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I was at a writer's retreat in Asheville when a critique group told me my dialogue was all exposition and I had to unlearn everything.

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cora813
cora81311d agoTop Commenter
Laughed out loud reading this because my first workshop critique was almost identical. They told me my characters sounded like they were reading a script instead of having a real conversation. Took me three more retreats to finally stop writing dialogue that sounded like a Wikipedia entry.
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miaprice
miaprice9d ago
omg same here, my first ever workshop tore me apart for the same thing. i had this whole scene where two friends were catching up but it was just them info-dumping backstory like "as you know, we've been neighbors since 2012 when you divorced your husband and i moved in next door." i cringe so hard thinking about it now. it's wild how you don't even realize you're doing it until someone points it out and then you can't unsee it.
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