336 Journal

Dialogue is the exhalation of written language.

Writers reveal things about characters through dialogue—not just by what they say, but by how they say it. Everyday speech is typically associated with half-finished thoughts, pauses, and meandering tangents. A writer must have a finely tuned inner ear for language—one that captures the essence of real speech and translates it onto the page without making it sound like a mere transcription.

A well-tuned ear works like a Babel fish, interpreting the pauses and subtext of spoken language into something that feels authentic but remains intentional and readable.

“Well-written dialogue,” writes screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, “is the way people wish they could talk.” It is refined, sharpened, and layered with meaning.

Great dialogue is as much about what’s not said as what is. Tennessee Williams mastered this in A Streetcar Named Desire, where Blanche DuBois never declares her fear of aging and irrelevance—yet every line she delivers carries the weight of her desperation.

“The most important thing in dialogue is not what is said but what is meant.” — Peter Brook

A conversation on the page should always have an underlying current—something bubbling beneath the words. Each character should have their own distinct voice. If you remove the phrases that indicate who is speaking from a conversation in your story, can you still identify the speakers? If not, your characters may be blending together.

I read plays to absorb the music of refined dialogue. Writers can also crowdsource dialogue, eavesdropping on conversations in coffee shops and writing down snippets of chitchat that tickle the ear. I’ll rewrite those fragments, cleaning them up so they still feel genuine. I also summarize social media comments from distinct voices and rewrite them, which is another form of theft, but I revise to make it my own.

Exceptional dialogue comes from elevating the raw material of ordinary speech.

Being a student of conversation and playing with dialogue on the page will give your characters voices that are expressive, engaging, and dynamic.

Words have rhythm, texture, personality. They can whisper or thunder, stretch like melted cheese or snap like a twig beneath the misstep of a clumsy ninja apprentice. Sometimes, words just want to play.

Some writers wield language like Sweeney Todd, slicing through ambiguity with precision. Others treat it like a border collie on an agility course, leaping from syllable to syllable, twisting and tumbling until words land in unexpected places.

Take alliteration. Vladimir Nabokov famously begins Lolita with an invocation of sound:

“Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.”

There’s something delightful about the way the syllables sing in that sentence. Inspired by that playfulness, I once wrote an article about the human hand, calling it “the adroit acrobat of anthropic anatomy” and describing its “flexible fingers that flutter with finesse in fantastic feats of dexterity.”

Is it too much alliteration? Maybe. But does it make the reader feel something different than a straightforward description of the hand? Absolutely.

Then there are puns. Oscar Wilde once quipped,

“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

Shakespeare wove puns into Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Romeo and Juliet, making them both tragic and comedic devices.

Wordplay is the beginning of cleverness but also a tool of subversion. It makes a reader pause, laugh, or see something from a new angle. It lightens dark subjects, sharpens satire, and makes prose more alive.

In my own writing, I use wordplay sparingly, strategically. I try not to overdo it, but I want each page to contain something surprising amid straightforward prose—something that grabs the reader’s attention.

Try playing with assonance. Insert double entendres. Invent portmanteau words like blunderstand (to completely misinterpret something in an embarrassingly obvious way) and procrastibaking (to bake as a means of avoiding responsibilities).

Shakespeare, Nabokov, and Wilde knew that language is elastic. It bends, stretches, and reshapes itself to fit meaning—but only when a writer dares to play. Have fun!

Writing flourishes in a supportive community.

When I say “cultivating” other writers as friends, I mean both acquiring and nurturing those relationships.

Writing is a solitary endeavor—just you, the page, and your thoughts. But writers cannot thrive in total isolation. Having other writers as friends is not just beneficial—it’s essential. They provide insight, encouragement, and a shared understanding of the writing life that non-writers simply can’t offer.

