Looking for feedback

Hello,

My latest story is a First Time at I'm-an-adult-now-ocean-city .

I'd like some thoughts on it, particularly in regards to dialog. One of my favorite essays here at lit is Whispersecret's how-to-make-characters-talk . I usually use that as guidance for my dialog.

However, I was so frustrated with the volunteer editor program that I paid $10 on fiverr to get it edited. That editor had a different take, which I ended up using for this story: " In modern fiction... It's "said" and "asked." Never have a character laugh, growl, or chuckle a word of dialogue."

and she directed me to this link: realistic-dialogue

What do you think of the dialog? Who should I go with? Whispersecret or the other way?

I see no reason to pick and choose, since Whispersecret's How-to and the Writer's Digest piece compliment one another quite well.

Whispersecret's piece is more about the act of physically constructing your dialog on the page, how to punctuate it properly, make sure your layouts are correct, and so forth. This is all good stuff to know, especially if it's been a while (or never) since a potential author took a writing class.

The WD piece, on the other hand, is an explanation of how dialog works as an integral part of the story: how readers look at it, perceive it, and how authors sometimes put up stumbling blocks instead of stepping stones when it comes to character conversation.

To use a cooking analogy, Whispersecret's guide is the list of ingredients you need to make a given dish. The WD piece is the recipe that explains how to combine them into a delicious meal. They're not mutually exclusive, they're designed to work together. That's how you should use them.

Go with whatever pleases you. If everyone wrote the same way, using the same words, stories would get boring. If someone is paying you to write, then do it their way. Here, just stick to the Sinatra mantra: I did it my way.

DreamCloud said:

: I did it my way.

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That was the mantra of my retirement dinner from government service. I'm not sure that my bosses were being complimentary.

astuffedshirt_perv said:

Hello,

My latest story is a First Time at I'm-an-adult-now-ocean-city .

I'd like some thoughts on it, particularly in regards to dialog. One of my favorite essays here at lit is Whispersecret's how-to-make-characters-talk . I usually use that as guidance for my dialog.

However, I was so frustrated with the volunteer editor program that I paid $10 on fiverr to get it edited. That editor had a different take, which I ended up using for this story: " In modern fiction... It's "said" and "asked." Never have a character laugh, growl, or chuckle a word of dialogue."

and she directed me to this link: realistic-dialogue

What do you think of the dialog? Who should I go with? Whispersecret or the other way?

Click to expand...

I agree with Areala, I don't see a conflict between these two.

As far as I can tell, your editor's talking there about the (mis)use of non-speech verbs in speech tags. A lot of authors write sentences like this:

"I like you," she smiled.

This is Bad And Wrong because "smiled" isn't a thing that makes words happen. Basically, the verb should only be used as a speech tag if it implies words coming out of your mouth (or pen, or mind, or hands if you're using sign-language, etc etc).

The construction for this should be:

"I like you," she said, and smiled. (Speech tag = "said")

Or omit the speech tag altogether:

"I like you." She smiled. (In this case, the speaker is implied by context, rather than directly tagged.)

Some words are tricky. "Growl" can mean a nonverbal growl, but it also has a verbal usage e.g. "to express by growling", so I would accept something like "'Don't look at me,' he growled".

"Cry" has a verbal meaning (shouting) that's different to its non-verbal meaning (weeping). So you can use "'Don't touch me!' she cried" if you want to convey a raised voice, but not to convey tears.

A related point of style is overuse of fancy/tautological speech tags. For instance:

"Donald Trump is the worst in a long history of joke candidates," he opined.

This is grammatically correct, but the "opined" is a bit redundant; it's already clear from the quoted text that he's expressing an opinion. Using redundant tags, or unnecessarily fancy tags, can annoy the reader; "said" is usually good unless you really need to convey some nuance that wouldn't be implied by the quoted speech alone.

That said, one of my all-time favourites is "'Shut up,' he explained".

BTW, one error in Whispersecret's essay:

If you attach the tag to the second quote, it should be this way:

"No, she's never been with another woman." Kyle said with a laugh, "As far as I know she's not bi-curious at all."

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You never finish a quote with a period if the attached speech tag follows; if not a question mark or exclamation mark, it should always be a comma.

BTW, one error in Whispersecret's essay:

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I don't think that's an error, Bramblethorn. Whisper is connecting 'Kyle said with a laugh' to his second line of dialog. It reads strange, but it's (technically) correct. It would flow better if it was tagged at the end without the separation, but in this example, the laugh is coinciding with Kyle's second sentence, not the first, and thus why the first sentence gets the full-stop and the quotation marks.

Areala-chan said:

I don't think that's an error, Bramblethorn. Whisper is connecting 'Kyle said with a laugh' to his second line of dialog. It reads strange, but it's (technically) correct. It would flow better if it was tagged at the end without the separation, but in this example, the laugh is coinciding with Kyle's second sentence, not the first, and thus why the first sentence gets the full-stop and the quotation marks.

Click to expand...

Ah, right, I get you. Yes, technically correct but it doesn't read well; it's weird to have the second bit tagged and not the first.