Would love some advise on writing as a non-native English writer

[InWINcible]

I have been reading stories on Lit for almost two years now. I really like the critical community here and needed some advise.
I wanted to write a story for myself, catering my taste where the characters are somewhat similar to ones I have loved during this reading journey. I was probably not going to upload it.

Reading here, I have acquired certain taste in stories. On my first day of writing, I wrote a sizable bit and a day later scraped them 'cause I didn't like the way the characters were interacting with each other. English being my third language the writing felt..... too formal, boring? IDK. I am my worst critique (or is it best?). So I gave up on writing. Recently, I read a story where I found a character I want to add to my plot. This motivated me to start again.

Sorry for this whole ass pointless backstory, I just want some advises on writing stories in which character interactions are not too formal.
Thank you in advance to everyone who give advises.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Well, to make dialog less formal, use contractions: "I'm" instead of "I am", "you're" instead of "you are", and so on.

Use sentence fragments often (but not all the time), instead of always using full sentences. Example: "Hungry?" instead of "Are you hungry?"

Use colloquial expressions if they fit the character: "Hey" "Naw" "Gonna"

And in real life, people speak to each other in short back-and-forth exchanges. Many writers have their characters speaking in long diatribes instead of short exchanges. People also do things during conversations ... rub their neck when thinking, cross their arms, fiddle with a pen, pout, sigh, roll their eyes.

And it's perfectly fine for characters to communicate silently with expressions and gestures.

So:

"Hey. Hungry?", said Bob, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Alice yawned. "Naw, I'm good. I gotta go."

"Sure? I make wicked pancakes. And I got tons of real maple syrup."

Alice narrowed her eyes, noticing Bob's naughty smile. She knew it wasn't just pancakes he wanted to pour syrup on.

 

[InWINcible]

@SyleusSnow Thank you for this excellent explanation. I'll definitely try keeping these in mind.

 

[HectorBidon]

I agree with SyleusSnow that it's important to have the characters speak the way they would in real life. Sometimes I think about it as if I'm writing dialog for a movie script. Can I imagine characters speaking the lines on the screen? Does it sound natural or clunky? Would I find the scene too boring, too stilted, too confusing?

 

[Pabiporffor]

SyleusSnow says it perfectly.
One thing people often struggle with when it comes to second languages is the natives often have worse grammar than the learner. When you learn a foreign language a lot of emphasis is put on grammar, far more than is taught to the natives who are expected to just pick it up naturally. Throw in regional dialects on top and suddenly everything goes to pot.

If you're struggling with natural relaxed speech and colloquialisms why not make your characters more upper-class as their English is more standard?

 

[HordHolm]

Get a native speaking editor.

My wife's English is so good she wrote her 600 page PhD thesis in English (and she teaches English, too), but she still got me in to edit/correct, and I found mistakes hiding away here and there. There's no shame in it - even if you're writing in your native tongue you are likely to miss an error or two, and in a foreign language you may well use expressions out of context, or miss an odd bit of weird syntax. Of course, finding a volunteer editor isn't necessarily easy, but I would really recommend at least trying.

 

[Bartleby73]

you could also write in your native language. There are quite a few languages on offer. If yours is one of them then you can write in your own language.

I am quite torn myself as of if I should keep on writing in English or in German, my native tongue. I find German more sexy but I have lived in Australia for such a ling time now that some German words are not in my active memory. I also think that with English I can reach a wider audience.

I think I will try to write a story in German and decide then. Write in the language you are most comfortable with.