July 1 Meeting
6:30 to 8 pm
Goebel Adult Center
Thousand Oaks, CA
Dialog is the heart and soul of your novel or memoir.
Learn from publishing pro
Toni Lopopolo how to create charged, dynamic interactions between your characters.
The Monday, July 1 meeting of IWOSC/WPN Ventura County will host publishing professional Toni Lopopolo speaking on how to make your writing come alive through dialog. Ms Lopopolo was an executive editor in New York, a literary agent, and now a popular area writing instructor. The meeting takes place at Goebel Adult Center in Thousand Oaks beginning at 6:30 pm.
Dialog, the spoken words in fiction and narrative nonfiction, always comes between quotation marks. Dialog writing is the skill that will make or break your novel or narrative nonfiction manuscript from the chance at getting published. It is where your characters take their first breath on the page.
“The first thing an editor in a publishing house looks for is your dialog, said Ms. Lopoplo. “Editors tell agents: ‘I look for a scene with dialog. If the dialog doesn’t work, the manuscript gets bounced. If it’s good, I start reading.'”
Why is dialog so important to a story? Because your characters come alive–or fail to–when they speak.
Dialog takes a lot more attention than narration or even action. Why? Because this skill, writing dialog, requires more thought, time, rewriting, and sounding out. Some writers will come up with obvious tricks to cover up weak dialog, especially in secondary characters. That is really cheating your readers with two-dimensional people.
Ms. Lopopolo contiinues: “Dialog in fiction, as well as in the best narrative nonfiction, is never a conversation we use in real life; dialog must sound charged. Learning to write dynamic dialog is what separates hack writers from the best that’s published in today’s discerning and sophisticated market.”
Come hear her best tips that writers can take back to their computers and apply the next day.
The meeting will be held Monday, July 1, 2019 at the Goebel Senior Adult Center, 1385 E Janss Rd. Thousand Oaks, CA 91362 from 6:30 to 8 pm. The fee is $5 at the door. Refreshments available so plan to stay and meet other area writers.
IWOSC/WPN Writers’ Meeting is a joint gathering for writers, authors and book lovers presented by the Independent Writers of Southern Californa (IWOSC) and the Small Publishers, Artists & Writers Network (WPN) a national literary nonprofit based in Ojai, CA.