Most Common Writing Errors

Clunky Dialogue + Realism

This chapter includes some dialogue tips and a rant on realism. Since there is so much that goes into dialogue, do not expect this chapter to cover everything. More dialogue chapters are to come.

I will make a chapter about what should be happening around dialogue (character expressions, actions, body language, etc.), so if you're going to request that, rest easy knowing that's already planned.

This chapter took a while because it's the longest and required a lot of explanation. I hope you enjoy.

There's also a The Last Of Us Part 2 rant, so prepare yourself for that.

Read the disclaimer if you haven't already.

Can you do something but can't explain how you do it?

I'm sure everyone has something they do that they can't put into words how to do.

I'm like that with dialogue. When it comes to plot, I need to tweak some things. When it comes to hooks, I need to tweak some things. But the two things I'm confident with are characters and dialogue. My dialogue sounds realistic and sometimes painful (in a good way... I think).

Characters and their dynamics with each other are my two biggest strengths. You see, I can explain characters.

I can't explain dialogue to save my life.

So when I judge contests, sometimes I say the dialogue sounds clunky. What exactly does that mean? When I say the dialogue sounds clunky, I mean it sounds unpolished, a bit clumsy, and/or awkward.

Let me (try) to explain.

There is so much that goes into dialogue, but for now, let's break it down, shall we? I'll go over three things. 

1) Concise dialogue 

2) Greetings and goodbyes 

3) Realism

1) Concise Dialogue

Conciseness is key. Keeping your dialogue concise is the perfect way to keep a reader engaged. Redundancy is one key element in poor pacing. If you're repeating yourself in dialogue, it's going to be hard for readers to follow you.

One way to make dialogue more concise is to consider contractions. Contractions exist to make words and sentences flow better, not to mention contractions help make things sound less like an order and more like a conversation.

For example:

"Let's go, I'm tired."

Compared to:

"Let us go, I am tired."

One of these flows better. I'll give you a hint: it's not the second one.

I have read the writing of many people who are not native English speakers. I applaud them for writing in English! That's an incredible feat. Most of them have better English than me-

Anyway, I brought that up to say many of these writers don't use as many contractions as they should. It's not their fault. English is a complex language, and picking up on things like contractions is easy for a native speaker, but not so much for a non-native speaker.

I understand, to a certain extent. Korean is my second language, and sometimes writing in it is hard because of the speech styles and deciding which one would work best for the situation. The same applies for English.

My recommendation would be to read sentences out loud and see if they would sound better with or without contractions. You don't have to exclusively use contractions or exclusively not use contractions. Just listen to the sentence and see what flows better, and also keep in mind the level of formality. For example, most English speakers don't use contractions in professional emails or on essays.