Friday, July 18, 2008


Novelist Johnny Ray's thoughts on life. It's interesting to see how life changes when you have to go to the hospital for a small surgery - I had my gall bladder taken out. However, all is looking better now and I hope to get back to work on my next novel soon. I would like to thank all of you that have been so supportive of me the last two weeks.

The experience made me think about how much emotions and thoughts that a writer needs to express through his characters. This is what is needed to make them come alive. The use of dialog that sounds natural and conveys their inner thoughts is a gift that is hard to learn with out actually forcing yourself to do so. I have heard of this lesson in writing before and plan on doing it in the next few days. It is simple, you take a notebook with you and write down word for word what people say. While I am healing it would be great to try this.
It would be great to see how other writers work on dialog, so leave me a note.

Johnny Ray

1 comment:

Jane Kennedy Sutton said...

Sorry to hear about your recent surgery, Johnny Ray, and wish you a speedy recovery. I enjoy writing dialog because I think it gives my characters a way to let people know them better and I try to make those conversations as real as possible. However, I have overheard things that people say to each other in real life that would sound totally fake in a novel. For instance, I overheard a man at a somewhat romantic restaurant say to his wife/date/friend or whoever, it was sitting across from him “I know where you’re coming from.” I would have never believed that was not scripted dialog had I not heard it for myself!

Jane Kennedy Sutton
Author of The Ride (to be released by ArcheBooks)
http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/