Articles

Any time I am asked how to write a particular part of a book — dialogue, action, sex, description etc. — the answer is always the same: it’s about character. If the aim of every portion of your book is to illuminate the inner workings of the viewpoint character of that scene, then you will write those portions well. What do I mean by that? Let’s start with a word I love: idiolect. While dialect is the way a certain group of people speak, idiolect is how a certain individual speaks. What you want to do when writing is apply...

Taking up as much as half of a book, dialog might be the most important part of writing to master. And it is far more likely that readers will remember what a character said, rather than how great a certain description was. But how do you write great dialogue, and how do you do it consistently? Dialogue Isn’t Speech Note that the title of this article is writing great dialogue, not writing realistic dialogue. Great dialogue sparkles, illuminates character, provides worldbuilding, moves the plot along, and creates memorable scenese for the reader. It is often, however, not very realistic. Real...