Have you ever read a line of dialogue that just felt off? Grammatically, it was correct, but it didn’t sound right. Chances are, it was breaking a maxim of conversation.             These unspoken rules of dialogue are used every day in the real world, governing what it means to speak properly and creating an uncanny valley affect when broken. You probably already know these maxims intuitively, but being able to put them into words will help you understand why dialogue may so

In honor of Halloween this year, my friends and I watched the movie Coraline . Since I’ve been learning how to write middle grade, I was extremely interested in how they presented the relationship between Coraline and her parents. One of the hallmarks of good middle grade fiction is when the disconnect between the adult and child perspectives is present, but the reader is able to understand and sympathize with both. A lot of writers would have taken a plot like Coraline and

I recently reread the second part of Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell to get some guidance on how to proceed with rewriting The Everstone....

Let me start by saying this is not an exhaustive list. It would probably be impossible to make a list of all the ways to improve a plot,...

Skylar Rivers is the author of the Sky River Write blog, where she posts book reviews, writer interviews, and advice for teens. Despite...