This week: Purposeful Dialog Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Purposeful Dialog
We've heard it before, and if you haven't, here it is: dialog is not the same as talking. It's so much more! Dialog can give the reader hints about what is happening to the character and their responses. Be frugal with those words, make them powerful. Use conversation to show how the characters relate to one another. Don't use verbal banter to dump info into the story, work the scenes.
I love it when an author uses dialog to scare me, creates conflict and makes me see deeper into the character and the story. Inner thoughts can certainly reveal history, but so can verbal dialog. It can be as simple as "You again?". Or reveal some important scene information, like "Hand me that flashlight."
Your dialog doesn't have to be lengthy, and it doesn't have to be pretty. All I'm suggesting is that three pages of dialog about grandma's knitting skills could probably be condensed and help you move the story forward. So, next time you're editing, give your dialog a thorough look and decide if you can distill it down to the important points.
This month's question: Do you write dialog with intent or to convey conversation? What method do you use to edit?
Answer below  Editors love feedback! 
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This month's question: Do you write dialog with intent or to convey conversation? What method do you use to edit?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
"Action/Adventure Newsletter (August 4, 2021)" 's question: Have you had a secondary character run off with your plot line?
How do you solve that in your writing?
Beholden  : It's not just fluff that is so alluring. It's also the eyes. Anything with huge, liquid and deep eyes is irresistible. Consider bush babies for instance. Cats too. Anything nocturnal, really. And it explains the cartoon style of Japanese anime.
To answer the question, my book had a character whose job was to convey the words of the main character. There came a point where it was obvious that I would have to allow him a life too. And he grew from that point until he became the meaning of the tale. Readers still ask me when I'm going to continue his story but I'm not. I think it's better that readers imagine it for themselves.
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  : Yep - they became the main character for most of the 18+ notebooks I wrote for the series.
s  : Yeah, I have... so I went back and rewrote it to make the story theirs. If the character does that, then it tells me I've had the wrong focus. Listen to the characters - it's their story. I am merely the scribe.
Arsuit  : In the novel I'm working on, I gave most of the secondary characters their own flashback chapters, interspersed among the novel's main chapters, so all the bugs get their own fifteen minutes of fame. I put the flashback chapters right after the character starts stepping too much into the spotlight. I just hope this tactic doesn't break the flow too much.
elephantsealer : How does a secondary character run off with a plot line? Why did the writer let the secondary character ruin her/his plot line, for heaven's sake!!! It is MURDER!!!
OOOps... this kind of accident happens when the writer just goes on babbling/writing without actually paying attention to her/his writing...what a waste of time...er, no, I think it maybe a good thing to let it happen that way. Can you just imagine how ... your writing keeps going the other way...?
Linz : I normally make a note and attempt to write a story from their viewpoint, but for one my novels, I let them have a bit of the limelight for a few chapters while the MCs weren't doing much.
That sideline actually ended up tying the whole story together and filling in a few plot holes in the main plot.
Patrick : When writing anything that will influence folks,all is planned,
Are u kidding?,seriously how can it just happen that a character just walks away with a plot,unless you are a scribe and some person or thingin your psyche screams, "leave it, its 'destiny', scribe shut your ink well it be done",
some writing such as "divine literature" claims this to be happenening, but its important as you watch your children, so also too watch your characters and words.
God will not be please if by a heart hell bent on synchronicity we inadvertntly wig folks out about, jesus or theological stuff,however, strangley and realistically, many time reading christin literature, or hearing pastors go on on and on, i think, "honestly sir Madaam",this is a bore ! however,"care" "holiness" and discernment returns to take the wheel and should promise a happy journey to all bleivers and non beleivers. Jesus will not bless a fool, although sometimes they are fun, he genrally wont.
Still stream of concsioness is unusually "intriguing",many folks just cnt do it, the world the creeds adn orders of whats right and wrong forbade it, a sort of misfrtune for them i believe, i may be mistsken,
but, to me its a sort of spice tht is difficult if not imposible to control, in closing, sorry verobose today, as in other days forgive me uh,,, if its "Boring' for lack of honesty, it wont matter,as no-one listenig anyway,,,,a pardox.. a puzzle, have a care, Pax in Jesus Patrick
Bob : When a secondary character runs off on a tangent you've got a subplot in the making. Wrote a story once about horses that could jump time and space. Main character discovered the time bronc n found out there were more. Military got hold of it and formed a cavalry of time jumpers. Common denominator was all these men had to love these intelligent animals. One day they got a mean recruit who like to use his spurs. His mount took him back to juriassic period and dumped him there. Main character had to talk his mount into going back and rescuing him before the big lizards ate him. From then on he loved and respected his mount. This had nothing to do with the main plot which was carnivorous aliens who were tracking the herd of time broncs across space n time to devour them as they hid out on earth which spilled over into eating all the humans they ran into. (another war of the worlds scenario) But it was a good digression that also taught a lesson in animal kindness.
TheBusmanPoet : The only plot I know of is the one my wife is digging in the backyard and she's the secondary character and I have to be the main one if that plot is for me. 
jdennis  : Delete, rewrite |
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Action/Adventure: September 29, 2021 Issue [#11005]
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