Feb. 13th, 2009
On writing dialogue
Feb. 13th, 2009 10:39 amWhen you have a scene with several characters in it I feel I a little more careful making it obvious as who is saying what.
Sometimes I manage this by using the character's movements:
"I don't know, Jack." Owen put his feet on the desk. "Seems to easy to me."
But a lot of the times I am stuck with:
"So what's next?" Jack asked.
"We could cross reference the new data with information from the archives," Ianto suggested.
"I can run another scan," Tosh offered, "See if I missed anything?"
"We order pizza. I'm hungry," Owen said.
etc, etc.
Do you find that annoying? Is it worse or better to use 'said' over and over or would you rather the word varied? Is there another way to do it?
Sometimes I manage this by using the character's movements:
"I don't know, Jack." Owen put his feet on the desk. "Seems to easy to me."
But a lot of the times I am stuck with:
"So what's next?" Jack asked.
"We could cross reference the new data with information from the archives," Ianto suggested.
"I can run another scan," Tosh offered, "See if I missed anything?"
"We order pizza. I'm hungry," Owen said.
etc, etc.
Do you find that annoying? Is it worse or better to use 'said' over and over or would you rather the word varied? Is there another way to do it?