Over the years of writing stage plays and film scripts, as well as playing on stage, I have learned quite a bit about writing dialogue, and "these are a few of my favorite things": Don't include all the "polite speak" - Thank you, You're welcome   Don't tell an actor how to speak - politely, angrily, sarcastically  Pay attention to the rhythm of the words  - make sure the line can be easily delivered Use dialogue to propel the story - each line needs to have a purpose When I start editing for a client, I can usually tell if this is a first book by the sometimes clunky dialogue, including all the "polite speak" as well as repeating names: "Hi, Tom, this is Scott." "Hello, Scott. How are you?" "I'm fine, Tom, how about you." Those are extreme examples, but I have actually seen dialogue close to that, and that does nothing to move the story along or reveal character, or do more than simply take up ...

Good writers compose sentences. Great writers craft language. One thing you will find plenty of on this blog is advice on how to edit your manuscript. Tight editing can make all the difference. It is important if you decide to submit to agents and editors. It is essential if you decide to go the independent route. Here are a few of my favorite posts on revision. Self-Editing One Step at a Time: How to Identify Dragging Narrative Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Fine-Tuning Sentence Structure Top Ten Things I Know About Editing Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Analyzing Sentences for Redundancy and Wordiness Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Cleaning Up Those Dialogue Tags I created Story Building Blocks III: The Revision Layers to collate all of the advice I had collected on how to revise my own work. This book will not turn you into a professional editor. It will, however, help you present the cleanest and tightest manuscript to your agent or editor. If you self-pub...

One of the hardest things to do, in writing as in life, is to not judge. In writing, every time you express your opinion or judgment, you are robbing your reader of theirs. Think about it. If you are describing climbing Mount Everest, you could accurately describe it as difficult, challenging, painful, or exciting. But these are all your judgments. If you want your reader to truly understand how it is to climb Mount Everest, he or she must have an experience. They must feel the ice forming on their eyelashes and hear the crunch of frozen snow under their boots. Then they can form their own opinion that it is difficult, challenging, painful, or exciting. Here’s a simple exercise in “Show Not Tell” that practices getting rid of judgment words and replacing them with experiential details. Describe a room in your house, perhaps the room you are sitting in now. Describe everything and anything in it – without using any adjectives or adverbs that imply opinion (such as pretty, or dirty...

Honestly, you'd think I'd get over this obsession about adverbs, but I just can't help myself, especially when I keep seeing their misuse over and over in books. Like many beginning writers, I used adverbs liberally when first starting out. I thought they were needed to tell the reader how someone was speaking or how they were acting. Then the light bulb went off. "Geesh, Maryann, it's about showing, not telling." About the same time, I was taking a screenwriting class and learned that it was a huge no-no to use an adverb to indicate how a line was to be spoken. For instance: MIKE (loudly) Get the hell out of my room. My creative writing instructor told the class that it's not the writer's place to tell the actor how to speak - that's the director's job. And we can help the actor and director by writing a line of dialogue that conveys the urgency. The words should indicate how the line should be delivered. Once I got that through my thick skull...

Here at the Blood Red Pencil we have discussed the use of adverbs already, but this is a subject well worth another reminder. First let me say emphatically that ADVERBS WEAKEN WRITING. Case in point is my use of an adverb here. My statement was very emphatic and I didn't need to point that out with the adverb. Any time we do that when it is not necessary is an insult to the reader. It's like were telling him or her that they aren't smart enough to figure out the subtle nuances of behavior or dialogue without a not so subtle hint. For example, consider these few lines of dialogue from book I recently received to review: "Hi Jesse," Evie waved back excitedly. --- How does one wave excitedly? Wouldn't it be better to show the excitement? "My dad has to go," Jesse said sharply. --- This was in response to another character inviting Evie to visit later and meet Jesse's father. The terseness of Jesse's comment has the sharp edge and doesn't n...