#use context and actions more than dialogue tags

[hayatheauthor]

Crafting Character Voices And Distinct Dialogue

A well-crafted character voice can breathe life into your narrative, making readers feel as if they're eavesdropping on real people. Each character's dialogue should be as distinctive as their fingerprints, reflecting their personality, background, and motivations. 

Creating distinctive character voices is one of the first things I learned in my creative writing lessons. Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting, understanding how to create authentic and unique character voices is a crucial skill. So, here’s my guide on how to personalise your dialogue. 

Understanding Your Characters

To craft dialogue that resonates, you must first get to know your characters inside and out. Dive deep into their psyche, exploring their backgrounds, beliefs, values, and desires. What drives them? What keeps them up at night? Understanding these intricacies is the foundation upon which you'll build their unique voices.

Additionally, consider their primary language or dialect. A character from Italy, for example, might have a different vocabulary and speech patterns than someone from India. For instance, an Italian character may use phrases or expressions unique to their culture, adding depth and authenticity to their voice. This not only provides cultural richness but also enhances the character's individuality.

Creating Distinctive Speech Patterns

Once you've delved into your characters' backgrounds and cultural influences, it's time to work on their speech patterns. Think of this as giving each character their own linguistic fingerprint. Here are some key elements to consider:

Unique Vocabulary: Each character should have a vocabulary that reflects their education, interests, and experiences. A well-read character might use more complex words, while a simpler character may prefer everyday language.

Sentence Structures: Pay attention to how characters structure their sentences. Some may favor long, flowing sentences, while others opt for brevity. This reflects their thought processes and personality.

Idioms and Colloquialisms: Characters from specific regions or backgrounds might use regional idioms or colloquial expressions. For example, a Texan character might say, "fixin' to" instead of "intending to."

Influences from Native Language: If your character speaks more than one language, consider how their native language influences their speech in another language. They might occasionally switch to their native language for emphasis or use idiomatic expressions from that language.

Accents and Pronunciation: If your character has a distinct accent, consider how this affects their pronunciation of words. You can subtly convey accents through dialogue without overdoing it, using phonetic spelling sparingly.

Tone Tags: Incorporating tone tags (e.g., nervously, confidently, sarcastically) can convey the character's emotions and attitudes during a conversation. These tags help readers understand the subtext of the dialogue.

Imagine a character named Maria, who hails from Mexico. She might use Spanish phrases when speaking English to emphasize her cultural background. Her speech could be peppered with warmth and expressions of hospitality, reflecting her upbringing.

Dialogue Tags and Character Expressions

Dialogue tags and character expressions are invaluable tools for conveying the nuances of character voices. They add layers to your characters' speech, giving readers insight into their emotions, intentions, and personalities.

While "said" is often your best friend because it's unobtrusive, don't hesitate to mix in other tags to convey mood and tone. For instance, instead of always using "said," consider alternatives like "whispered," "shouted," "murmured," or "replied." Choose tags that align with the character's demeanor and the context of the conversation.

Character expressions and actions:

Non-Verbal Communication

Beyond dialogue tags, describe how characters express themselves physically while speaking. Actions, gestures, and facial expressions can reveal a lot about a character's emotional state or their intentions. If a character nervously tugs at their collar while speaking, it conveys anxiety. If another character smirks while delivering a line, it hints at their amusement or mischief.

Using tone tags:

Incorporate tone tags like "nervously," "confidently," "sarcastically," or "gently" to clarify the character's tone of voice. These adverbs provide crucial context to the dialogue, helping readers understand the character's emotional state.

Social Influence

Remember that a character's social background can significantly influence their speech. For instance, a character from a wealthy background might use more formal language and have a refined way of speaking. They might avoid slang or contractions. In contrast, a character from a less privileged background might use colloquialisms, contractions, and have a more relaxed speech style.

Balancing character expressions and tags can breathe life into your dialogues, making them engaging and memorable for readers. Use them strategically to punctuate and emphasize key moments in your characters' conversations.

Balancing Consistency and Evolution

As you craft your characters' dialogue, it's crucial to strike a balance between consistency and evolution. Characters should maintain their unique voices throughout the story, but they can also grow and change. 

Consistency is key to character integrity. Readers should be able to recognize a character's voice from the beginning to the end of your story.

To achieve this create a character profile that includes detailed notes on their speech patterns, vocabulary, and idiosyncrasies. Refer back to your character profile whenever writing dialogue to ensure you stay true to their voice.

However, characters, like real people, can evolve and change over time. Events, experiences, and personal growth can influence how they speak. To reflect this evolution gradually introduce changes in their speech as they undergo character development. You can also use dialogue to convey their changing perspectives, priorities, or emotions.

For example, a shy character might start using more assertive language as they gain confidence throughout the story. Their evolution should feel natural and in line with their character arc.

By maintaining consistency while allowing for evolution, you can create dynamic and believable character voices that resonate with your readers.

Dialogue Exercises and Practice

First things first, get to know your characters like you're catching up with an old friend. Dive into their quirks, fears, what makes them tick, and what ticks them off. Once you've got a handle on that, it's time to let them speak their minds. Ever heard of character monologues? It's like giving your characters a stage to shine. Let them ramble, vent, or reminisce—it's like therapy for both you and your character.

Now, let's talk duets. Imagine pairing up two characters from different walks of life for a conversation. It's like a linguistic showdown, and you're the ringmaster. See how they bounce off each other, and you'll bring out their unique voices like a pro.

