This is KAMWyland and you are listening to the 90th episode of the Word Play podcast.

I finally cleared my schedule enough to return to the list of research questions I left hanging

after completing the first draft of my historical work in progress the deepest

wrath. Most of the items on my list are minor niggling questions.

Everything from what were turnicates made of during World War I to would a bullet

be able to penetrate the roof of a 1925 passenger rail car on the

Uganda-Mombasa Railway?

Thanks to Google, YouTube, and a couple knowledgeable and generous friends, I was able to get about a third of the way through

the list of this week. Except for that one afternoon when YouTube absolutely refused to load a video of

an early 20th century steam engine, I've been having a lot of fun with my fact checking.

And it's definitely wetting my appetite for diving back into this story and editing that

first draft. How to Use Dialogue to Avoid lengthy info dumps? The latest post in the video series on my

blog explains how Neil Stevenson's anatheme brilliantly camouflaged his info dumps as plot progressing dialogue.

You can watch the video on my blog at wordplay-K-M-Yland, that's W-E-I-L-E-N-D. blog spot.

New videos are posted every Wednesday.

Meanwhile, enjoy this week's podcast.

Most Common Mistake Series,

Why Vague Writing is a weak writing.

Precision is the domain of the author.

As the creator of our

characters, we don't have to wallow in the quagmire of vague details and fuzzy ideas.

We can make statements of authority because if we're not the authority in our stories,

...