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Movies will have you believing that successful writers write from a choice location in Paris that overlooks the Eiffel Tower, that they do their writing with a sophisticated 19^th-century typewriter as they type under the influence of unending inspiration. But if you’ve decided to become a writer, you already know that’s not the general reality.

Successful writers did not get their achievements because of the brilliance of their writing space. Neither is it because they are always inspired to write. The truth is, many writers write looking dishevelled from the comfort of their—most likely unmade—beds, and often after they have dealt with spells of no inspiration.

Despite the absence or presence of this, however, there is one characteristic that determines whether you’ll be successful as a writer or not. To be clear, this characteristic works together with other qualities to make for a successful career in writing. But without it, you might as well say goodbye to being on a bestsellers list someday.

What is this thing, you ask? Well, every successful writer has discipline. It’s as simple as that.

It’s not about having the perfect location to write or being always inspired. Becoming a successful writer depends on how much of a disciplined writer you are. And this is important because, without discipline, you will never finish your book idea. Neither will you submit it to publishers who will give you the opportunity you need to reach millions of readers globally.

Now that you know the most important characteristic of every successful writer, how can you cultivate it?

• Set a timeline for your book: If you already know what you want to write about, saying you will write it within a year is a much better bet than just saying you will write the book. The reason is that when you have a clear timeline, it’s easy to create smaller chunks of goals that’ll help you complete the book. It’s also a perfect way to write without waiting for inspiration which is likely to delay you.

• When writing, separate the times for research from the times you’ll dedicate to writing: This is quite useful in today’s social media age. Don’t be deceived—writers are not immune to the distraction of social media. This is why you will find some innocent research turning into hours on Instagram. Therefore, it is much easier to highlight the details you want to research and return to them at a later time so you can complete your writing.

• Always re-visit what you have written: Writing can be frustrating, and it becomes more pronounced if publishers keep rejecting your work. Sometimes though, that rejection is because you have sent in a first draft. See, discipline also involves submitting the best version of your story. No matter how brilliant you think that first draft is, it’s a lazy attempt at telling your story, so if you need a break before coming back to your book, take it. Just ensure that you’re not sending in your first draft.

As Ernest Hemingway rightly said, “…there must be discipline…” in the writing process.

One of the key elements of a story is dialogue. By way of definition, a dialogue is the textual representation of spoken words and conversations within most creative works, including novels, short stories, and scripts. It is the speech of fiction, the talk between two or more characters.

Dialogue is an essential element of a story because it is what advances the story; it is what directs and changes the course of a story. It also helps a writer to communicate specific information to his reader. Dialogues reveal the nature of the characters in the story, and it is through dialogues that the message of the story is communicated to the reader.

One of the keys to writing great stories is building an exciting dialogue. A dialogue must create an emotional effect and response from the reader.

There are a few things to consider while writing your story dialogue.

1. Give your characters different voices, word choices, rhythms, and styles: Just like real humans speak differently, the difference of tone, word choice and style between characters should be noticed by the readers. This requires research and observation. As a writer, you must understand who a character is before you ascribe a voice style and tone to him or her. For example, if a character were to be an Ibo, then he should speak differently from the Hausa character. Traditional Ibos tend to talk in proverbs; you may give your Ibo character this distinction.

2. Keep your dialogues brief: Although there are situations where long dialogue is allowed, this should not be dominant. Long dialogues are more suitable in plays than in novels. In a novel, dialogues should not go over for pages and pages. Don’t allow characters to speak at length without interruption by another character.

3. Be consistent with your characters’ voice and style: I said earlier that each character should have unique voices. You must be consistent with it; an Ibo character should not just start talking like an English man all of a sudden.

4. Show; don’t tell: This cannot be overemphasised in a story. Writers are quick to tell a character’s emotions, feelings or intentions instead of showing them. You should show what your characters feel instead of telling it. You can make use of body language because it is very crucial in a story-like dialogue. To do this, you have to understand human behaviour. Just like humans do, your characters should not always know what they feel. For you to be able to apply this to your story, you may need to observe a lot. Observe people while they are having a discussion and apply the same to the characters in your story.

5. Avoid repetition of names in dialogue and keeping other characters in a scene busy while others are talking: This will add reality to the scene. Your characters should not be unnecessarily passive.

6. Minimise identifying tags like ‘he said’, ‘he asked’, etc.: Tags are sometimes not necessary and worse, they drag the flow of the story and make it boring.

7. Read your dialogues out: Some will say you should write your dialogues the way you speak. This has proven to be quite effective so you might consider applying it.

And lastly, read wide and listen to people talk. Reading and listening help you create dialogues that are not only real but interesting and engaging.