The Curse of Run-On Dialogue
The Curse of Run-On Dialogue
AKA; Narration Run Amok
----- Original Message ----- [What should I do] about splitting [dialogue] paragraphs that are [all] by the same character? I usually do it for emphasis or to show that there's a brief pause between them. Like when a character suddenly changes his/her topic. -- My Characters Won't Shut Up! --
Paragraphing IS supposed to be divided by character; their actions + their dialogue. However, sooner or later one will run across: Run-On Dialogue.
Run-On Dialogue is when one character talks, and talks, and talks...for whole paragraphs --or pages-- at a time.
Oddly enough, this problem isn't all that common, but it can happen to new writers who still haven't quite figured out how to break up their dialogue with actions and descriptions.
Far more common is the creation of whole paragraphs of Internal Dialogue and Introspection, especially when one writes in First Person POV, or Third Person Close POV.
This is known as Narration Run Amok.
When only one character is acting and talking, or acting and thinking, this can make for walls of text the size of a skyscraper.
So, how do you break up that Wall of Talking?
Well hopefully you're breaking all that talking up with body language, actions, and descriptions.
Seriously, that's what you do first:
Break up your lines of Dialogue with:
Actions
Description
Body Language
Next!
Sub-Divide those lines of dialogue into paragraphs by:
Change in Action
Change in Location
Change in Thought or Ideas
Example: Change in Thought or Idea
Did you know that you're supposed to write someone arguing with themselves as two different people complete with paragraph breaks, even though they're the same person?
I sure didn't.
Then my editor sent me that particular manuscript page covered in red ink. Example: All three in 3rd Person Close POV: -- Excerpt from Death & The Maiden
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Standing with her back against her room's closed door, Michiru clutched her bathrobe to her throat and gasped for breath. She'd known that Koyomi and Aso were...dating, but she hadn't quite realized they'd gone that far.
She winced. Idiot...! Of course they've gone that far. The Yomi half of Koyomi's personality was openly lecherous, at least around Michiru, and Aso was a known womanizer. She'd had more than one run-in with his openly adoring and half-naked harem.
Michiru sighed heavily then turned to her right to set her bath things on her battered dresser next to her aged brass bed. It was beginning to look like she was the only virgin in the dorm. In fact, according to the gossip her classmates shared, she was very likely the only virgin in the whole senior class.
She was seriously beginning to feel rather...left out.
Michiru scowled and jerked opened the middle drawer of her dresser to yank out a pink flannel nightgown. Stupid virginity! She flung the night gown on the neatly made bed and slammed the drawer closed. It wasn't that she was saving herself for marriage or anything. She doubted she'd live that long. She just wanted to give her virginity to someone she liked - that liked her back.
However, the way things were going, she sincerely doubted she'd live long enough to go on a proper date, never mind get the chance to lose her virginity. Damn it!
Michiru stomped across the room to pull the heavy curtains closed. It was too damned cold at night to leave them open. The cracked windows did little to keep heat in the room. She then moved to the fireplace opposite her bed and knelt to light the paper covered fire log in her fireplace, then added a few actual wood logs. The aged fireplace was the room's only source of heat and the paper coated fire log only lasted a few hours.
Once the log was well and truly lit, she slipped out of her bathrobe and pulled her night gown over her head, tugging it down over her nudity. Stupid zombies! Why were they all in her town anyway? If it hadn't been for them, she'd have been able to live a normal life and gotten herself a normal boyfriend.
Michiru flopped back on her bed to stare at the cracked, water-stained ceiling. So what should I do? She didn't want to die a virgin! That would be completely pathetic. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Note how the character's Actions and Mood Swings (the back and forth in Thought,) allowed for paragraph breaks. Hopefully that helped.
You ARE what you READ.
You ARE what you READ.
by Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
Years ago I was talking to a fellow novelist whom I’d just met and I asked him what his Top Five favorite novels were. This is a question I ask writers a lot. I’m always looking for great books, and one place to find them is on the Top Five list of another writer.
He said, “I don’t read fiction.”
This guy’s answer just about knocked me over. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him if he meant he didn’t read much fiction.
No, he didn’t read any. He was a nonfiction kind of a guy.
He wrote fiction, but he didn’t read it.
That was years ago, and I haven’t seen anything from him recently.
To put it bluntly, I don’t see that as a recipe for success. If you’re a novelist, you need to be reading fiction.
There’s a saying that “you are what you read,” and I think this is partially true.
If you read great fiction, you’ll absorb some of it, and you’ll become a better writer. You’ll learn what’s possible to do in writing, and it can’t help but expand you as a writer. But I think it goes beyond that.
I recommend reading widely, even if it isn’t great fiction. Because the fact is that--
--you are MORE than what you read.
What you read is fuel for your mind—it’s necessary, but it’s not sufficient.
Novelists need to read Fiction.
A lot of fiction. Not just the bestsellers. Obscure stuff. Good fiction. Great fiction. Horrible fiction (not too much of this—if you do manuscript reviews at a writing conference, you’ll see more than you need).
