I always think the best way to have believable dialogue is to sit in a crowded room and listen to how people talk. To make a character sound real, they have to talk like a real person. You have to learn to ignore some of the little wavy lines that will appear under your words when typing.

There are certain things that make dialogue more realistic. Most people don’t speak in complete sentences all the time and they don’t use perfect English. Human beings use slang, we drop letters, and we have regional accents. Try to include all of these foibles when writing your dialogue. The internet is a never ending tool for this. You can google and find whole dictionaries dedicated to the differences in a common language. The Urban Dictionary is a site in particular, which records and defines slang terms. People call the same object different things, find these words and use them in your writing.

Dialogue can be used to define the class of a person before you know anything else about them. A man for instance on a busy railway station in Victorian London greets another with “’ello guvnor.” You can hear two things immediately from this sentence, that the man himself is probably working class and the person he is addressing is probably viewed to be of a higher status that him. He wouldn’t say for instance “Good evening my fine fellow.” Well, he might, if he were taking the mickey but that is something that would be conveyed in the prose after his speech.

Talking is a fundamental tool in conveying information, emotion and personality in writing. If it feels stiff to you then it will probably sound stiff to your readers.

Lynda Williams, Author of Okal Rel Saga

Your host, Lynda Williams, is the author of the Okal Rel Saga (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing) and editor of the Okal Rel Legacies series (Absolute Xpress). She also works as Learning Technology Manager for Simon Fraser University and teaches an introductory web development course at BCIT. For a list of Okal Rel titles see: Lynda Williams on Amazon.com.

Do you commit editos? They are like typos, but instead of typing “the” for “she” the resulting mess is due to splicing incompatible sentence constructions.

Here’s an example from Part 9: Holy War, in my ten-novel series The Okal Rel Saga.

Herver hadn’t held out much hope of spiritual influence working against hard core fanatics like the followers of Dod, but it had been the only way he could think of to helping when the fighting broke out.

Knowing me, I suspect I began with:

It had been the only way he could think of helping, when the fighting broke out.

And then changed it to.

It had been the only way he could think of to help when the fighting broke out.

Or tried to! My brain thought I was finished before my eyes confirmed the job.

The most maddening thing about editos, for me, is that I introduce them when improving an earlier construction. And they seem hard to spot on proof-reading. After discovering a few of these in the first five chapters of Part 9: Holy War, post inputting my editor’s feedback, I’ve asked for the MS back as laid out for printing to do an extra anti-edito pass.

Grr arg! Do you suffer from editos, or is it just me?

I’m considering the possibility it is my brain (or my flying fingers) that need fixing.

John Beck

“If everybody was satisfied with himself there would be no heroes.” –Mark Twain

I grew up with heroes. I voraciously read comic books, pulp fiction and any other adventure story I could get my hands on. I sought out books that contained heroes. I read James Bond, Doc Savage, Conan the Barbarian, Sherlock Holmes and John Carter of Mars. The world around me was boring and my life seemed pretty boring too, but the heroes in the books I read took me to exciting places and allowed me to live out the most exciting life imaginable. I trace my love of reading and eventually writing to my need for heroes. What is it about heroes that is so important, that makes them central to so much successful fiction?

Some of the oldest literature we have involves heroes with names like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Achilles, and Hercules, so heroes have been important for fiction from the beginning. We need heroes because the world is so powerful and beyond the control of ordinary humans. Into this chaos steps the hero. The hero is someone who stands up to the world. While the rest of humanity ignores the problems and the dangers, the hero steeps forward and struggles to make things better. A hero is someone the audience roots for and the character that is the focus of the story. A writer who can create a great hero will find an audience, because the audience is looking for heroes. As I have gotten older, I have learned that a character doesn’t need to have superpowers to be a hero. I always think of Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird”, he was a gentle and wise man who stood up to the racist beliefs of his time and town. He did it with dignity and great courage and we all learned something. It is always difficult to forget a hero, even a fictional one.

The books I read now are different from those of my childhood and so are the heroes. They are less flamboyant and the struggles aren’t as black and white, but the struggle is still there and the hero is in the center of it all. Heroes are a central part of the human experience and they will continue to be a central part of good fiction. Today’s writers are like the ancient storytellers and the reading public is as eager for heroes as those who gathered around the fires of Ancient Greece.

Who are your heroes?

Anna J. Cook

Anna J. Cook is a queer feminist, librarian, historian, and writer. She lives in the Boston metropolitan area with her wife, also a fan fiction writer, their two cats, and over one thousand books. She publishes her fan fiction at Archive of Our Own under the pen name elizajane.This post was adapted by invitation from a three part series at her personal blog, the feminist librarian.

