So far I’ve talked about using dialect and using specific words to help improve dialogue in writing. Today, let’s take a look at how you can control the pacing of your story by changing the tempo of your dialogue.

You’ve no doubt encountered this technique time and again as you read, but it may have been so subtle that you didn’t realize what was happening. I encourage you to pay attention to the way dialogue can affect a story’s pacing from now on so you can learn to use it yourself.

Just like you can speed up the pace of your narratives by using shorter sentences, quick-flowing words, and strong verbs instead of adjectives; or slow down the pace by adding more description and longer sentences, you can do the same with dialogue. Think about that last mystery or suspense novel you read. When the author wanted to pull you to the edge of your seat and get your heart racing, what kind of words and sentences were employed? If there was dialogue, what form did it take?

If you’re writing a scene that is showing conflict between characters or if you need them to have a sense of urgency, you don’t want to drag out their dialogue with unnecessary words and elaborate sentences. Every word should be important and should immediately get to the point. Often with fast-paced dialogue, you will also omit the speaking tags (“he said,” “she exclaimed,” etc.) because that only adds to slowing down the pace for the reader. Once you’ve identified in what order the characters are speaking, you can lose the tags and allow the characters to answer each other as quickly as possible. To help speed up the pace, shorten your sentences to the bare minimum needed for clarity, and be sure your characters don’t get hung up with stammering speech or “filler” words. Think of their dialogue as a tennis match  with a fast-paced volley!

Likewise, if you are trying to introduce characters or set a scene, or just slow down your story’s pace for whatever reason, you can adjust your dialogue accordingly to achieve this effect. Now, your sentences can be longer and more embellished, and your characters can have their share of “ums” and “ers” here and there.  And, add your tags back in so the conversation isn’t as rushed.

As a writer you are in complete control of how fast or slow your story flows. If you don’t like the pace–maybe you feel a certain scene is really dragging its heels–change it through dialogue. Sometimes even just the presence of dialogue can serve to speed up or slow down a story. Dialogue may not always be the answer, but it’s definitely an area that should be considered when trying to “fix” scene problems.

I hope that some of my suggestions throughout this three-part post have helped a little in your dialogue creation!






Me: How was school?

Conner: Good.

Me: How did you math test go?

Conner: Good.

Me: Are you hungry?

Conner: I’m good.










Have you ever read dialogue that seemed flat, uninteresting, or unbelievable? Or, worse, have you ever written dialogue like this? Dialogue can easily make or break a story by helping to develop characters, control the plot’s pace, and provide readers with necessary information through “showing, not telling.”

Throughout the next 3 posts, I’d like to share some simple ways to improve your dialogue to help make your story the best it can be. Today, let’s talk about the use of dialect.

Dialect is not to be confused with accents, although accents may help to accentuate dialect. Dialect is rather the specific nuances of how people talk and pronounce their words, depending on where they are from. Proper use of dialect can go a long way in making your dialogue believable because it helps create consistency for each character and serves to immediately differentiate your characters from each other.

I’m originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and people there ask “Please?” when they don’t understand what you said—as opposed to “Excuse me?” or “What did you say?” I thought this was perfectly normal until I moved out of state. Someone would say something to me that I didn’t hear correctly, I’d response with “Please?” and they’d either look at me like I was from Mars, or they’d respond with “Please, what?”

I soon came to discover that this was a uniquely Cincinnati thing. Others who realized this would ask me—after I said “Please?” to them—“Are you from Cincinnati?” It seems it’s probably the only place in the world where people do this!

That’s an example of dialect. And, if you use it well, it will help your characters come to life.

If an American travels overseas, people may say, “Oh, you’re from America,” based on how that person speaks. But what does an American sound like? In America, we know that being from New Jersey sounds very different than being from Lubbock, Texas, and different still than being from  Minnesota.

Dialect includes pronunciation (Bostonians leaving “r”s off the ends of their words, Southerners adding a drawl to their vowels), unique phrasing or words assimilated into their speech (“Please?” in Cincinnati, “eh?” in Canada), and particular, identifying speech patterns (think “Valley Girl” from the 80’s in California).

