: Re: How to write a sentence with expression, tone, emphasis, and more in the same line That might not be the correct way of writing the title. I just find it really confusing on how to write
(I don't understand why you are distilling the necessary length down to a sentence - you have all the space you need ... except on twitter.)
But OK, based on the comments here's how your question reads to me. I might be way off base.:
I would like to be a writer but when I write a sentence, it comes out wrong. Shallow, flat, amateurish. I want something more sophisticated. How do I get there?
Again - I might be off in my interpretation.
The advice I follow, and give to others, is this: just get the crappy copy on paper. The first draft will be bad. Expect it to be bad, and write it. Plan for it to be bad. Celebrate having a bad draft.
It's better than no draft.
Then, revise. I'm a novice at fiction. I'm on revision 18. This is pathetic! But, the story didn't exist a year ago, and I bet it would hold your interest well enough. It is not yet good enough to query, but way closer than draft ten, which was a far sight better than draft four.
Revise. Revise revise. No one ever needs to see the crappy copy. First draft can have none of what you specify, and then you can massage it in, add, delete, reorder, etc. Get it to that place you see in your mind.
Here are some quotes from good authors:
It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them
think you were born that way. – Ernest Hemingway
.
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have
sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write. –
Somerset Maugham
.
It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.
– C. J. Cherryh
.
And lots more ...
ETA:
Based on examples given, it seems you may be looking at different roles of dialog and narration.
Dialog is a tricky beast. It must be both natural, and entirely unnatural.
Every natural dialog I've ever written has been edited so, so heavily to make it work. It ends up unnatural, but it sounds natural. Because, pacing is so important, and natural dialog on the page is often so mundane (=slow).
Narrative, and action tags for dialog, can help the dialog come out right. These serve their own purpose. Because we want dialog to be natural, it can't convey everything on the written page. Sarcasm, sincerity, unconcern, other emotions - all of these are not communicated by the words but the physical actions or tone of the speaker.
It's not a matter of making the dialog more appealing. The 'extra words' (narration) constrain the dialog.
Occasionally something like tone can be implied in dialog rather than stated in narration.
"He's never wrong."
"Watch your tone."
This can tell you that the first dialog bit has 'tone.' Sarcasm. But in most cases you need something more overt. @Amadeus made a good point many many months back. Among other things, narrative allows time to pass for the reader. So, in the case below:
"He's never wrong." She said it sulkily, as though perhaps he should
be wrong, once in a while, if for no other reason than to understand
how she felt every single day.
"Watch your tone."
The narrative gives the reading brain time to feel out what it is that the first person is thinking and feeling. The reader is not swept along 'too quickly' by dialog. Pacing. Guiding. Making a contract with the reader.
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