actually pretty simple: don’t write “I said” or “he said.” Or at least, don’t write them very often.

I know, I know, you’re ready to throw something at me now. Probably one of my own books, right? But hold your fire for a minute and let me explain, ‘kay? ;-)

The problem I see most often in beginner prose is the overuse of dialogue tags (“I said,” “he said,” “she said,” etc…) which makes your dialogue sound repetitive and boring. And repetitive. And boring. But honestly, the easiest way to avoid this is to simply cut them from the manuscript whenever possible and replace them with a character’s action.

For example (and yes, this passage comes from PREY, but there are no spoilers):

“Again!” Ethan said. He wrapped both bare arms around the heavy punching bag to steady it. “Harder this time. And a little higher. Hit his knee from the side, and he’ll go down. Then it’s all over but the beatin’.”

“He doesn’t have knees,” I snapped, wiping sweat from my forehead with an equally sweaty forearm. There was a clean, dry towel hanging over the first empty stall door, but I was too tired to cross the barn for it. “He doesn’t even have legs.”

Now this passage, where the dialogue tags have been replaced with action on the part of the characters:

“Again!” Ethan wrapped both bare arms around the heavy punching bag to steady it. “Harder this time. And a little higher. Hit his knee from the side, and he’ll go down. Then it’s all over but the beatin’.”

“He doesn’t have knees.” I wiped sweat from my forehead with an equally sweaty forearm. There was a clean, dry towel hanging over the first empty stall door, but I was too tired to cross the barn for it. “He doesn’t even have legs.”

That may not be the best example, since there was already action in both paragraphs, but I’m just trying to show how easy it is to simply cut “he said” from your writing. And if you can work a reference to the setting into the action (have the characters interact with the things around them), even better. That does triple duty: shows who’s talking, establishes the setting, and tells us what the characters are doing as they talk.

Autumn ashes also asks: How do you write so your readers understand what you are writing?

Wow. Um…I’m not really sure how to answer that without falling back on the old cliché. Practice makes perfect. Or at least, practice makes better-than-before, since I have yet to reach perfection. And if you’re not already reading, you should be. Read a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on and study the prose and sentence structure. If you can figure out how your favorite authors get their point across, you’ll be one step closer to doing it yourself.

Oh, and did I mention practice? ;-)

Now for some easier-to-answer questions…

Lori T says: Do you have to find it difficult to balance the two genres?

Not so far. Both my YAs and my adult books are urban fantasy, so they’re technically the same genre, I think. Just a different target audience. And even that’s up for debate. I read a lot of YA, and according to Jill Monroe, I’m a real live grown-up!

The only real differences are a lighter volume of violence, sex, and language, and a younger voice. And younger themes.

Okay, that sounds like several differences, but so far I haven’t had much trouble keeping the two separate. At least, not that I can tell so far…

Lori T. also asks: Do you see yourself writing in other genres?

At the moment, no. I love urban fantasy, and so far all of my book ideas have fallen into that category. But I’m still pretty new at this and not yet tired of anything I’m doing, so I won’t rule anything out. ;-)