When you read other people’s fiction, you learn things that you couldn’t learn any other way because when it comes to the craft of writing--
--you don’t know what you Don’t Know.
The only way to Learn what you don’t know is by
Reading other people’s work.
For starters, you should read widely in your category. You need to know the rules of your genre—which ones are ironclad and which ones can be bent, but that’s not enough.
Read widely outside your Genre.
Read outside your Demographic.
Read outside your Worldview.
Read Romance fiction.
Most novels have a romance thread in them, no matter what their category. If you can improve that thread, your story will improve.
Read Suspense fiction.
Most novels have some element of fear in them. Learn how to do that better and your novel will be better.
Read Fantasy.
Even if you, personally, would never want to read a vampire or werewolf story, it’s quite possible that one of your characters would. If you understand that character better, then you’ll do a better job writing that character.
Read Mysteries.
Even if you hate mysteries. Most novels have an element of mystery to them—some secret that needs to be uncovered. If you know how to unwrap that secret, one layer at a time, then your story can only get better.
Read a Spy novel.
One of your characters is reading a spy novel right now. Do you know what he likes about it?
Read a Historical novel.
The better you understand history, the better you understand the present.
Read Science Fiction.
You might learn a bit of science, if it’s a hard science fiction novel. But for sure, you’ll expand your universe a bit. Never hurts.
Read YA fiction.
Young Adult fiction will give you insights into your younger characters. It might give you some insights into a few young adults in your life.
Read Women’s fiction.
If you’re a guy, you’ll understand women better, which is good all by itself. If you’re a guy writing fiction, you’ll understand your readers better, because the odds are that the majority of your readers are women.
Read fiction that features characters with wildly different Beliefs from yours.
I understand hyper-capitalists better after reading Ayn Rand. I understand Jews better after reading Chaim Potok. I understand Wiccans better after reading S.M. Stirling’s apocalyptic series that begins with Dies the Fire. I understand Muslims better after reading Khaled Hosseini’s book The Kite Runner. I understand fundamentalists better after reading the first book in the Left Behind series.
The better you understand your characters, the better your novel will be.
Read Bad fiction.
Yes, really. If you find a particularly bad piece of writing, read it all the way to the end. Figure out why it’s so awful. Resolve never to do the things that the author is doing.
I confess that I have a favorite bad novel, written by a high-school kid who graduated a couple of years behind me. This thing is fearsomely, wonderfully, amazingly awful. It’s bad on every possible level.
No, I won’t tell you the title. Find your own dreck. I’m keeping mine a secret.
My family knows which book I’m talking about, and they’ve all read it. We sometimes quote particularly horrible lines at the dinner table.
There are a billion ways to write great fiction, but only about a dozen ways to write truly horrible fiction.
Good writing starts by learning to avoid that dirty dozen of Desperately Horrible Writing Follies.
If you’ve read some really awful fiction, I guarantee it’ll improve your writing. But there IS such a thing as too much of a bad thing, so stop when you’re had enough. A little goes a long way.
Read a little bad fiction and a ton of good fiction.
Reading Fiction
is the foundation of Writing fiction.
Make your foundation broad and strong.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 9,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
You ARE what you READ.
You ARE what you READ.
by Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
Years ago I was talking to a fellow novelist whom I’d just met and I asked him what his Top Five favorite novels were. This is a question I ask writers a lot. I’m always looking for great books, and one place to find them is on the Top Five list of another writer.
He said, “I don’t read fiction.”
This guy’s answer just about knocked me over. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him if he meant he didn’t read much fiction.
No, he didn’t read any. He was a nonfiction kind of a guy.
He wrote fiction, but he didn’t read it.
That was years ago, and I haven’t seen anything from him recently.
To put it bluntly, I don’t see that as a recipe for success. If you’re a novelist, you need to be reading fiction.
There’s a saying that “you are what you read,” and I think this is partially true.
If you read great fiction, you’ll absorb some of it, and you’ll become a better writer. You’ll learn what’s possible to do in writing, and it can’t help but expand you as a writer. But I think it goes beyond that.
I recommend reading widely, even if it isn’t great fiction. Because the fact is that--
--you are MORE than what you read.
What you read is fuel for your mind—it’s necessary, but it’s not sufficient.
Novelists need to read Fiction.
A lot of fiction. Not just the bestsellers. Obscure stuff. Good fiction. Great fiction. Horrible fiction (not too much of this—if you do manuscript reviews at a writing conference, you’ll see more than you need).
When you read other people’s fiction, you learn things that you couldn’t learn any other way because when it comes to the craft of writing--
--you don’t know what you Don’t Know.
The only way to Learn what you don’t know is by
Reading other people’s work.
For starters, you should read widely in your category. You need to know the rules of your genre—which ones are ironclad and which ones can be bent, but that’s not enough.
Read widely outside your Genre.
Read outside your Demographic.
Read outside your Worldview.
Read Romance fiction.
Most novels have a romance thread in them, no matter what their category. If you can improve that thread, your story will improve.
Read Suspense fiction.
Most novels have some element of fear in them. Learn how to do that better and your novel will be better.
