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He said, she said, or what your characters are saying.

3 votes
5 answers
15k views

Writing dialogue, present or past tense "said"

I use a lot of dialogue in my writing, sometimes too much, but while I'm writing it, though the story itself is in the present tense, I don't know whether it would be confusing to use the past tense for … dialogue tags. …
1 vote
3 answers
1k views

Onomatopoeia usage, how much of it detracts from the story?

So, in a novel I'm writing, there is a situation where the first-person protagonist is in a lot of pain, so much that she is screaming and sobbing. I've seen the onomatopoeia "Augh" used to represent …
4 votes
Accepted

How do I avoid making all my characters speak like me?

I can't tell you what to write for the character's speech patterns, but I can say that the best way to learn how to write a character's voice that isn't your own is to think like that character would, …
RE Lavender's user avatar
  • 1,185
11 votes
4 answers
2k views

Using "show not tell" while characters are planning for something that happens

I should mention that there are 7 main characters and they'd be planning throughout a dialogue that's supposed to be hours long. …
4 votes
5 answers
3k views

First person POV "mom:" vs. "mother"

This may seem like a duplicate of Changing the way one addresses a character in a dialogue to create variation, but it the answers there did not apply. … My question is: When writing in the first person, is it appropriate to alternate terms of endearment, like using "Mom" and "Mother" interchangeably in both dialogue and narration? …
2 votes

Writing scenes that involve two languages

Then, you'd have to translate every part of dialogue while their in Japan instead of only what Shintaro is saying. … If you don't desire to use either the 3rd route or mix the first and the third, you could just not use as much dialogue while their in Japan, and instead explain what the people are saying, example: …
RE Lavender's user avatar
  • 1,185
0 votes

Do you have any tips on describing dialogue?

Well, to format and describe dialogue are two different topics, but on describing dialogue - as in choosing whether to use "said" or another word, or adding a description to that, it's mostly about how … That's dialogue on a very basic level. It doesn't portray any emotion, or depth. It's only telling exactly what she said, not how she said it. …
Community's user avatar
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