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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31484
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31484
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Find an author you like. For me I like Stephen King, or Orson Scott Card, or half a dozen others. Books I personally enjoyed that also sold millions of copies.

Now, take a scene or a long section of dialogue in one of these books.

Say we took dialogue, it is always a toughie. First, type it into your word processor, verbatim, with punctuation, tabs, paragraph breaks, all as it appears in the book. This is to show you how much space it takes up in your word processor, when formatted for submission (1 inch margins, double spaced, 12 point courier font). So you will have a basis for comparison.

Have the word processor do a word count for you, so you can compare on that basis too.

Your job is to use this as a template for a conversation between two of YOUR characters.

Change all of it, but keep the "form".

Where the author describes an action, you must describe an action in approximately the same number of words.

If they write a private thought, you must also. If they describe a character action, you must. If they describe an object, you must. Your object may be different, but it must be described in a similar word count. If they describe something about the setting, you must also: Your setting may be different, but the same number of words. Always in about the same number of words.

Keep the tone and dynamic of the conversation: If character Tom disagrees with Bill, so must yours. If Bill gets angry, so must yours. If Tom reveals something personal, or vindictive, or begs, your character must do the same.

Change all the words and change all the actions, but keep the skeleton the same, as close to the same number of words as you can.

This teaches you two things. First, what YOUR characters might look and sound like on the page, for a professionally written dialogue.

Secondly, doing this a few times can get you comfortable writing dialogue, your brain learns to know what dialogue feels like on the page. Don't just read it, that won't work. Type it out and DO it, you have to pay 20 times as much attention, but that is what it takes to learn it!

You do a similar thing for scenes. Notice how many details a professional author points out, and perhaps try to figure out WHY those details? What makes them 'enough'? Why would taking one out make the scene less rounded?

Try to write a scene of your own using the professional's scene as a template: Use similar sentence lengths, the same number of sentences. Use metaphors where they have them, similes where they have them, poetic license where they took it.

Learn what it feels like, how it looks on the page, and what your own writing should look like and feel like. Again, doing this a few times lets you learn to do it.

You can do this with multiple authors, too. This isn't plotting or other aspects of writing, but it is a way to build up some skill and familiarity with how YOUR characters should look and feel on the page, it gives you self-taught exercises in the mechanics of professional writing of the kind you already enjoy, or that already inspire you to write: Just pick your authors well, and learn to emulate them.

Original score: 5