Jada asked Karin Adams:

How do you go about writing dialogue?

Karin Adams I find that there are a lot of factors that go into crafting dialogue story to story, character to character and conversation to conversation. But the best piece of general advice that I ever received - and always seem to go back to - is to "avoid 'talking heads'". This comes from a wonderful Improv theatre class I took years ago, right around the time I was writing my first book. In the context of Improv performance, the idea was to incorporate action or dynamic movement of some kind into scenes, so that the scene and the implied "world" where it took place wasn't only being created by the words that were spoken but by what we saw happening on stage.

I find that this thought - "avoid 'talking heads'" is always playing in the back of my mind when I write scenes that are rich with dialogue. It leads me to consider: What are the characters doing as they talk? How can I show this in a way that creates movement and flow in the scene and suggests the larger world of the story? Where is the action taking place? Can I weave in details as the dialogue unfolds that keep my readers' senses and emotions (something beyond just their thoughts) sparked and engaged in the story's world?

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