I haven't gone back to writing my dark fantasy short story yet. I've been editing one of my novels this week. I found a few tips from an agent's blog. They have helped a lot in making my dialogue feel more natural. It's amazing how the little things that you think are helping your reader aren't. I'm guilty of having characters use each other's names too often in conversation. I thought I was helping the reader by letting them know who was being addressed, but in real life, we don't often use each other's names in conversation except to get the other person's attention or to be snarky. Pet names we use more frequently, but they're meant to endear. It's demeaning to use a person's name repeatedly while talking. You're treating them like a child. It's common sense now that I think about it.
I was happy to receive an email from Colette at A Buckeye Girl Reads today telling me that I won a giveaway. Yay! I won a copy of Misty Evans' book Witches Anonymous. I can't wait to read it.
To all of you who are going to see the new Harry Potter film this weekend, please know that I'm jealous. I might get a chance to see it next Friday if we can find a babysitter, but I'm sad that I won't be able to go during the big release weekend. Enjoy the movie!
Dialogue can be tricky. It's always good to learn something new. I've procrastinated with web stuff this week ... rolling my eyes at myself.
ReplyDeleteI probably won't see the movie until it comes out on dvd. Looking forward to it.
Sorry, I just got back from seeing Harry Potter- it rocked! Best of the eight movies.
ReplyDeleteRead your dialogue out loud - that will really help. And I always approve of snark.
I never thought about that element of dialogue before, but it's true, people do tend to use names a lot when they're trying to be demeaning.
ReplyDeleteI probably won't see the movie until the library gets the DVD. Which will be a while from now. :P