Timeline for How to avoid constantly starting paragraphs with "The character did this" "The character did that"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 17, 2020 at 9:43 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
|
|
| May 19, 2020 at 16:47 | answer | added | Acid Kritana | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 19, 2018 at 20:31 | comment | added | hszmv | I don't really worry about it. If you're being grammatically correct in dialog, you are doing it wrong. People never speak grammatically correct, so perfect diction for a character that doesn't typically care about perfect diction is unrealistic. Dialog is the point in a novel where you want to make your inner Grammar Nazi cry like it's VE Day and he was caught on the Eastern Front. | |
| Jan 19, 2018 at 18:56 | answer | added | Profetik One | timeline score: 1 | |
| Dec 14, 2017 at 17:21 | comment | added | user25183 | FWIW, personally I don't see any real problem with OP's style; IMO it's much more of a stylistic choice whether to write in a more narrative, movie-y style, or not - than of a stylistic necessity to do one or the other. If the readers like it - why bother? | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 15:05 | comment | added | Eric Lippert | Pick a book you like, pick a page somewhere in the middle, and make notes on the structure of a couple hundred sentences. One of two things will happen. Either the techniques used by the author to avoid your habit will become apparent, or the author of a book you like is in that habit and wrote an admirable book anyways. | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 13:11 | comment | added | armatita | It's definitely worth worrying about. But you're not doing badly. You've screenplayed your dialogue, now you need to identify the real actions (things relevant to the story or to character description). "Colin smiled" could be assumed by context, "Colin grinned" implies something extra. My recommendation is this: remove all the character expressions ("said Electron", "Colin smiled", "Colin nodded", etc) and read only the exchanges. If something seems to be missing (like a character trait, or an important identification of something) you correct it. If not leave it for now and re-read it later. | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 12:28 | answer | added | Radio | timeline score: 7 | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 11:04 | answer | added | Ilmari Karonen | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 9:47 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackWriters/status/925298205037821953 | ||
| Oct 31, 2017 at 2:24 | answer | added | Todd Wilcox | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 30, 2017 at 23:06 | answer | added | Amadeus | timeline score: 7 | |
| Oct 30, 2017 at 22:39 | answer | added | user16226 | timeline score: 39 | |
| Oct 30, 2017 at 21:27 | answer | added | J.G. | timeline score: 11 | |
| Oct 30, 2017 at 20:55 | answer | added | Aspen the Artist and Author | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 30, 2017 at 20:31 | history | asked | F1Krazy♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |