iUniverse learns from Rising Star author, Lisa K. Drucker Part 5

iUniverse blog moves the book creation blog series, from Rising Star self-published author, Lisa K. Druker, onto creating meaningful dialogue in novels. In this post Lisa discusses how, when and where in a novel good dialogue is relevant and enhances your story.

Creating a Book – Dialogue

“Always get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start.”
                       ― P.G. Wodehouse

“Creating dialogue that rings true is another essential aspect to writing a novel. After you’ve mastered character development, point of view and setting, start to think about dialogue. The most important thing about dialogue is that it has to sound “real”. That sounds easier to achieve than it actually is. This is one part of storycraft that is not just about writing; it’s also about listening.

That’s right: In order to write good dialogue you have to be a good listener. You have to capture the rhythm of people’s speech so that the dialogue sounds like a conversation to the reader. This is hard to teach and hard to learn, and the only way to get it right is to just write a lot of dialogue. Even if it’s “bad”! Really, you have to learn how to be a discreet yet effective eavesdropper. My training came from riding the New York City subway system, but anywhere that you can believably pretend that you’re not listening to people’s conversations and yet hear every word will help you immeasurably.

Finally, dialogue needs to move the story along; it needs to serve the action. Again, this sounds easier to do than it actually is. When writing dialogue, imagine the story without it. If the reader will still be able to follow the plot, that bit of dialogue is not essential, and you can cut it. Mull this over before deciding.

When writing Arise, O Phoenix, I wrote, cut, rewrote, cut, and rewrote sections of dialogue before finalizing it—especially in the scenes set on or directly following September 11, 2001. The process of creating dialogue can be gut-wrenching, but it’s worth the effort when readers describe feeling like they felt that they were part of the characters’ conversations.”

iUniverse says it’s good to talk?

iUniverse 100,000th ebook by Rising Star author Lisa K. Drucker

Lisa Drucker has brought another post to the iUniverse blog “creating a book series” which is advice packed and is essential reading for any author or aspiring author. Concerning the relevant use of dialogue, Lisa has succinctly explained the situations when dialogue fits the story and how to integrate it into the story; another smashing blog post from this iUniverse Rising Star author and guest blogger, Lisa K. Drucker.

To learn more about Lisa and her book, “Arise O Phoenix”, a story of love, fate and the strength of the human spirit set against the backdrop of 9/11, take a look at her website and get a preview of the book here.

iUniverse publishing recommends that you complete this fascinating journey by reading the final article from Lisa, which takes an in-depth look at the mechanics of writing, by clicking here.