Dialogue Voices

This won't be the first post where I've extolled the invaluable help of the members of my writing group, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Each time their critique and counsel aid me in improving my writing, I want to pass on my added knowledge.  At yesterday's meeting, I experienced one of those sessions.

The first draft of a book, for me, is written quickly and without much serious thought about the details.  I'm lucky because, by reading the draft chapters to my fellow writers, I gain wisdom about what I might be failing to notice as I pound the keys to get that story on paper.

Yesterday had to do with the dialogue I had penned, involving the protagonist and her parents.  It was pointed out that the words sounded too formal for a family just talking to each other, and that my characters voices all tended to sound alike.  My son, Sean, who is a member of my group, did say that the father's voice (whose character name is Gene, which was my father's name) did remind him of his grandfather; that tickled me that he made note of the similarity to name and voice.  His suggestion was to leave his dialogue as is because that was how he spoke, but work on the other two.

I certainly didn't mean to make it too wordy, nor did I realize that I was creating dialogue clones.   This is a major reason for every writer to have a group of wordsmiths to review your work as you go, and help make it better.

Ultimately, as our group agrees, what goes into a writer's work must be that writer's decision, but a good writer should always seek and value the opinion of other members of his group.  I hope I never fail to remember that lesson.