Ten Ways to Give Your Character Their Voice

Ten Ways to Give Your Character Their Voice

Writing distinct character voices might be one of the most difficult parts of writing fiction. It is one thing to write great, believable dialogue that moves your story forward, but then to imbue those words with the individual voice of the character who speaks takes...
Ten Tips to Write Dialogue Right

Ten Tips to Write Dialogue Right

I’ve been reading a sad amount of iffy dialogue recently from overuse of names to unnatural sounding speech to wrong punctuation. So, I decided now would be a great time to do a quick reminder of how to do dialogue right. And we all love “listacles” so here is one for...
Say What? Part 2

Say What? Part 2

This is a continuation of the article I wrote last week. You can read it here. In this post I’ll talk about: to show conflict, (show vs. tell) to impart information to the reader succinctly, to make the reader a part of the action. Determine the pacing of the...
Say What? Writing Dialogue

Say What? Writing Dialogue

Dialogue is an essential tool of the novelist, but too many either don’t know how to write it or may not understand all that well written dialogue can do for their story. This is going to be a two-part blog post because there is just that much to say about the topic....
Dialogue vs. Action Tags

Dialogue vs. Action Tags

“Come with me,” she said softly before spinning away, her long hair fanning out as she did so. “Come with me.” She crooked her finger before spinning on her heel, her long hair fanning out as she did so, and sauntered away. Which engages you more? Which one paints a...