Dialog tags are those bits of information outside the quotation marks that tell who is speaking. Sometimes called speaker attribution, they help keep straight who is speaking. The problem is they can also unnecessarily weigh down your dialog. Changing Styles What do exclaimed, replied, pondered, whispered, and chuckled have in common? They are all used to identify the speaker. Beginning writers may think they are clever to pepper these synonyms for said throughout their work. But these are not invisible words absorbed by the dialog, they stick out like a blinking neon sign saying, “Look at me, look at me.” A generation ago characters replied, exclaimed, and chuckled their way…
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Narration and Dialog Keep Your Story Moving
Fiction writing comes in two stripes: narration and dialog. They both move the story along. Narration does it in large strokes. Dialog gets into detail at the character level. Narration Narration allows the writer to relay information that is important to the story in a paragraph or two. It sets the scene, describes a particular place or a specific time period. Or perhaps it condenses the important events leading to the character’s current situation. In a novel, writers use narration to summarize earlier scenes to remind the reader how they got to that point. In each case, narration is a kind of shortcut to give the reader information or description…
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Idioms
What do I’m all ears, step on it, and cool as a cucumber have in common? They are all idioms. What is an Idiom? Idioms are expressions whose meaning comes from a concept, not the actual words. Often, they make no sense at all. For instance, the idiom “I’m all ears” means you have my full attention, not that I have grown extra ears all over my body! An idiom is an expression understood by native speakers that can seem complete nonsense to nonnative speakers. Let me give you an example. If you and I are on our way to the store and I want you to hurry, I may…
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Vocabulary, Building Blocks for Writers
Vocabulary is a fancy term for the words you use. Since words are the writer’s building blocks it makes sense to build a large vocabulary. So how do you do it? Building Vocabulary Vocabulary can be specific to a profession, art form, or region. For instance, to a student, the word site will probably refer to a website, but to a biologist or archaeologist it will refer to a location. Medium to an artist is the material they use to make their art, but it can also be a psychic leading a seance, a size, or the way information is transmitted. And then of course, different regions have their own…
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Quotation Marks
Whether you’re writing fiction, a letter to the editor, or a heavily researched report, it is important to know how and when to use quotation marks. Dialog In fiction, quotation marks are used exclusively for dialog. That is to say, they surround a character’s spoken words. For example: I shove the photo in Evan’s face. “Who is she?” I demand. “Alex,” he says, his face a giant question mark. And you slipped this into my locker because. . . ?” he actually squirms under my glare “You said you wanted pictures.” In this example the character’s spoken words begin and end with quotation marks. Anything outside of the quotation marks…
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All Dogs Bark
Four dogs loped toward us. I walked along a country road with Dusty, my Husky Lab mix. Public lands spread out to the left, the back side of a rural neighborhood to the right. The four dogs looked friendly enough. I led Dusty down to the wire fence for a sociable sniff. The middle-sized dog suddenly lunged at the fence, finding an opening almost big enough to penetrate while barking fiercely. We backed up and continued along the road which paralleled the dogs’ enclosure. All four dogs continued to bark as they matched our progress along the fence. The largest dog, maybe seventy-five pounds, let out a single woof every…
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Story
Who doesn’t love a good story? Believe it or not, all stories contain a problem, someone to solve it, a location in time and space, series of events, and resolution. These are called story elements. But what about the story your Uncle Ted tells every year at the family gathering? He may start with a set-up but quickly launches into the problem, followed by a series of misunderstandings and challenges that build tension, finally reaching the punch line, or resolution of the story. Follow the links for each element. Problem someone to solve it setting (time and place) plot (what happens) Audience Good…
