Dialogue Deep Dive Master Class
Recording of event from September 23, 2025
If you’re a fiction writer or penning creative nonfiction, treat yourself to a 2-hour intensive master class recording that will help you supercharge the dialogue in your scenes.
Literary agents and writing coaches agree: dialogue is perhaps the most important element in your story and the hardest to do well. Some agents say they go directly to the dialogue in a submission, and if it fails to thrill, they read no further. That should give all us writers pause!
Dialogue that is clever, humorous, revealing, and poignant has the power to move readers emotionally and keep them fully engaged in your story. Conversely, weak, boring dialogue is the kiss of death for a novel.
A masterful writer will ensure that every single line—every single word—of dialogue in their manuscript is important and strategic.
Great dialogue looks so easy, so natural … but seasoned writers know that is not the case! In this master class, we take some of the mystery and confusion out of the struggle and share technique and insights that will give you new clarity on writing dialogue.
Here are some of the things we cover in this master class:
- Why and how dialogue should work on multiple levels and not just convey information
- Why it’s helpful to determine the “shape” of a scene to strategically plan the course of the dialogue.
- How and why dialogue is all about character POV—what they need, want, care about, and fear
- How to plot the emotionality of your dialogue by using pacing and voicing techniques
- The need to determine the specific purpose(s) for your dialogue in every scene that is tied in directly to character change
- What the 5 parts of voice are and what you need to know about each one
- How to supercharge your dialogue with subtle body language
- Ways to create microtension using subtext and word choice in dialogue (and why that matters!)
In these two hours recorded on Zoom, we show you new ways to tackle dialogue and make it powerful in your scenes.
Course Curriculum
Your Instructor
C. S. Lakin is the award-winning author of thirty books and blogger at Live Write Thrive, a top-ten site for writers. She works as a book copyeditor and writing coach, specializing in manuscript critiques. Her writing craft book series The Writer's Toolbox teaches aspiring and experienced novelists how to write terrific stories. More than 5,000 writers have taken her online video courses over the last 10 years. She loves nothing more than to help writers craft stellar novels and experience success and joy in their writing journey.
Your Co-Instructor
Jeff Elkins is the founder of the Dialogue Doctor, the host of the Dialogue Doctor Podcast, the author of 11 novels, 2 works of nonfiction, and more than 100 short stories. He’s worked with hundreds of authors online and edited more than ten full manuscripts.