Dialogue
Good dialogue sets great stories apart from the mediocre. Master dialogue and you can master storytelling.
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When It’s Okay To Act Out
Okay, so you’re writing away and you have no idea what motivates your main character (or yourself at age twelve). Or you can visualize your MC’s best friend, but you can’t hear her voice. Or you’ve finally finished your fifteenth draft and you’re ready to share with your beta readers or your writing group or your editor or (gulp!) your publisher, but you have a niggling feeling there’s something missing. Take a step back and try a couple of editing techniques that are a little different. When we read, we tend to “hear” the words in our heads. If the story’s well-written, we “see” the…
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The Song of the Spoken Word
Music surrounds us. Throughout human history, it has played a big part in our communications. But only in the past 100 years has it been available to everyone all the time. Before this, only a few very wealthy patrons could enjoy music in their homes, and only if they knew how to perform, play an instrument or hire someone to play for them. Every religion has used music to praise a variety of gods, (entertainment being a large part of their attraction for the general populace), and indigenous peoples have all had their own styles of music, often used to communicate over long distances, to appease the spirits and to ward off…