Tags
Audience, CampNanowrimo, character, Dialogue, Imagination, Novel, Reader, Reading
For my CampNaNoWriMo project this time, I’m going back to a previous story and set of characters that I never really finished and this time I’m determined to at least flesh them out enough to have a plot in place for November. So while I’m happy to be a little bit of a panster (writing with no clear plan) I want to try and be more of a Plotter next time around.
After day one however I am noticing that this time I seem to be writing more dialogue than I would normally use because the characters are now so familiar that I almost have a scene playing out in my head for them and I’m trying to just capture all of the things they would say and interact. Is this weird?
Perhaps it’s because I did a screenplay for a project in my previous writing course rather than novel writing and now my brain doesn’t seem to know when to stop. When I look at the amount of dialogue it doesn’t seem a lot yet when I am writing it then it feels like it might be too much, since people can’t exactly see the characters as I do. Or is this the point? Will this just encourage a reader to create their own version of the character as a visual in their head? I guess it just depends on how you read things: I know I create a picture in my mind of characters from reading books but does everyone else?
This also means I am often upset at the choice of casting when the books reach filming status, I’m sure we have all had those times when our crush clearly doesn’t live up to expectations.
I am so crossing my fingers and holding my breath for The Witcher adaptation.
Source: Scratcherpen
So dialogue in a novel: good or bad?
Gwendlyn D 
I treat dialogue the same way I do backstory – write it out of your system and then edit anything that isn’t moving the narrative along. Sometimes you need to get it all down just to get a better grasp of how these characters interact.
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I like this idea, I think this is probably what I’ll do too. Just get it all written down and out of my system so the story is there and I can go back and change things in the edit. I think you’re right and it is helping me get a finer idea of how the characters interact.
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Oh, hm, it could be because you did a screenplay for a project, but it’s also nice not to have too many descriptions that sort of “force” the reader into a specific look. I find the most important is to get an idea of how the characters “move”, if you can say that.
Ah, yes, casting from book to movie. Quite the tricky part as a director I imagine.
Dialogue in novels, good – yet all things in moderation. For me personally, I’m more into being told what they say, than actually reading their exact words, if that makes sense. Some “direct dialogue” is needed too though, if they have certain quirks and words they would use etc. (Sorry, English is not my main language, so the language-barrier-struggle is real!)
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I get it, a sprinkling of their dialogue is good to show how the character acts and interacts but just not too much, and on the whole being told what was said works better in reading.
I think this is why my hesitation, I usually prefer this in reading too.
P.S If English is not your main language then you still write better English than many of my English speaking friends including me most times *grins
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Right, yes, that indeed. Oh, I like the term sprinkling too. Now I want icecream 😛
Hah, thank you for saying that, I guess I try hard 🙂
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