It is a rite of passage for all writers, that stage of writing where a character can’t say anything unless they say it vehemently, boisterously, or hesitantly. Some writers never break out of this habit, and they are the ones who put up web pages titled “500 alternatives for the word ‘said’”. They think ‘said’ is boring, worn out from overuse, and that writers should spice up their writing with some exciting news ways of speaking. Why say something when you can exclaim it? Or voice it?
Well, as it turns out, there are good reasons why characters shouldn’t voice or exclaim things. First of all, adverbs and active tags make dialogue much harder to read, because the reader has to spend more time trying to understand how the writer wants their dialogue to be heard, than on what the characters are actually saying. Read more…
I know quite a few writers who hate dialogue so much that they try to avoid using it wherever they can. However, it’s not really something worth being afraid of, because it’s something we do every day. Well, that’s a bit of a lie. What we do every day is talk to each other. We don’t usually dialogue with one another. Is there a difference? Yes, but not as much of one as you may think.
First, why use dialogue in the first place? Mostly, it’s because a story where no one talks to anyone else is not a very fun story to read. Second, it’s because stories like that aren’t true to life. Humans are social creatures, so we expect our characters to be social as well. The question is how to make them social without making your characters sound like a sociopath. Here are two general things to think about when writing dialogue. Read more…
Having already discussed sequels, I want to talk a little about their counterparts, scenes. The simple definition of a scene is the part of the story where the “action” of the story takes place. That said, this doesn’t really tell us much. In particular, we need to know what kind of action actually makes a scene a scene. Sequels can contain action, just like scenes can, but they have other defining qualities that set them apart. The question is whether there is a similar way to distinguish scenes from the rest of a story. If anything, I would argue that scenes, considered broadly, contain a particular kind of action, where characters pursue the goals they established in the previous sequel.
Scenes themselves are not really subject to many problems, but they are often greatly affected by other aspects of a story, such as pacing and motivation. The only severe problem has to do with the essence of a scene, the goals of characters. One of two things can go wrong with a goal. First, the writer can fail to actually give their characters goals to pursue. This sounds really basic, I know, but every writer falls victim to this occasionally, including myself. I also think that this is often the cause of writer’s block. When a writer feels blocked by a story, it is usually because they don’t know what their characters should do next. The only way to solve this problem is to get to know your characters better so you understand what is at stake for them in the story. Read more…
