Most of the time, tough, combative, adversarial dialogue is much more exciting than physical action.

Readers, transformed by film and TV, are used to seeing stories. The reading experience . . . is increasingly visual.

To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive.

Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediately.

A writer writes what other people only think.

The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye.

Most of the time, tough, combative, adversarial dialogue is much more exciting than physical action.