Hello, writers. Today, we will revisit a topic that I’ve discussed previously: dialogue. The bane of many writers’ existence, it seems the conversation about dialogue could go on forever. Luckily for you all, it’s one of my favorite topics to talk about, and I’m happy to revisit it to discuss another common problem authors have when including rich, worthwhile dialogue in their prose: dialogue tags.
So you want to build a world, do you, writers? I’m sure you’re well aware of the ambition that lies alongside this endeavor, but I cannot understate how gargantuan and multi-layered this task truly is. This is one blog post, but many people dedicate entire blogs to the topic. A couple of years ago, I was tasked with this epic endeavor, and I thought I’d take some time to pass along my experiences with the hopes that there are some golden nuggets of wisdom for you to pocket when you start building your own world.
Hello, writers. For this post, I’d like to talk about something many writers dread to see in their critique: flow. In my opinion, this is one of the toughest topics to discuss for writers at any level. As writers, we may feel like our work is flowing well from our imagination to the page, but in reality there are times where our ideas don’t connect with each other. That’s where the real work begins: breaking it all apart and piecing it back together.
Before diving deeper, I want to talk about what I mean by flow. If you’ve ever been to a writing workshop or peer review, I’m sure you’ve heard some variant of this thousands of times: rhythm, style, pacing, and (perhaps less often) voice. While these descriptors can all be referring to a different aspect of the writing—from individual words to entire chapters—this post will be looking at flow on a sentence-by-sentence level. What makes a sentence tick? How does one affect the next? What drives the reader to keep reading?
Hello, writers!
When I originally wanted to broach this subject matter, I was met with a lot of internal debate. “What if they think you’re repetitive, Marissa?” I thought miserably. “Posts like these are a dime a dozen.” But articles like this wouldn’t continually be produced if people didn’t constantly struggle with dialogue, and as such, I’m hoping to shift your thought process a little bit to make writing natural dialogue easier.
Hello, writers. I want to welcome you to the start of my brand-new blog, “Writing to Learn, Learning to Write,” which is (hopefully) going to serve as a marriage between blogs like Grammarly and The Write Life.
I know what you’re thinking: what’s the purpose of another blog about writing? What good words do you have about…words, Marissa? Well, maybe you’re right: maybe there’s no point in someone on the Internet making a blog about writing and filling it with a mixture of advice, experiences, and well-integrated grammar tips that’ll open your eyes to new ways of thinking while writing.
But I don’t think you’re right. I think there are never going to be enough blogs about writing, because everyone has a unique perspective to offer the world, and if they have the chance to develop a platform to speak, then damn it, they should speak. Which happens to include me (even though I’m not speaking, so much as typing, but you get the idea).
This begs the question: why should you follow this blog?
I’m an editor. I’m not here to help you think of start-up ideas, or get your hands dirty with your first short story. I’m assuming you’ve written your way around the block once or twice, and you want to learn more. You want to make your writing sing, but you’re not sure what you’re missing. I’m hoping this blog can help you out. I want to talk about writing: the process, the techniques, and the strategies I use to help tighten paragraphs, or inject a healthy dose of character to my dialogue. My posts will be long. They will be meta. But I will try my best to infuse them with all of the golden nuggets I’ve retrieved during my education and beyond.
In a perfect world, you learn something new every time you read from here. Realistically, you’ll walk away with a different perspective on writing strategies in your pocket, and maybe some new language to talk about what it is you’re doing (tools for the toolbox, as it were). At the very least, I hope you get something out of this—but let’s be honest. You’re a writer. Of course you’re going to get something out of it.
Now that you know why I’m here, allow me to direct you to the Contact page on my blog—here, you can submit your comments and questions for me to potentially turn into blog topics later down the road! I won’t be relying on this, of course, but if there’s some meta-writing question you think I’d be the perfect fit to answer, then please: ask!
That’s all for this post. Thank you for reading, and remember—if you write 300 words a day, you’ll have a novel-length manuscript in a little less than a year. Every little bit helps.
Write on!
Writing to Learn, Learning to Write 