Last but not least, voice journals. Think of it as a diary for your characters. Let them jot down their innermost thoughts and feelings. It's like having a backstage pass to their minds.

Remember, mastering character dialogue is a journey, not a sprint. Your characters will evolve, and so will your knack for making their voices stand out.

Avoiding Stereotypes and Clichés

When creating character voices it's important to avoid those clichéd, overused character stereotypes. We've all seen them: the tough-as-nails detective with a whiskey habit, or the ditzy cheerleader who cares more about lipstick than world affairs.

As writers, our mission is to create characters that feel fresh, real, and relatable. So, let's steer clear of the tired old tropes and explore the vast spectrum of humanity.

Instead of falling into the trap of predictable character traits, dig deeper. Ask yourself: What makes your character tick? What are their quirks and passions? Sure, your character might be a brilliant scientist, but what sets them apart from every other lab coat-wearing genius out there?

Diversity is your friend here. Embrace the rich tapestry of human experiences and backgrounds. Give your characters unique voices that reflect their individuality, and you'll create characters that resonate with readers on a whole new level.

I hope this blog on Crafting Character Voices will help you in your writing journey. Be sure to comment any tips of your own to help your fellow authors prosper, and follow my blog for new blog updates every Monday and Thursday.  

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Are you an author looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Or do you want to learn about how to get a literary agent, get published and properly market your book? Consider checking out the rest of Haya’s book blog where I post writing and publishing tips for authors every Monday and Thursday! And don’t forget to head over to my TikTok and Instagram profiles @hayatheauthor to learn more about my WIP and writing journey! 

#hayatheauthor #haya's book blog #haya sameer #haya blogs #writers on tumblr #writer community #writer tools #writer blog #writer stuff #writer wednesday #writer tips #creative writing #writers of tumblr #writerscommunity #writeblr #writing community #writer spotlight #writer things #writing prompt #writing tools #writing stuff #writing #writing life #writing inspo #writing help #writing advice #writing inspiration #writing ideas #writing things #writing tip

[vinelark]

in return for the fic recs i got last month, here are a few fics i read recently that i want to absolutely yell about from the rooftops:

Iron, Fire, Mirror-Glass by PurpleSoot: an early batman days AU where, while slowly healing from a spine-shattering injury, bruce finds an old book about the fae. in a fit of desperation he attempts a Summoning to try to heal his spine. enter: robin.

this story is fantastic—the kind of longfic with a plot so good and satisfying that finishing it leaves you on a reading high for at least a week. one of the best early days bruce fics i’ve ever read, with honorable mentions to excellent alfred and clark and jim and selina characterizations—but robin (dick) really takes the cake here. the balance of chilling, otherworldly, not-quite-human vs. playful, earnest, Still Just a Child…chef’s kiss. the way robin’s character arc drags bruce kicking and screaming through his own emotional growth is so well-paced and well-wrought that i already want to reread just so i can experience it again. this is one of those god-tier longfics that i can’t believe i got to read for free on the internet.

mid-reading testimonial:

The Lone Ranger Never Had to Deal with Bruce Wayne by @theskeptileptic: a tim-joins-the-family-early fic in which tim decides to do everyone (his parents) a solid by faking his own death and running away to canada, except his weirdo neighbor bruce wayne keeps butting in and messing up his plans.

this is one of the rare stories where tim doesn’t know batman’s identity yet, and even rarer stories where that somehow makes the whole thing even more compelling. this fic has two of my favorite things: small, lonely, moderately unhinged tim drake pov, and really good pangs—pangs that are expertly teased out through flashbacks that add context to the present action at exactly the right moments. also, a very fun cameo near the end. i had a blast reading this one, physically clutched my chest more than once, and am already looking forward to rereading.

mid-reading testimonial (feat. @cairoscene):

equivalent exchange by scribblemetimbers (wip): an au set during tim’s robin days in which tim discovers 1) crossroads demons are a thing and 2) people can make deals with them. deals that include bringing people back from the dead, so long as you’re willing to pay the price with your own life.

this fic is so…🤌‼️ it feels like everything i want in a fic so far, down to two incredibly specific concepts i love (bruce, in his grief, saying something harsh to robin!tim with disastrous consequences later + tim making a big secret sacrifice gambit) which are both done so so well, within a larger plot that is also done so so well. the way this fic cuts in and out of scenes at the exact right moments for max tension feels like a masterclass in causing me to tear my hair out (in the best way), and instead of assorted pangs reading it is just one big Pang. it currently leaves off on an agonizing cliffhanger but, again, in the best way. highly recommend. (thank you again @owlbats for the rec!)

exchange between me and my friend after i sent the link, which about sums it up:

and to cut this angst with some humor:

IRIS Log #1548 by @deadchannelradio: a night on patrol as recorded by the bats’ audio logs, centering around red hood getting flung into a ditch and everyone, eventually, getting home safe.

one of the top ten funniest things i’ve ever read—spiritually up there with send to all (and if you’ve seen my fic rec tag you’ll know what a compliment that is). this makes use of the audio log format SO well. the dialogue shines, the jokes land with excellent timing, and it moves at such a clip that it’s pretty much impossible to stop reading once you’ve started. every character shines in this, and i’ve randomly choked on laughter remembering the phrase ‘good god he got thrown like a corn hole beanbag’ like twenty times in the past few weeks.

mid-reading testimonial:

