how-to-eliminate-to-be-verbs-in-writing

The dialogue should above all be natural and matching the characters.

That means there is no list of "wrong words" in general. Only "per character" - meaning you won't have a junkie punk speaking in elaborate formal language, nor, conversely, a scientist using street slang. The language used should be such, as given character would use normally in given situation.

This applies to all in-world texts, not just dialogue. If your story contains snippets of letters, texts of labels on some containers, samples of terrible prose written by a teenage protagonist, all these "good writing" rules are replaced with "believable, realistic, matching the context." The "good writing" rules essentially apply only to narration.

Of course don't overdo it. If you pictured your first-person protagonist as coming from Russia, it vould be silly to ryeplyace all narryation with russyan accyent. Keep the core text following rules of good writing and modify it to match "special needs" only as extra flavors. Your Russian protagonist may mention some russian cussword or otherwise express their nationality, but - as the central character of the story - should stick to proper English with rules like "avoiding weak words" observed.

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: Re: Filter Words in Dialog I realize there are lists of words that writers aren't supposed to use, but does the same apply to dialog? http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/grammar_mechanics/how-to-eliminate-to-be-verbs-in-writing

More posts by @Dunderdale623

: Is there a "literary Olympus" in the current publishing landscape? A biography of J. D. Salinger describes his eventually successful efforts to publish his short stories in The New Yorker, which

: Why do writers sometimes use so much description? Why do many writers use a lot of description when presenting a character or a scene? Is this a writing tradition? Many characters in a book

: MLA in-text Citations with no author, as well as same title? In MLA, how do I write in-text citations that have no author, as well as a same title with another source in my bibliography?

: What's the best text editor for a technical reference manual? It is my first time writing tech manuals and I don't know what to use. Some people recommend me LATEX but I think it's too complex.

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