Other than Said

Dialogue is important to a story; however, the conversations you allow your characters to have need to have a purpose.

Good dialogue should do the following:
1. show relationships between characters
2. move the story forward
3. create tension or increase tension

There are also a variety of words one can use instead of "said." Here is a short list. I am sure you can find more.

acknowledged, admitted, agreed, answered, argued, asked, barked, begged, bellowed, blustered, bragged, complained, confessed, cried, demanded, denied, giggled, hinted, hissed, howled, interrupted, laughed, lied, mumbled, muttered, nagged, pleaded, promised, questioned, remembered, replied, requested, roared, sang, screamed, screeched, shouted, sighed, snarled, sobbed, threatened, warned, whimpered, whined, whispered, wondered, yelled

SFDs

Hi there. So, the torture has started. You are all cursing me under your breath - and I understand. As I join the writing journey with you, I am cursing myself under my breath.

While, I absolutely love writing, I hate it at the same time because it is such A LOT of work. And, to be quite honest, sometimes it is a lot of work for a pile of garbage. I have written so many stories only to throw them out the window or set them aside until I can figure out how to reshape them into something readable.

I have found that there is joy in writing garbage though as it frees the mind.

Read the attached essay and feel free to leave any comments!

SFDs (click here for the reading)

If you are interested in leanring more about Anne Lamont click below.