The usual advice about writing dialogue sets a pretty high bar: advance the plot, capture your characters\’ voices and reveal something about them, don\’t dump in exposition, and watch out for -ly words. But how do you do all that between two quotation marks? This class will explore the ins and outs of effective dialogue. We\’ll talk about all of the above, plus tag lines and some of the mechanics, like punctuation and capitalization. Author and James River Writers\’ Executive Director Katharine Herndon will walk you through how to get your characters talking without using a bare light bulb or a dungeon cell. We\’ll dissect scenes from the pros and try a few hands-on exercises to limber up your pen. You\’ll leave with a renewed appreciation of what dialogue can do for your story and concrete takeaways for improving it.