{"id":1629,"date":"2013-04-22T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littworldonline.org\/?p=1629"},"modified":"2013-04-22T09:00:47","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T14:00:47","slug":"what-was-the-most-valuable-advice-you-received-as-an-unpublished-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maiglobal.org\/id\/what-was-the-most-valuable-advice-you-received-as-an-unpublished-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Learned to Create Realistic Dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

This post was used by permission of author T. Davis Bunn and originally published on his blog<\/a><\/em> as “Readers Ask: What was the most valuable advice you received as an unpublished writer” on March 12, 2013.<\/em><\/h2>\n

I finished seven books before my first was accepted for publication. I made my first presentation to a New York agent with the third novel. She thoroughly disliked everything about my work. Her letter was one page long, and was perhaps the most painful set of words I have ever been forced to confront.<\/p>\n

The most telling of her criticisms was, \u201cyour characters are one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs and your dialogue is flat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The worst thing about her comments was, I knew she was right.<\/p>\n

I ditched novel four, which by then was almost completed. And I knew it was basically\u00a0just more of the same. I\u00a0then spent three weeks trying to decide whether to ditch the writing gig entirely. Remember, I was running a consulting group and struggling every day to make time for the writing. And after three and a half years, this was the result?\u00a0 My family wanted me to quit, I was exhausted most of the time, I hadn\u2019t been on a date in over a year. This was a life?<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

But there was nothing else I wanted to do with my life. That was the only answer I had. Everything else paled in comparison to the thirst, the desperate longing to write, and the compelling agonizing joy that came from meeting the empty page.<\/p>\n

If I was going to continue, I had to change. I had to improve. I had to break out of this rut and grow. But how?\u00a0 I was living in Germany. I had no contact with any writers\u2019 group. The books on writing that I studied didn\u2019t say much about how to survive a savaging from a NY agent. So I improvised.<\/p>\n

I began taking a pocket recorder into every contact with other people outside of business. Coffee with friends, dinners, family, sports, everything. For a month I recorded everything I heard, then went home and wrote it all out. The exercise defined boring<\/em>. I truly loathed the experience.<\/p>\n

But by the end of that month, I owned <\/em>those people. I could take a kindly gra\"\"<\/a>ndmother and turn her into an assassin, and make it work, because I had her individual traits and the revelations she made in her conversation, mostly unconscious.<\/p>\n

From there I began working on point of view from the standpoint of revealing both the viewer and the outside world, something I identified in the writers I most admired. Little one-paragraph sketches developed into longer pieces, as the characters began to take on tasks. Action and tension became real because they were developed from the inside out.<\/p>\n

Four weeks into this grueling exercise, I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream where I heard an old man\u2019s voice telling me a story. I got up and wrote it out, four and a half single-spaced pages. Nothing but dialogue. Two men and one woman. The story still holds me. When I finished, just before dawn, I knew I could leave that exercise behind. The lesson was not learned. It was mine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Space-break for a fast forward ten years:\u00a0 My breakout novel The Great Divide<\/em> <\/a>was released by Doubleday.<\/p>\n

The NY Post<\/em> had this to say:\u00a0 \u201cBunn\u2019s excellent characters reveal a strong good-vs-evil story. His dialogue is racehorse fast. That\u2019s some feat.\u201d<\/p>\n

I agree.<\/p>\n

Have you ever felt like giving up on your writing? What compelled you to continue? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was used by permission of author T. Davis Bunn and originally published on his blog as “Readers Ask: What was the most valuable advice you received as an unpublished writer” on March 12, 2013. I finished seven books before my first was accepted for publication. I made my first presentation to a New […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,46,181],"tags":[177,178,72,179,15,157,180,61,67],"class_list":["post-1629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mai","category-writing-resources","category-writing-fiction","tag-characters","tag-dialogue","tag-fiction","tag-novels","tag-publishing","tag-stories","tag-t-davis-bunn","tag-tips","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nHow I Learned to Create Realistic Dialogue - Media Associates International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/maiglobal.org\/id\/what-was-the-most-valuable-advice-you-received-as-an-unpublished-writer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"id_ID\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How I Learned to Create Realistic Dialogue - Media Associates International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post was used by permission of author T. 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