good. For over a week, when I have absolutely no extra time thanks to taxes, everything written had to be rewritten. Which is really obnoxious for flashes. The point of flashes is one and done. In this case, it was two and done – and all the rewrites ended up being three times as long as the original flash..

I had all the information the first pass, but it needed to be different. What had been produced was too passive. The dialog sucked or was non-existence, all the action was told instead of shown.

Anyway, the point of this Writing Exercise is to get over the innate bump of “I wrote it, why do I need to rewrite it?” If you know it isn’t good enough, rewrite it. Just bite the bullet and put the new, better words on paper.

This isn’t to say keep writing the same scene forever, but if you know how to fix it, FIX IT. Get that fix on paper instead of going “someday, maybe”.

WRITING EXERCISE: Find a scene, no more than 500 words, where you are unhappy with how things play out because it is missing a skill. Rewrite it.

My Attempt: Oopsie (11/8/2020). First version was 117 words – no dialog, no action, basically a news report of what already happened. But I needed to write it to get all the pieces in play. Second version was 525 words. Dialog, action, conflict, beginning-middle-end. Not even a scene in the first version, versus all the parts of a story in the second.

Magical Words: On writing dialog

Erin Penn

Photo by Jed Villejo on Unsplash

If you have been with me for a while, you know how much I love dialog. “on writing dialog” by Catie Murphy, a Magical Words post from 10/28/2008 is one that has stuck with me for a long time. All the details I’ve talked about are here.

(Note this was early in the Magical Words, so proofreading is lacking, but the message is still great.)

http://www.magicalwords.net/really-i-mean-it/on-writing-dialog/

Editing Rant: Variation

Erin Penn

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Variation is the spice to take words out of the bland.

  1. Vary the people. Don’t have them all sound alike. Did they have different educations? Did they grow up in different parts of the country? Do they come from different income stratus? Fix the dialog – don’t let it be stale.
  2. Vary the sentence length. Make Music! (See this previous post about the Music of Words.)
  3. Vary sentence structure. Don’t be all “noun verb noun”. Break out some prepositions. After that, maybe add some sentences clauses to the beginning and end. Have conjunctions, but don’t put one in every sentence.

VARY!!!!!!!!

Writing Exercise: Study how others do dialogue

Erin Penn

Photo by Tamara Gak on Unsplash

Struggling with dialog? On a recent edit, the author constantly had people exchange looks – stares – and glances, while the speaking portion of the exchanges were in a rather formalistic structured dialog. The words of the dialog itself were great; the presentation needed work. I came up with the following writing exercise for the author to study dialog produced by others.

WRITING EXERCISE

Let’s look at other authors and see how they approach glances between characters in dialog, looking at / describing buildings and scenes, and other pauses of action while characters consider what is happening.

Pick three authors you enjoy reading and pick out a description of scene (three pages) and a dialog (three pages) for each. One should be in the genre you are working (say thriller) and one should be NOT be in the genre (not thriller, maybe romance instead), and one an author you sound similar too (if you have one in mind otherwise your choice). Total of 18 pages.

Make copies of the pages or print them out as your are going to mark them up a lot.

Highlight or mark the sections where they are describing a building or room. Do the characters look around? How does the “camera” sweep the area?

For the dialog, how does the “camera” switch between characters? Are they named each time? Where are the dialog tags? Are they firm – “she said”, “he asked”? Or implied “she turned around while pacing.” “he put down the tea cup”? How is the scene description put into the dialog … does the scene description and character description all hit at the beginning of the scene and then does all the dialog happen? Or is the narrative scattered throughout? How is the dialog broken up? Is it always (dialog tag) then (dialog) or (dialog) then (dialog tag) or always (dialog) (dialog tag) (rest of dialog)? How often is the dialog tag/dialog format changed up? How many dialog exchanges are there before a narrative break? Are there sections with just dialog/quoted material with no narrative or dialog tags at all?

Write a short paragraph on what you learned, mark the date, and staple everything together to keep for a year as a reminder.

Editing Rant: Ping Pong

Erin Penn

Photo by Wan San Yip on Unsplash

Ping-Pong Dialog (cut and paste from an editing cover letter)

In many places of dialog, a “ping-pong” is happening where one person speaks then another, and each time the person’s name appears at the beginning with no variation of sentence structure. Often the concentration on the two speakers creates a “white box” effect, where nothing else is known about the room or body language or the speakers.

Pretend example

Ping snorted. “I really wish the ball would stay on your side of the table.”

Pong raised an eyebrow. “In your dreams.”

Ping slapped the ball back across the table. “I’m better than you, admit it,” he said.

Pong sighed and tapped a return. “Why would I do that?” she asked.

Ping dived but missed the return. “Because I’m right.” Shaking his head, he went to pick up the ball.

Better would be

Ping snorted, before saying. “I really wish the ball would stay on your side of the table.”

Pong raised an eyebrow, a smug smile crossing her visage. “In your dreams.”

“I’m better than you, admit it.” Ping slapped the ball back across the table.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because, I’m,” Pong’s gentle return had a backspin, making Ping dive too late. “…right.” He sighed, ending his failed trash-talk while watching the ball roll into the corner. Shaking his head, he went to pick up the ball.

More Editing Rant

If we can’t tell who is saying every line without the author telling us, something is wrong. We don’t need to know Ping then Pong spoke. Second, more variation of dialog is needed. Quoted speaking part can lead, or follow, or be split by the narrative. Having it all be Narrative then Speaking part is boring. Boring is death.

Don’t be boring. Or predictable. Or Ping-Pong.