31 July 2007

Dialog

One easily-repaired problem I see in Electric Spec stories is what I call 'inconsistent dialog'. I'll show you what I mean:

"I've got to find the gate," Lisa, the dwarf queen, said. [a bunch of description here]

"Who?" the elf asked. [a bunch of description here]

"I'm too tired," Lisa said.


Here, I think the author got distracted by all the description and lost track of what the, er, people were saying. It's easy to get distracted.... Wait. What was my point? :)

Oh, yeah. I recommend you double-check what your people SAY and make sure it's an actual conversation. Of course, if you have telepathy or other non-standard modes of conversation in your stories, the same principles apply. Remember, the readers don't have telepathy--at least not most of them!

Good luck!

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