Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How to improve the ending of my short novel (mostly dialogue)?

1) As far as concept, there's nothing to improve. I like this quite a bit. The mystery and the philosophy dovetail nicely. There isn't a lot of action, and whatever "happens" is occurring in dialog...

posted 12y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:07Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5409
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:18:02Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5409
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T02:18:02Z (about 5 years ago)
1) As far as concept, there's nothing to improve. I like this quite a bit. The mystery and the philosophy dovetail nicely. There isn't a lot of action, and whatever "happens" is occurring in dialogue. This works really well.

2) Action tags can be almost anywhere you like; it's mostly a choice of style. As long as it's clear to whom the action belongs, there's no particular rule. I suggested one spot to fix below, but otherwise all your action tags are clear.

3) Minor fixes:

> her lips slightly _parted_

Mouths are open, lips are parted, because there are two and they are parted from one another.

I would put a line break before "She leaned her head..." so that it's clear that the next line of dialogue is hers.

> closed the _bottle_

You can't close a glass, and he wouldn't be returning the glass to the shelf.

Either:

> _"What_ does it look like?"

OR

> "_How_ does it look?"
> 
> washed _his_ hands

Either:

> was in _the_ right place

OR

> was in _its_ place
> 
> _What's this drink_ called?

That's important, so that we know she means the drink and not the philosophical concept he's discussing.

> started drawing circles

They're not imaginary because she's drawing them on the glass, even if she's not writing them with ink.

> she continued, "there is

Comma instead of period, lowercase T

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-04-10T15:18:58Z (over 12 years ago)
Original score: 2