Here's a little golden nugget of a writing tip for you on this beautiful Saturday. This one is so obvious, when it was pointed out to me, I had a kick-myself-in-the-shin moment. One of those SERIOUSLY?-why-did-someone-just-have-to-tell-me-that moments.
But here it is, for what it's worth:
Read what they say, without the tag.
Is what they're saying interesting?
Can you tell it's them talking, without the tag line? Does it stand out?
This tip came from author Cynthea Liu, who was assigned my manuscript critique at the SCBWI conference in LA this summer. (Amazing critique, by the way. Motivated me to START ALL OVER AGAIN.)
My main character's dialogue stood out on those opening pages she read. But my secondary character (in this case, my MC's mother) was saying things like:
"Heather, I'm sorry, honey. Time to go."
"Get up, Heather."
"Oh, honey."
The critique was (very politely given): BORING, BORING, BORING. Spice it up. Give Mom her own personality and don't forget that dialogue is the perfect way to SHOW personality.
And, very fittingly, you can read this blog post by Cynthea Liu about Making the most out of your Conference Critique. I read through her points and prayed that I wasn't the CRAZY person who motivated her to write it.
Have a wonderful Saturday.
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