I loved this article by Janice Hardy. Her tips on how to enhance a story with characters really got me to thinking more about mine.
Everyone has quirks. Good, bad, funny, sad, or funky, we all have something that makes us unique. So, what is weird or quirky about your characters?
However, just adding a limp or lazy eye won’t do the trick.
So just what is my favorite tip?
No Talking!
That’s right! No talking. Janice suggests take a scene, or section of the story and cut out all of the dialogue. Now take another look. Can you imagine the character? Can you name something unique about them without reverting to their eye color, height, weight, hair, etc.?
I can’t wait to try this!
This is just one of her invaluable tips. Click the link below to read the others.
What do you think?
Do you think cutting the dialogue will help with any of your scenes?
If you give it a try, let me know if it worked. I’d love to hear!
Want Better Characters? Get Rid of the Dialogue By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy
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Jean's Writing 
Interesting approach. Some of my favourite novels have scenes that are all narration.
Dialogue implied.
I love it. It’s called mature writing.
T E Mark
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Mature, hmmm when I grow up. 😏
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Oh, God! Don’t do that! Just write like a ‘Gr-Gr-Grown-up.’ Don’t become one!
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LOL thanks for the smile
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That’s an intersting tip.
Personally, I use a lot of body languge in my stories (yeah… even too much most of the time, then I have to edit it out) so I do think that’s totally possible to do. We do tend to use too much dialogue, especially in the first drafts, because we need to discover the characters ourselves. I find that in subsequent revisions I tend to cut a lot of the dialogue and repalce it with body language or action. It’s tricky, sometimes, because as writers, we leave a lot of space for the reader’s interpration… but that’s part of the beauty of storytelling, I think 😉
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I think we all use a lot of dialogue in the first draft. Or at least I do. Makes it easier to see where I want the story to go.
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Reblogged this on The Owl Lady.
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I really like this idea. I’m going to start doing this, especially during re-reads of old work. (I’m going through my older stories, fixing them up and publishing them on my site. This will be a great diagnostic tool.
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So glad you liked the idea.
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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Great idea. I’m in revision mode and I think I told you before that I really need to amp up my Characters. They are just to darn perfect and predictable. This blog is very timely. Thanks 🙂
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So glad. I’ve been having a problem with one of my scenes and hope this exercise will show me where I need to make changes.
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I’ve always though dialogue made the characters come to life. I guess I’ll have to give this a second thought, Jean.
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Marian, this is not meant to remove dialogue permanently but just as an exercise to see how the characters appear without any. Should show weak points in the scene.
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Oh gosh! My books are dialogue driven. I’ll try, but I’m scared of the results.
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As I mentioned to Marian, this is just a tip to see how your scene and characters do without dialogue. Don’t through it all away. 🙂
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Great advice! Thanks for the info!
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