Dynamic Dialogue: Letting Your Story Speak (Red Sneaker Writers Book Series) by William Bernhardt

Author:William Bernhardt [Bernhardt, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: нонфикшн, Creative Writing
Publisher: Babylon Books
Published: 2014-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

Talking to Yourself

Sometimes people ask whether I think reading work aloud while revising is a good idea. My answer is: It depends upon why you’re doing it. If you’re doing it to “sound-check” whether the dialogue sounds right or sounds realistic, then my answer is a decided no.

Here’s the problem: When you read your own work, you will use inflection and tone and pacing to make the dialogue sound exactly how you want it. But those tools aren’t on the printed page. When your readers read your book, they will not have the benefit of your voice to suggest inflection, pace, where the emphases should go, where to speed up and where to slow down. Your novel will not be printed with margin notes for subvocalizing readers. So the test isn’t whether you can make it sound good. The test is whether it reads right. And the only way you can determine that is by reading it the same way your reader will—with a blank-slate brain, silently.

Reading your dialogue aloud is not the best way to determine whether it works. Better to read it slowly and silently, trying to reproduce the experience of the reader.

I have occasionally heard people say that reading dialogue aloud helps them root out dialogue that sounds phony or artificial. I’m dubious about this, but if it works for you, fine. But make sure you’re not simply indulging yourself, reveling in the loveliness of your own pretty words, or subconsciously preparing for your future book reading at Barnes & Noble.

Some experienced writers have told me that reading aloud helps them during the editing process. I will discuss this more in the book on Editing, but generally speaking, anything that gets you away from the electronic screen and causes you to read more carefully, focusing on each and every word, is probably a good practice. After having over twenty audiobooks recorded from my work, I finally had the opportunity to sit in the studio during the recording of Shine. This was both an enjoyable and enlightening experience (especially since the voice artist was ferociously inventive and talented). More than once during the recording, I heard a line that didn’t sound right to me. Fortunately, since the book hadn’t been published yet, I could fix it. So I can grudgingly see the value of hearing your work read aloud, but don’t let that be the primary means of checking your dialogue. Make sure it works for readers who won’t hear you or anyone else read it aloud.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.