Writing Real Dialogue in Fiction

Greetings, SE’ers! Beem Weeks here with you again. Today, I am going to share my thoughts on character dialogue in fiction.  Dialogue. It can make or break a story. Dialogue is the lines your characters speak aloud in a written story. They differ from the narrative voice in that even the peripheral characters are given …

Characters and Diversity. Part 1 – RACE

Hello SE friends, Gwen with you today. I’m launching a new series, one that is focused on diversity. It seems a timely topic, and it's also relevant to the development of our characters. My approach will be personal, and I hope your response will be as well. Let's get started with the first segment -- …

Story Development and Execution Part 7: Pacing, Tension, and Suspense

Ciao, SEers. Today is part seven: pacing, tension, and suspense. Craig has written a couple of great posts on tension (one and two), and I have a post on structure that flirts with the concept of pacing. This post will deal with how to use these elements to advance the story. One technique that gets …

WRITING AND THE COMMA

Hi SEers! Denise here to talk about one of the grammatical things that give me trouble, commas!Definition of commanounthe sign (,), a mark of punctuation used for indicating a division in a sentence, as in setting off a word, phrase, or clause, especially when such a division is accompanied by a slight pause or is …

Stopping Book Piracy

Greetings, SE’ers! Beem Weeks here with you again. Today, I am going to expose those dastardly book pirates! Pirates! They are fine for stories told within the pages of the books we read. But book piracy is another story altogether. Illegal book consumption accounts for 17% of all downloaded ebooks. This is stealing. Those who …