Writers on Writing in the New York Times. How many am I guilty of in that list of ten writting transgressions? A few, that's for sure. But I've said for some years now that it is the voice of the characters themselves in a book that drives the reader to continue. Dialogue just draws readers in:
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.
Hooptedoodle indeed.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
