{"id":10960,"date":"2021-10-06T07:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T14:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=10960"},"modified":"2021-09-28T12:11:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T19:11:28","slug":"weave-narrative-dialogue-and-action-prompt-605","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/weave-narrative-dialogue-and-action-prompt-605\/","title":{"rendered":"Weave narrative, dialogue, and action . . . Prompt #605"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Have you read something that feels \u201coff?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or been bored with the sluggish, plodding plot?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you wonder why the novel isn\u2019t moving along?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could be the lack of balance between narration, dialogue, and action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a writer you want to keep your story moving and engaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weaving<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to balance our scenes using three elements of fiction: dialogue, action and narrative. This is one reason you want to put your character in a scene with other characters as often as possible: Scenes that weave together these three elements engage the reader at an emotional level much more effectively than scenes that are only dialogue, only narrative or only action.\u201d \u2014Gloria Kempton<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One at a time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes you want to focus on one aspect. Use dialogue, for example, to show a character’s personality and motives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you want to highlight a particular character trait in your viewpoint character . . . you don\u2019t want the scene cluttered, the reader distracted or the pace slowed by action or narration.\u201d \u2014Gloria Kempton<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pacing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your scene involves conflict, dialogue<\/strong> alone can work to show emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, you might want to use narration<\/strong> to indicate what the character is thinking and to avoid dialogue that could sound contrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Action<\/strong> is best when you want to propel an intense scene forward and when characters wouldn\u2019t be talking during a powerful situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to use and when<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dialogue: Speed things up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narration or dialogue or a combination: To provide background information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Action or narration: When too much dialogue is clumped together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ready to experiment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choose a scene from your work in progress or write a new scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First round: Write scene in dialogue only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second round: Write same scene using narration only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third round: Write same scene using all action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last round: Weave all three styles for a three-dimensional effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Excerpts from \u201cWeave Action, Narrative and Dialogue,\u201d by Gloria Kempton<\/a>, Nov\/Dec 2010 Writer\u2019s Digest<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#amwriting #justwrite #dialogue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you read something that feels \u201coff?\u201d Or been bored with the sluggish, plodding plot? Do you wonder why the novel isn\u2019t moving along? It could be the lack of balance between narration, dialogue, and action. As a writer you want to keep your story moving and engaging. Weaving \u201cWe want to balance our scenes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[1190],"class_list":["post-10960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prompts","tag-writing-freely-just-write-writing-prompts-the-write-spot-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-2QM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10960"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10966,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10960\/revisions\/10966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}