 Action/Adventure: January 16, 2019 Issue [#9336] |
This week: Always Improving Edited by: Leger~  
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The purpose of this newsletter is to help the Writing.com author hone their craft and improve their skills. Along with that I would like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
This week's Action / Adventure Editor
Leger~ |
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Always Improving
I was working on a scene in my writing and felt some of my dialog really needed a pep talk, while searching around for advice, I came across an article - "10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Dialogue" by Ali Luke after advice from Lorna Fergusson. I thought the ten ways were great advice and wanted to pass them on to you in copied paraphrase, please read the article for more detail:
#1: Watch Your Dialogue Tags - Normally, the word "said" will do just fine.
#2: Ground Your Dialogue in a Scene - Every conversation that takes place needs to be somewhere.
#3: Use Dialect and Accents with Caution - If you have a Scottish character, they don't need to sound like a Burns poem. (I  'd.)
#4: Don't Let One Person Speak for Too Long - If your characters have long blocks of speech, break those up.
#5: Realistic Doesn't Mean Real - Dialogue is supposed to give an impression of real speech; it's not supposed to be a transcript of how we really talk.
#6: Give Your Characters Distinct Speech Patterns - One good trick is to take just the lines of dialogue in your short story or novel - cut out the action and dialogue tags - and see whether you can work out who said what.
#7: Don't Put Exposition in the Dialogue - Avoid having characters tell one another things that they logically should already know.
#8: Use Silence as Well as Words - Sometimes, what is not said is more powerful than what is said.
#9: Get in Late, Leave Early - You don't have to begin the conversation at the first word and end at the last.
#10: Punctuate Your Dialogue Correctly - You want your story or novel to be as professional as possible.
We all hear these things from time to time, it's great advice. It's up to you if you want to take the time and really dig into your work and edit it to a professional level. I think you always owe it to your readers to give them the best you can create. Whether you're just starting out or have many works published, giving your reader your best shows you care, and that's one more step toward connecting with them and have them as loyal readers. Write and edit on!
Please visit this article for the full reading: http://writetodone.com/10-easy-ways-to-improve-your-dialogue/
This month's question: What advice from above do you need to work on? What's your weakness?
How do you use that in your writing?
Answer below  Editors love feedback! 
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Excerpt: “Dog gone dog.” Harry Smedly wiped frost from his beard and blinked scattering snowflakes from his eyebrows. “And he is gone too.” It had been two hours of growing frantic effort without result. A tear stained wife and daughter no longer braved the storm.
Excerpt: It was never quiet here, but as the Queen observed her troops, the orange glow from the streetlamp overhead glinting off their inky black surface, she supposed this was as close as it would get.
Excerpt: “Well, aren’t these beautiful?” Shelly, my coworker said, moving the smooth petals between her fingers. “Someone’s lucky!”
“You mean someone’s getting lucky,” Tyler teased, reaching over her for the box of donuts.
I laughed, eyeing the bouquet carefully to make sure Shelly hadn’t messed anything up. “They’re for Natalie. It’s our tenth anniversary today.”
Excerpt: John Galloway, grinning from ear to ear, stepped into the waiting Land Rover and closed the door behind him. This was his first dig… in Egypt.
“I can’t believe that I’m actually here in Egypt!” he enthused, “I mean… really, I’m actually here. Egypt. Me. I love this.” He pumped his fist in the air and banged his knuckles on the roof of the vehicle. “Ow.”
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Excerpt: Even after twenty years working the streets, I’ve never gotten used to the musty stench of death. Images don’t bother me anymore, the memories of shotgun blast suicides and the bloated remains of hookers sometimes bob like garbage through the river of my dreams, but most nights I sleep without dreaming, the sleep of the just you might say. But the smells…the smells still get me. Even after fourteen years in homicide, I’ve never been able to eat after visiting a crime scene. So when my phone buzzed me awake at two a.m., I knew enough to grab a bite before rolling out the door.
Excerpt: You are so happy when you discover the rats. There is no way to explain the relief. You live by yourself now, and for the last five days you thought the very worst had happened. But, it's only rats!
“You can do this, Gerald,” Doctor M had said the day they let you go.
“Oh, yes!” you had said, nodding your head in total agreement.
Excerpt: “Well, Terence, I see you’re still wearing the coat.”
The brothers had somehow managed to score a corner table at Starbucks. Harold leaned forward, one hand around his soy latte, his legs crossed at the ankles.
Lounging against the window, one arm slung over the back of a chair, Terence fingered the fraying lapel of the tan coat in question. “I like it,” he shrugged. “It’s warm.”
Excerpt: The cudgel make its own dull wooden thud on the stone steps. A foul smelling creature made the footsteps. The two unfortunate humans down in the dank air of the basement knew the sound all too well. The one who had been there longer had tried to keep track of time. Being shackled most of the time, and having undergone sleep deprivation, he only had a decent guess. Droyn figured he had been there for fourteen annaks, and Mehenilda was approaching one.
Excerpt: Do you have big plans for yourself this year? Will you finally finish that story that's been haunting you for so long? Will you try your hand at a brand new genre? Do you want to read and review a certain number of items by April? Will you take that first step toward self-publishing your latest masterpiece? Set some goals and resolutions for the new year and you could win big prizes!
The task is simple: Write a letter to yourself and tell you what your goals are for 2019!
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This month's question: What advice from above do you need to work on? What's your weakness?
How do you use that in your writing?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: What do you want to write in 2019?
Quick-Quill  : Im not setting a writing goal for new work. I'm editing and getting two books published this first quarter and then pulling out an old paranormal MS from years ago and giving it a rework for possible publishing. Since I don't write in one genre, we'll see how that is received.
Prosperous Snow celebrating  : At this point, I have made three writing goals for 2019, one of them is general and two are specific. The general writing goal is (1) participate in "I Write in 2019" , which will give me room to include a birth in one or more of my contest entries. The specific goals are (1) participate in "Invalid Item" and (2) write 200 poems to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of The Bab. I will place the commemorative poems in "Bicentenary Poems and Prose" .
charitykountz: I have a number of writing projects planned for 2019. Just today I decided to do a 4 book nonfiction series about my journey as a mother of a paranoid schizophrenic child. The first book is already drafted and is a compilation of my blog posts for the last year. The next three books will focus on different resources and information you need to know about as a parent of a child with schizophrenia, or any mental illness. I'll be forming a trust and a nonprofit foundation in my daughter's honor from the proceeds of the book sales.
I'm also working on my first YA fantasy novella, How to Adopt a Dragon. After that, there's a thriller trilogy I need to finish. And of course the next book in my children's series. Plus short stories galore for contests, and probably a few nonfiction articles just for variety. If I do a poem or two that wouldn't be bad either.
preksha  : in the year 2019 ahead i would look forward to write for wdc contests with a competing spirit so that my passion for writing never fades away.
Thank you to everyone responding!
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