#every time i sit down to do a general reclist it gets so long and i get overwhelmed because i want to write an essay for each one #i had a rec thread going on twitter for a while and it was also getting so long even though i stopped months ago #i should do these monthly. there are so many fics i would love to yell from the rooftops about #anyway these rock!! happy reading!!! #batfam #fic rec

[so-many-ocs]

a guide to formatting dialogue (it's harder than you'd think!)

a request from instagram that i'm posting here. buckle up, because this is a long one!

if a spoken sentence ends in a period, don’t use a dialogue tag. either replace the period with a comma or replace the dialogue tag with a separate sentence indicating a related action or description.

incorrect: “I need to go.” he said.

even more incorrect: “I need to go.” He said.

correct: “I need to go,” he said. or “I need to go.” He pushed back his chair and stood.

this rule does not apply to other types of punctuation such as question marks or exclamation points.

leave the dialogue tag lowercase, no matter what. (proper nouns remain capitalized)

incorrect: “When are we leaving?” She asked. ("She asked" is not a complete sentence)

correct: “When are we leaving?” she asked. (the line of dialogue is included in the complete sentence)

when formatting dialogue, you can add natural pauses by breaking up a spoken line with a dialogue tag or an action.

correct: “Wait,” they said. “I feel like this is getting overly complicated.” (within the lines of dialogue, ‘wait’ is its own sentence, so you use a period after ‘they said.’ you can remove the dialogue tag and it would be written like this: “Wait. I feel like this is getting overly complicated.”)

also correct: “I’m running out of sentence ideas,” they muttered, shifting in place, “but writing doesn’t sleep and neither do I.” (if you wrote the dialogue without the tag and action, it would look like this: “I’m running out of sentence ideas, but writing doesn’t sleep and neither do I.” adding the dialogue tag lengthens the natural pause created by the comma. also it’s 3am while i’m writing this. “go to sleep,” you say. to which i say, “did you not read my example sentence?”)

still correct i think (probably but english grammar is a total bitch): “I am going to stop now—” Here, she began rummaging through her bag, before producing a slender vial filled with shimmering liquid, “—and show you something of great importance.” (if you removed the interrupting action, the sentence would be written like this: “I am going to stop now and show you something of great importance.” there is no comma, so the pause being added is for effect, rather than for grammatical purposes. use an em dash (two hyphens, formats like: —) or ellipses (...). additionally, the action is its own separate sentence, rather than being attached to the dialogue as a tag, so it is capitalized.)

an additional note on em dashes: if they are used in a sentence, be it for an interjection, an interruption, a pause, or a secret fourth thing, there is no space before or after the dash. here’s an example from my wip: “Now, though—and overnight, it seemed—the two were acting as a unit, leaving her on the outside.”

if, for whatever reason, a character is speaking in paragraphs, the formatting gets a bit wonky.

“This is going to be the shortest example paragraph ever, but here goes. I am going to write three sentences so this qualifies as a paragraph. Two sentences might also qualify, but I am nothing if not committed to the bit. “New paragraph,” she continued, “same speaker. Wow, look, I incorporated an earlier concept to demonstrate it in a different context. How cool is that? You should totally follow whoever is posting such great writing advice.”

there is no end quote after the first paragraph, but there is a start quote at the beginning of the second paragraph. the end quote comes whenever the speaker is finished. why? i have no idea; i didn’t invent the english language, i just work here.

you can use colons and semicolons in dialogue. it gets a bit awkward, but we’ve just covered paragraph formatting, so how hard can it be?

correct: He asked: “What on earth are you talking about?” (colon in place of a comma when a dialogue tag is placed before the dialogue)

also correct: They said, “It’s getting late, isn't it?” (comma when a dialogue tag is placed before the dialogue)

incorrect: “What on earth are you talking about?”: he asked. (the question mark functions as a comma and eliminates the need for a colon. also, as a rule of thumb, the ending punctuation does not get placed outside of the quotation marks)

still incorrect: He asked; “What on earth are you talking about?” (use a comma)

you can also use colons and semicolons within lines of dialogue (as you would in a normal sentence)

stylistic choices

you do not have to use quotation marks in dialogue, but whatever you choose to do, do it consistently.

For example, some writers format their dialogue in italics, they said. But grammatical and punctuation rules still apply.

Others don’t use italics and just hope people can spot the dialogue or action tags, she supplied. This can get a bit confusing, but I think that’s the point.

— Some use dashes to indicate the start of a line of dialogue, and, of course, the standard varies from place to place and language to language.

‘Still more use single quotes,’ he offered, ‘though I’m not sure why. Maybe it looks better.’

that's it for now! really, you could probably write a book on this topic alone, and cover every minute detail of grammar within dialogue (how would one format an interrobang, i wonder?), but here's a kind-of-basic-but-still-dense guide :)

buy me a ko-fi | what's the deal with radio apocalypse?

#🌿 writing #writing advice #writing tips #fic writing #grammar #grammar tips #punctuation #english language #punctuation tips #dialogue #dialogue tag #dialogue ideas #writeblr

[purgetrooperfox]

15 Lines Game

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture their character/personality/vibe. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you’re free to include those as well.

I'm here from someone's open tags heehoo

passing on npts to @hamburgerslippers @totentnz @killerspinal @kiwikipedia @alwayskote @galacticgraffiti @certified-anakinfucker and anyone who wants to do it!!

“It's not like I frequent these events,” he mutters, feeling like a broken record. “I would appreciate the help though, thank you.”

