Diction in Dialog: with Side Notes on Speculative Fiction

A ramble I've been preparing since Friday, which proves that I read and think too much.

Diction in Dialog: with Side Notes on Speculative Fiction
( The speculative fiction problem with bad dialog--defined, for purposes of this discussion, as something accidentally anachronistic, language out-of-sorts with with a character's ordinary mode of speech, or overly-period slang (think of those horrible grade-school readers left over from the 1970's!), or plain awkward-sounding speech--is that is boots the reader not only out of the character, but also, by extension, out of the world of the story. )

Only can I write the stuff when the stars are a-burn: a matter so small.

Ah but when the writing is going well all else can hang, with pleasure if not approval outright; explode the stars and keep 'em as your flour for all it matters--just see what strange cakes we may bake of it.

A list of little sense and less sleep:
1.) Soft-in-the-head
1.1.) The small lord
1.2.) Typography
1.3.) Cages/Chains
1.4.) Where did the bit of him mortal go sister?
1.5.) Cuckold's horns of coral
1.6.) At a much later date: "There is nothing behind the pane."