Thursday, March 12, 2009

I wanted to write something writerly today. And I was wondering if anyone has the same problem that I seem to have. I write stuff into my characters dialogue that I want the reader to know. And this could be things that people wouldn't normally discuss. In other words, I'm throwing dialogue in there that I shouldn't, but it's become a habit and I don't know how to avoid doing it. For instance, having the characters discuss something that should be totally obvious to them which means they wouldn't talk about this something. They would just do it. But I feel the reader needs to know. How do I show it without dialogue? Through actions, and reactions? If characterA is going to pick up a rock and character B knows this, character A is not going to say to B, "I'm going to pick up this rock" but it's important to the story and the reader needs to know so how do I show that A is picking up the rock without using dialogue? Like this; A bent down and quickly grabbed the rock that was about the size of her fist?

2 comments:

  1. How about:

    Robyn reached down and wrapped her fingers around the rock.

    By wrapping her fingers around it, we get the size so you don't have to state it.

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  2. Great comment. Thanks for the help! :)

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