Do or Dialect: 6 Tips for Building a Believable Voice
By Rob D. Young
Six tips on creating a sense of a character's voice and dialect without resorting to painful phonetic representations.
Talk It Out: How To Punctuate Dialogue In Your Prose
Quotations marks, italics, em dashes, or none of the above: these are a few different ways to punctuate dialogue in your prose.
10 Reasons Your Screenplay Sucks (and how to fix it)
What makes a reader hate a screenplay on sight? Here are 10 pet peeves - and fixes.
The Secret Lives Of Little Words
In:
Craft, Dialogue, Discourse Analysis, Grammar, Grammar, Linguistics, List, Phrases, Sociolinguistics, Verbs, Voice, Word Play
What's that word doing there? When it comes to spoken language, nothing is accidental. Linguists are working on finding meaning in every 'oh,' 'um,' 'well,' and 'okay.' The results might surprise you.
Storyville: Narrative Hooks
In:
Character, Craft, Dialogue, Literary Devices, Narrative Hooks, Plot, POV, Setting, Storyville, Structure
Writing a great narrative hook isn't easy, but it's one way to grab your audience and never let them go.
Storyville: Writing About Sex
How do you write a good sex scene? By utilizing the right language, all five senses, and empathetic characters, you can seduce the reader into living the moment.
The Benefits of Free Indirect Discourse
Writers who find themselves wrestling with point-of-view problems may want to consider a technique that combines the best of two narrative modes.
Ten Authors Who Write Great Dialogue
In:
David Foster Wallace, Dialogue, Elmore Leonard, jeffrey eugenides, Judy Blume, List, Toni Morrison, Top 10
A list of some of the best conversation-creating writers out there.
As I Lay Mostly Dying
The baddest of the prose villains, that one word that, when mis-used, can single-handedly wreck an entire page of fiction for me, if not the whole piece: As.
Writing Effective Dialogue
Writing authentic, compelling and engaging dialogue is one of the most vital yet misunderstood challenges of the writing process.
Merits of Other Mediums: Going Beyond Books to Improve Your Craft
Many authors will tell you that reading and writing is the key to improving your work and getting published. In this column we examine the merits of three mediums OTHER than books.
On Dialogue Tags: Why Anything Besides 'Said' And 'Asked' Is Lazy Writing
By Rob W. Hart
Expressive dialogue tags are the mark of lazy writing, because they break one of the cardinal rules--they tell instead of show. This is why 'said' and 'asked' are all you ever need.
When To Show, When To Tell
Maintaining action is paramount in fiction, but sooner or later we’ll need to deliver expository details for our stories to make sense. So, how do writers engage while providing character depth?
Nuts and Bolts -- Punctuating with Gesture and Attribution
In:
Dialogue
Smart actors use the stage business of peeling an apple or lighting a cigarette to create a layer of interest that dialogue alone can never convey. Learn to punctuate your dialogue with gesture and attribution to propel interest and achieve better pacing.
Discon nected Dialogue: Part One
In:
Dialogue
The temptation for new writers to answer every question raised in a fictional dialogue with a perfect, clever, instant response is very strong. Chuck demonstrates how this flattens the energy of a scene and what to do instead.
Body Language: Part One
In:
Dialogue
Leave it to Chuck to make an assignment of watching movies with the sound turned off... and have this make perfect sense. This essay explores gesture and movement as an important counterbalance to your dialogue.
