>Debi,
>
>Thank you! Your comments are all very helpful. I
>definitely have some good ideas now for how to improve
>the passage in the next draft.
Glad I could help.
>
>I guess you can see I still struggle with doing
>dialogue without repeating "he said" ad infinitum. :0)
That's something I've fought with too. Instead of 'he'said', 'she said', I've found that indicating the speaker by their action can mix things up. Or pure dialogue can be fun, as long as the reader can tell who's speaking which lines.
>
>Yes, I've always struggled with the show/tell. I can
>pick up on it when others are/aren't doing it in their
>own work, but I have a difficult time doing it myself.
>Do you have any recommendations on how to do
>this?
LOL... if I did, maybe I wouldn't be getting my hand smacked for it all the time. I guess just be mindful while you're writing about the action to show what that person sees, hears, smells, etc. I slip up and stray into another charatcer's POV so obviously I need to work on it myself.
And something very simple that always works for your writing in general is read it out loud! Your ears can catch things your eyes will miss. I've read Old Dogs so MANY times, that I don't catch things I should. That's whay I crave the help this board provides so much. You have no idea how excited I am we have new kids in the sandbox!
debikm