Saturday, August 15, 2009

Dialogue Tags

My lastest round of edits is all about dialogue tags. I am working on breaking my addiciton to them. In one scene, there were about 15 pieces of dialogue together. There were only two characters, so it wouldn't have been difficult for the reader to keep track. Yet, I tagged every single piece of dialogue!

Now, not every tag was an official tag. In many cases, the dialogue stood alone, but I'd felt compelled to add an explanatory sentence before or after. Ex., Nick shrugged and turned away.

Thankfully, one of my crit partners noticed my addiction. I eliminated a ton in this last edit round. The dialogue and scenes flow much more smoothly now. Of course, the pace is better too.

Don't you just love it when a simple change makes your writing stronger?

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