Subject: Also also wik:
Author:
Posted on: 2015-04-14 16:37:00 UTC

Adverbs. Particularly adverbs attached to dialogue tags. And fancy dialogue tags, for that matter. You're really, really over using them. Act 2 begins with:

Lapis snarked.
She grumbled.
Cupid begged.
The girls both responded angrily.
Sarah added hastily.
Cupid cheered.

The dialogue makes it perfectly clear about the snarking, grumbling, begging, anger, and cheering (seriously, the last one, his only speech is a cheer. '"I like it!" Dafydd said, claiming he liked it.'). It's just... distracting and unnecessary. Dialogue tags should be used to convey physical realities - mumbling, shouting, and yes, possibly grumbling - not details of tone; your dialogue should be covering that by itself. And by and large it does; we can see that Lapis is snarky, for instance. We didn't need telling.

... this has turned into a double-post of 'Show-Don't-Tell', hasn't it?

hS

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