False Tension in Books, Shows, and Films

I've been thinking a lot about dialogue recently, since I feel I am decent at it but not great. Looking at writers who seem to always have fantastic dialogue, like John Scalzi, I wonder how they manage it. Is it just a natural gift? Do they write dialogue in their first drafts that is just as pedestrian as ours but then go back and edit it into a masterpiece? I wish I knew. I've left comments on Scalzi's blog a couple of times asking if he would do a post about how he so consistently manages brilliant dialogue, but he has ignored my requests. Who knows, perhaps he doesn't consciously know how he does it because it comes so naturally to him?

I have noticed one thing with dialogue lately while watching shows and movies or reading books, and it as starting to upset me. Writers are constantly creating false tension in their stories by purposely making their characters either not say enough when they can or by simply having them not say anything at all when they should. All the time there will be scenes when someone asks a question, and the other person could very easily just give a straight answer, but instead they don't, and that causes the tension to rise in the story. I know, I know, the writer wants the tension to rise, but to me this is a false way to do it, and it's maddening. Rather than have an actual plot point be the cause of the tension, the writer builds the tension by having one character simply not bother to provide key info to others. The more I have this in mind, the more often I see it happening in all the stories I'm watching and reading (but far more often when watching!).

As much as this pisses me off, it makes me wonder if this is a weakness of mine as a writer. Am I simply too forthcoming with my dialogue? Do I always just tell what seems common sense to tell and thus allow the potential tension to melt away in my stories?

Help With Book Blurb

I feel pretty confident as a writer of novels, but I have always felt I am terrible at writing query letters and blurbs. I'd love to get some opinions from you all as I go about writing the blurb to my forthcoming epic fantasy novel The Shard. (tentative publishing date is May 1)

Here is my first attempt:

A dying king. A mysterious invader. The seer's vision was clear—find the lost shard from the Spire of Peace or the realm would drown in blood. The problem—eight hundred years ago the elven hero Kathkalan took the shard with him into the lair of the most vicious dragon ever known to mankind...and he never returned.

Fate draws together a most unlikely group of heroes:  a minor noble who, after losing his heir in a tragic accident, is desperate to protect his two remaining sons; a pair of elderly rangers who are the first to learn of the deadly invaders sweeping toward the Known Lands; a tinker's son heading to East Gate to serve his two years of duty protecting the realm; an ancient elf warrior out to learn what happened to her lover Kathkalan; and three dwarves on a secret mission to reclaim their lost homeland. Each must overcome impossible odds if they are to find the lost shard and save the realm.

Honestly I can't judge it. The more I read it the more fault I find in it, yet each time I try to rewrite it I feel that I'm only making it worse! If you are a reader of epic fantasy and are not part of the group that thinks elves and dwarves and such are overdone, would such a blurb interest you? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Can the second paragraph work better like this?

Fate draws together a most unlikely group of heroes:

- a minor noble who, after losing his heir in a tragic accident, is desperate to protect his two remaining sons;
- a pair of elderly rangers who are the first to learn of the deadly invaders sweeping toward the Known Lands;
- a tinker's son heading to East Gate to serve his two years of duty protecting the realm;
- an ancient elf warrior out to learn what happened to her lover Kathkalan;
- three dwarves on a secret mission to reclaim their lost homeland.

Each must overcome impossible odds if they are to find the lost shard and save the realm.

My Problem With the Young Adult (YA) Category

When I was growing up there was no Young Adult category for books. There were certainly books aimed at what we now call a YA audience, but they were simply categorized under their primary section, such as Fantasy or Mystery and so forth. I have to admit I kind of preferred it that way.

However, the only true issue I have with the new YA category is that everyone seems to insist that the protagonist in the book must be a young adult. I think this is wrong. To me if you want to have a YA category, the only real rule for inclusion should be that the story is intended for a YA audience. I've read plenty of books that were clearly aimed at a younger audience but didn't have teen protagonists.

Shane Tyree's artwork for The Shard

The reason this is hitting me right now is that I intend to publish my epic fantasy novel The Shard later this year, and to me it should fall in the YA category, yet only one of the three main protagonists is a teen (and he is the last one to be introduced, so you might say he isn't the primary protagonist).

I'm wavering over just categorizing it as Fantasy or insisting that it is YA. The YA buying audience these days is much larger than for standard Fantasy. My teenage sons would certainly agree that the book is aimed at them. My youngest keeps re-reading it over and over again, and both of them name all of their characters in both computer and role-playing games after characters from the story, so it clearly resonates with them more so than it does for adults.

What do you think, can a story with adult or even elderly protagonists fall within the YA category?