I have a lot more dialog in this book than in the first book. There are more characters. It's fun to write the dialog with a different voice for each character. I always make sure to use a natural language voice. To do this I say it out loud. Yes, my cat looks at me funny. My wife sometimes thinks I am speaking to her. It's worth it!
Grammar does not have to be right in dialog. I find that when people actually speak grammar is forgotten quickly.
I found another weirdness when editing dialog.
I write using the tool Scrivener (I love this tool!). It turns out that when Scrivener exports to MSWord format all the quote marks are inch marks, not open/close quotes.
To be honest, when I wrote Still Falling, I didn't even know there was a difference. There is a difference.
( " ) vs ( “ and ” )
--Say it out loud! Do it! Do it now!!
i wonder if this is why any dialog i tried to write felt forced? interesting. you've given me something to contemplate.
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