ALL A-QUIVER: WALKING THE STRAIGHT ’N ARROW

Word of the week: ambiguous \am-ˈbi-gyə-wəs\ - (hear it!) - adjective - : able to be understood in more than one way : having more than one possible meaning : not expressed or understood clearly

Indie author shout out - Hey, hey! I've got a handful of indie accomplishments to crow about this week!

First, Mr. Glen Solosky [indie author of The Abominable Sruvius] has a new short out . . . for FREE on Smashwords: Walt vs The Space Flunkies - a funky little, awesomely written short story he'd adapted from its original comic book style. Come check it out!

Second, indie author Lorraine Sears will be running a special FREE promotion on Amazon for her novel, Soul Reunion, from Christmas Day through the Sunday the 29th. Come for a download! Hey, it'll be FREE. What do you have to lose?

Third, Lisa M. Green [indie author of The First], has reached well beyond her kickstarter goal . . . thanks to the wonderful help of all her backers! Many congrats to Lisa, and we look forward to reading your book, The First, in all its glory!

  

Fourth, I absolutely need to shout out about Sparks, the debut novel by indie author R.S. McCoy, another author whom I truly look forward to knowing and helping to spread the word about.
  

Fifth, the wonderful Miss Holly Kothe (indie author of Sweet Violent Femmes) has a short, Mirror Image, featured in I am Not Frazzle!, a charity anthology put together by Graham Downs, and as the description at Amazon states: "All proceeds of this book go to the Devizes and District Opportunity Centre, a registered charity in the UK that helps children with disabilities and learning difficulties get a better start to life."
  

And finally . . . why haven't you downloaded your copy of Sons of the Falcon (by indie author Court Ellyn) yet?? What the heck are you waiting for? Go! Now! Stat! Shoo, shoo, shoo! At 99 cents, how can you go wrong, really?

And so now . . . the actual blog post! . . . 

Say What??

More than once, I've been told I have a knack for character dialogue, making it come alive on the page. Well, I had taken this to heart and had written an article for Writer's Beat Quarterly about what I'd learned regarding character dialogue.

And honestly, with the holiday season coming up and many people out and about travelling and what not . . . what better time to post up a past article?

Thus and so, here it is. 

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Strictly Speaking: Character Dialogue

Pick up any fiction book and thumb through it. What are you likely to see? Aside from paragraph after paragraph of narration, the second most recognizable part of a novel is the dialogue.

Like real people in the real world, characters who live together within the pages of a fictional world need to speak to one another. Through this, they come to life; they reveal information to the reader about themselves and their situations, and shed light on any number of backstories that might fuel their actions or shape their demeanors.

Thus, well-written dialogue is just as important to the overall structure of a story as narration is. Stilted or awkward speech, characters who speak “out of character,” or one who drones on in exposition can jar or bore a reader, which might make him put the book down in disgust.

But writing believable dialogue can be easy—if a writer is willing to put himself into his characters' metaphorical shoes, that is. How? More on this in a moment.

Let's start by looking at the various parts of dialogue.

Continued here - Strictly Speaking: Character Dialogue