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Writer Group and Dialogue

Hello there reader and writer friends! Quick question... is anyone else waiting patiently for this dang giraffe in New York to have her baby? I've had this live cam running in my office for three weeks now!

Anyway... now that that is out of the way :) How is everyone doing? Are you writing? I have been fortunate enough to head up a local writer group and it has been amazing. We meet weekly, review each other's work, and we write. It's been great for a number of reasons but two of them stand above the rest. 

1. It is incredibly helpful having someone read your work and critique it. Sometimes this requires a thick skin sometimes it doesn't. No one is perfect and as we write we must remember, we aren't the ones reading it. While I firmly believe you should write for yourself and no-one else, you must keep your goals in mind. If your goal is to have someone else read your work, then chances are you need that second (third, fourth, fifth) set of eyes to look at it and ensure you aren't missing a large plot hole. 

2. Accountability. It's easy to procrastinate writing. For me, my house never looks cleaner than when I have a deadline approaching. Having this group helps with that. I know, each week, that if my writing is not turned in by Sunday evening, I am going to miss my opportunity to have that piece critiqued. Also, if it's not turned in, I'm going to need a valid reason as to why I didn't get it done. If my reasoning is fallacious, my group will call me on it. 

I really recommend everyone have their own writing group. It can be just you and one friend. Two friends if you're lucky. The important thing is you set aside that time (two-three hours for us) that is focused only on writing. We spend minimal amounts of time talking about school, or work, or boyfriends. That's for later. 

We sit down and begin each session with a five-minute writing prompt just to get us in focus of what we are doing, and we write. When the timer goes off we share our work and then move on to focus on our goals from the previous week, and our goals for the current session. We then go over our current work in progress, critiques, and things of helpful writing nature. THEN we write. We pull out our work and we just focus on writing. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad... but we did it. To wrap up the session we go over goals for the next week and what we intend to turn in for review.

Something that came up a lot in my group from last week and I thought I would share here was dialogue. As writers, we are telling an audience about an experience a character had. Part of this is done through dialogue. Dialogue should ALWAYS do two things: Deepen the reader's understanding of a character and advance the plot. If your dialogue isn't doing this, take it out.

Effective dialogue transports your reader into the place of a character and makes them feel like they are actively participating in the conversation. As the writer, you lead them in this transport by telling them what they see, what they hear, what they smell, and how they feel. 

Things to keep in mind about dialogue:

1. Said and says: The word "said" in writing is practically invisible and acts as a punctuation mark. Using anything else slows a reader down and pulls attention to the mechanics of your writing instead of the story itself. Well written dialogue uses a mixture of said, asked, beats of action, and the very occasional whispered or yelled (if absolutely necessary). 

Example: "Leave!" she demanded. - Is lazy writing. If you turned something like this in to a publisher or editor your work is going in the bin.  SHOW your reader the character is being demanding. Ex: She stomped her foot and pointed towards the door. "Leave!" 

Using "eloquent" tags ever so often is perfectly ok. But do not fill your work with multitudes because you can't think of anything else. You're a writer... SHOW them, don't TELL them.

2. Action tags: Dialogue cannot be smiled, laughed, giggled, or sighed. These things are actions. You cannot physically smile a spoken word. You say it. That's it. End of argument. Action tags are not part of a spoken sentence.

"I just don't know," she sighed. - Is incorrect

"I just don't know." She sighed. - is the correct format.

3. Adverbs: AKA, my biggest weakness in the entire world. Ever.

"I hate you," she said angrily.

Using adverbs to tell how a character says something is doing just that... TELLING. The occasional adverb is fine and dandy, but having multiple adverbs shows weak writing. When you see an adverb in your own WIP, try to see if there is a better way to SHOW your reader what's happening. An action will reveal much more about a character and their emotions than a whole bunch of adverbs strung together. See below. (Note: This is not my example. As I said, I suck at adverbs.)

Lily turned away and crossed her arms. "I don't want to see you again."

"You don't mean that." Jack pushed to his feet in a rush.

She glared at him. "You're an idiot."

Isn't this much better than saying, she said something "angrily"?

Now, all these things being said... writing is writing, is writing. We should all be WRITING. Don't get so caught up in the mechanics that you are unable to physically write your story because that is the important thing. Pen to paper and fingers to keys. Writing amazing dialogue is virtually impossible until you know who your character is through and through, which sometimes doesn't happen until you finish writing your first draft. I've been editing/re-writing for the last 6 months and it makes me want to cry because I was unaware of the things listed above. Had I known the basics before I started writing, editing would likely have been much easier so I thought I would pass these things on to you.

So, there are my two cents. :) I hope everyone is staying warm and has a wonderful week! If you have any questions I will do my best to answer them.

-Megan

Disclaimer: I am not an English teacher. I am simply passing on from my experience and the information and feedback I've gotten from editors and publishers while preparing for my own publication.