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TIL making a character write 100 letters in an hour finally fixed my dialogue problem
I always thought writing exercises were a waste of time until a workshop leader in Portland made us write 100 one-line letters from our character's point of view in one sitting. By letter 70 my guy started saying stuff I never planned, and one line about his sister's broken watch ended up as the whole backstory. Anyone else find that forcing quantity gets you past the stiff dialogue?
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william_price1d ago
Took you 70 letters to figure out your character has a sister? Sounds like my first drafts, where I don't learn anything about anyone until page 50. But yeah, writing garbage in bulk beats staring at a blank page waiting for the perfect line to show up.
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