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May. 8th, 2010 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaFor 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?
(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?
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Date: 2010-05-09 03:09 pm (UTC)---L.