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Dallas Wright wrote:Dirk B. wrote:Mistake #5 - Dialogue Tags: I get it. Using “he said” and “she said” is boring. However, dialogue tags are meant to be functional and not descriptive.
Gee, how about trying tags that are functional and descriptive? If your going to put a word on the page, making it serve more than one purpose seems like common sense.
Or how about the way those tags distract the user? When one of my admirals snapped at one of her subordinates, I didn't hear any feedback from distracted reviewers.
Sure, they can be overused, but having to read a fancy dialogue tag doesn't distract me in the least. Why should I write a sentence showing how my admiral is pissed off when I'm in the middle of a fast-moving battle and short choppy sentences are best suited for the scene?
Technically, I could have written "As you were, Ensign!" the admiral said, and let the exclamation mark serve in lieu of a snapping dialogue tag, but I find that I scan over punctuation marks since they're so small. I use said for regular conversation and other tags to give them added weight.
“Clever” dialogue tags are a crutch of beginning writers and those who haven’t developed their dialogue skills sufficiently. (Or those too lazy to bother.)
Once you learn how to write dialogue effectively, you need very few tags at all (context and action beats replace them), and most of the ones you do use can be “said” (without a clever -ly adjective weighing it down.) (That’s also the point where writers quit defending the use of silly tags.)
For example, in the above, there is a good chance that context would tell us it’s the admiral using that line. And the actions preceding it would likely indicate the tone (if not, then you have a bigger problem). So, the exclamation point and the tag are likely both unnecessary. If you think you need them, I suggest you challenge yourself to modify the scene where it’s obvious without them. That’s what writing is about, not finding clever dialogue tags.
Save your cleverness for great verbs and nouns and dialogue, not dialogue tags.
PS: Try reading The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, or download a sample. No quotation marks, almost no tags. (And no exclamation marks.) Yet he is still able to convey incredibly complex emotions. Now those are some serious dialogue chops.
I agree abou thte -ly adjectives weighing down your tags, but that's not what Dirk was talking about. He was talking about using a different verb- instead of "said" use "snapped". It gets so much across to the reader in one word. I personally hate the use of "said" for everything- I'm told they are not noticable, but I notice them and they do bore me. I'm with Dirk on this one, and I don't consider it lazy writing. In the effort to be concise, using your tags to do more tha identify the speaker is helpful.
I agree with you about cutting them whenever possible though, and using action instead of the tag.
That said, sticking closely to too many rules can stunt creativity. Sometimes its better to break them.
All three titles as well as cover treatments are works in progress. I’m not sold on any, except to keep the series Into the Fog. That’s where all the creepy action takes place.
I’ve been heartened by the sudden comma questions in forums, though, and don’t feel as inept as I used to feel.
I’m happy to be your writing buddy. Your comments make me laugh, and are always very helpful, hope mine are for you. I would say that if you don’t improve at least a little after each book, your missing something. And let’s beware the curse of fame and success, where one starts churning out formulaic work like Ludlum and King, or need to hire someone to write for us like Patterson. Though, I wouldn’t mind their payday.
Completed Randy's New World, CHapter 3
Congratulations! Three books on Amazon!
Toot! Toot! 
Comnpleted Jubes CH-33-35.
Completed NJC's Chapters 27-31.
jack the knife wrote:j p lundstrom wrote:Wow, Marilyn--you do pack a punch!
I was just thinking, and I wondered: is an ellipsis one set of three dots, or would three dots, being plural, be ellipses? JP
One set of three dots is an ellipsis. More than one ellipsis are ellipses.
Not sure what Marilyn meant by an ellipsis symbol (other than dots). I tried looking it up and got nowhere. And to my mind, using a symbol of some sort instead would confuse most readers, so why bother?
Some keyboards these days have the elipse as a single key- that may be the "symbol".
I think it is fine to name minor characters. Doesn’t matter if they come up again. If you don’t give them a name, you’ll have to describe them, which gives them more of your attention than just naming them.
I had a professor put on one of my short stories that it would make a great novel- He was wrong, its now the series I'm currently workshopping right here. Short story= 4 novels. I though it was encouraging to day that my little story was packed with so much potential.
I need a medivac, is Sister Bertrille available?
The wolf and the raven sounds like an English pub.
I totally agree. The point was to repeat "something to do with shadows and/or fog in every title. It needs to be short and punchy- I'm just not there yet. I think Shadows and Fog was a Woody Allen movie.
I’m not final on any of the titles. The glue between them is fog and shadows, but trying to work out a cohesive series title.
Welcome to the trenches!
You will get encouragement and support here. And as Mark says, some harsh criticism as well as great suggestions to improve your work. For me, reviewing others was a tremendous help, seeing what works and what doesn't is easier when you're not so close to it. It's interesting how you notice mistakes in other work you make yourself and don't notice.
Good luck
Marilyn Johnson wrote:Kdot wrote:This clever horse has gotten into one of the character's packs and devoured the humans' dinner. I just need to finesse what's left of it when they catch the rascal. I figure, based on what you say, we'd see a pile of cobs lying around and horse working on the last few ears.
