Subject:
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Re: Story crafting (was Re: Please read this!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.publish
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Dec 2002 00:13:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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3609 times
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"Matt Hein" <Pyrokid17@hotmail.com> writes:
> In lugnet.publish, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > On another slightly related note, don't be afraid of "he said." Full stop.
> > There is no need to say, for example "he said, slyly" or "he intimated" or
> > whatever. Let the characters words show the tone, or use a sentence before
> > that to set the mood.
>
> But using 'he said' too many times can get
> rather redundant.
It can, but Tom Swifties can be even more irritating to read. Often
you can just skip the whole thing altogether, and just have the
quotes, if it's two people speaking...
Bob walked up to Mary and whispered in her ear. "I think we should go
home now," he said, "I'm getting tired."
"Aw, come on, it's just starting to be fun!"
"But we've been here for hours."
"We were early. People are just starting to get here."
"We have to get up early tomorrow morning, remember?"
"True. We'll go in an hour or so, OK?"
"I suppose."
"What are you two lovebirds discussing?" said George, walking over
with a glass in his hand.
"Oh, we were just admiring your artwork," she said as Bob
wandered off.
I just made that up, but you see there are ways to do dialog in an
interesting manner without using anything but "said".
Read Stephen King's book, "On Writing." He has some great tips there.
And note, the fact that you're writing fantasy should not keep you
from looking at books about writing in other genres. Writing is
writing.
--Bill.
--
William R Ward bill@wards.net http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consistency is not really a human trait.
--Maude (from the film "Harold & Maude")
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Story crafting (was Re: Please read this!
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| (...) I'm going to fix the dialogue first, then work on the rest of the specifics. (...) Avoid it all costs so the reader can figure it out, then. Noted. (...) Ah, this sounds pretty fun, actually. Why make an enemy obvious when in fact, they would (...) (22 years ago, 24-Dec-02, to lugnet.publish)
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