: Re: Is it a bad idea to have all the action in the beginning and all the dialogue in the end? I wrote a short story. All the action happens mainly at the beginning of the story. You can see

@Ravi5107385

Vote Up Vote Down

Like most things in writing there's no right or wrong answer - only good or bad writing - and that can be subjective. Without the context of the action piece it's difficult to know if this works or not, it might be perfect, it might be completely wrong, it's hard to make a real judgement call. Having said that, my problem with this passage as it's written is that it's a bit "he said/she said" which comes off as 'flat' on the page, the conversation doesn't have much of a dynamic, it's all spoken in one tone. It also leaves very little room for subtext.

There's an old saying that goes "if your scene is about what your scene is about, then it's not working" which means that your dialogue shouldn't mean what is being said, there should be deeper meaning, underneath what's spoken. This passage doesn't really have that and thus, it falls a bit flat. That doesn't mean it's bad writing, in fact the subject matter is actually interesting and I would like to see how it concludes, but you should see if you can explore it in a less obvious way.

Only my two-penn'th.

(0)

Login to post a comment!