I am currently taking an online course by Margie Lawson (www.margielawson.com) on writing body language and dialogue cues. Wow!
I never realized how many head nods and bland smiles I use in writing. But now I’m learning a whole new arsenal and it’s so exciting.
For example, which seems more powerful to you:
Original: She grinned. “Yes. She arrives today. An American woman. It’s very exciting.”
Rewrite: Her face split open up in a grin, as if she couldn’t contain the feeling any longer. “Yes. She arrives today. An American woman. It’s very exciting.”
Now I have a whole new vocabulary – dialogue cues (tell the reader how dialogue is delivered), proxemics (spacial relationships between characters), kinesics (body language), backloading (putting a power word at the end of a sentence, paragraph, scene or chapter). Just a few examples (in an asyndetonic list, no less). I don’t want to give away all of Margie’s secrets!
The online courses are offered at a reasonable price, and her lecture packets can be purchased for even less.
To add psychological power and emotional impact to your writing, check this out www.margielawson.com!
2 Comments
June 16, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Yes, I definitely have more of a picture in my head reading your rewrite sentence. I can see the sparkle in the character’s eyes from her smile. (Which is funny, since I don’t know anything else about the character, but I can somehow picture her smile nonetheless!) The sentence certainly gave me more to go on. Sounds like a great course!
July 4, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I enjoyed taking this class with you! It will move our critiquing up, not just one notch, but a whole ladder full of notches!