How To Improve As A Writer (v2)

It makes me incredibly giddy to see you around again. I am inclined to agree with a lot of the points you make and do find a similar experience with writer's block, or rather, writer's laziness. I am very unmotivated to just sit down and write and that is my greatest problem despite how much I would love to improve. I suppose it takes garnering a sense of commitment that I unfortunately find myself lacking. If only I could just forcibly dip into that aspect and just go with it.

^
I'm also kind of lazy to write. Though if you start viewing it as some way to vent out stress and worries, things probably will be much easier off =D

Contributing~





I have the last one about "said" pasted and taped inside my notebook's cover. ^_^

I have to disagree that "said is dead" even if it does rhyme. Said can be perfectly adequate, especially when tone can be inferred from what is said and the situation it's being said in.

I agree we can still use said, but we can't run the entire dialogue with only "said", can we?

When you put it like that, it makes me want to try now. In my own writing, I use said more often than not, but I definitely do not use it exclusively.

No, that is something that inexperienced writers use. Simple "said" and "asked" are the only things really needed. Every once in a while is fine, but overuse would be detrimental to the writing.

Relevant links:

http://litreactor.com/columns/on-dialogue-tags-why-anything-besides-said-and-asked-is-lazy-writing

http://www.scribophile.com/academy/he-said-she-said-dialog-tags-and-using-them-effectively

From the post above, "Consensus among professional editors and authors is that speech tags should be invisible in the prose so they don't distract or detract from story. Invisible dialogue tags use simple verbs. It's generally accepted and recommended that two verbs are preferred: said and asked."

http://kayedacus.com/2011/03/15/debunking-writing-myths-alwaysnever-use-said-dialogue-tags/

This part is interesting: "... Because we were so used to reading them (and yes, I pulled out two books that I took all of those from—one from the mid-1980s, the other from the early 1990s), that’s how we attributed our dialogue when we first started writing. But times—and accepted styles—have changed."

I think both camps have something in them worth looking at. On one end, the general rule is to "show don't tell" when it comes to emotion in writing. What this means is that if your dialogue is written with a visible tone then it becomes redundant to add a modified verb to it. To make this clear here's an example of redundancy:



In this case your punctuation is doing your work for you, and that's pretty much what punctuation is for (other than syntax and clarity of meaning ofc).

But now look at the same sentence with a period at the end:



Now this can be interpreted in a number of ways, and so you might think it's a good time to break out the she-whispered-menacingly's, but again we would likely find them redundant. Why is that? Well, because most characters have consistent relationships with one another that we should be able to pick up through context. Are the two at the end of an argument? Then the above may come across as a flat dismissal of the other participant. Are they friends with a comfortable relationship? Then we can read it as well-intentioned jabbing, and so on so forth.

The point to take away is that if the character's tone or intention is not readable in the dialogue and situation itself, then you might have simply written it sloppily, which creates a reliance on modified 'said' verbs.

The EXCEPTION to this, and the reason I would hesitate to dismiss these words, is when you want to deliberately upset the flow of conversation from what it was, or to create a shift in tone to create an effect.

Let's say the argument goes like this:



(Wow these arguments are so deep and varied, I'm such a good writer)

With the use of the new modifier, the angry tone one could have previously picked up, is transformed into a mocking dismissal of the other person. In ways like this the modified verbs can again become tools of tone shaping rather than tools of redundancy.

And to go even further, you can always experiment with your writing style and push standards in terms of how you frame your dialogue. Terry Pratchett famously writes his dialogue for Death in unquoted [size=11]SMALL CAPS[/h] as the only indication that the words are spoken. Similarly many authors use italics to show that a sentence is an inner monologue, rather than 'he thought to himself' and the like.


TL;DR: Modified 'said' verbs are often redundant, but can also be used intelligently to guide or change the flow of your dialogue. Also fuck conventions and what is "right to write", create your own style if you want and fuck the police if you feel you can still make your writing clear and understandable.

i always like to try and create people when i write, not characters. I think if you write a character, you stand the risk of having them develop only from the point you started writing them. If you write a character, they build on a prexisting personality and it makes for better characters in the early stages of a story.

I don't do a whole lot of writing but when I do, I follow two major rules: follow through, and practicality vs aesthetics.

1) Follow Through
Simple enough. When you start a story, finish it. It doesn't matter how skilled you are. Having a bunch of unfinished work laying around will get you nothing. To be able to finish what you start is in my opinion the first skill any writer should pick up. Which of the following statements sounds more impressive to you?

A) I finally finished my 50,000 word story!
B) I only have 5,000 words, but man are those descriptions sweet!

2) Practicality vs Aesthetics
Being able to finish a story, you're next step should be making sure your words count. What I mean by this is beware of repeating information or stating extraneous information. Here's a simple example:

"The green, verdant field . . ."

What's wrong here? A verdant field is one that is rich and green. So in other words, the above example is equal to:

"The green, green field . . ."

Here's another example:

"'I hate you!' he shouted angrily."

Both shouted and angrily are unnecessary. The exclamation mark means excitement, and that usually means shouting. Angrily is unnecessary because of what's being shouted. If someone is shouting, "I hate you!" it's a no-brainer they're angry.

Now here's where the aesthetic part comes in. My advice to new writers is forget about trying to make your writing sound grand and impressive. Your goal should be getting your point across in as little words as possible. Every word should be necessary. If you can ignore it, and it doesn't change the meaning at all, then delete it. Only after you've got a good handle on this should you try and add some flare to your writing. It's like building a house. You need the foundation first above all else.

my advice to improve as a writer is to read a lot and have a mentor who will shit on your writing; you learn by taking what you see in the voices of others and making it your own-- this is refined by having an audience or another voice that your voice can talk to

another advice is to show and not tell; who cares if some girl said with exasperation save me, why not show the exasperation? for example: as the hemoglobin poured out from veins and onto her wrist her voice trembled as she cried for help-- save me, is a lot more interesting than the former.

at the end of the day writing will only be interesting if it reads the reader-- write to relate to another and be universal; do this by showing what you want the reader to see


another advice: aim for concise writing -- clutter distracts readers

you can always cut down sentences, etc. and make them better. one of my english teachers said that all my writing sucked and the only thing that he liked from everything i wrote for him was the sentence, "she smelled like strawberries"

What are tangents? I've just got into writing and stuff so I'm a beginner.

Going off track from the subject.