What's the key to writing powerful dialogue instead of useless gibberish?
Dialogue is one of the most rewarding skills, and one of the most difficult to get right. I was lucky in that I was a playwright before I was a novelist. Everything a playwright does is in dialogue.
Dialogue is NOT recorded speech. The latter is boring, as in court transcripts.
Dialogue is a new language that requires the use of indirect responses and adversarial exchanges. What counts in dialogue is not what is said but what is meant. See chapter 7 of How to Grow a Novel, which is often quoted on the subject of dialogue. The sports analogies have been especially useful, I'm told.
How can a writer generate enough tension and conflict to drive the story forward without it being too over the top?
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How to Grow a Novel Book Review Excerpt
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Each chapter tackles important fundamentals writers often struggle with. Stein uses real-life examples from popular novels to illustrate his point, making it even easier to apply his suggestions to your own writing.
Whether you're a published author or just beginning your writing venture, Stein's experience can definitely help. He talks candidly about what works and what doesn't. How to Grow a Novel also spells out the key ingredients your novel should contain as well as how to incorporate them into your own writing.
Complete Review
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Tension and suspense are different subjects, and achieved differently. Tension can be created by giving two characters in the same scene different scripts. Any two people in life have differing views of what is transpiring in front of their eyes. That's what I mean by "different scripts." That's a method that was developed in the Playwrights Group of the Actors Studio and is an instant solution for creating tension. Suspense is derived from raising the reader's curiosity and not gratifying it.
In some books the author has an overwhelming presence, which we all know is a distraction. How can a writer become invisible to leave the reader alone with the story?
The narrator who is not a participant has pretty much vanished from the current literature. Working from within a dominant character's point of view helps avoid author intrusions.
Does a writer need a literary agent?
For fiction, absolutely in today's environment. For nonfiction, you better know how to write a great proposal. It's an art in itself.
The manuscript's finished and ready to go. With all of the various publishing avenues available, how can a writer choose which type of publishing house is right for them?
It's a complex field and very few writers are competent to make judgments of suitability, which is why agents are so important. Alternatively, since you can only write what you love to read, check out the publishers who publish those books.
What types of projects are you currently working on?
I'm well into novel #10, and also have several chapters of a nonfiction book in the works. I like going back and forth between them. It's been a long time since I've done a play for Broadway, and I am resisting the temptation to return.
