Don’t confuse epigram with epigraph, which refers to those quotations some writers like to put in the front matter of their novels and stories.
Anything revelatory or portentous at the end of the story is very heavy indeed.
Arguments are most nerve-wracking when the characters imply what they feel instead of coming right out and saying it. In fact, the more intense the feelings, the more likely people are to say the opposite of what they really mean. If you want to keep up a high level of tension, keep the dialogue ev…
Without sufficient eloquence, it’s a strategy likely to misfire into tendentiousness.
People speak variously. Some talk in clichés, some talk like the authors of philosophy tomes. Some people slip back and forth between dialect and formal language. Writers can signal that they know that the character’s speech is idiosyncratic:
Proget was a weird mix of garret and gutter. One mi…
