Improve Your Writing Technique

Other than your characters' words, here's what else dialogue can contain:

• Dialogue tags - words like "said" and "asked" that indicate which character said what.

• Character actions - a shrug, a nod, a smile and so on. Without them, your characters' voices can seem disembodied. They can also be used to help indicate which character spoke.

• Thoughts and feelings - what's going on in your main character's head or heart.

• Summaries - used to quicken lengthy or redundant parts of dialogue.

• Clarification - used to explain parts of dialogue that'll definitely leave your readers in the dark.

• Scene descriptions - perhaps a meteorite crashes in your characters' back yard during a chat.

Most of that stuff is simple enough to understand. But the way you use dialogue tags is a little more complex:

When you want to insert a dialogue tag, it's best to stick to said and asked. A lot of readers find other or decorative dialogue tags to be distracting. As you should know by now, this pulls them out of enjoying your story. The next thing you need to know is that dialogue tags are often unneeded. Your readers can tell who spoke just by reading the words inside the quotation marks. For instance:

"Mom, I'm going to the store," said Dave.

"How long are you going to take?" she asked.

"About twenty minutes," he said.

"Alright. Dinner will be on the table in thirty," she said.

Now, if Dave and his mom are the only people in the room, is it necessary to include dialogue tags? Of course not. Only Dave would use the word "Mom," right? So the "said Dave" tag falls into the redundant bin. The "she asked" and subsequent tags also need to be removed, because when you close what a character says with quotation marks, move onto the next paragraph and then open them again, your readers know it's the other character's turn to talk. And why would Dave ask himself how long is he going to take?

But what if Dave's brother Todd was also in the room? Then the "said Dave" tag could possibly stay, depending on what took place before. However, it still wouldn't be necessary to include the "she asked" tag. Dave's statement was directed towards Mom. Your readers will assume she'll give the reply. Remember that Lit readers are adults. Trust they're smart enough to figure this kind of stuff out. Scroll back up (or go back to the previous page) and reread the Helen and Frank examples. You'll notice not a single dialogue tag was used. Yet you always knew who said what, because it was obvious. Try to only insert dialogue tags when it's unclear who spoke. It's the way of the modern writer.

It's okay to use dialogue tags other than "said" and "asked" when you want to give a detail those words cannot convey by themselves. For example, you can say, "he muttered," "she whispered," "I lied" and so on. But be careful when you do this. You can easily fall victim to redundancy. If a character "quipped" or "joked," it will probably be evident it their words. If "she exclaimed," doesn't the exclamation mark tell us that? Or if "he lied" and your readers know about this from what we read before, then why're you telling us again?

The last thing I need to tell you about dialogue tags is you need to try your best not to follow them with adverbs, even when it seems necessary. It's one of the glaring indicators of a lazy writer. Let your character's words or actions show how he/she said something. For instance:

"You're an idiot," she said playfully.

Would be better like this:

"You're an idiot." She smiled.

Here's how you can use your character's words to show how he/she spoke:

"Why do you care?" his wife asked neutrally.

Would be better like this:

"Honey, why do you care?"

Since people don't normally use terms of endearment when they are angry, your readers can infer she didn't say it in a mean way.

There's one more thing about writing dialogue; character actions and other bits of information placed between your characters' words can be - like everything else - overdone and as distracting as using dialogue tags incorrectly. Only do it when you feel it's necessary.

*

Keep It Simple (Stupid!)

I love this principle, and here's why:

• It makes writing easier.

• It makes your story easier to read and understand for your readers.

• It supports "Kill Your Darlings."

• The overuse of fancy words causes readers to have to constantly open their dictionaries, which irritates them and pulls them out the story. It may even turn them off reading as a whole.

• The use of fancy words causes critical readers to think you're trying to make yourself sound intelligent.

• Finally, using fancy or decorative words is another way to get the "purple prose" tag.

The use of fancy words should only be implemented when you cannot think of a more well-know and/or appropriate word. If you are an MS Word user, simply right-click on the word you're trying to simplify. This will bring up a shortcut-menu. Hover the pointer over its "Synonyms" option, and a list of alternative words will appear.

You can also use a fancy word if it will help tighten a sentence, provided it isn't too uncommon. Remember Lit readers are adults. So you have more leeway than authors who write for children.

One more thing about keeping it simple; a lot of words have a lot of well-known synonyms, but try to stick to one or two ways to say something. This reinforces why you should only use "said" and "asked" in dialogue. In fact, I'm thinking of getting rid of "asked" too in my stories.

