No matter what genre you write in, learning how to write dialogue effective is an essential part of any writer’s toolkit. Poorly-written dialogue can be distracting or worse —it could cause your readers to close the book in disgust. However, dialogue that is done well can transform your characters into truly believable people and you readers into satisfied, lifelong fans. Of course, the best kind of dialogue isn’t just believable conversation between characters. Good dialogue provide exposition, involves distinct language true to the voice of the speaker, and most importantly, helps move the story along. Dialogue is directly tied to pacing, plot, and tension, and can make or break your story just as much as lame characters or a sagging plot.

This guide is separated into three parts for your convenience — Dialogue Basics, Punctuating Dialogue, and Dialogue Tags —and is filled with cheat sheets, quick-reference-guides, examples, and more to help you with your writing!

The point of view is the lens through which your readers connect with your characters and having the right POV can make your story while having the wrong point of view can certainly break it. There’s no real wrong or right here, but sometimes certain viewpoints just make sense for certain stories. We’re going to look at the definition of POV, the importance of POV, the four different POV’s, what POV’s are popular in what genres, how to know when the POV you’re using is right/wrong for your novel, the top POV mistakes new writers make, and how to execute POV well so that it acts as the perfect vehicle through which you tell your story.

In literature, pace, or pacing is the speed at which a story is told—not necessarily the speed at which the story takes place. The pace is determined by the length of the scenes, how fast the action moves, and how quickly the reader is provided with information.

Pacing is an element of storytelling that seems to trip up many new writers. It can be hard to pin down. What is a good pacing for a story? Well, to get a better idea of good story pacing, we have to look at bad story pacing first.

What’s in a name? It’s a question Shakespeare asked and many other writers today find themselves pondering because sometimes character names are a very crucial part of creating compelling characters. A name can make or break a character’s believability and so, authors should always chose carefully when selecting names for their characters. However, this isn’t something to get too in-your-head about. While there’s many factors that can influence a character’s name, it’s really up to you to chose something you feel best represents that character.

Characters are the beating heart and soul of any story. Books with lackluster writing or major plot holes can get away unscathed (mostly) if they at least have believable, loveable characters—not that writers should cut corners, though. Readers will follow these types of characters anywhere which is why Fanfiction is such a big interest to many readers.