Checklist for Dialogue

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1. Read it out loud. Does it sound natural? Silted?
2. Be careful not to overuse character's names.
3. Especially in conversations with more than two people, is it always clear who is saying what?
4. Do your characters speak their thoughts? Most people don't. And not all people mean what they say or say what they mean.
5. Keep dialogue tags simple and don't overuse them. Use said or asked. Limit the use of explained, demanded, complained, yelled, etc. If someone is explaining something, it should be obvious they are. The reader won't need to be told that so-and-so explained it. Use the words of your dialogue to show that they are demanding or complaining or yelling. Make your dialogue strong enough to stand on its own.
6. When possible, use an action tag instead of a dialogue tag. For example: "I'm going to walk the dog," he said, picking up the leash. becomes "I'm going to walk the dog." He picked up the leash. (Simple example, I know, but hopefully you know what I mean.)
7. Eliminate small talk and filler words such as how are you? so, like, um, well...

Question of the Week - Favorite Superheroes

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Follow-up question from last week: Who is your favorite superhero and why? Can be from movies or books or comics.

Mine would probably be Thor. Loved the movie. It really exceeded my expectations. Why? Because he started out as an antihero and developed into a kick ass hero.

Weekly Progress Report

 Last wee, hubby and I and the boys went to Atlantic City because hubby had a conference to go to. Boy was that tiring to watch the boys all by myself in a hotel room and on the boardwalk during the day! But it was fun too, and I even managed to get some writing done too.

On Sunday, hubby watched the boys for several hours so I went to B&N and wrote until I finished my zombie fairy tale novella and I even had enough time to start and finish a 3K short story. After receiving feedback from a CP, I sent out the short story for possible inclusion in an anthology. *crosses fingers*

How goes your writing? Your reading? Seen any good movies lately? Are you going on vacation this summer? Where to?

Check out some other great progress reports this week:

http://www.writersally.blogspot.com/
http://jc-martin.com/fighterwriter/
http://waibelworld.blogspot.com
http://susanfieldswriter.blogspot.com
http://skmayhew.blogspot.com/p/tuesday-wip-status.html
http://margoberendsen.blogspot.com
http://www.sherryauger.blogspot.com
http://www.susanoloier.blogspot.com
http://carrieannebrownian.wordpress.com/
http://lynneawest.blogspot.com

Checklist for Minor Characters

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I'm finally getting back to my normal blogging schedule which means a creature post on Monday, a progress report on Tuesday, a Question on Wednesday, a Checklist on Thursday, and a review on Friday (although I might have guest blogs or interviews or other book news on Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday)

So it's back to a checklist. Today's checklist is specifically for minor characters.

1. Are your minor characters well developed?
2. Are your minor characters essential to the plot?
3. Would the story work if the minor character was deleted? (Note: you should then delete said character or change the story so that this is not the case.)
4. Does the minor character have an important (albeit small) role to play?
5. Does the minor character show up in more than one scene?
6. Is your minor character flat or 2-dimensional?
7. Is your minor character a caricature?
8. Does your minor character steal the scene away from the main characters? (This is not good, although it can help to create spin offs or sequels.)
9. Is your minor character's action and speech consistent throughout the story?

Question of the Week - Superheroes

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If you could create a superhero, what would your superhero be able to do? Would he be an alien like Superman? Have special powers like Spiderman? Be really rich and have super cool gadgets like Iron Man and Batman? Or would you create a superheroine?