It's a Noun, It's a Verb . . . It's Di-a-logue

Dialogue: now there's a word that strikes fear into the hearts of fiction writers - well maybe not all fiction writers, but a lot of them, and me for sure.

I'm talking about dialogue as a noun. "Wow! That's realistic dialogue you used in your story," not as a verb as in "Let's dialogue about that." In contests I've judged, some writers have a good ear for dialogue, others struggle. I took me awhile to write dialogue that sounds like a real conversation, but I think I've finally grasped the concept and recognize good dialogue.

The other day I was excited to read a post on Janet Fitch's blog, "A Few Thoughts About Dialogue." I've read a lot of advice about writing dialogue, but one of Janet's comments hit me like a bolt of lightning. Sorry for the cliche, but I have lightning on my mind after the thunderstorm that whipped through this morning around three a.m. and caused me to bolt from my bed.

Back to dialogue. Here's what caught my attention: "Dialogue is only for conflict." That makes total sense. Other helpful suggestions from Janet are: keep it short, no meet and greet, and gestures are as important as what is said. Click here to read the complete post.

Other cool features on Janet's blog are her word stories and exercises, where she creates short, short stories using a word as a prompt. Very creative and challenging! Check it out and be amazed.

P.S. Tomorrow I will have a post from a guest blogger. Cindy Allen is a poet, a pilot, a polo player, and a pioneer. She is a board member of Saturday Writers who judged one of our monthly contests using a strawberry pie recipe. So, I hope you'll visit tomorrow to see what Cindy has to say.

P.P. S. The Cards redeemed themselves by winning 8-3 last night, so I'm in a double good mood today. Since they scored at least six runs it means drinks for a quarter at Mobil on the Run. The grandkiddos love their slushies!

Ten Writing Tips from Janet Fitch

Each Friday on literary agent Nathan Bransford's blog he writes about "This Week in Publishing." Last week he posted a link to author Janet Fitch's blog, where she shares "10 Writing Tips That Can Help Almost Anyone."

I'm always interested in discovering ways to improve my writing, so I popped over to Fitch's blog and found some insightful writing tips. Her suggestions cover: the importance of writing good sentences, picking the right verbs, varying the length of sentences, writing in scenes, and much more.

The suggestions that got me thinking the most were:

#1: Write the sentence, not just the story. I especially like her suggestion at the end.

#5: Explore sentences using dependent clauses. I need to work on this.

#9 Write in scenes. Successful writers know how to do this. I've attended workshops where award-winning writers (Dusty Richards and Pat Carr are two that come to mind) have discussed the importance of writing in scenes, so this is definitely one I need to focus on when writing.

#10: Torture your protagonist. This isn't easy for me because I want to protect my characters, especially the likable ones, so it's another aspect of my writing that needs attention.

Thanks, Janet, for sharing your writing tips and for getting me to think more not only about what I write but how I write.

If you're the curious type whose always searching for ways to improve your writing, pop on over to Janet's blog and check out all ten of her writing tips. If you do, which ones caught your attention and why?