A young hero is about to make a decision that could change everything.

But will the reader feel the weight of that choice?

In this coaching session, editor Laura Humm works with author Liz Woodwiss on Chapter 21 of Liz's epic fantasy novel. The scene centers on Terry, a 14-year-old reluctant hero who is being pushed toward a terrifyingly grown-up decision: petitioning the King directly during a Day of King's Grace in order to expose the Queen's manipulation.

Laura helps Liz strengthen the chapter by bringing the reader deeper into Terry's point of view. Instead of letting the scene become a room full of adults discussing politics, Laura shows how Terry's fear, hope, confusion, and urgency can guide the reader through the complexity of the moment. You'll learn how to open a scene with emotional stakes, how to keep third person close narration anchored in your protagonist, how to remind readers what matters at the start of a chapter, and how to use teenage reactions, whispers, and shared panic to make political fantasy feel immediate and personal.

The session also digs into world-building through character-specific imagery, including how Terry's lace-making background can shape the way he sees danger, pressure, and choice.

Watch this session if you're writing YA fantasy, political intrigue, a reluctant hero, or any scene where a young character has to stand in a room full of adults and decide who they are going to become.

Your dialogue can be sharp. Your scene can move fast. Your characters can have real chemistry.

But if the reader doesn't spend enough time inside the emotional turn, the biggest moment in the scene can fly by before it lands.

In this episode of The Dialogue Doctor Podcast, Jeff Elkins works with sci-fi author Leanne Robinson on a dialogue-heavy scene between an alien woman and the hero who has complicated feelings for her. What begins as a fun, flirtatious reunion quickly turns into something much bigger: a relationship crisis, a betrayal, a pregnancy reveal, and a major turning point in Randy's emotional arc.

Jeff's core advice is simple but powerful: emotional depth often comes from time on the page.

You'll learn how to slow down the right moments without dragging the scene, how to expand key utterances so readers feel the emotional shift, how to use inner thought to clarify what a character is really reacting to, and how to separate romance, suspicion, betrayal, fear, and responsibility when they all collide in the same conversation.

This session is especially useful if you write dialogue-heavy scenes, sci-fi romance, multi-POV stories, character-driven conflict, or emotional turning points where a character has to become more serious, responsible, or honest with themselves.

Watch this episode if you want to learn how to take a scene that already works and make it hit harder.

Most writers are taught to think about plot, character arcs, genre, theme, setting, cast, and prose as separate craft problems.

But what if they are all doing the same job?

What if every tool in your novel exists to shape one thing: the reader's emotional journey?

In this solo episode of The Dialogue Doctor Podcast, Jeff Elkins introduces the big idea behind his new book, The Dialogue Doctor on Writing Emotion. Instead of treating emotion like something mysterious that either "works" or doesn't, Jeff breaks it down into a practical framework writers can actually use.

You'll learn how to think about your story through seven emotional tools: trajectory, vector, alignment, saturation, velocity, pressure, and altitude. These tools help explain why readers feel hope, dread, comfort, tension, frustration, satisfaction, heartbreak, or joy as they move through a story.

Jeff also talks about why traditional story systems like Save the Cat, Story Grid, and beat sheets are useful—but limited. The goal is not to throw those systems away. The goal is to understand what they are doing to the reader so you can use them with more freedom, confidence, and creativity.

Watch this episode if you want to stop guessing your way through emotional scenes and start designing a reader journey that actually lands.

Because great stories do not just happen on the page.

They happen inside the reader.