“A great many things might seem unbecoming when their purpose is obscured, Master Tapal.”

"Peacekeeping has many faces. The diplomats and negotiators do work that I can hardly even imagine." [redacted context] "You're right, all the same. There's a certain naivete and unconscious bias in a lot of Knights. Lack of perspective about what it takes to survive."

“The artist who gave my father his markings was the one to give me mine," he continues, a touch wistful. "Going back home was strange. Seeing the ways it had changed and the ways it was still stuck was… hard.”

"You would be wise not to show your condescension so openly, Skywalker. If I can feel it, so can most beings on this planet. Need I remind you that ties with the Force run deep here?"

“Just Bastra is fine,” Vargdan sighs. The look he fixes on Kenobi is equal parts irritation and resignation. “You said it was urgent, so I didn't pit stop on Coruscant."

“Not the way you do, but my Master did.” His smile is sad, but free from the weight of grief. “He took them very literally, and if you know what they’re like, I imagine you can see how that would toy with one’s mind.”

“The Order is all I have. This is the only reason I ever got off Dathomir.”

“It's not safe to be out here alone,” he says without turning, forcing her to jog a few steps before matching his pace, “especially for unsubtle thieves.”

“Don't say that. Not now. You had your reasons, you had Sifo-Dyas, and I got that. Eventually. It doesn't matter anymore.”

“I know.” A silence, then an admission, “She's not as angry as I was, I don't think.”

"I mean, it's not like I know how to conduct an army. Bones is miles more qualified than I am, so I'll gladly defer to his judgment."

"This was kept from you for a reason. Some stories are best left buried."

"Obi-Wan was killed in action on Utapau," he repeats. "I know nothing more of it."

“I nearly did, after Sifo-Dyas died.” [redacted context] “I was on my own out there, after, no contact with the Temple to replace him. In all that– with that gang, the things I had to watch. The things I had to do. I was right at the edge.”

(nocte and des under there ⬇️)

“It’s not just the job.” Still, Nocte pulls off his gloves and dumps them in a bin. His expression settles into something hard to read. "You're one of us now, whether you're ready to act like it or not."

"I've put myself on the line enough at least one lifetime, but here we are."

"I don't pity you, MacTavish. I didn't come here to fight with you either."

"What was it you said? No room for morality in war?"

"Well," he grunts, "call it a lapse in judgment if it helps you sleep at night. Not like I'd take offense."

“It doesn’t matter, Soap. It’s just not my bloody name.”

"It's exhausting. The upper crust is exhausting. Aren't you exhausted?"

"Price is going to kill me and it'll be your fault. Me and Lee, both," he complains, though it rings hollow when he doesn't stop her.

"It'll grow back, probably faster than the higher ups would like."

"I don't care whose fault it is. Get your asses back here and fix it."

"Are you threatening to blackmail me, Captain? Because that's a two-way street after–"

He whistles, low and appreciative. "That is one big bastard."

"Quit trying to pick me apart, Lieutenant, I'm fine."

"We shouldn't," he forces himself to say. "We can't."

"How do you ever get anything done with your head that far up your ass?"

"You will mind your goddamn manners or you'll see a different 'doc. Do you understand?"

“You came in with a referral, made my life a little easier, so I'll give you a discount. I respect you, Viktor, you're good at what you do. Not to mention your days in the ring – I was such a fan.” His expression twitches toward something that might even be genuine. “How about this, I'll dig up this chrome for you and you'll owe me a favor.”

"I doubt Royce would've let me walk away from that. Heard he's got a new right hand."

"Hard to believe that's true," he said, laughing a little. "Reckon this is more memory than imagination."

“The crew called me Eyes, which was a gonk ass nickname. Stuck, though."

“I’ve known Hands for a long time, grew up in Pacifica. Don’t get me wrong, I heard about you on the street, but didn’t really pay it any mind until he started asking after you.”

"I think you answered your own question. It's a clinic, ain't it? I'm getting doctored."

"Fucking disgraceful is what it is. You build something, pour your blood sweat and tears into it, just for some upstart leadhead to run it into the ground."

“So I’ll talk to him, clear this up,” he says, even though it’s an uncomfortable prospect. “He probably respects me enough to halfway listen.”

"No. No one ever made me do anything. I lost a lot, but I won't lose that."

#leocs #bastra vargdan #clone medic nocte #but more like #atama 'nocte' te rangi #des 'eyes' gallagher #tag game #this was an interesting one for picking quotes and stuff

[erisenyo]

Questions for fic writers 1, 3, 5

Anon thank you so much for indicating the ask game, I did not realize I reblogged them both so close together lol

What inspired you to start writing fanfiction?

Epistles by Lady_of_the_Flowers lol. It is an absolutely stellar fic and I couldn't get it out of my head when I finished it. I kept imagining how the story might have gone on, what their BSS reunion could have looked like, how they might have found their happy ending...

And eventually I couldn't get it out of my head to the point that I wrote the BSS reunion (the teashop alley scene for any Burning Bright readers). And then I went hm, this could be better with a bit of context... (880K words later.)

3. Are there any specific themes you enjoy exploring in your fics?

I LOVE playing around with perception! How can two people experience the same event but interpret it differently because of their different frames of references. How can a character's behavior suddenly be recast in an entirely different light because of revelations about their background. How does an external POV contextualize or challenge or reframe an event. How does the reader's own perception come into play, whether through canon events or tropes or genre conventions, where expectation builds perception which then is challenged and recast by the unfolding events, not just within the text but within the reader as well.

