He Said, She Said: Writing Effective Dialogue
Summary:
Dialogue that drones on, clutters the page, or stalls the scene can ruin even the best of novels. Learn to avoid common dialogue pitfalls and dazzle your readers, editors, and agents with snappy scenes and smooth-as-silk transitions between dialogue and narrative. “He Said, She Said” is packed with innovative instruction, detailed information, and essential exercises to help your dialogue skills mesmerize and impress.
The information offered in “He Said, She Said” is easy to understand and simple to implement. In this guide book you will learn:
How to balance realistic dialogue with your narrative style, including addressing accents and learning the 4 things to leave out of your dialogue
5 ways to seamlessly insert dialogue into your scene, such as expressing gestures and employing summary dialogue
7 tricks to getting the most out of dialogue tags: everything from finding the right intensity level to avoiding POV issues
4 ways to improve your dialogue crafting skills, with prompts and exercises included.
Don’t waste an opportunity for success by settling for mediocre dialogue in your novel. Let “He Said, She Said” help you craft your characters’ exchanges with ease and skill. (Summary and cover courtesy of goodreads.com)
Please note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review courtesy of Sage’s Blog Tours.
Review:
This was a quick read that I covered in two sittings, but I know that I will continue to reference for quite some time. The tips and tricks are well explained and provide a good launching point for anyone in their writing. The author uses similar sections of dialogues in order to show before and after improvements. Having just finished my first NaNoWriMo, this was particularly of interest to me since I will begin the editing process in January. I have already identified a few common pitfalls that I believe I completed during my writing so I’m looking forward tackling the editing and updating using the principles used in this book!
Rating: 4 stars!
Who should read it? Folks who would like to improve their writing skills.