So—this week's assignment: Do you prefer writing description or dialogue? What do you have the most difficulty with? Why do you suppose that is? What do you do to strengthen it or do you avoid it at all costs? Well, for me, that is an easy first question to answer—description.
The rest are not so plain…
Let
me explain, I am the quintessential shy, introverted writer. *whispers* My
sister says so. Ahem…anyway, barring being an author, I’m a quiet person in my
real life and never have much to say. The husband always complained. “What’s
wrong?” Nothing. “How come you’re so quiet?” No reason. “Are you mad?” NO! Just
because I wasn’t being the chatterbox that he was and filling in all the quiet
space, didn’t mean I wasn’t happy just sitting there watching life. (Possibly
my shy exterior and quiet demeanor came from a grandmother that always demanded
that children be seen and not heard)
So,
when I work on manuscripts, I tend to put a lot of description in them. What my
characters are feeling, saying, doing—how they are reacting and the
consequences of those reactions. I add the environment around them, the
emotions of those with whom they are interacting with. I do have dialogue,
after all, a book would be pretty boring if it were nothing BUT descriptions.
However, my dialogue is straight and to the point, and I only have it rambling
if it, in fact, fits the character. “Chatty Kathy…er Chatty Chad?” or, you get
the picture.
Of
course, without dialogue, you can’t get as big a picture of what the character
is all about, their quirks, personality, insecurities, etc. So, though I will
admit that dialogue is extremely important in any story, I do struggle with it.
I am not a witty person, have never been able to keep up with the witticism of
others. Can’t participate in fast banter. I was never good at that. Again, I’m a
quiet person, and possibly, my characters reflect that. Does that hurt my
manuscripts? Possibly. However, I do work at keeping a natural and
complimentary balance between dialogue and description, and hope that it shows
in my stories and that people enjoy the telling of them.
