Tried writing a scene without any dialogue at all and it forced me to describe emotions through action instead

My critique group said my characters were just talking heads, so I wrote a 500 word argument scene using only physical details and realized how much body language can carry.

3 comments

3 Comments

claire8729d ago

Your critique group was right though, talking heads is such a common trap. That 500 word exercise sounds brutal but brilliant. My own writing got stuck in a rut last year where every argument scene was just "she said he said then she said louder." Then I tried writing a breakup scene with zero dialogue and ended up describing how someone started peeling a label off a beer bottle really slowly. It turned into this weird metaphor for how relationships unravel one tiny piece at a time. Now I overthink every little hand gesture and foot tap.

sage_moore379d ago

At 56 years old, I've been writing long enough to know my own characters have better posture than I do after a day hunched over a laptop. Your 500 word argument sounds more productive than most of my real life disagreements, which usually just devolve into me apologizing for things I didn't say. That body language trick might actually save me from having to write another paragraph about someone clearing their throat awkwardly.

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samflores9d ago

Claire872's right about that metaphor with the beer bottle label. A good friend of mine once said the best writing advice she ever got was to let objects do the talking when words fail. Sounds like you both are onto something really valuable there.