Listening Is a Writer’s Best Dialogue Skill An emotional teenage girl, a befuddled oldster, a patronizing matron, and an Oxford don all speak differently. The fiction writer’s task is to convey their speech with idioms, syntax, vocabulary, and language. When does a character pause? Why does a character pause? Do they use run-on sentences? Speak…

How A Review Can Change Your Novel Details Careful reading of reviews can give a novelist clues about fine-tuning the novel and how to improve future stories. Thoughtful reviews can even trigger action to change. I work hard to make my historical information as accurate as possible, down to making sure the Latin words are…