...
16. This is more of pain but always check around town after a dragon attack and make sure nobody important to you is left dead on the ground. The last tip I have goes along with this one. If you do find someone dead that you wanted alive then reload a previous save which you should have no problem doing since you save all the time.
...
another approach, you know that the dragon going to pop soon (because you reload from a save game), run to some place far away from the people mass, the dragon will generally pop near you. you may need to go open place or higher ground to aggro the dragon, sumon a flame elemental can help too.