For as long as I can remember, the questions “what happens next?” and “could this happen differently?” have been central to my engagement with fictional narratives – as has the assumption that I could answer those questions through the act of transformative storytelling, or the writing of fan fiction.

As a queer feminist, I look around me and see mainstream narratives wherin scant attention is paid to queer experiences and women’s sexual subjectivity is given short shrift. The realm of sexual pleasure and agency, in mainstream stories, is generally a land where only the conventionally-attractive, the young, and the able-bodied dare to tread. In this context of canon erasure, I see erotic fan fiction as an opportunity for activism: a chance to insert ourselves into a space that so often overlooks human sexual variety.

In my writing, I bring a messier vision of sexual intimacy into direct dialogue with the conventional narratives of mainstream media. I dis-assemble and re-form the original work as a way of pushing back against restrictive gender and sexuality norms. I write stories that explore the vulnerability of desire: what it means to expose what (and just how much) you want. I try to include broken humanness: awkward conversations and misunderstandings, bodies that frustrate and fears that overwhelm. It is my hope to affirm that no matter how broken we are, it is still possible to reach that moment of knowing and being known. Of being naked together – in every sense of the word.

Talking back to original works in this way, centering often marginal voices, is to me an explicitly political, feminist act.

What experience (if any) have you had with fan fiction? What role do you think it has “talking back” to original works and broader cultural narratives?

Donna Barr

For the jumping-off point to Donna’s bookstores and galleries of traditional and digital art and webcomics, start at http://www.donnabarr.com

After a long San Diego Comicon, during the Sunday wind-down, a mother with a hopeful son approached me as a comics professional:

“My son wants to get into comics,” she said. “What should I do for him?”

Pretty much wrung out after three days of marketing, I blurted, “Break his hands!’

Happily for me and her kid, they’d been around the industry long enough to recognize the reality of my comment.

Comics are hard work. They’re probably the most labor-intensive art form we can successfully finish alone. The best way to get into comics, of course, is to learn to draw and write them from start to finish; that’s what we call a comics author. These days, with print-on-demand and downloads becoming simpler, cheaper and more easily organized, many comics authors are profiting quite nicely from the entire publishing process themselves. But “don’t” might still be the best advice for naive inquiries about how to get started.

I can remember one young man who approached me at a con and offered $750 for twenty pages of art. Starting at black and white for $150.00 per page and going up – he wasn’t getting beyond a short story. I asked him who his dream artist would be, and if s/he was at the show. The man was. Then I asked the writer who he’d approach second, and then third. They were all at the show. I told the writer to wait until his first choice was on a break from lines of signings, then approach him politely, and offer the entire budget for one really fine color splash page.

The writer returned within the hour. His first choice worked at a higher usual page rate, so turned him down, but thanked him for the offer. The second had too much work on his plate. He got the third.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever given a newbie?

Jennifer Lott, YA author

Jennifer Lott has appeared in print in Neo-Opsis Magazine (“A Day in the Life”; Issue 18; December 17, 2009) and the Opus 5 Okal Rel anthology (“Pet Peeves”, Absolute XPress, 2011). Her first public foray into writing is her popular fan fiction Alternative Ending to the Animorphs, which was well received by readers disappointed by the dark turn taken by this young adult series in its final installments. An early childhood educator, Jennifer writes mostly for children and young adults. But is currently working on an SF novel. She said “yes” to boyfriend JP Sullivan last December and the marriage was in June 2012.

Ever catch your rich imaginary life tipping you towards a mope over the real world? Simply because it is the real world? I have decided that when my fantasy writing isn’t a wonderful, liberating experience (and thankfully it is this most of the time), it is an excuse to mope: my life is too ordinary, my life will never be this exciting, etc.

When I was a tween reader of fantasy and sci-fi, I remember having the occasional moment of ludicrous envy. I would feel deprived because I knew I could never have super powers, or a magical place to live. If the moment turned into a bad mood, I would then feel stupid for feeling bad, which really didn’t help.

For the most part, I think becoming a fantasy writer cured me of feeling ordinary. Creating fantastical worlds for the page is as good as a super power – especially when you can project those worlds into someone else’s mind! But on a Friday of all days, I caught the mood again. My day started with ants in my office, had some day job in the middle, and then a typical evening watching Star Trek with my husband. At the end of the day, with an hour before me on the laptop, it was time for me to at least daydream about what’s happening in my novel series. I moped around the living room instead. Couldn’t quite put my finger on why I was moping, so I went for a walk in the cool night air where I could focus on thoughts (and not on mopey things like my husband’s cold, or where I should spray more ant poison).

