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Dialogue—necessary

When reading contest entries or manuscript for critiquing, sometimes dialogue goes on for too long. This can affect pacing, and it can also disengage the reader if the dialogue isn’t necessary to character development or the plot.

Look through your own manuscript to see if a few interchanges in a scene of dialogue might be unnecessary. Sometimes things like that are needed to set tone, or reveal character, but look through your dialogue to see if anything can be cut. You as the writer have a good feel for what's vital to your voice and the tone, and what might be just fluff.

Most writers say that anything that can reduce word count will usually only make the story better. Anything that can speed up the pace a bit during action scenes (dialogue) will help glue the reader to the page.
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  1. Sabrina L. FoxMon Dec 11, 07:53:00 PM 2006

    Ugh...I just got a request for a full from Krista. One thing she mentioned is tightening the dialogue...It's so hard cutting that dialogue. I'm trying though!

    ReplyDelete

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