Since many people have been asking me through the years, I decided to put everything I know about writing in a book. I hope it helps you improve your writing and motivate you to create.
Feel free to tag people on the comments who may be in need of h...
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Dialogues and Clear writing
When new at writing, it's normal for us to think of dialogues our characters may have and write them like that. However, when writing a book, that would come off as poor for writing needs description. You are bringing to life a whole story, everything. From the environment to the personalities of the characters, to their visual appearance and emotional world. Simply presenting them with exchange words, would feel insufficient.
How do you incorporate dialogues clearly, however?
Firstly I would like to address the forms a writer can mark spoken words. The well-known quotation mark " is used to put words in, that the character speaks out loud. (or that's how I use them anyways XD)
For inner thoughts, I use italics or ' an upper comma to cage my sentence so it can differ from the spoken words.
I also like to make sure that someone's words don't get confused with someone's else in a dialogue by making sure to have each say something in a paragraph. A new person speaks, and a new line begins.
EXAMPLE: "I am sorry" He pleaded to her with his eyes as he held her hand.
"It's too late" She murmured as she smoothly retrieved her hand from his hold.
If there's no description accompanying your dialogue, then to ensure that the person talking has changed you can use -
EXAMPLE: -I am sorry
-It's too late
You can also use beats on dialogue to break it up and give it a breather. The beat also can make a pause for dramatic effect. A beat can be any word such as the word said.
No beat example: " It's not that big of a deal. I will fix it in no time"
Beat example: "It's not that big of a deal ", he said " I will fix it in no time"
Simple right?
Now the next thing you need to have in mind for clean writing is paragraphs. It's important to not write in huge blocks, but rather break your writing into comfortable -to be read- paragraphs. Our eyes need a break, our brains need a break, as a reader reading something written in a block none stop from end to finish of a chapter, will be tiring and could result to even losing interest.
So make sure you write in paragraphs, keeping them neat and not too lengthy.
When do you change a paragraph?
You need to see the story as if it's being filmed with a camera. The camera moves, so when I knew a scene or a new viewpoint appears, you change the paragraph. When a new character shows up, when someone speaks unexpectedly, or someone else speaks that is in the room already, you change the paragraph. When a new idea is introduced or the subject is changed. When there's a passage of time be it a flashback or forward, you change the paragraph. When the setting changes, or the mood of the atmosphere shifts, or even when you want to create some tension, you change the paragraph.
One more thing that could help your writing to come off as more clean is obviously having a good grammar/spelling but no matter how good you are at the language that you are writing in, you are bound to have mistakes simply because when writing, the mind is focused at many things simultaneously and you are writing on the spot, in speed. Typos exist, mind blanks exist. Bilinguals can even mix languages sometimes, and while you write you may not even notice your mistakes, simply because your eyes have been too familiar with the piece of text and your brain focused on the context rather than the superficial errors.
Conclusion. It's normal and expected to make mistakes. Almost impossible to avoid so please don't let that stop you from creating. If you still want your writing to come off as better though or you are a perfectionist, I suggest you do some proofreading on your chapter, after taking at least 30 minutes to break from it, so your brain can detach and see things as new when you reread through it. Also, the app Grammarly does a good job of pointing out possible orthographic errors, so why not have it on the side as a helping hand.
In the next chapter, I will let you know of common describing words so you can have a variety and let you know the basic tropes of writing.
PS: the examples I used are made up on the spot so don't judge them too harshly, they existed just for the sake of learning.
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