#writingtricks

The simplicity of said does exactly what it needs to: it identifies the speaker. Don’t abandon the word said completely, but here are some other ways to describe your dialogue! 

1) Use a physical gesture. This allows for the character to interact with their environment for more detailed imagery. 

     “Please, don’t leave me!” She grabbed at the hem of his golden cloak as he turned away from her, the finely crafted material slipping from her wet fingers.

2) Use different synonyms of said to add atmosphere. This can help create tone and volume in your scene, but should be used sparingly. They add a nice flavor and clarity to an important scene— however, some authors think “said” should still be your default.

     “Please, don’t leave me!” She bellowed. 

3) Replace dialogue tags with action in a way that moves the plot along. This kills two birds with one stone. It shows who is speaking, while also pressing the story forward.

     “Please, don’t leave me!” She grabbed at the hem of his golden cloak and a crumbled note fell from his pocket.

4) Use no description at all! If you’ve already clarified who will be speaking from the context above and want the dialogue to stand alone, you could try using no tags.

     She sat in a puddle of her own tears, grabbing at the hem of his golden cloak. He turned away from her, the finely crafted material slipping from her wet fingers. She pressed her hands to her chest, the tightness threatening to subdue her.      “Please, don’t leave me!”

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If you’re looking to create complex, unique, relatable characters... consider making them walking contradictions. 

What is a walking contradiction? It’s a character who’s personality conflicts on itself. As humans, we all have contrasts in our personalities as a result of our upbringing and life events. When a character has opposite traits within their personality it can create juicy conflict/plot. 

She’s attractive but has lost confidence in her looks = she might settle for less than she deserves.

He’s heartbroken but still believes in love = he might put his heart on his shoulder and gets used.

He’s is the most popular boy at school, yet feels extremely lonely = he could befriend the quiet kid.

She’s indecisive, yet impulsive = makes a bad choice without thinking.

She loves watching the travel channel but has never left her small town.

Here are some examples of complex characters that are written as walking contradictions in literature:

Harry Potter — rumored to be the most powerful wizard, yet his story starts in a cupboard under the staircase.

Edward Cullen — a deadly monster who falls in love with a delicate human whose blood is his weakness.

Hannibal Lecter — a respected psychiatrist who is well-mannered on the outside, but is a serial killer who murders rude people. He taunts Clarice, but then also protects her.

Inej Ghafa — a highly skilled assassin who doesn’t kill due to her religious beliefs.

Frodo — a small hobbit with no qualifications, who is tasked with saving middle-earth.

Hamlet — cares for Ophelia, yet breaks her heart. Loves his mother, but hates her for marrying the king.  

Blu — a bird who doesn’t know how to fly.

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[Source] [Plot Perfect by Paula Munier]

    1) Sacrifice. Either by their own means or against their will. Either way, their death saves thousands of lives, OR... maybe their sacrifice does the opposite and ends up killing thousands, but they died thinking they left a positive impact.

     2) Stabbed in the back by the one guy everyone told them not to trust, but they decided to trust anyway because “there’s still good in him.”

     3) After surviving a very dangerous event in your book, they die afterwards from something minor or a wound that they’ve been concealing.

     4) They’re being mind controlled by the enemy, so they beg their allies to kill them before they do something bad. Or they already did that bad thing and have to be killed after creating an upset. This makes a bad event even worse.

     5) Give them an “Achilles heel” — a single weakness that ends up being their downfall.

     6) They die by their worst fear (ex. drowning if they’re afraid of deep water.) This could end up haunting and affecting the other characters deeply.

     7) Consider killing them in the middle of their character arc. An abrupt, sudden death that leaves their story unfinished. Was the bad guy just about to be redeemed? Did the shy hermit finally gain enough courage go on an adventure, only to die before reaching the end?

     8) Give them an ironic death. The champion is killed by accidentally tripping. The dragon rider is eaten by one of his dragons.

Pt. 2 — Coming Soon

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A friend recently sent me an e-mail asking “How do I sit down and write? I've been trying to write my script for years and all I have so far is 15 pages. Whenever I sit down I get distracted and do something else.” 10 Tips to stop being distracted and JUST WRITE! 1) TURN OFF THE INTERNET Make the internet a reward instead of a distraction. Make yourself WRITE BEFORE YOU GO ONLINE. If you're an addict of facebook, promise yourself you can't look at FB til you get X amount of pages done. Once you get on Facebook, you often forget why you even went on facebok in the fist place, you creeper. And if you need the internet for research, put a time limit on it when you start writing and then TURN IT OFF! 2) PUT YOUR MIND IN JAIL Don’t literally commit a crime, but put your mind in jail. This means know that you have nowhere to go and nothing to do except the task in front of you.  By telling yourself “I’m in Jail,” you can’t have access to the outside world, just you and those words you’re going to write. 

3) THE 5 MINUTE RULE/WRITING EVERY DAY At my last day job, I worked 60 hours a week and when I got home, the last thing I wanted to do was work more, so I did the 5 Minute Rule. JUST PROMISE TO WRITE 5 MINUTES A DAY. 5 Minutes is nothing, but you never know what will spark in 5 minutes. There's often times 5 minutes becomes 15 minutes, 20 minutes, or even an hour if inspiration hits. This will also keep your project in your subconscious everyday. 4) WRITE AS SOON AS YOU WAKE UP Put your laptop or notebook next to your bed. Then have the first thing you do before you even get out of bed is WRITE. Even if you have to pee, tell yourself you won’t pee until you write that scene, idea, or joke. 5) STOP FINDING EXCUSES I have many friends who moved to L.A. to become screenwriters, yet when I ask “What are you working on now?” It’s the exact same thing they had A YEAR AGO! They make excuses as to why they haven’t written anything in months. If you want to make money writing. You have to TREAT WRITING LIKE YOUR JOB. 6) WRITE FOR THE WASTE BASKET Ever sit down to think “Today, I’m going to write a masterpiece.” Only to find out you can’t write, because you can’t kill the critic in your head. Maybe you’re putting too much pressure on yourself to be good. The songwriter, Johnny Mercer used to “Write for the Waste Basket.” Without feeling that pressure of being great, he wrote crap, but after rewriting, that crap became gold records. In his career, he won four academy awards for Best Original Song. Judd Apatow works like this too. He calls his first draft the vomit pass, because it’s incredibly bad. But a vomit pass is better than no draft at all.

Johnny Mercer was probably also a party animal!

7) STOP BEING A PARTY ANIMAL Let’s face it, we all love to get drunk with our friends, but sometimes you have to blow off your friends to focus on you. Being a social butterfly isn’t going to get your pages done. And if you still want to drink, drink when you write, just don’t fall asleep or become an alcoholic. 8) JOIN A WRITING GROUP or CLASS Nothing makes me work harder than having my work being judged by my peers. Especially those who have more experience than I do. Having a class or discussion about your script can do wonders and give you new ideas.  Plus classes and groups give you deadlines, which come to my next point. 9) HAVE A DEADLINE If you have a Writing Contest, class, or have to present the script to a producer, you genuinely get your ass writing.  Deadlines help immensely.

10) MAKE A (REALISTIC) GOAL LIST AND STICK TO IT My grandma told me that everyday she writes a big list of things to do, and she’s lucky if she gets the first 5 things done on that list, but she’s still proud of those 5 things. Don’t tell yourself you’re going to do a lot, if you know you’re not going to do that. Big lists become overwhelming. Instead make your list of accomplishments smaller, and be proud of those accomplishments…and then go get drunk.