A guy at the library book sale said my dialogue was too clean

I was grabbing a stack of old paperbacks and this older man glanced at my notebook. He said real people stumble and interrupt each other, not talk in perfect paragraphs. I have been editing all my scenes this week to add more crossed words and half finished sentences. Has anyone else gotten feedback that wrecked their writing style for the better?

3 comments

3 Comments

bennett.noah1mo ago

Yeah that's basically what David Mamet says about dialogue too.

grantadams1mo ago

3 Mamet plays I fell asleep watching so maybe take it with a grain of salt.

walker.max26d ago

Have you actually sat through a full production of Glengarry Glen Ross? The tension in that office is so precise it's like watching a car crash in slow motion. I remember seeing it in Chicago years ago and the whole audience was dead silent for the last twenty minutes, nobody was falling asleep. Maybe the issue is more about how these plays are being directed or performed, not Mamet's writing itself.