The Tool-Kit: Narrative Voice and Dialogue
The Typepad Shutdown 30th Sept 2025. If in exploring the Itch you meet a link which leads to Typepad’s ‘closed’ sign, there are three things that will help:
Don’t despair. Many of those posts do actually exist on Substack, it’s just that we haven’t managed to update that link yet.
Use the ‘search’ facility - which you can see at the top of every page of the Itch - to check if the topic you’re looking for has a Substack version. Many of them do.
If you’re feeling kind, before you leave the original page, leave a comment saying which link is Typepaddy, and we’ll do something about it as soon as we can.
HEARING VOICES : what is voice, and why does it matter so much?
19 QUESTIONS TO ASK (and ask again) ABOUT VOICE : whether you're having trouble finding the voice for a project, or had feedback that it's not distinctive enough.
STYLE AND VOICE : a post which explored the difference between the two, and why I think 'voice' is a much more useful thing to talk about.
VOICE AND TONE : the effect of a similar plot is entirely different depending on how it's written. Is your false-accusation-of-adultery story Othello, Figaro, Feydeau, or Much Ado About Nothing?
RHYTHM - THEN RHYME - THEN REASON : Why the sound and rhythm of your words is the foundation, not merely the flourish, of your prose. (£)
IS YOUR NARRATIVE VOICE DULL, BLAND OR GENERIC? Here’s what it means and what do to about it.
WRITING DIALOGUE : how do it well, how to make it better.
PING-PONG DIALOGUE : a common habit and what to do about it.
SPEECH TAGS: how to use them best : why "he said" is often the answer but not always, and how to handle the latter.
Itchy Bitesized 11: "WHO SAYS THIS?" MAKE SURE THE READER KNOWS WHO'S TALKING.
SPEECH TAGS: WHICH WAY ROUND SHOULD THEY GO? ‘…Jack said’ vs ‘…said Jack’
WRITING EMOTION : is less really more? And how do you make it real? (£)
DESCRIPTION : how to stop your descriptions being slabs of scene setting, and turn them into storytelling.
6 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR DESCRIPTION : more on the how and why of evoking places, people and everything else.
KILL THAT "OFFICE-SPEAK" : how to get the zombie nouns, aggressive passives, abstract nouns and hedgy vagueness out of your creative writing.
