Why read The Fiction Writer's Guide to Dialogue?

Book cover of The Fiction Writer's Guide to Dialogue: A Fresh Look at an Essential Ingredient of the Craft

Book description

Dialogue is often overlooked as a necessary and potent instrument in the novelist's repertoire. A novel can rise or fall on the strength of its dialogue. Superb dialogue can make a superb novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "Action is character." George V. Higgins said, "Dialogue is character." They were both…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Fiction Writer's Guide to Dialogue as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

William Noble

Author

Here is a “look-see” at writing fiction dialogue while mindful of and applying some of Elmore Leonard's classic Ten Rules of Writing: when to use dialogue tags... why using “said” is best... why not to use adverbs to modify “said”...? There's history here, too, as Hough traces the refining of fiction dialogue as an art form from the nineteenth and early twentieth century to the present while providing stunning examples along the way.

From William's list on writing provocative, dramatic dialogue.