This relatively innocuous piece of dialogue right at the beginning of the book reassures readers that these two characters have lived together for a while and know each other well. Maybe some cookie dough ice cream? The kind you like with the fudge in the middle?” (2)

Just wanted to let you know I’m going to run down to the store and pick up a couple things. If your parent-child dialogue naturally reveals a character’s preferences, your story will feel more authentically steeped in a long shared history, thus making the story more believable. For instance, parents know their children’s likes and dislikes. We writers can take the next step and turn our characters’ shared knowledge into insider information, the kind that only really close friends or family know about each other. There’s warrior training! It starts when someone’s fourteen! There are other people who set the rules! Yes, Subity could have provided us with this information via Abby’s internal thoughts, but it’s so much more organic, authentic, and efficient to reveal it via well-crafted dialogue. It also offers a hefty amount of worldbuilding. It works hard to ensure the reader immediately understands the rich shared history and knowledge these two characters have. Just a simple piece of dialogue, but it actually does some heavy lifting. When she asks her father when she can start real warrior training, he reminds her that she’s too young. The first chapter of The Last Shadow Warrior kicks off with Abby in the middle of attempting her own warrior training session with a training dummy that her dad has named Ivar the Boneless. References to Previous Conversations with Shared Knowledge I was seriously impressed that he managed to do all of this mostly through snappy dialogue and within the first four pages of The Last Shadow Warrior.

In fact, he uses at least five techniques right off the bat to create this deep history (and relationship) between Abby and her dad. However, with Abby and her dad, Subity does a beautiful job of bringing their relationship to life through a shared history. Since Abby moves from North Carolina to Minnesota early in the book, most of her relationships are new ones that readers watch unfold from the beginning.

The Last Shadow Warrior by Sam Subity