However, dialogue tags are meant to be functional and not descriptive. Using "he said" and "she said" is boring. Mistake #5: Getting Too Creative With Your Dialogue Tags You can skip the small talk, scrub away the filler and get right to the core of the conversation. Going back to showing, not telling, there are many ways you can describe hesitation or emotion without inserting crutch words in your dialogue.Īlso, remember that your dialogue shouldn't sound too real. For example, words like um, uh, ugh and ack don't belong in written dialogue. However, there are some parts of human speech that don't belong in dialogue. When reading your dialogue, the reader should be convinced that the characters actually sound like this when they talk.
#RULE 1 TO AVOID BAD STORYWRITING SERIES#
Whether you're writing a period piece or a young adult series set 10 years in the past, remember to use specific language that's accurate for that time period. On the other end of the pendulum, some writers have a tendency to modernize historical dialogue, ignoring the era-specific ornate language for a plain, stripped down, bastardized version. This often leads to cringe-worthy interactions where thees and thous are used incorrectly.
Many writers have the tendency to write dialogue like they think it should sound. This is a biggie, especially if you're writing a novel that takes place in a different country or time period. Mistake #3: Not Understanding How People Talk In fact, instead of using words, you can describe the other character's physical response. When writing dialogue, be sure to set the scene and describe what the characters are doing as they're talking. If you simply write, "I'm sad," without describing the character's downcast eyes as his voice drifts into the wind, then the reader can't truly digest the moment. The reader needs to know how something is said, what the character was doing when he or she said it and any other non-verbal cues that can reveal context. However, if you're relying on dialogue alone to convey the sentiment, you're cheating your reader out of a rich experience. In fact, scientists suggest that over 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. All of these things can be picked up in face-to-face conversations. You have the added responsibility of conveying tone, mood, and body language. For example, one character can say in his dialogue, "I'm sad." However accurate it may be, it's not descriptive.Įven though in the real world, someone may say "I'm sad," it's not the same when written. It's really, really easy to use dialogue to tell something about a character. If writers had a motto, it would be "Show, don't tell." Instead of setting up this predicament for your character and the reader, why not reveal things a little bit at a time? Keep your dialogue focused on one topic at a time to make the next step obvious for your character. If the characters discuss too much at one time, then what action will they take, and why should they take that action over another? For example, if the character learns that Johnny cheated and Mary Beth killed the cat, what's the next step? Should she confront Johnny or wait for Mary Beth? Not only that, information dumps also disrupt the pacing of your story. But if you give too much information in one scene (known affectionately as an information dump), you'll confuse and overwhelm the reader. The principal purpose of any dialogue scene should be to move your story forward. One of the most egregious mistakes you can make in dialogue is to cover too much ground. Scarcely and hardly are already negative adverbs.Mistake #1: Trying to Cover Too Much Territory
When not used in this health-related sense, however, well functions as an adverb for example, "I did well on my exam." When well is used as an adjective, it means "not sick" or "in good health." For this specific sense of well, it's OK to say you feel well or are well - for example, after recovering from an illness. (Refer to rule #3 above for more information about sense verbs and verbs of appearance.)Ĭonfusion can occur because well can function either as an adverb or an adjective. Remember, though, that an adjective follows sense-verbs and be-verbs, so you also feel good, look good, smell good, are good, have been good, etc. Good is an adjective, so you do not do good or live good, but you do well and live well. It would mean that you are unable to feel, as though your hands were partially numb. So you'd say, "I feel bad." Saying you feel badly would be like saying you play football badly. When you want to describe how you feel, you should use an adjective (Why? Feel is a sense verb see rule #3 above). Using the adjective careful here would not make sense, because it would mean that the dog gives off an odor of carefulness. Here carefully is an adverb that modifies the verb smells.
Writing Letters of Recommendation for Students.
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