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Monday, February 27, 2017

Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Only Use 'Said'"


You may have heard the writing rule that the only dialogue tag you should use is "said." And if not "said" then "asked." Sometimes even "stated" gets mentioned. In this post, I'll explain what that rule means, why it's in place, and when to break it.


What's the Rule?



In writing, the dialogue tag is the bit of text that tells the reader who spoke what dialogue:

"Are you hungry?" Jimmy asked.
"Please don't suggest we have raw fish," Oscar said.
"You only hated it because the first piece you had wasn't fresh," Jimmy insisted.
"Or because it tasted like gym socks," Oscar complained.

There are dozens if not hundreds of dialogue tags--blurted, groaned, sighed, cried, shouted, yelled, griped, moaned, and the list goes on.

But there is a rule in the writing world that we should pretty much only use "said" and "asked."

Monday, February 20, 2017

Choosing Relatable Descriptions to Power up Empathy



There is something that has been rattling around in my subconscious for a while, and it finally clicked into the forefront of my mind: relatable descriptions.

I have found unrelatable descriptions in my own writing.

I have found them in other people's writing.

It's not that the unrelatable is always bad or wrong. It's that, like everything, it has a place it should be and a place it shouldn't be.

And where it should not be is in empathetic writing--when you want the reader to feel, empathetically, what the character feels.

Let me give you an example to illustrate.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Drawing out the Dragons (Required Viewing for Creatives)




Hi everyone! A couple of weeks ago I attended the Superstars Writing Seminar in Colorado for the first time. And (apparently) every year author and illustrator James Artimus Owen (Here, There Be Dragons) does a talk called "Drawing out the Dragons." Now, I've heard the name of this talk tossed around a lot in the writing community--I know it gets presented at other workshops and in schools, and I've heard a lot of positive comments about it--but I admit I had no idea what it actually was. When I saw it on the schedule, I just knew it would be good.

I'm now convinced that it needs to be required viewing for any creative. I rarely use the phrase "any creative," because people are so different, and there are always exceptions. For example, there may be things you find yourself disagreeing with in the talk. That's okay. I still think every creative should watch/listen to it.

Luckily, they recorded the one at Superstars that I was at, so you can watch exactly what I did. So rather than give you my own writing tips for today, I really want to encourage all of you to listen to "Drawing out the Dragons." It does have some visual components (mainly at the beginning and the end), but if you are too busy to sit down and watch it, then listen to it when cleaning, cooking, exercising, or commuting. I promise that if you just take the time to listen to it, 99.99% of you won't regret it, and it will leave you feeling better about yourself and life than you did before. And even if you don't have time to listen to all of it, just listen to the first half hour, first 20 minutes, first whatever. It's worth it.

This was a live recording on Facebook, so I don't believe I'm able to embed it. This also means that you will need to skip to 49:50, as we had a countdown going on until that point, and that's where it really starts.

You can watch "Drawing out the Dragons" here.

Now go live life deliberately.

Next week I'll be back with my own writing tips ;)