DPW Podcast #184: Solid Tips For Writing Dialogue Better Than Stephen King

Meet
Our Hosts

Caleb James K.

Caleb James K. is the former Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal, Drunken Pen Writing, and the host of the DPW Podcast. He’s also a fiction writer, poet, and aspiring novelist.

Spencer Church

A former aspiring comic book artist, Spencer is the cohost of the DPW Podcast as well as a short story writer and avid reader.


We kick things off with a rant about people who boycott art they were never going to purchase in the first place—especially the jerks who try to cancel books even though they don’t read.

After that, we settle into a fun discussion about writing good dialogue. This begins with David Foster Wallace’s opinion on Stephen King’s method for writing dialogue and why Wallace thought King wrote below his capabilities for the sake of quantity over quality. 

This leads us to the meat of the matter in how we write dialogue in our work. We give a bunch of great tips and examples from great writers and how they go about crafting realistic dialogue. 

#216: Famous Books With Terrible Original Titles Drunken Pen Writing Podcast

We kick off the episode with some good publishing news and a quick discussion about writing snacks, which devolves into us talking about drinking booze.  After that, we go over a list of famous literary works and their terrible original titles. You can follow us @dpwpodcast on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can check out Caleb's work at http://www.calebjamesk.com. 
  1. #216: Famous Books With Terrible Original Titles
  2. #215: Getting Blasphemous With David Scott Hay
  3. DBS #135: Ranting And Raving Writers
  4. #214 Fancy Book Q&A
  5. DBS #134: Reading Awful InstaPoems

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