Jordan Rosenfeld, author of How to Write a Page-Turner and Fallout, was asked in Writer’s Digest what she can’t live without in her writing life. She answered:

“Other writers, both as friends and critique partners, and for the books they write. I recommend this too, because it’s not wise to rely on our spouses or family members or non-writing friends. As for other writers-as-authors, they teach me and entertain me. I read voraciously and widely and am always learning something about my own craft as I go.”

Writers have a unique perspective on written language. They obsess over sentence structure, argue about Oxford commas, and analyze character arcs and narrative tension. A good writer friend understands why we agonize over a single paragraph. They’ll listen to our story ideas, help us untangle plot problems, and tell us the radically honest truth—kindly but firmly—when something isn’t working.

Beyond critique, writer friends offer motivation. Writing can be lonely and discouraging. Self-doubt lurks in the creases of every turn of the page. A supportive community reminds you that struggling with a draft doesn’t mean you’re failing—it means you’re writing. Other writers celebrate your wins, commiserate over rejections, and push you to keep going.

And then there’s reading. Writers need to read widely, and writer friends introduce us to books we might never pick up otherwise. They expand our understanding of craft, inspire new ideas, and remind us why storytelling matters in the first place.

Cultivating friendships with writers isn’t just about networking, it’s about camaraderie.

Writing is a long road trip, and it’s better traveled with company.

Memory isn’t a recording—it’s reconstruction.

Whenever a writer recalls a memory, the brain rewires it. This process, known as memory reconsolidation, means that memories are not retrieved in their original form but reassembled each time they are accessed. This makes memory vulnerable to distortion, omission, and even fabrication.

Our brains don’t store memories like a digital archive; they reconstruct them from fragments, filling in gaps with assumptions and contextual clues. This is why two people can recollect the same event differently—they’ve reconstructed the memory with different missing pieces.

Emotion plays a significant role in memory stability. Highly emotional experiences are more likely to be remembered vividly due to the amygdala’s influence on encoding. But that vividness doesn’t guarantee accuracy—it only makes us more confident in what we recall, whether or not it’s true.

That’s why it’s important to jot down memories quickly—before nostalgia or time distorts details, before they morph into wishful embellishment. Revision inevitably alters how we frame the past, and great writers have always known that memory is a story we tell ourselves. Writing shapes that story as much as remembering does.

If we don’t write down our memories before our brain rewires them, we risk rewriting them.

And since good writing comes from rewriting and revision, here is an effective way to keep the past intact while allowing it to evolve:

1. Write a first draft and spill out details exactly as you recall them. Let it be raw, unfiltered, and unpolished.

2. Make a copy to revise. Now, you can shape the narrative, refine language, rearrange structure, and emphasize meaning over strict accuracy.

The original draft remains a preserved artifact of how you initially remembered something.

This is especially useful if you’re fictionalizing real experiences. Memoir and fiction serve different masters—one strives for truth, the other for emotional resonance.

Neuroscience tells us that memory is fluid. Writing makes it tangible.

If we want to capture truth before it shifts, we must write—and then rewrite—with intention.

Perfection is fiction—writing is revision.

There’s a paradox in writing: the only way to get better is to write. But self-doubt can keep you from starting.

Many writers hesitate when the words aren’t quite right—when an idea feels incomplete. They don’t want to write something bad so they wait. Writers tinker with first sentences, convincing themselves they will write more sentences when they’re ready. This is a prison sentence.

Perfection is an illusion—no first draft is flawless. Writing well starts with writing adequately. Sometimes these early attempts are populated with the darlings that Stephen King advises us to kill, but most great books and brilliant short stories began as something unfinished, messy, and imperfect.

Anne Lamott calls perfectionism “the voice of the opressor.”

“It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”

Salman Rushdie believes it is a kind of stasis and could not possibly be the goal of art.

“Instead, imperfection made meaning possible, made story possible, made life possible.”

And Bradbury compared early drafts to vomiting on the page. Just get it all out so you have something to work with later.

Writers who do the work and do it well begin to succeed when they are willing to embrace imperfection. They accept that a first draft isn’t meant to be good. They understand they can revise a flawed page but they can’t revise a blank one.

