Something that a lot of writers forget is that the reader doesn't live only in a world of mental imagery. Their world is filled with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations. If you want your audience to be immersed in your story, you have to remember
One of the hardest parts of writing for most authors is to be honest with the reader. It's perfectly understandable... fiction, by definition, is fabrication. It's a lie. The trick is to insert enough truth so as to make the audience relate to what's happening.
The one thing that new writers probably do worse than anything else (other than maybe spelling and grammar) is writing dialog. They want to make it "real" and like how people actually talk. They figure
