coraa | (no subject)

For a long time, I believed that I just wasn't good at dialogue. The fine line between dialogue that sounds fake and dialogue that sounds too real (if you, um, ah, kno—um, know what I m-mean?) was hard for me to navigate. And my characters veered sharply between talking in witty but totally not-in-character soundbites, and being very boring.

(Incidentally, this really gave me an appreciation for the temptation of adding a Marcus Cole or a Wash to your cast: someone who you can give all those witty soundbites to without it being out of character!)

Then I came up with a book idea (the Pigeon Book) that was, by its nature, absolutely full of dialogue in a way that I couldn't avoid. And while I'm still not great at it, I'd say I'm getting better just from sheer practice. Or at least I have a better idea where to start from.

Only this makes me be afraid that my next book idea will tackle my other major weak spot: plot. (With the Pigeon Book, I'm mostly jigsawing together Cool Bits and hoping it works.) If my next book idea is an intricate political plot or something, I will... probably have it coming, actually.

What about y'all? Have you had a similar experience, where circumstances forced you to shore up a weak spot in something you love to do, whether you wanted to or not?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Plotting is one of my major weaknesses. I've usually just followed an emotional throughline and not bothered with anything else. But recently I've been working on a story that's longer than normal for me, so it has both a large emotional arc and three mini mystery arcs.

It's challenging.

I've also been trying to write more scenes with more than three characters exchanging dialogue! Balancing four or five character voices while keeping them distinct and getting the pacing right is something I've always struggled with.

Glad to hear that you're working on a project you love that's challenging you!

That sounds a lot like me: I think I'm pretty good at stories that make good emotional sense, so I lean heavily on the character plot and hope that's sufficient to be satisfying to the reader.

Four or five voices is hard. What I've gotten practice with is scenes with two or three primary speakers, so that still sounds intimidating!

A large emotional arc and smaller mystery arcs sounds really nifty to me. I've always loved stories that center on character.

Oh the list could be so long, but I will say only: writing third person limited. I vastly prefer to write in omniscient of varying degree, but it is not always the right tool for the job. Having to use it has made me better at it, even though I don't enjoy it.

The key thing with dialogue is to listen carefully to how different people speak. Then when I'm writing I use shortcuts like "Is the character more like X or like Y?" and write them accordingly. Handling a number of people in the same conversation means having a very, very clear idea of the personality of each, which can take a lot of preparatory work (and a lot of juggling tags)

I am so glad Pigeon Book is coalescing!

Writing "The Myrmidons" forced me to learn how to rhyme, not just competently but effectively.

---L.

I learned to write dialogue by writing plays. When you hear actors speaking your lines, it's instantly obvious if they're clunky or unsayable. I still often speak dialogue to myself to hear if it sounds right.

I hear you on the "clever but out-of-character" dialogue. It's fun to write like that as an exercise, but I find most of it had to go in the interest of not sounding like a sitcom.

I don't know that I've really shored up my biggest weakness, which is plotting, but since I writer murder mysteries I'm working on that weak spot all the darned time!