5. What techniques do you use to create believable dialogue?

I really like writing dialogue, and I tend to think of building up an exchange in a few layers:

Verbal Habits: is your character a rambler (Sokka)? Blunt and terse (Zuko)? Always trying to poke fun (Toph)? Those verbal habits help build out the conversational voice of each character, and are often rooted in their characterization

Recognize Rhythm: Actual conversations tend to be a mixture of long and short sentences, exchanging listening and speaking, nonverbal as well as verbal cues. A hear-to-heart will have a different flow to it than shooting the shit after work.

Dialogue Isn't Perfect: People stutter and stumble, thoughts start and stop, there's cross-talk and interruptions, spoken word tends to be less formal than written word--building in those pauses and half-thoughts can help it feel more natural, and also show where a character is stumbling or struggling with a thought

Build Around the Words: layering in even simple action is a great way to make a piece of dialogue more engaging while also accomplishing some needed point A-to-point B or worldbuilding or exposition. Characters are also reacting to and thinking about what they're hearing, what they might say next, how it makes them feel.

Don't Forget Nonverbal Cues: Someone saying something with averted eyes and fidgeting hands suggests something very different than the exact same thing said with a direct gaze and squared shoulders. Body language makes the dialogue more rich.

Mix Up Your Sentence Structure: This is related to rhythm, but switch between using dialogue tags or not, put your internal aside at the front of a line of dialogue or the middle or the end, switch between long and short sentences. And do it all with a purpose--fewer dialogue tags and shorter lines of dialogue generally feel like a faster conversation, dialogue breaking in the middle tends to shift the emphasis of the sentence. Get a feel for the ways you can leverage your sentence structure itself to signal tone or pace or pauses!

For this Questions for Fic Writers asks game!

#Guys I love teeing up and then subverting tropes and expectations #I love directly engaging with the reader's expectations and assumptions #Makes it a little conversation we're having together and a little fic experience created in tandem #Also I love dialogue lol

[slayingfiction]

5 Narrative Writing Types

Dialogue:

Dialogue is either a writer’s best ally or worst enemy. It can be fun and easy to write when you know each of your characters well, or hell if the words never seem perfect enough. It can be harder to find a voice for each individual personality, which is why character building is so important.

Your readers should be able to tell who is talking without even being told, though a novel shouldn’t be a game of guess who, so let’s keep most of those dialogue tags ;)

Example: “why do you always wear your hair in a high ponytail?”

Action:

Action is just stating what your character is doing, from simply blowing their nose to raising their sword and impaling their opponent. Example: she pulled her hair up into a tight ponytail at the top of her head.

Description:

Description is typically one of the best ways to bring your readers into the story. Using the common idiom “show don’t tell” is how people understand how to write their description. Use the 5 senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. This is another narrative type where you either excel or fills your with despair, don’t worry, skills can always be improved. Example: her long blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail, the silky locks falling from the top of her head.

Exposition:

Different than description, exposition is stating background information, something general that helps with the context understand your characters and your world. Example: she always wore her hair in a tight ponytail at the top of her head.

Thought:

Internal dialogue, we all have one. These are just all the random thoughts we have in our head stated plainly. Most people don’t filter their thoughts, so neither should you characters (cautiously). Example: I couldn’t quite remember if I had ever seen her with her hair down. I’m not sure why she kept it pulled so tight in her elastic.

Why are these so important to know?

Balance: A well-written and immersive story will have all of these 5 narrative types weaved into one another, and finding out which one to do at which time is a personal choice. Looking over the examples again, while they all have the same information, some are more detailed, some bring new questions while others are just stated facts that need no further explanation.

Pacing: Not an easy task. Using these will help you with pacing, but you may need to play with them to see what works best for your story. General guidelines: Dialogue and actions speed up. Description, exposition and thoughts slow pace.

Your author voice: Every writer will have their own balance when writing, and it can work well for many authors, especially depending on genre. Stephen King can describe everything meticulously because it helps create tension in his horror novels. Likewise, if a mystery author did the same, readers would get bored easily. No matter how you create your story, use all 5 narratives, and balance them in a way that works best for your story.

Above all, and most importantly, no matter which narrative you use, be careful with action slumps, excessive dialogue clumps and avoid info-dumping.

Let me know if this was useful to you, or if you have any questions or comments. Please let me know if something I wrote is wrong.

Any thoughts for future posts? Message me :)

Follow for more writing tips :)

Happy Writing!

#creative writing #novel writing #writing community #writeblr #writer #writing tips #writing advice #female writers #writing #story writing #fiction #tumblr writers #writing process

[zombee]

writing advice

what are my qualifications, you ask? i'm a mildly popular writer in the our flag means death fandom (ao3: CartoonMayor), went to writing camps from 12-18, have a creative writing minor, and the unearned confidence of a white person.

DIALOGUE -

"said/says" works 90% of the time. its function is to be invisible. more often than not your dialogue should tell us how something is being said without you have to explain it additionally through extra tags. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. - don't need it. "exclaimed" is implied.

there are other neutral dialogue tags like "asks," "replies," "continues" that work almost as well as said. i still personally recommend using them sparingly, because most of the time they're implied.

if you ARE going to use a non-said/says tag, earn it. it should tell us how someone is saying something that we can't glean from just the dialogue. trust your writing and your readers - show don't tell!

please, please, please mix non-said dialogue tags and adverbs SPARINGLY.

if it's clear who's speaking, you don't need a tag at all

an action can take a tag's place. Ed blinked at him. "What did you say?" vs. "What did you say?" Ed said, blinking at him.

