Talking out loud: A guide to writing sparkling dialogue for your characters

Your characters are talking. Are readers listening?

Nothing kills a promising story faster than wooden dialogue that sounds like it was written by a robot having a bad day. Readers can forgive plot holes, overlook setting mistakes, even tolerate the occasional typo-but make your characters sound fake, and they'll close your book faster than you can say "As you know, Bob..."

"Talking Out Loud" is the dialogue guide that actually gets it.

Forget dusty academic theory and pretentious literary exa...