Showerthought: I spent 3 years writing dialogue that sounded like nobody talks
I was working on a short story for my local writers group in Austin last month and one of the members, a playwright named Jenna, read my first page and just said 'people don't actually say that.' She pointed out three lines where my characters were explaining their feelings too perfectly, like they were reading a therapy script. After that I started listening to real conversations at coffee shops and realized normal people interrupt, trail off, and avoid saying what they mean half the time. Now I go back through my drafts and cut any line that sounds like it was written by someone trying to sound smart. Has anyone else had that moment where you caught your own writing sounding fake and had to fix it?