The Trendsetter

So I completed my short story and had fermented it for a while and am now editing it to death! However, in these past few weeks, I’ve found myself also writing the sequel to the story. The MMC and FMC (Male Main Character and Female Main Character) bugged me to write more about them. Hmmm…maybe this was crazy, but if you were the author, you’d know what I mean. Writers are like that. They dwell on their writing for a long time and hope something would come up making it even better than their previous writing.

Back to my short story – there was one element that confuses me while editing. The monologue. As a reader, I don’t really fancy the monologues spoken by the main character (who has the point of view in the story). I found it a little confusing - let alone the words being italicized. However if it was short sentences, I don’t mind and would not distract me to continue reading. Now, as a writer of the short story, though, I do like monologues. Since I am in the character’s mind constantly while writing them, I found the use of monologue to be interesting to write.

So now I am doing the editing process, it was hard to decide about the monologues. As a reader, I don’t like it, yet as a writer, I think it is important. So, I took the plunge and put it in where it is appropriate. ‘Keep it extremely short’, the reader in me yelped. Yes, that’s what I will do. Keep it brief – just one sentence and not the entire paragraph.

So, in concluding, if you are in the same predicament like me, put the monologues in where it is important for the scene or narratives in order to make things move on. Conversely, remove it if it’s not helping your characters to go forward to his or her next dialogue.

Happy writing!