Read Fantasy.
Even if you, personally, would never want to read a vampire or werewolf story, it’s quite possible that one of your characters would. If you understand that character better, then you’ll do a better job writing that character.
Read Mysteries.
Even if you hate mysteries. Most novels have an element of mystery to them—some secret that needs to be uncovered. If you know how to unwrap that secret, one layer at a time, then your story can only get better.
Read a Spy novel.
One of your characters is reading a spy novel right now. Do you know what he likes about it?
Read a Historical novel.
The better you understand history, the better you understand the present.
Read Science Fiction.
You might learn a bit of science, if it’s a hard science fiction novel. But for sure, you’ll expand your universe a bit. Never hurts.
Read YA fiction.
Young Adult fiction will give you insights into your younger characters. It might give you some insights into a few young adults in your life.
Read Women’s fiction.
If you’re a guy, you’ll understand women better, which is good all by itself. If you’re a guy writing fiction, you’ll understand your readers better, because the odds are that the majority of your readers are women.
Read fiction that features characters with wildly different Beliefs from yours.
I understand hyper-capitalists better after reading Ayn Rand. I understand Jews better after reading Chaim Potok. I understand Wiccans better after reading S.M. Stirling’s apocalyptic series that begins with Dies the Fire. I understand Muslims better after reading Khaled Hosseini’s book The Kite Runner. I understand fundamentalists better after reading the first book in the Left Behind series.
The better you understand your characters, the better your novel will be.
Read Bad fiction.
Yes, really. If you find a particularly bad piece of writing, read it all the way to the end. Figure out why it’s so awful. Resolve never to do the things that the author is doing.
I confess that I have a favorite bad novel, written by a high-school kid who graduated a couple of years behind me. This thing is fearsomely, wonderfully, amazingly awful. It’s bad on every possible level.
No, I won’t tell you the title. Find your own dreck. I’m keeping mine a secret.
My family knows which book I’m talking about, and they’ve all read it. We sometimes quote particularly horrible lines at the dinner table.
There are a billion ways to write great fiction, but only about a dozen ways to write truly horrible fiction.
Good writing starts by learning to avoid that dirty dozen of Desperately Horrible Writing Follies.
If you’ve read some really awful fiction, I guarantee it’ll improve your writing. But there IS such a thing as too much of a bad thing, so stop when you’re had enough. A little goes a long way.
Read a little bad fiction and a ton of good fiction.
Reading Fiction
is the foundation of Writing fiction.
Make your foundation broad and strong.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 9,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
10 Second Tip - Making Titles
When I can't decide on a title, I fall back on how the professionals do it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> No more than Three words, preferably Two. One word is considered ideal for a title.
> You can have Four if the word is 'And,' 'The,' 'A,' or something similar.
> One word for the Genre.
> Any other words should stand for:
-- the Emotion the story is trying to invoke
-- a Character
-- an Action
or
-- a Location
Examples:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Star Trek (genre + emotion)
Grimm (Genre & Emotion in one word.)
Once Upon a Time (Genre)
The Addams Family (Name = Genre + Emotion)
-- 'Addams' IS a genre because the name has been recognized and associated with "spooky" since the 1930s when the comic first appeared in 'New Yorker Magazine.'
Deep Space 9 (Genre & Location)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Character + Genre + Action)
House (name = Genre)
Wizard of Oz (Genre + Location)
Assassin's Creed (Genre + Emotion)
Walking Dead (Genre)
Nightmare Before Christmas (Genre + Emotion + Genre)
Legend of Zelda (Genre + Character)
Despicable Me (Genre + Character)
Tron (Genre)
The Matrix (Genre)
Lord of the Rings (Genre + Character) The One Ring is a Character.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: There is No Wrong Way to create a Title. This is merely how the professionals do it.
If you choose to create your title some other way, DO IT. Just because the pros do it this way does NOT Invalidate how you chose your title. After all, it's YOUR Story.
Though be warned, if you get your story published by one of the big publishing houses, they will very likely Change your title if it doesn't suit their Marketing needs. They did it to me -- Twice!
It's called the Erotic Story Generator.
-- Game Page with screen caps and download link --> darkeroticagames.blogspot.com/…
Anyone familiar with Seventh Sanctum's generators will recognize the "list generated" style immediately. Basically, you click a button and a story happens. What's different about mine isn't merely the the way the words actually fit together to make a coherent story, but the sheer magnitude of the content.
Each story generates from Eleven lists -- with over 50 items per list:
2 Character lists
2 Character description lists
2 locations lists
2 Smut/Action lists
2 Locations lists
1 Conclusion list (the story's End.)
Plus there's Music, and Graphics.
-- Though I'll warn you now, there are only a few PG-16 images and they're only suggestive, not graphic. However it does use Adult language!!!
It's free to download AND free to use! Seriously, if the generator provides inspiration - USE IT! In fact, that's exactly why I made it, to help erotic writers come up with plot-based Adult story ideas.
If you do download it, let me know if you like it.
-- I'm considering making one of the not-so-adult variety -- IF people show interest in something like this.