No LIB-file need to be linked statically to calling application if dynamic 
linking is used. Instead DLL loaded dynamically at run-time. This sample 
shows how expicit dynamic linking works. With explicit linking, wheather 
DEF-file used or not, you use Win32 API functions LoadLibrary and 
GetProcAddress to load DLL into memory space of the calling process and get 
a pointer to a function from DLL. 

Note: COM DLLs, which are always loaded dynamically, use single function
CoCreateInstance instead of 2 functions LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress.

Since DEF-file enlists exported functions, __delspec(dllexport) declaration 
(that allows linker to figure out what elements of DLL are exported) before 
exported function in a DLL is optional. Therefore, writing a code
for DLL following the same rules as for writing a code for Win32 EXE
application. You must add only (manually) DEF text file and declare exported 
functions in it. 

If DEF-file is not used, and still you want to implement explicit dynamic
linking two changes are required to this sample code. First, put
__delspec(dllexport) before any function in DLL that you are going to call
from EXE. Second, in calling application, replace:

pFunction = (PFUNCTION)GetProcAddress(hLibrary, "WriteString"); 

with

pFunction = (PFUNCTION)GetProcAddress(hLibrary, "?WriteString@@YAXXZ");

Unfortunately, decorated name for WriteString function need to be used.
This is a downside of explicit dynamic linking not using DEF-file. You
can figure out decorated name by using depends or dumpbin utilities.