“There’s a crack in everything,” says Leonard Cohen, “that’s how the light gets in.”

So, give yourself permission to write mediocre sentences. Let clichés enter your train of thought and spread their legs on the subway seat. Let it be awkward, rambling, incomplete. Revision will fix it later. But the words have to manifest first.

If you sit down to write and hear that critical voice whispering, This isn’t good enough, remind yourself: it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to write something perfect.

You just have to write.

Writing is an Act of Discovery

Forget the advice to write what you know. If writers only stuck to personal experience, we’d have no science fiction, no fantasy epics, and no historical fiction exploring distant times and places. Mary Shelley wasn’t a scientist reanimating corpses, and Jules Verne never journeyed 20,000 leagues under the sea. What united these visionaries was something more powerful: an insatiable curiosity for ideas that transcended their reality.

More important than writing what you know is writing what fascinates you. What makes you lean forward in a conversation? What do you research obsessively, just for the pure joy of learning? These interests are where your most compelling writing will emerge—not from cautiously staying within the boundaries of personal experience, but from the exhilarating journey of discovery.

Ray Bradbury wrote that imagination should be the center of your life. His stories were drawn from childhood fascinations that never dimmed—rockets piercing the darkness of space, mysterious carnivals arriving in the night. His imagination infused every page, and because he was utterly enthralled by his subjects, generations of readers have been captivated too.

The best narratives often emerge when writers follow their interests down unexpected pathways. Diana Gabaldon never intended to write historical fiction—until watching a Doctor Who episode featuring a Scottish character ignited her imagination. That spark grew into the Outlander series, a time-traveling epic that spans centuries and continents.

Consider J.R.R. Tolkien, whose profound obsession with ancient languages and Norse mythology was so strong it couldn’t be bound by academia. That passion birthed an entire world—Middle-earth—complete with its own languages, histories, and mythologies.

In this context, research transforms from tedious homework into a thrilling treasure hunt. If you find yourself intrigued by 18th-century pirates, the bizarre realities of quantum physics, or the secretive practices of medieval alchemists, follow those interests wherever they lead.

So don’t limit yourself to what you already know. Write what ignites your curiosity, and you’ll never run out of stories to tell.

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” –Thomas Mann

Every writer, at some point, faces the question: Am I really a writer? The answer lies in action, not contemplation: Writers write. Not when inspiration strikes, not when they feel like it, but as a daily discipline. Writing isn’t an occasional burst of creativity—it’s a practice.

Gail Sher’s first noble truth for writers is simple: Writers write. If you write, you’re a writer. If you don’t, you’re not. Professional writers don’t wait for perfect moments; they know waiting is futile. The real work happens in the act of putting words on the page—whether brilliant, mediocre, or terrible.

Great writers understand this discipline. Ernest Hemingway wrote every morning until midday, advising to “work every day” regardless of circumstance. Stephen King produces 2,000 words daily, seven days a week. Haruki Murakami rises at 4 a.m. and works for five to six hours straight, maintaining this schedule for months during a project. “The repetition itself becomes the important thing,” he explained. Joan Didion begins her day by reviewing the previous day’s work, creating continuity and momentum. Toni Morrison wrote in the predawn hours while raising children alone and working full-time, proving that constraints often foster creativity rather than hinder it. Octavia Butler pinned a note above her desk reading:

Tell stories you want to read. Keep writing. Keep writing. Keep writing.

The secret is treating writing as a non-negotiable commitment. Marathon writing sessions aren’t necessary—just consistent time. Thirty minutes, an hour, whatever you can dedicate to your craft each day builds your writing foundation. Show up and write, even when every word feels like extraction. This habit distinguishes working writers from dreamers.

And here’s the reward: Writing generates more writing. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Some days, words flow effortlessly; other days, they emerge reluctantly. But what matters isn’t quality—it’s presence. If you write, you’re a writer. It truly is that simple.