SHOW DON'T TELL -

[overusing] non-said dialogue tags, italics, and adverbs are all because we as writers are desperate to communicate to our readers exactly what we're picturing. but we need to trust them (or edit) and show not tell.

verbs before adjectives before adverbs. which is better: "yells loudly" or "bellows" ? "walks wetly" or "squelches" ?

sometimes telling is good actually!!! don't be spooked if it works in context

OTHER -

epithets are a function of pov. make sure they make sense in that framework. if it's third person omniscient, go nuts. if it's first person or third person limited, ask yourself: in what context do you think of someone as "the other man" or "the blonde" ? one of my tricks if someone doesn't know another character's name is to give them a nickname. "Sparkly Shirt" "Blondie" "Handsome" etc.

don't be scared of names and pronouns. like "said," if you do it right, they'll be invisible that means you can even get away with an occasional "he said to him" if it's still clear who's who!

"then" "suddenly" "finally" "just" "still" - these are all crutch words. there are more i can't think of right now, but trust that if your action is moving forward in a sensical way your readers will keep up without all that padding. if you're going to use them, have a reason to.

description is good (@ myself) but if you can capture how your pov character feels about something that's more valuable than getting every little detail on the page

watch out for repeating words too close together. obviously not the basic ones, but let's say you're writing smut, and you use "moan" three times in two paragraphs. vary it up. (i often cheat and add an "again" to repeated verbs to make them intentional)

and most important of all... all writing advice is subjective and can be thrown in the trash if you don't like it and find something else works for you. ESPECIALLY in fanfic!!!

#writing #writing advice #fanfic #fanfiction #*curls around my hoard of italics and hisses*

[total-drama-brainrot]

Hello hello ophe 👋😇

Just gonna say hockey bro Gwen

That it’s that is the ask

But I have a question? If you mind answering I’m fine if you can’t answer it really 👽

Do you have any writing tips for an amateur fanfic writer? (Me😔) cause I have a hard time with characterization. Just tips on that would be great😊 but it’s kinda sad to see that some people think of Rice Krispies like that even though it has been tagged and all that 😔

But I wish you the best of luck ophe! 😎🥳

-Ass Stars anon

Hello hello, Ass Stars Anon! 👋😊

(Is it obvious that I know literally nothing about hockey?)

As for writing tips, I'm not exactly a qualified or professional author, but I'm more than happy to share some of the tips and tricks I use when it comes to characterisation.

Primarily, it's really important to understand three key aspects of the character you're writing; their habits, their motives, and their temperament.

When you're writing for a certain character, always consider not only what they're doing, but why they're doing it. You can have your characters do something entirely OOC if you can justify why they'd be doing it, either through circumstance or by utilizing the three key aspects.

For example, when Trent gets uncharacteristically aggressive towards Cody in "Up the Creek", it's still in character because it's motivated by his feelings for Gwen- Trent's already established as a bit of a hopeless romantic, so having him act irrationally due to his uncertainty over Gwen's returned feelings excuses his hostility (despite his usual laid-back nature). We see later, especially in Action, that Trent has a habit/tendency of acting irrationally when it comes to anything that threatens his love life.

Of course, habits can also refer to the little patterns and behaviours certain characters have; for example, Harold's continuous use of "Gosh!" is a habit of his- something that can be easily identified as a Harold Behaviour, and something super easy to add to his dialogue to keep it feeling in character.

Another good example of utilizing dialogue habits is (not to self promo here) how I write Alejandro's speech in my stories. Throughout the show itself, you'll rarely hear Alejandro use contractions and abbreviations (he'll say "we all" instead of "we'll", or "is it not?" instead of "isn't it?"), and his manner of speech is very formal (for a ~16 year old) both due to the fact that English is his second language and the fact that he's the son of a high profile diplomat. That's why, when I write for him, I make a point of keeping his written dialogue as contraction-free as possible.

I hope that my little tangent there helps at least somewhat!

And thank you for the concern! I think some people misconstrued what my intentions were with the RK fic, which is understandable given one of the primary concepts used in the fic is generally used in a sexual context (which is such a waste of a perfectly good plot device by the way! Honestly, I wish people would stop associating cool concepts with The Horny to the point where people trying to explore them as narrative devices are assumed to be creeps 😓) but the anon who initially accused me of unsavoury things has since apologised, so no harm no foul. Though my fic is properly tagged, I should've made it more apparent either in the summary or the author's notes that it isn't as, uh, 'distasteful' as some might assume.

I wish you the best of luck too! 😁

#this one's kind of all over the place huh? we've got doodles writing advice and fic discussion all in one condensed post #i'm not gonna use any main tags for this one in the interest of not clogging them up with my ramblings #ophe doodles #ophe rambling #ass stars anon #replies #rice krispies fic #⬅ (for blacklist purposes)

[microcomets]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @thychesters! ty kate!!

How many works do you have on Ao3?