Then I'd say your assumption of the corn cobs would be accurate. About the only thing a horse won't eat is meat of any kind. They love apples, watermelon, cantaloupe, pickles, bread, cookies, candy (except chocolate). Some of them will drink beer, sodas, eat ice. So I think you have a wide range of silliness to choose from for that horse. And most of them love peanut butter, but it gets stuck in the roof of their mouth and they are really comical trying to get it out.
I heard that's how they go Mr. Ed to talk.
Completed Suin's 28-29. Being 15.
I also spend an hour plus per chapter review. I normally pull the text off and paste into Pages so I can more easily "comment" as well as look at past chapters to make sure the new one fits or look up things I've forgotten. I keep them in "Evernote" so I can go from one computer to the next - to ipad if necessary.
Most of my reviewing happens on my lunch hour, so it takes me a couple of days- unless I have to work my lunch hour- which is why I'm so slow.
The idea of "bots" worries me, I don't think a computer would be able to look at the soul of writing the way a human can. You can't program personal experiences.
The thought of drones worries and irritates me. We've slowly ceded our privacy over the years. I'm irritated that drones can circle your house and spy in your windows. That airspace doesn't belong to you even if it's directly over you hot tub.
Just my point of view, But. Reading good reviews makes you a better reviewer as well as writer. If all the good reviewers only review the good writers (for paid points of for whatever reason), how would anyone improve- let alone the amateur writers like myself. There are definite clicks on this sight and many of the published writers only review each other's work. Contrastly, there are many writers that can benefit from a indepth review that are not getting it, because they don't know how to write a review. My first reviews sucked- not knowing how much to say, what to say- what constituted a helpful critique without impacting voice. Not wanting to offend anyone. After getting a few good reviews from others, I was able to figure it out. I also decided to review like a reader and not a writer. My formal literary arts training was a long time ago, so much of the technical writing stuff gets by me. As does commas, damnit. My comments as a reader go farther than my slogging through as an accomplished author that I'm not.
To Jubes and Suin's point, cheating on your reviews, will only cheat yourself in the end. So, maybe the system is not so bad, really. If I had to compete for reviews by paying points, I'd never get my mammoth novels through the system. I like the practice of review for a review, points or no.
Hey Al,
You mentioned that scientist (that you've known) may not be the "romantic type" and that may be true for Tony. If that's so, embrace it- but by all means, make Beth the totoal opposite to play it up. Make her go out of her way to be romantic, or complain that he isn't enough. The contrast would add more drama and depth to both characters. It may even explain why you need her in the book at all. He's a nice guy, loves her, but not sure how to show it. She's struggling trying to teach him what she needs. I see potential there.
Good suggestion. I didn't have the leaker being an agent there, he's way high up on the foodchain. But I could make it the driver of the limo. I've decided to cut the airplain lumbering scene and start with Davis in the limo with the driver waiting for Moss to disembark. A little dialogue and I can expand the driver's part and make him the leak at the end- great idea NJC.
Try accessing it through the "InLine Review Replies".
Completed revew of Alkemi's souring seas, ch 28-30
njc wrote:I don't agree with covercritics.com all the time, but the guy makes good points.
OMG! Thanks for the link, this is validating! I agree with 99% of what they said. And some of those covers- sorry, not even worth 5 dollars. Harsh, sure. But I am a professional. You get what you are willing to pay for- and mostly you get less. Keep that in mind when shopping for cover-art and design.
Jube wrote:*sigh* My expectations toward the general populace on this site has been lowered in the light of reality. I went ahead and released for points my seven completed chapters of Rise of Kulan (I write it to take a break once and a while from my other main novel). Low and behold! The number of reads is greatest for the most eye-catching title that included words: fairies and monkey.
Okay, so I wasn't completely convinced members on this site zero in on mostly the title of a chapter. I then looked at my read counts on my main novel and the only chapter that has "dwarves" in the title got the most reads by far outside of the first chapter.
So it is the name after all! Want the most views for your chapter? Just give it a flashy name. I guess this is where someone will tell me, "It's the same with book covers. The saying 'never judge a book by its cover' is now completely backwards in truth."
Makes me want to write a crappy chapter and name it - Elves war against Dwarves to get a ton of views and prove the point.
When my World of Phyries is finally finished and seen on Amazon, I take it then that leaving my $5.00 current book cover is like smashing my foot with a rock from my own hands? And yes, in the final completion the book title will be changed from the placeholder World of Phyries to something more streamlined.
Yes! Book covers are very important. They sell your book over all the others, especially in this digital age where a person can't physically pick up a book and examine it. I've see so many (from this site) that publish on Amazon with unprofessional covers. Many, the type is too small or illegible. That seems to be the biggest issue. IF you look at professionally designed covers, you'll see (if it is a well known author) the author's name prominent and the name of the book. The graphics are bold and easy to see on a postage stamp. (EX: Jurasic Park). Being a Graphic Designer, I know the hours one spends to create compelling graphics- I went to 4 years of college for this- to see websites spit out crappy designs for 5 dollars is insulting. Your cover is what sells your book- it attracks readers to go one step further and read your synopses.
And sure, my covers on this site are not final. They where thrown together for this website only. In the end, they will look like a series. I currently don't have a clue what they'll end up looking like, but I garantee you'll be able to tell what it is at the size of a postage stamp.
Just my two cents.
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