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Critique about my dialog killed my favorite scene
I used to write these long, flowery conversations where characters just talked around each other for pages. Then a guy on a writing forum told me my dialog was 'working too hard' and that real people say things like 'pass the salt' not big speeches about feelings. I cut a 3 page fight scene down to 7 lines of clipped one-word answers and it hit way harder. Has anyone else gotten feedback that completely changed how you approach a specific part of writing?
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john_cooper2mo ago
Wait you cut a 3 page fight scene down to 7 lines? That's insane lol. I bet it stung at first but man that must have made the whole thing snap into focus. Props to whoever gave you that brutal feedback because it sounds like it totally worked.
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grant_allen852mo ago
Nah, I kinda feel like those 3 pages had some real heat in them...
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hunt.quinn2mo ago
Wait, are you saying those three pages actually had some good stuff in them? I used to be the total opposite-I'd fight tooth and nail to keep every single line, even the clunky ones, like my first draft was some sacred text or something (spoiler: it wasn't). But then I sat down with a friend who just kept asking "what does this actually do for the scene?" and I ended up cutting a whole six-page argument down to like, two sentences of dialogue. It hurt at first, but the pacing got so much cleaner, and suddenly the actual tension hit way harder. So yeah, I get what you're saying about those three pages having heat-sometimes the sharpest stuff is what you trim, not what you keep.
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