One of my colleagues, an aspiring screen writer, asked me how I ‘do’ dialogue in my writing, and got me thinking. When I write dialogue, I remove the redundant things (Hello, how are you? Nice to meet you. Haven’t seen you in a long time), unless they add to tension, and the speaker doesn’t really mean it.

I try to imagine how a specific person would deliver my dialogue. If it’s a teenager, I imagine my daughter speaking. If it’s a conservative middle-aged Indian woman, I imagine my childhood neighbor Gupta Auntie from Street 20. If I have a straight-talking no-nonsense personality, who may cuss under her breath, I think of my secretary. What and how would that particular person speak? A young junkie is unlikely to greet someone in a sing-song voice with a ‘How do you do.’ Just as Gupta Auntie would probably not say “Yo!” (Unless they are pretending to be someone else, which could add to humor).

People of different age-group find humor in different things. I would put in a self-deprecatory fat-joke for women readers, but middle-grade boys (and some grown-ups) would more likely laugh at fart-jokes. 

Social media is all about expressing yourself via the written word. Why are people so active on social media? Why do seemingly shy people end up sharing a lot about themsleves?

Writing gives us an outlet, a way to express concerns and opinions and doubts and anger. Creative writing gives us a different kind of outlet. We write from another person's point of view, getting inside their head, dealing with issues we give them, challenges we present to them. Writing about other peoples issues help us deal with our own. It gives us a chance to decide what would be right under difficult circumstances, to help us understand why people act the way they do. It gives us a chance to make sense of a challenging world. And most of all, it gives a place to hide from our own problems, if only for a short time. 

That's why I write. How about you?

Our own experiences give us the best insight into a character’s mind, into her thoughts and emotions. Let’s say you’re writing a scene where your heroine is experiencing a moment of fear or loneliness. Where do you access those feelings? Look deeply into your own life and find a moment where you felt the same way, even if the circumstances were different.

I was writing a scene where a young girl is feeling vulnerable because circumstances made her run away from home. I’ve never run away from home, but I have experienced feeling small, scared, and alone.

When I was five years old, my older siblings made me take the short-cut back from school every day, where we had to jump onto a narrow bridge over a canal which often flooded during monsoons. The water gushing under my feet would terrify me. One day, my class was released earlier than theirs, so I took off by the long but unfamiliar route, but soon lost my way. And for the first time in my life, I felt fear. Of course, a few minutes later my brother caught up with me and I didn’t even mind it when he scolded me for taking off like that! But I still remember the fear.

This is what I worked into the scene:

She stared at the sheer volume of the gushing water, at the vast relentless sky above, and the unfamiliar landscape behind her. And suddenly she felt small. Like an insignificant speck in the cosmos, who did not matter in the big scheme of things. If a lightning bolt were to claim her right now, there was not one person in the world who cared. A lump formed in her throat and she gulped. The universe had placed a burden on her young shoulders, but given her nothing to cope with it.

How was she going to survive?

She collapsed on the muddy bank, and sinking her face in her hands, rocked back and forth, as she mourned the end of the only life she had known, and her familiar world vanished into oblivion.

It is human nature to choose the easiest and quickest path.

When we talk, we use adjectives and adverbs to describe what we saw.

“It was awesome!”

This could describe a lovely sunset, or a suspenseful movie or a New Year’s Eve party.

“It was simply awful!”

It could be an exam you took, a horrible accident or a poorly written book.

Most of us have an extensive vocabulary, but we seldom use it to its fullest extent, preferring to use vernacular. But it doesn't have to be like that when we write. Spend a little time to find that one perfect word that describes what you're trying to explain. See the examples below:

1.       She was extremely beautiful, and people would stop and stare at her.

She was stunning.

2.       She ran really fast and crossed the cobble-stone pathway. Her throat felt dry, and her heart beat so fast she could feel it against her chest.

She sprinted across the cobble-stone pathway, her throat parched, as her heart pounded against her chest.

Sometimes a sentence is good enough, but we have a limit on the word count. We can substitute as follows, at the cost of losing some of the impact. See next:

He was obnoxious, always putting people down and boasting about his accomplishments, annoying everyone at work.

His pompous demeanor annoyed his colleagues.

But when you start writing, don’t be inhibited; write what comes easily and naturally, and then edit until you find the perfect word.

While telling a story, you can spring a surprise on the reader with a sudden calamity or an interesting twist, but it is more effective when you set the scene first. Take the example below: The scene is about a poor woman who gets mugged while buying a TV-dinner at the supermarket.

 Version 1:

Gina hurried to the store to buy a TV dinner. She chose a Lean Cuisine on sale, for she couldn’t afford anything else. She went to the cashier, and when she opened her wallet to pay, a man in a black hoodie pointed a gun at her. He said, “Give me your bag.”

Version 2:

Gina got off the bus, and cursed as she stepped into a puddle. She was distracted. Everything depended on the presentation at Zane Enterprises tomorrow. All she had left in her bag was a $10 bill and the old laptop with her portfolio. If she didn’t get the job, she’d starve. Her stomach growled. She had skipped lunch and knew she couldn’t last another night on an empty stomach.

A man in a black hoodie pushed past her as she entered the CheapMart. She browsed through aisles and finally chose a Lean Cuisine on sale for $2 and went to the cashier. She saw the man in the black hoodie again when she opened her wallet to pay.

He pointed a gun at her. “Give me your bag.”