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So whenever I've run into a problem about what to write next I almost always default to dialogue. Having people talk comes easily. Not so much so the inflection of the speaker. Sometimes I have to go back and prune the dialogue here and there to stay more in character but I do try to make each character at least a little different with word choice. For example is how Janet and Carl differ when referring to Janet's co-worker Steven Dorsett. Janet always calls him Steven while Carl discards the n and calls him Steve. The former is more formal then the latter and demonstrates that Janet keeps her co-workers at a professional distance whereas Carl is more casual. As a narrator I try to always call him Steven just to be neutral.
I also have a main character whose name almost always appears in quotation marks. There is a reason for that (besides the fact that the character in question is a prick). I might get to it before hitting the 50k mark. There are times when I'll write that name down outside of dialogue and forget whether I should put it in quotation marks or not. As a neutral narrator I should and I do try to catch myself when re-reading the story. It is his proper name as far as he's concerned. This does make putting his name with a possessive more interesting. The apostrophe tends to get lost sitting next to the closing quotation mark.
Right now I'm on plot point 9 out of a list of 47 with two large subsections that have their own plotpoint lists. I guess I'm just really slow at moving the plot along. Oh well, I hope the ride is at least enjoyable. It may not be particularly funny right now despite the fact that I have it listed at NaNo as comedy but I actively work while writing to not let it become too oppressive. This will be the focus of tomorrow's post.
Of Say, Said, and other synonyms
I have a personal war I've been waging for the last decade against the word 'say.' I hate to see writers just continually put down "Dialogue here," character said. That smacks of laziness in my mind. So I've made it a personal goal to never do that. Ever. The word say and all it's conjugations will only appear within dialogue as spoken by one of the characters, ex: "Soandso said that ..."
So why do I despise this one word so much? Frankly because it's boring. There are so many different synoyms that do the exact same thing while also informing the reader about the emotional state of the speaker.
So whenever I've run into a problem about what to write next I almost always default to dialogue. Having people talk comes easily. Not so much so the inflection of the speaker. Sometimes I have to go back and prune the dialogue here and there to stay more in character but I do try to make each character at least a little different with word choice. For example is how Janet and Carl differ when referring to Janet's co-worker Steven Dorsett. Janet always calls him Steven while Carl discards the n and calls him Steve. The former is more formal then the latter and demonstrates that Janet keeps her co-workers at a professional distance whereas Carl is more casual. As a narrator I try to always call him Steven just to be neutral.
I also have a main character whose name almost always appears in quotation marks. There is a reason for that (besides the fact that the character in question is a prick). I might get to it before hitting the 50k mark. There are times when I'll write that name down outside of dialogue and forget whether I should put it in quotation marks or not. As a neutral narrator I should and I do try to catch myself when re-reading the story. It is his proper name as far as he's concerned. This does make putting his name with a possessive more interesting. The apostrophe tends to get lost sitting next to the closing quotation mark.
Right now I'm on plot point 9 out of a list of 47 with two large subsections that have their own plotpoint lists. I guess I'm just really slow at moving the plot along. Oh well, I hope the ride is at least enjoyable. It may not be particularly funny right now despite the fact that I have it listed at NaNo as comedy but I actively work while writing to not let it become too oppressive. This will be the focus of tomorrow's post.
Of Say, Said, and other synonyms
I have a personal war I've been waging for the last decade against the word 'say.' I hate to see writers just continually put down "Dialogue here," character said. That smacks of laziness in my mind. So I've made it a personal goal to never do that. Ever. The word say and all it's conjugations will only appear within dialogue as spoken by one of the characters, ex: "Soandso said that ..."
So why do I despise this one word so much? Frankly because it's boring. There are so many different synoyms that do the exact same thing while also informing the reader about the emotional state of the speaker.
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