Dialogue and narrative revisited…

While I’ve discussed these two topics elsewhere (for example, in my free PDF download “Writing Fiction”—see the list on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page), I’ll mention them again because I consider them and their balance so important when writing fiction. Some fiction writers emphasize one over the other, maybe depending on the type of novel.

There’s no argument about sci-fi: It often requires a lot of world-building, which is narrative, of course. (I’ll never forget the incompetent agent who...