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| bio | website | |
|---|---|---|
| location | ||
| age | 33 | |
| visits | member for | 7 months |
| seen | Jan 8 at 1:06 | |
| stats | profile views | 7 |
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Jan 8 |
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Must every piece of speech get its own paragraph? @LaurenIpsum - I'm watching Numb3rs right now and paying attention at the close-ups. The camera is actually all over the place. It doesn't switch only for something significant. It switches constantly, it never stands still. Even while one character is talking, it switches for a split of a second to the one he's talking to just to show he's listening to the first one talk. That's not significant. It's just that we don't notice these things while we're watching. It's the same with paragraph breaks. But we will notice if everything gets clumped together in a big, confusing wall of text. |
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Jan 7 |
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How about a story as a series of anecdotes? @bmearns - haha, that would be a perfect name :) |
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Jan 7 |
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Must every piece of speech get its own paragraph? @LaurenIpsum: Then write it like that and avoid a new paragraph, cashier doesn't matter anyway ;) Imagine it's a scene from a movie. Without the paragraph break, it would be one wide shot of Jill paying for the mints. With the break, it would be equivalent to one close shot of Jill paying, then another close shot of cashier returning the change. No pause, only a shift in focus. Nothing confusing. In this example cashier is unimportant, no reason to switch attention onto him, but what if he wasn't? With the movie, both versions are just as valid, but with writing, "close shots" are more clear. |
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Jan 7 |
answered | How about a story as a series of anecdotes? |
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Jan 7 |
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Must every piece of speech get its own paragraph? @Lauren - Maybe there isn't a pause, but there is a shift, a change in the action and who's performing that action. The cashier probably stood still, waiting to take the money, so the new paragraph also indicates his switch from inaction to action. Not every paragraph indicates a pause. Like SF said above, it can indicate a change of state, change of thought... This is both a change of subject, from Jim to cashier, and a change of state from standing still to taking the money, so the break is more than justified. If we break only for pause, the whole story would be a few giant paragraphs :) |
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Jan 6 |
answered | Very long sentences: personal style or just bad writing? |
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Jan 6 |
answered | Must every piece of speech get its own paragraph? |
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Dec 28 |
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Is it possible that my short novel will be boring to my readers because it only has two characters and the location doesn't change? It's about quality, not quantity. |
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Dec 27 |
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alternatives to “he said” in dialog @Mr.Mindor: perhaps we are, but I can't agree with Lauren Ipsum. I believe "said" is a parasite that brings nothing to the writing. Every single word needs to justify it's presence inside your text and all excess fat needs to be trimmed off. "Said" merely says someone is saying something, which we already know, but it doesn't say HOW he's saying it, or why, or anything. It says nothing. It's useless. But we should leave it in because it MIGHT become invisible? Spelling errors also become invisible after a while, when reader's brain starts to auto-correct them. Should we leave those in as well? |
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Dec 27 |
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alternatives to “he said” in dialog @Mr.Mindor: the problem with "said" and why people don't like it is that it doesn't actually say anything. We already know someone is saying something, that's why the quotes are there. Substituting it with "whispered", "mumbled" and such is ok if it's used to better describe how the character is speaking (if whispering is crucial for the story) but as a substitute for "said", it's just lazy writing. It's much better to have the character "claim" the paragraph as his own by performing some action, thus making the "said" superfluous, and at the same time making the whole scene more dynamic. |
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Dec 27 |
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I'm getting tired of “he said” “she said” in dialogue; how do I get around it? It's so irritatingly confusing when writers don't follow "one character per paragraph" rule! Good practice would be to put each character's action in it's own paragraph even if there is no dialogue involved, unless the action is too complex to be separated to a single character. |
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Dec 27 |
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alternatives to “he said” in dialog There's a technique in film-making called "walk and talk" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_and_talk) and one of it's uses is, to quote Wikipedia, "adding visual interest to what might otherwise be static "talking heads" sequences". The problem with your example isn't just the repetition of "he said/she said", it's a typical static "talking heads" sequence - nothing is happening. Adding action to it (not strictly walking) like most answers below suggest will not only eliminate "said" tags, but will make the writing more dynamic and add some substance to otherwise uneventful dialogue. |
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Dec 25 |
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Peeking through character's mask Interesting solution :). Hope it works out well. |
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Dec 22 |
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Inventing names for Sci-Fi characters I think a question about a method of choosing names is a technical question. It's not like he asked "Do you like Greek names in Sci-Fi." |
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Dec 22 |
revised |
How to refer to character of focus in a story Adding. |
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Dec 22 |
answered | How to refer to character of focus in a story |
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Dec 22 |
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Inventing names for Sci-Fi characters Just don't go with something like G'thnurg'tndr, it's become almost a cliche in Sci-Fi. |
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Dec 22 |
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Balancing loads of equally-important characters @Aerovistae - that's one of the points of multiple POV-s: to keep the tension up and keep the reader engaged. You kept reading through the other characters to get to the one you were interested in, didn't you? It's like saying you're irritated because the last episode of your favorite show ended with a cliffhanger. Sure, it's irritating to have to wait for the next episode, but the chances are that much greater that you will watch the next episode. |
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Dec 22 |
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Balancing loads of equally-important characters +1 for exactly the same reason :D |
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Dec 21 |
answered | What is a good daily word count goal? |
