That one guy at the library who totally fixed my character's voice

I was stuck on a scene for like three weeks. This older guy at the Minneapolis public library saw me staring at my laptop and asked what I was writing. He just said 'your character sounds like they're reading from a script, not living it.' That one line made me rewrite the whole chapter from scratch. Has anyone else had a total stranger give you a writing tip that actually stuck?

2 comments

2 Comments

wren_smith4413d ago

Okay so what did he MEAN by that though? Like did he give you an example of what he was hearing that felt scripted? Because I have this problem where my characters all sound like theyre doing a TED talk instead of just TALKING to each other. I need to know if he pointed out a specific word or sentence type that was the giveaway.

thead4413d ago

Honestly are people really sitting there picking apart dialogue word by word like that? Feels like overthinking it to me, just write how people actually stumble through sentences and stop worrying so much.