80! a nice round number. i actually think i have even more that i eventually anon'ed

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

1,078,556

3. What fandoms do you write for?

primarily i've written for danmei fandoms the last few years (mdzs/cql, svsss, 2ha) but i kind of write whatever strikes my fancy! in the last year it's been xena, tristamp, bad buddy...just kinda whatever...i used to write for supernatural and merlin

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

a turn of the earth (supernatural, deancas)

i'm the one for your fire (mdzs, wangxian)

come home to my heart (mdzs, wangxian)

the heartlines on our hands (mdzs, wangxian)

a light hidden and singing (mdzs, wangxian)

5. Do you respond to comments?

man i wish i could but i fell behind in 2015 and then never caught back up ;___; i definitely read & appreciate every single one!!!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

honestly probably something from the early supernatural days. i was obsessed with writing angst as a teenager

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

all of my wangxian fics end happy!! i don't think any one is happier than the other because it usually ends up with them either in love or married :-)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

every so often! luckily the positivity tends to outweigh

9. Do you write smut?

yes! although this was something i had to work on getting more comfortable with throughout my 20s

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you have written?

the only thing closest to a crossover i've done was two alternate wangxian timelines in "a tide in two seas," but otherwise nope!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

a few times! if not verbatim plagiarism, then definitely have had entire original concepts/plots lifted & reused that are very identifiable lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes!! most commonly into spanish and russian, but have also had some translated into mandarin and farsi which is super cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not formally!

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

i have love for a lot of pairings but wangxian definitely ate my brain the most and for longest.....and there they remain

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

hmmmm....i was about 20k into a giant merthur fix-it time travel fic in like 2018 and gave up on it and i'll never finish it but wish i had!

16. What are your writing strengths?

i've been told i have a nice turn of phrase!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

describing setting.......action sequences.......those are the two i most actively have to work at to make them sound normal and integrated with the rest of the prose lol. i think i can also fall into the trap of gratuitous overdescription pretty easily

18. Thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?

i think it depends on the context but can be really effective if it's done correctly and respectfully! (if you're a non-native speaker, that is)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

honestly it was warrior cats. followed by twilight fanfiction i submitted to a local newspaper

20. Favorite fic you have written?

i tend to be more critical of past fics than not, but there are quite a few i'm fond of because i admittedly write to my own tastes but i'm especially fond of "make me whole, make me new," which is wlw wangxian!

tagging @yuklaa, @fruitdaze, @englishsub, @dcyiyou, @megafaunatic, @rcmclachlan and whoever wants to do it!

#tumblr games #about me

[musewrangler]

20 Questions for Writers

Thank you so much for the tag @wendingways I'm FINALLY getting around to it. :D

How many works do you have on AO3?

132

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

2, 962, 169

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Star Wars, Hornblower, Narnia [just one]

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Mirjahaal

Bajur

He Who Sheds His Blood With Me

Forging Ahead

I Felt You In My Bones

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do as much as possible. I appreciate my readers making time to say something. It takes effort on their part and I want them to know I am grateful. Equally, I get lots of fun thoughts from my readers and it's delightful to interact with people. :D

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh definitely the fic I could never write. ;D By which I mean---there was a prompt somewhere that said 'the aftermath of a scene you'll never write'. So I knew immediately what that was and ripped my own heart out to write "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night". Literally, I was ugly crying the whole time. And it convinced me that nope, I can never do this in my 'real' fics if you will. xD

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmmm. I am a girl who likes a happy ending. Granted, it's after kark tons of pain and suffering usually xD, but...

I think I'll land on the Dragon Speaker. I could name quite a few others, but I spent more time developing the happy aftermath so that's why I choose it.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

I've said it before---I have some of the BEST readers. And I've had folks who've disagreed with some of my takes on character or plot, but they are welcome to do so if they are respectful and they are. It produces good conversation and perspective. I can think of one time I had someone actively unpleasant, but let's hear it for delete and block! :D

9. Do you write smut?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No. It's just not my cup of tea.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of and I hope not. Obviously, a lot of us have similar ideas----writing is just like that. But I don't think anyone has taken my work directly. That kind of thing does get me riled up because I know the work all of us creators have done to make these stories. Don't do it, kids.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes I have and it's very fun! I have a very industrious and delightful reader who has translated a lot of my work into Russian. :D

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I have a few times. :D

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Depends on context here. I don't read or write fics for just romance. I need purpose beyond the couple if you will. If we're talking within Star Wars then canonically it's Han and Leia. If we're going with my own fanfics it's a toss up between Mara and Max Veers and Firmus Piett and Sola Naberrie. ;D If we're talking broad literary ship Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

WIP I will never finish? What are you talking about?

Genuinely, I hate the idea of abandoning my fics. Just can't. Some of them are taking longer than I had thought, but that's ok. Life happens. I will finish. ;D

16. What’s your writing strengths?

I think I develop character fairly well. I like to have a plot mapped out before I start writing, so I think I do all right with story cohesion and flow. I am a firm believe that you need to care about the characters more than anything else. World building and correct editing are good things, but if no one cares about your characters, it can get boring and readers lose interest.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

A good balance of action, description, and dialogue. Dialogue is easy for me and I like the characters interacting. But action and description are very important as well to SEE the scene and I need to work on my descriptive choices. I'm also ridiculously impatient. I want to publish NOW. And this means that perhaps some needed editing or more polish/depth is overlooked. I'm working on that.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Absolutely. I've used mando'a a lot now in Star Wars. In history AUs I've dabbled a smidge in French and Latin to set the tone a bit. Definitely do your homework whether using a real or fictional language. People notice!! :D

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Haha. So in terms of more serious writing like I'm doing now, it's Star Wars.

But.

I wrote by hand in notebooks during high school for the original Star Trek. Had all kinds of crush on Pavel Chekov. xD We watched the re runs of it and I liked the movies as a kid so....

