One of my favorite scenes to write in any novel are the ones heavy in dialogue.What’s said is just as important as what’s left unsaid. Tension builds as voices rise. A relationship alters from a single beat of silence. There’s endless possibilities to create an additional layer of complexity to any story throughspeech.

How can we improve such an important part of our story? I’ve included belowsome tips I’ve collected in the past year about how to craftrealistic and engaging dialogue, and hop...