When trying to write authentic dialect that captures the intricacies of speech from various areas, it’s best to be around people from that area for a period of time. Don’t always rely on the dialect you hear in the movies. When possible, go to where your character is from and spend time just observing and listening to the natives who live there.

Bring a recorder if possible so you can hear the speech again and again. Also be on the lookout for mannerisms and how people conduct themselves when in conversation. Do you notice in certain geographical areas that people are more boisterous in their conversations, maybe more apt to interrupt each other, or maybe women tend to be more submissive when in conversation with a group of men in certain places.

When I was growing up, I had a friend who was part of a large, Italian family. When they all got together around the dinner table, you’d be lucky to get two words into their conversations. And you’d think they were all mad at each other, the way the volume escalated, accompanied by flailing arms and intense facial expressions. But that wasn’t the case. That was simply their natural method of conversation. That family dinner table held no place for introverts!

All of these kinds of nuances help create full, rich, and believable dialogue that helps your reader instantly tell your characters apart.

If you can’t go to an area to listen to dialect, do as much research as possible before you start writing. It will make a huge difference in your dialogue if you can capture the heart of an area’s dialect.

When one of your characters burst into a scene and begins talking, your reader should know immediately who that person is long before you identify him or her. By doing your homework, this will happen.

Next time, I’ll discuss how the words you choose for your characters can enhance their dialogue and make it sound more natural.



















Awhile back I had mentioned the Writer’s Digest annual writing competition. This is just a friendly reminder that the deadline for getting those submissions in is looming on the horizon–June 3 to be exact.

As mentioned in many earlier posts, writing contests are an excellent way to not only exercise your writing skills but gain some industry recognition for your efforts. And some contests, like this one from WD, have a sizable payoff as well: cash prizes from $25 for 6th -10th place to $1000 for first place (for each category), and a whopping $3000 for the overall grand prize winner in addition to editorial consultations and a trip to the WD Conference in New York City.

So for a little bit of time and a nominal entrance fee, you have a chance at some big-time prizes and exposure.

There are 10 different categories for the contest:

* Magazine feature article

* Genre short story

* Inspirational writing (spiritual/religious)

* Mainstream/literary short story

* Memoir/personal essay

* Children’s/young adult fiction

* Stage play

* Television/movie script

*Rhyming poetry

*Non-rhyming poetry

Yes! Finally a place for your poetry! To get more information and guidelines concerning the contest, go to But hurry…you’re running out of time! And..if you do apply and win, let us know! Good luck!

With the major fall and winter holidays still over  six months away, this is the perfect time to work on crafting your seasonal article for submission to magazines. Seasonal articles can, of course, be submitted for any season, but the winter holidays will by far offer some of the greatest opportunities for getting your foot in the door.

Most print magazines will look to purchase seasonal articles at least six months out, so if you have a Thanksgiving or Christmas article in mind, you’ll need to get it polished and sent fairly soon. Smaller magazines, however, may work on shorter time frames. If you’re crunched for time, it’s worth doing some research to see which ones may have deadlines a little further out. The time line for online magazines is much shorter, but it never hurts to get some ideas into the publisher early.

Remember, when writing for magazines, it’s best to find out what the publisher wants first, then write your story to fit the needs of the magazine, instead of writing what you want and then trying to find a magazine that wants to buy it. The best place to start for seasonal needs is the ever-handy magazine market guide book. Search for “seasonal” or “holiday” to find which magazines buy these articles.

Next, determine what exactly they are looking for. Included in this list might be short stories that focus on traditions, a humorous piece about a holiday, or a touching memoir. Or perhaps the magazine is looking for holiday travel tips or celebrating on a budget. You may even find a place for your award-winning fruitcake recipe or Thanksgiving crafts!

Research well and take the necessary time to pour through a few issues of the magazine for writing style, tone, word count, and other necessities.

