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[Janice & Mokey's Man]

ACK!

T** is worse! BLECHHHHH!!!

 

[HeraLirambar]

Originally posted by Janice & Mokey's Man
ACK!

T** is worse! BLECHHHHH!!!

I concur! I have this teatree shampoo I'm s'posed to use, but I cannot stand it!

*Feels as though she should post something relating to the original topic*

Uhm... dang. Too braindead right now, I've got nothing.

 

[Beauregard]

A note from the Authors Corner Host tonight.... I love tea.

Passing onto the next topic, can you handle dialogue?

_______________________________

Dialogue is sooo difficulte somtimes, and trying not to repeat to many he siad, she said, it saids is hard.

How do you guys cope with that?

 

[Manda:-D]

Oh, I know what you mean!!! I tend to rely a little too much on dialouge, so there's alot of "he said", "she said", (literally), in my stuff. I'm always trying to come up w/anything other than "said", but even "replied", or "answered" gets old after a while! (Which means of course, I have to cut out dialogue....Which is very upsetting, for me. I get a lil' too attatched when I write!)

 

[Don'tLiveonMoon]

Originally posted by Manda:-D
Oh, I know what you mean!!! I tend to rely a little too much on dialouge, so there's alot of "he said", "she said", (literally), in my stuff. I'm always trying to come up w/anything other than "said", but even "replied", or "answered" gets old after a while! (Which means of course, I have to cut out dialogue....Which is very upsetting, for me. I get a lil' too attatched when I write!)

Ever since grade school, I've been very mindful of trying to use anything and everything other than "said" when it comes to dialogue tags. I remember a handout we got in school one time: "Said Is Dead". It had about a hundred alternatives we could use. Well, then I got to college, and suddenly all of my professors said that using anything other than "said" is sloppy, unnecessary, excessive... bottom line, as one of my professors says: "It's just bad writing."
So now I can't figure out who was right, but I'm so set in my ways I'm having trouble changing, and "said" is looking awfully boring to me...
Erin

 

[HeraLirambar]

Whenever I write dialogue, I try to write the word said most of the time, but I'll throw in another word like exclaimed or whatever to make things a little different. (But only if exclaimed works in that case!) I don't leave said out completely, because it would look funky after a while.
"Hi!" Mark exclaimed.
"What's up?" questioned Alice.
"Not much" sighed Mark.
"Hey you two!" called Sam.
Hmm... do ya get what I'm saying?
Also, I like to put adverbs after some saids to spice them up a bit. Sometimes I may even leave leave any dialogue word out and just have them say stuff. Like in this one book I read called A Night in the Lonesome October. Characters would have conversations like:
"What day is it?"
"Tuesday."
"Does that mean I missed American Idol?"
"No, that's on Thursday."
"Oh, good."
Or whatever. Course, it works best with two characters. Anymore would be pwerty confoosing. And that's my two cents.

 

[EmmyMik]

I'm a writer too. Or at least I write for fun.

Usually, when I get an idea, I like to play around with it in my head before I write anything down. I like to work things out ahead of time (get the basic plot down, and think of things that would be important for the story). Then, I usually free write for a few minutes (this is usually a process of days. I am by no means a quick writer). Sometimes it's about the story, sometimes it isn't. It's fun, it gets me writing, and it gets my brain moving. Then I just start writing. I usually write everything out before I type it up. I like to "see" my story (of course if I'm writing a paper for class, then I go from thinking about it to typing it up the night before it's due. And I use my best friend, BS ).

It's been AGES since I have written a story using original characters (of course I don't have a whole lot of time to write, and when I do, it's various types of fan fiction). If I were to write a story using original characters, I'd like to get a whole history going. Think of their past, hopes, dreams, that kind of thing. Make them real. If there's one thing that I *really* don't like about some stories is how some characters aren't "real" (I can't picture them). I see this in some TV shows. The characters just don't seem "real", and I want to throw things at my tv.

And I don't like writing poetry. It's waaaaaaaaaaaaay too structured for my tastes (you heard me. Poetry. Structured).

Of course I'm no writing expert ("Spelling and Grammer Mistake" is my middle name), and I could care less about sentence structure or methods of writing (I took a creative writing class my junior year of high school). I just like being a creative individual...

 

[Super Scooter]

Originally posted by HeraLirambar
Characters would have conversations like:
"What day is it?"
"Tuesday."
"Does that mean I missed American Idol?"
"No, that's on Thursday."
"Oh, good."
Or whatever. Course, it works best with two characters. Anymore would be pwerty confoosing. And that's my two cents.

This type of conversation is used in alot of books. No said is used.

It can get confusing, but, it works. I was about to mention this, before I saw your post.

 

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

It does work, especially if there are only two characters talkin' in the scene. I'm doin' that muhself sometimes in muh novel.

 

[Beauregard]

Yeah, I do that too sometimes too. But I try to throw in a Jimmy said every 5-8 sentances so we stay on track or make the other character say the name of the other one, like "Jimmy, SHUT UP."

Too many He replied, shouted, screamed etc can get a bit bad so I think that we have to go for he said, she said. I notice in books it somtimes goes:

Jimmy sneezed. "Sorry about that."

Sarah picked her nose. "Oops."

Ha, ha,
Beauregard