Voice. Authors have to cultivate it—it’s one of the major things that builds reader loyalty, especially in a saturated market. But what exactly do people mean when they talk about an author’s voice, usually in statements like these:

One of the struggles authors have is presenting dialogue so that it’s both understandable and engaging. Phone conversations can be especially problematic. Scenes where you show both

Using “paused” as an action beat seems a little like an oxymoron, but I digress. If you use an action beat or a dialog tag,