Writing a Book-Dialog

This post pertains to writing primarily fiction.  All of my writing prior to 47 Destinies invovled narrative.  If you read my book, you will notice that I love to describe a setting (a future blog post).  I can go on and on and on describing a scene.  In fact, I had to cut a lot of that out in my novel because I tended to ramble about the colors, clouds and ocean.  :)  Attempting to write dialog was frightening.  I had never written dialog.  It seemed like an insurmountable task.  So as most ambitious people do, I avoided it completely for awhile.  I allowed myself to feel comfortable again just writing.  It was free flowing.  Anything that came to my mind I wrote about it.  Nothing was off limits.  Once I gained some confidence, I began to experiment with dialog.  After some time, I actually found it to be easier than narrative.  Say what?  I know, I couldn't believe it either.  My main characters love to banter back and forth.  Interesting, so do I.  So, the dialog just flowed right out of me.  After I conquered the fear of simply trying it, I couldn't get enough.

However, even the best writers have a few issues with dialog: the word 'said' and punctuation.  I pulled out my "Little Brown Book" from college and studied all of the punctuation involved in dialog.  I implemented a tried and true method as well.  Even if my punctuation wasn't 100% correct, I made sure it was 100% consistent!  As for 'said', I now have a list of different words for 'said'.  This list has broadened my horizons and added even more flavor to the dialog.

Don't worry too much about all of these small details.  Keep in mind that practice makes perfect.  The beauty of writing is that you can always edit it!