On Writing Dialogue

I spent some time editing today. Nice time, sitting on the balcony, in my new writing place. However, editing is hard for me even in a nice place when the sun is shining and the birds are singing.

Oh, I don’t mean finding and fixing typos. I actually like doing that.

What is hard for me is to unzip a scene, add some more stuff or shift something around and then making it all fit seamlessly again. Because I like how my scenes flow, and sometimes, it’s near impossible to cut them open.

I wish I had some editorial superglue to make that easy.

Anyway, I was adding a lot more dialogue – and I usually find myself writing dialogue that is not straight and polished and to the point. Sometimes, it strays away from the topic, and one participant has to bring it back to where it belongs. People use shorthand and get misunderstandings. Sometimes, they need to double back to untangle things. And sometimes, they are downright funny.

I love it when that happens. Because that’s how real life talk works. Just watch a talk show to see that in action.

So that part of editing was actually fun.

About Hannah Steenbock

Hannah Steenbock is an author, dreamer, and coach. She has published several short stories in English and German, as well as one novel in German. In 2013 she started self-publishing her work. In 2014, she has won two awards for her short story "Sequoia".
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