On my walk, I thought about how my days all felt the same and how I had to go to bed soon and start a typical Saturday working at a drug store, and how it was all very dull and I had every right to mope. Because I’m not supposed to be ordinary! My life should be a thrilling adventure, whine, pout… Wow, I thought I bypassed the reality trap years ago. If life isn’t extraordinary enough for you, you just write like it is and you feel better; I taught myself that. One of the “me” voices in my head reminded me, but I still couldn’t summon all the fictional voices that tell me what’s about to happen in my novel series.

I heard once that writer’s block is a myth: you can always write something if you set your mind to it. So I wrote this. What do you do when you can’t escape the mundane? I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

Lynda Williams, Author of Okal Rel Saga

Your host, Lynda Williams, is the author of the Okal Rel Saga (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing) and editor of the Okal Rel Legacies series (Absolute Xpress). She also works as Learning Technology Manager for Simon Fraser University and teaches an introductory web development course at BCIT. For a list of Okal Rel titles see: Lynda Williams on Amazon.com.

On a Saturday morning back in, mmh, let’s say 2006, a few of the Okal Rel faithful were goofing around after a reading of draft scenes from Part 8: Gathering Storm, and our young friend, Mel, had a bright idea. “If Tegan and I were at the cultural exchange,” she said. “I’d go right up and touch Horth!”

I suggested this might be unwise, and we had fun discussing how Mel’s dare would escape being viewed as an attack, and how two such unruly youngsters might have passed the Reetions’ screening for sober, sensible attendees. And that was that.

Tegan and Mel circum 2007. Young women in the world, by now. But forever captured as they were in their cameo in Part 8: Gathering Storm.

But the conversation came back to me, a year later, in the midst of editing the same scene, destined to become Chapter 14 of the book. I needed an ice-breaker to force heroine Ilse to speak to Horth despite the Extreme Awkwardness between them. And Mel’s idea popped up.

So I wrote Mel and Tegan in, wholesale. Which is the first and last time I’ve literally put people from my real life into a book.

How about you?

T.S. Bazelli

It can be nerve wracking to get feedback on something you’ve spent weeks, or years, working on, but getting feedback on your writing can be invaluable. Here are some tips to help make the process easier:

1. Pick the right people for the story. Only ask people whose opinions you respect and who read the genre or subject matter that you’ve written about.

2. Have at least one cheerleader. Their job is to point out all the good things about the story. You’ve worked hard, created something new, and it’s good to celebrate that!

3. Set a reasonable timeline for receiving feedback and ask if your readers can commit to the timeline before agreeing to read.

4. If you have a preference for the type of critique, ask for it. Do you want comments on every chapter or a close line by line read? Do you want readers to focus on the overall plot or point out all your grammatical sins? Setting expectations saves time for everyone involved.

5. Remember, any feedback you received is not personal. No story is ever perfect, even if it has gone through multiple rounds of feedback. Your readers are trying to help you make your stories better and graciously donating their time to do so.

A great way to thank your readers is to return the favor. Or better yet, earn good karma by volunteering to read without expecting anything in return. Someday it will come back to you in one way or another.

Nikki Broadwell

Nikki Broadwell is the author of Wolfmoon Trilogy, a fantasy that takes place in the ‘Otherworld’ (somewhere in Scotland). Before the writing bug took her over, she was a silk-painting artist, showing her work in several galleries in Portland, Oregon. Now she allows her characters full-rein, obediently following them down the twisting paths of her imagination. Currently she is working on a sequel to Wolf Moon, finding herself unable to let go of the personalities who have circled her desk for the past six or seven years.

Nikki now lives in Tucson, Arizona with her husband, a standard poodle and a cat.

Her writing blog is: http://niksblog-authorinprogress.blogspot.com/

Her books, The Moonstone and Saille, the Willow are available on Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo and The Wolf Moon will be out in mid to late March. For more information please visit her website: www.wolfmoontrilogy.com

I’ve been thinking recently about the topics of rape and sex in writing. Someone on Facebook made the comment that she would never read a book in which there was a rape, which started the wheels turning. Rape is included in one of my books and although it’s back-story it’s still powerful. To me its inclusion gives more fullness to the character and speaks to her future actions.  Any time a writer tackles these difficult subjects it can turn certain people off, but should you ignore this darker side of life?

I do not shy away from these topics, although where sex is concerned I try to tone it down since so far it has not been the main gist of my story. But instead of having my characters kiss and then head into the bedroom and close the door I try to use metaphor and a few understated clues as to what is going on. When I read a book I’m always annoyed when the author skips these details.

With the recent popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, a badly written book based on Twilight fan fiction, it’s obvious that readers enjoy being titillated. In my opinion, if we are writing a serious story, too much detail in these areas could potentially take away from the narrative.

How do you tackle these subjects in your own work? Do you tend to close the door or do you bring your reader into the bedroom?