Helpline
DAVID WREN, Tameside, Manchester
Your writing problems solved with advice from Diana Cambridge
Email your queries to Diana (please include home-town details) at: diana@dianacambridge.co.uk or send them to: Helpline, Writing Magazine, Warners Group Publications plc, 5th Floor, 31-32 Park Row, Leeds LS1 5JD. She will answer as many letters as she can on the page, but regrets that she cannot enter into individual correspondence. Publication of answers may take several months. Helpline cannot personally answer queries such as where to offer work, or comment on manuscripts, which you are asked not to send.
Q I am working on a novel that is told from the perspective of the main character. My query is regarding spoken dialogue. If I write it something like this: “It’s a long journey,” said John, “but we’ll make it.” Well, people don’t talk like that when they are telling you a story. It looks good on the page but jars with the first-person perspective. However, if I write He said, She said, I said, and so on, it seems a little stilted and I’ve read often in Writing Magazine to minimise the use of He said, She said etc.