Today (and likely for many of the future entries) I will be working on reciting the novel so I am up to scratch on its contents.
Currently, I have recited the first four and a half chapters, meaning I am part way through reciting chapter 5. I'm getting to the point at my novel where I don't need to entirely correct so much. My biggest weakness so far is having a bunch of dialogue without much external context, like actions in-between dialogue. For instance, in this section of chapter 5, I have 10 lines of dialogue with only 2 sentences to split the dialogue up. It makes the sentences flow too fast and doesn't give much context as to what is actually happening in the scene. I used to do this a lot as I enjoyed writing dialogue too much, and I would simply picture in my head what they were doing, what their facial expressions were, etc. But I wrote too much dialogue that I forget to actually write the actions within the scene, and I'd just picture it in my head since I know the characters that well I can do it without needing the context.
“How much do you sleep? Fucking hell.”
“What time is it, ugh”
“It’s time you woke the fuck up. I was sent by the head teacher because I’m the only one who knows you aside from that other bitch.”
“She’s not a bitch…”, I slowly shut my eyes. He slaps me again.
“WAKE UP!”, I shove him off me.
“Okay!! Get the fuck off me.”, I hate being woke up by anyone. I’m not in the fucking mood. Lucas stares at me in disgust.
“What happened to you…”
“What do you mean.”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s go.”
“No, Lucas.”, I will get caught. I need to speak with Sky.
“Where is Sky, do you know where she is?”
“Why?”
“Because…”
This example above demonstrates how little I actually include external context in between dialogue. The dialogue is natural, sure, but when you actually read it it feels more like a transcript than an actual scene being played out.