Four steps to using dialogue to drive your story

Dialogue is important.

When I read a piece of prose, whether it’s a short story or a novel, and the dialogue is done well, my heart gives a little skip of excitement. (I know, an exciting life!) Here is a writer who has taken the time to learn their craft.

And it generally extends to other aspects of the writing as well, and very much encourages me to keep reading. In fact, if I open a book preview and the dialogue punctuation is incorrect, it’s an automatic pass for me. This is a shame, because...