Sunday, January 20, 2008

Description vs. Dialogue

I was discussing with my friend Kathi the fact that my novel is lacking in terms of description. She asked me what I liked to read - description or dialogue. I realized that a) I had never thought about this before and b) I definitely preferred to read dialogue. So it makes sense that what I wrote was heavy (I do mean heavy) on the dialogue. I was feeling very nervous about this until I read something in John Scalzi's book, You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop To A Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing. Scalzi states in this book (p. 103), "As a writer, I am not particularly interested in description unless it's necessary to the plot." It was heartening to see it in writing. I had been thinking that I would go back and try to fill in description and I still may try that. But what will probably flow better is if I just honor the style that I have written in so far. I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

Which is not right now because...I am more focused on helping W get his book edited and published. I read through it a few nights ago (he also wrote it during NaNoWriMo) and it is really good. It is also very current which means he needs to get on publishing it because if he doesn't, I think someone else may beat him to the punch.

WRT my novel, I read a guide to editing your novel and the first step was just reading it through without editing it or making notes or anything. This did not work for me!!! While I did like what I was reading, I was too distracted by the edits I could be making. I think once W's book is on its way to the publisher, I will go back and read it at the computer and make edits along the way (having first made a copy on a CD!).

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