Which aspect of the craft do you work hardest at?

Shannon here! And I am in disbelief! June is almost over. Can you believe it?

You’ve been living it up, right? Letting yourself DO SUMMER? You’re remembering that you only get a handful of summers as a teen and you’re taking full advantage?

GOOD! I knew you could do it.

On Wednesday, Jill gushed about our time at Southern California Christian Writers’ Conference, but I’ll feel left out if I don’t get to tell you how much I enjoyed being around so many writerly souls and ALL THOSE TEEN WRITERS! It really was fantastic and I learned a lot. I wish we could take you all with us when we do these things.

Today, we’re continuing our summer panel series. Each of us are answering a single writing question, just as if we’re sitting on a panel at a writing conference and we would LOVE for you to join us and share your answer as well.

Describing things in interesting ways. I tend to have pet words or pet descriptions that I fall back on way too much, and I have to work hard in my edits to make that piece of my manuscript more original.

I struggle with pacing. I get really caught up in conversations my characters are having with each other. I’ll write huge scenes that don’t advance the plot, but I have fun writing them, so I have to cut them later, which makes me grouchy because I liked those conversations. I think part of that is discovering my characters. I’ll piggyback on this what Stephanie said about pet words or pet descriptions. I’ve noticed that a lot lately too. I usually catch these when I’m reading my story out loud. And if I catch the same word, more than three times on one page, I’ll search the whole novel so I can change a lot of them out. 

I adore well-written dialogue, so I work on that a lot. I pay attention to conversations and I scratch out ideas I have that come to me while I’m out and about. I email myself witty bits and anything that I might find deeply profound. I let myself replay awkward real-life conversations so I can choose my words more carefully. I replay conversations in different tones of voice, different contexts. Basically, I talk to myself a lot! I am never not working on dialogue.