(no subject)

[coraa]

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?

Comments

[yhlee]

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.