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    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2010
     

    My favourite tip:

    1. Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one

  1.  

    3. Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

    That gives me hope, because I really, really don’t hink that anything I write is good. That was helpful.

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2010
     

    1 Write.

    -Neil Gaiman

    This is wonderful, Jeni. :D

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      CommentAuthorVirgil
    • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2010
     

    Great link.

    Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

  2.  

    Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

    Even typos? lol

  3.  

    LOL at Philip Pullman.

    Great article, Jeni!

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      CommentAuthorJabrosky
    • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2010
     

    Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But “said” is far less intrusive than “grumbled”, “gasped”, “cautioned”, “lied”. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated” and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.

    I don’t 100% agree with this. Sure, you shouldn’t avoid “said” like the plague, like some writers do, but I think using “said” over and over again gets pretty boring.

  4.  

    It’s not supposed to be exciting, brandon. It’s just a word that indicates speech. Nobody is supposed to notice it.

  5.  

    Basically, what they’re saying is that you shouldn’t notice the dialogue tag (is that the right term for it) but the actual dialogue to get the emotions. I do use words like ‘mumble’ or ‘mutter’ occasionally because you can’t always get that straight from the dialogue itself.

  6.  

    The whole deal on dialog is probably one of those things writers are going to be fighting over this generation.

  7.  

    “Said” only seems boring to the writer as they write it. To the reader, it’s invisible. Said bookisms are only necessary for things you can’t convey through the written dialogue itself, volume and pace and such.

    I remember a short story a girl wrote in a CW class I took which didn’t feature a plain “said” a single time in ~10 pages. Everybody rasped, inquired, chortled, thundered, and all other sorts of nonsense. The absurd thing was that her dialogue was actually really, really good and the distracting tags were incredibly unnecessary. It was like a healthy sprinter trying to run the 100 using crutches.

    Also, the linked article is good.

  8.  

    I remember a short story a girl wrote in a CW class I took which didn’t feature a plain “said” a single time in ~10 pages. Everybody rasped, inquired, chortled, thundered, and all other sorts of nonsense. The absurd thing was that her dialogue was actually really, really good and the distracting tags were incredibly unnecessary. It was like a healthy sprinter trying to run the 100 using crutches.

    I’m having a major deja vu moment here.

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2010
     

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2010
     

  9.  

    I remember a short story a girl wrote in a CW class I took which didn’t feature a plain “said” a single time in ~10 pages. Everybody rasped, inquired, chortled, thundered, and all other sorts of nonsense. The absurd thing was that her dialogue was actually really, really good and the distracting tags were incredibly unnecessary. It was like a healthy sprinter trying to run the 100 using crutches.

    I hate it when published authors do that.

  10.  

    I used to think that was the “proper” way to go about writing dialogue, along with a healthy fatal dose of tags.

    “I refuse,” he stated dramatically. cringe

    Funny, I was reading this article but I can’t remember who linked me, and I just found this thread. Edit: I got the link from Cleolinda.

  11.  

    5 Keep your exclamation points under control.

    I love this one. I hate it when authors use too many exclamation points. It makes it sound the characters are constantly shouting and excited.

    And it makes me think of this:

  12.  

    There’s a difference between using exclamation points in dialog versus narrative. Using them in narrative is generally a no, unless maybe you’re in first person, but even then, they should be used sparingly. Dialog is more subjective. Tolkien actually uses a lot of them in LotR for dialog, I have discovered, but they don’t seem annoying the way he uses them.

  13.  

    That’s because Tolkien is awesome, obviously :)

    •  
      CommentAuthorVirgil
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2010
     

    The key thing is once you know the rules, only then are you allowed to break them.

  14.  

    Using them in narrative is generally a no

    Yes, I hate that. The author sounds overly excited when they do that.