Funny interaction with a librarian in Austin that changed how I approach character dialogue

I was in the Austin public library last Saturday working on a short story, and this older librarian walked by my table. She saw my notebook and said 'Your characters talk too much, they need to listen more.' I was a little annoyed at first, but then she pointed out that I had three pages of nonstop back and forth. She pulled a book off the shelf, opened to a scene where two characters just sat in silence for a beat before one spoke. That little moment made me realize how much I rely on words to carry emotion instead of pauses and actions. Now I go back and cut at least 20% of the dialogue in every scene. Has anyone else had a stranger give you a piece of writing advice that stuck?

3 comments

3 Comments

terryk1026d ago

That librarian actually counted the pages in your notebook?

viola_ward26d ago

Hang on now, I think you might be mixing up two different stories. The librarian didn't actually count every single page one by one, she just flipped through it real quick and gave me a rough guess on how many were left. She said something like "you've got about 30 more pages before the end" but it was more of an eyeball estimate than a real count.

jake63824d ago

Respectfully disagree with you on this one @viola_ward. I was standing right there when she looked at my notebook and she actually pinched the pages between her thumb and forefinger to get a rough count. She said something like "looks like 25 pages left" but that was just her best guess based on the thickness. No way it was an actual page by page count.