Bird by Bird (56-88)

Dialogue can make or break a story, depending on how well you write it. In this section, I learned that it's important to write your dialogue by tuning into your character, and writing it how they would speak. A character should be identifiable by how he or she speaks, and all of your characters should have their own voice. As you get further into writing your story, you may need to go back and rewrite a certain characters dialogue as you get to know them and their voice better. It may help to read your dialogue out loud as you're writing. Good dialogue leaves us feeling as if we are eavesdropping on the characters, and it has a way of encompassing both what is and isn't said. We should know the characters well enough and learn enough through their dialogue that we can interpret what they are thinking. The main idea that I learned from this section is that in order to write good dialogue, you need to understand your characters really well.

The next section, titled "Set Design," teaches us how to create a setting descriptive of your characters and what is happening in the story. Each room in your story should be telling of the people and things who inhabit it. This can be done through descriptive language and in depth detail of the room and how it feels or looks. The most important thing I learned is that in order to write a good setting, you should have knowledge on the setting you want to write about. For example, for someone with no experience with gardening, it may be difficult to write about someone's garden.  You will want to speak to someone who does have experience with gardening and ask them about scents, feelings, and other descriptive features of that specific setting. Once you learn more about the topic, you will be able to write about a setting that truly encompasses the characters or idea you are looking for in your story.

Lastly, I learned that it's important to get to know your characters well enough that you aren't making them do things just because it fits in with your plot. Your characters actions should represent the personality that they've made for themselves.