*

Know When to Conform

I haven't read this rule anywhere before, so I'm going to ahead and coin it. It came to mind after a reader of my first story told me he didn't like the euphemisms I used to call certain body parts. It's a well-known rule in erotica you should just call a vagina a "vagina." But that's when I learned it. As I wrote my next story, I noticed there were other instances in which this principle can be applied.

For instance, almost every horror movie I can remember watching started with somebody getting killed at the beginning. Why? Because it lets us know we're about to watch a scary movie.

I'm not saying you must stop trying to be unique. Maybe you don't want your male character to have a nine or ten-inch cock, or your female character to be a blonde blue-eyed woman with a perfect ass, a flat stomach and double Ds. Which I'd commend you for.

But sometimes, it's best to just do what everybody else is doing. Or better yet, sometimes it's best to play by the rules of your genre or Lit category - like the Humour and Satire one, where it's okay to use weird euphemisms.

*

The Find Feature

If you've ever edited your own story before, I'm sure you know how tedious of a task it can be. There are so many typos you can make, and the Spelling and Grammar check feature doesn't detect them all. Plus, our brains have this irritating tendency to correct mistakes for us while we're reading, so they go unnoticed. But somebody else always does. What I like to do is keep a list of all those tricky-to-spot mistakes in a document of their own.

For instance, you might have a tendency to spell the word your instead of you're, or quite instead of quiet, or there instead of they're. Write them down somewhere when you come across them during an editing session or when somebody points them out. I also keep a list - that seems to keep growing - of those frequently unneeded words. But trying to find all of them by yourself, in an attempt to help your editor, is downright difficult. MS Word's Find feature helps make the job easier.

Whether you use the 2010, -13 or -16 edition, you pretty much do the same thing. Hold down Ctrl and press F (or select the Find button in the Editing section on the Home tab) which will bring up the Navigation pane. In the Search document box, type the word or phrase you're looking for. A list of the times you used it will appear - you might also have to select the Results or third option under the Search document box. You can then check if you used the word correctly, fix it if you didn't or delete it if it's unneeded.

Sometimes you might want to search for a word like mom. In this case, to check if you spelt it with a capital M each time you used it as a name. You'll notice other words containing the word mom are also shown, like moment and momentarily. This may occur too many times for the Navigation pane to show. Not a problem. Simply select the down arrow or magnifying glass in the Search document box. Select "Options" and tick the "Find whole words only" option in the dialogue box that appears. Search for the word again. You'll notice now only the times you wrote "mom" appear.

If you're writing a long story, the word you're looking for might still appear too many times for the Navigation pane to show. If this happens, at least the words are highlighted for you in the document, and you can check them one by one using the up and down arrows in the Navigation pane. Just make sure you've filtered the search with the Find whole words only option, too.

You can also use the Find and Replace feature to help you search for and change errors. Just hold down Ctrl and press H (or select the Replace button in the Editing section on the Home tab). Inside there you can select the "More" button to get the Find whole words only option.

*

Learn and Keep Learning

This's my final piece of advice and motto I live by as a writer. Nobody knows everything there is to know about writing. In fact, I don't think anybody knows everything about anything. Which is why there's always room for improvement. Luckily, most members on Literotica are kind and want to help you get better. So listen to what they have to say, because a lot of the advice they have to offer is golden.

And the fact of the matter is; we'll probably never stop making mistakes. But that's okay. Even great minds like Einstein used to slip up. What's not okay is not taking the time to learn from your mistakes. I know, I know; you've heard all this before. But clichés are clichés for a reason; they work. So keep learning, keep writing and keep trying to improve; no matter how good or bad you think you are at writing.

* * * *

Thank you onlyfiction for helping with editing, additional information and suggestions in formatting.

I must confess; I cannot remember all the sources I learned from. There's way too many. But I find the Writer's Digest website to be the most helpful and another site called "how-to-write-a-book-now." You can also find plenty of useful information right here on Literotica. I learned the "avoid coy euphemisms" rule in Lit's Guide for Amateur Writers of Erotica on the Writer's Resources page. And Tx Tall Tales' Love Your Readers helped me understand the Lit categories better. You can also check out an article on Rewrite, Reword, Rework called "Repetition and Redundancy" to learn the difference. I've been told there are programs that can help you clean up your work. But I hear they are not user-friendly. You might want to take a look into that.

Oh, and feel free to suggest other ways one can improve his/her writing.

MD