To speak or not to speak?

by Charlene Forbes
18th January 2012

I wrote a short story and the main comment is that I need to tighten up the narrative. I do tend to repeat character's names too often, which I've altered but I'm not sure where else to go for my second draft. It's about a man looking back on his life so I deliberately didn't write any speech into it to make it seem more like him looking back at memories; no one remembers whole conversations but you'll remember what happened.

Does anyone has any tips on tightening up a story that's purely descriptive, or should I bite the bullet and add speech?

Replies

I don't think I have read anything that ispurely descriptive. How long is it? Have you put a sample on here? It would be easier to tell if it worked or not?

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Brenda
Woodford
270 points
Developing your craft
Brenda Woodford
18/01/2012