If you miss the cutoff for winter holidays, Valentine’s Day is another popular magazine favorite, along with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Another strategy is to seek out those more obscure holidays and look for niche magazines that might be open to a cultural story of St. Patrick’s Day or some interesting facts about Veteran’s Day, for instance. Sometimes it pays to go down the path less traveled!

Whichever holiday or season you choose, these articles provide an excellent way for new writers to break into the magazine market. If your article gets accepted, after you submit, write back to the editor with an idea for another upcoming holiday article. It never hurts to strike while the iron is hot, as they say, and you may just secure yourself a spot for the next major holiday before other writers beat you to it.

Structure and creativity appear, on the surface, to be mutually exclusive concepts–especially when it comes to an art form like writing. In fact, writers will typically describe their writing process as either being of a structured nature or more free form, where they write based on whatever whim comes to them. I’d like to propose–and in doing so, perhaps arm you with a new writing strategy–that both concepts can happily co-exist in the same writing process.

I tend to be more structured by nature–every T crossed, and every I dotted. Maybe that’s why I prefer nonfiction over fiction and why I like to edit. But I’ve also discovered along the way that structure needs to be infused with writing chaos from time to time. Let me explain…

Take outlines, for example. I love outlines! Many people hate them, and I can easily see why. But for me, especially when it comes to nonfiction–but even for fiction–outlines keep me on track. I like having a road map of sorts to know where my writing is taking me. But, then again, when you’re on a road trip, isn’t it the detours along the way to try some authentic local food or to see the World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn that make the trip fun and adventurous? Of course! And it’s no different in writing.

If you’re too structured, an outline can serve as a prison, never allowing you outside of its walls. I’ve learned to use an outline instead as a launching pad of ideas. I give myself permission to wander outside its framework and take the occasional detour. I’ve learned that by doing so, I may just discover some treasures along the way.

One example of this is when I once wrote an article for a children’s magazine comparing and contrasting a couple of sea creatures. My research took me way off the beaten path of where my outline said I was supposed to go, but the information I gathered was so rich and deep, that I ended up changing the entire angle of my article to incorporate my fascinating discovery!

It’s important, however, to not lose sight of the main road you were on after you take your detours. Just like on a real road trip, you have to eventually get back on course with your writing or you will find yourself completely rewriting your story (Perhaps in some cases, this might be a good thing!). Although I reworked the premise for my article, I still incorporated the majority of my outline points. They just ended up being arranged differently from what I had first purposed.

Another example of structure coexisting with creativity is in the flow of ideas. Even if you don’t write out an outline, chances are you have in your head how your story or nonfiction piece is to be ordered. For fiction, some write from a plot-driven perspective, where they know the order of events that need to take place and then build their characters and scenes around these events. For nonfiction, ordering might mean writing out all your main points, incorporating your subpoints, then adding your introduction and conclusion.

Instead, what if you began your fiction piece with the area(s) of conflict and worked outwardly? You may not even have a story yet, but if you have a great idea for a conflict point, use that to build your story around. And, for nonfiction, try allowing your ordering to be born from your writing itself. Again, follow some of those idea detours. You may end up scrapping some of your points in favor of others.

On the flip side of adding creativity to structure is to add structure and form to creativity. Many writers have the opposite problem that I have, which is that they will write whatever pops into their head, no matter how random or disconnected it may be. My advice to these writers is to take those random thoughts and jot them down, but don’t pursue them immediately. After you gather a collection of them, see if you recognize a pattern or theme that can be attached to these ideas. Corral them under one heading, and the ones that don’t fit, toss them out.

Then, go back through them, identifying those that are worth developing. From these ideas, build a loose framework. Once you have a general sketch of where you’re headed, brainstorm some more and continue the process of writing down, combining, and eliminating ideas. Now, instead of having random thoughts going in several different directions, you have collections of random thoughts all headed down the same road!

So, which are you in your writing process–structured or creative? Hopefully, this article has inspired you to be structurally creative–the best of both!