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Oh goodness. Can that really be answered? I like them all for vastly different reasons. If we're going for world building then likely Dragon Speaker. If we're going for in depth history fun, then The War in the Shadows. If we're going for fic I saw most clearly in my brain as I wrote and LIVED it, then Showdown at Alliance Ranch. Within the ER verse, quite possibly Fidelity because writing all that courtroom drama and the intense brotherhood of Firmus and Max going through that was just so satisfying.

But over all story? Honestly can't pick just one. Sorry!

Gently tagging @hollers-and-holmes @winterinhimring @kraytwriter @kanerallels

#questions for writers #writers #writing #fan fic #authors #my writing #creative process #characters #plot #good questions #writing process

[elismor]

Writing Patterns (tag game)

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there’s a pattern!

Several folks tagged me, including @lizardberries, @loverboy-havocboy, and @flowerparrish. thanks guys!

Frankly, Kix isn’t at all sure why he thought shooting the training video starring Echo and Fives could ever work.

“Flood?”

“Yanno,” Rex says, eyeing Fox over the arc of his pauldron as he twists to get a better angle. “Most of us would choose Triple Zero for leave rather than come to a war zone.”

Generally speaking, archeology is a low-risk occupation.

He can do this.

Fives crashes into the bulkhead with a sickening thud and staggers three steps before slumping to the deck clutching his bloody abdomen.

The root of this conflict can be traced back to a tiny Rhodian youngling who, mischievous by nature and braver than her peers, had pelted Waxer with a well-packed and Force-assisted snowball on the hike to the sacred cave system.

There are a grand total of fifteen minutes that Fox gets to consider his own each day. 

“Rex, we’ve talked about this.”

Rumor has it that General Skywalker built the fussy, ridiculous, pain in the shebs clanker, but that can’t possibly be true. 

Hmm.

I think the pattern is that I start fics one of 3 ways: A) By establishing narrative context (1, 4 ,7, 8, 10) B) In medias res (5 and 6) C) With dialogue (2, 3, 9) I'm pretty sure this would apply if you looked across all my fics. My favorite way is A because I like to write fic that has a strong voice for the narrator and is more prosey than action or dialogue.

I have lost track of who has done this and who has not. So...if you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

[tapwrites]

How to Write Dialogue

A lot of a story is told through narration: action, description, exposition, and so on. But a big part of characters interacting tends to be speech. In prose, we call this "dialogue."

People communicate in their own way.

To a new customer entering their store, a gruff character might say "What do you want?" Whereas a more personable character might say "Welcome in! Can I help you?"

Maybe the character would use body language, with a wave as they speak. Or only use body language to communicate in this moment, with a polite nod and smile to the customer with no dialogue.

If they share some knowledge with character they are communicating with, they may speak differently, with an unspoken shared context for their conversation. Compared to speaking to a character who doesn't have that knowledge.

If both characters have the shared context of knowing Frank is coming for tea at 6, it would be odd if one said "Frank is coming for tea at 6." Because the person they are speaking to already knows that. (Unless they have some reason to believe they've forgotten.)

But it would be natural for one to say, "When was he coming, again?" or "I hope he doesn't start smoking like he did last time," without even declaring who they're talking about, or what the situation is. Just the new stuff. Just like people do in real life.

To mark text as being spoken instead of narration, it should start and end with double-quotes, "like this." There are novels that use single-quotes, but this is a rare exception and tends to be more common in older books. But if that's your thing, you do you.

If a line of dialogue ends with a complete sentence, it will normally put the punctuation before the last quote. There are exceptions, and stylistic choices, but that's the general rule for dialogue.

"The sky isn't blue."

You can have quotations within the dialogue, marked with single-quotes. And, in theory, the further down the rabbit hole you go, it switches back and forth between single and double quotes.

So, a quote within dialogue has single-quotes. A quote within a quote within dialogue has single quotes again. And so on...

"And he said to me, 'Go over there and tell them, "Frank said, 'The sky is blue, darn it!'"'"

Yes this does look weird, and yes it can be confusing keeping track of the layers of quotation. Which is why it's very rare, in fiction at least. Instead of making a direct quote, a speaker normally paraphrased, or rewritten in other ways to simplify the structure of the dialogue.

"Frank said to tell you the sky is blue."

If the dialogue ends its own sentence, but the sentence as a whole continues with a dialogue tag, the full-stop/period at the end of the dialogue becomes a comma.

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine said.

This is because a dialogue tag is actually part of the same sentence.

A dialogue tag is like a luggage tag tied to the end of the dialogue to tell us more about how it was said.

In the example above, there is a dialogue tag to tell us the character who said it: Geraldine.

You could write the dialogue tag in a couple of other ways:

"The sky isn't blue," said Geraldine. Geraldine said, "The sky isn't blue."

But this is uncommon in modern novels, and makes it have a different old-timey vibe that may be confusing or distracting for readers. So bear that in mind if you want to try it out.

Now, if it's part of a longer piece of dialogue, you could leave it to the end of the spoken words to have the dialogue tag as normal. But the reader will be wondering through the whole thing... "Yeah, but who's even saying all this?"

To avoid this, try to have the indication of the speaker sooner rather than later. You can use any of the methods from this article to do so. But one example would be:

"Fourscore and seven years ago," Lincoln said, "our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..." (and so on)

For longer text like this, you can actually have paragraphs within the dialogue. The paragraph doesn't end in a quotation mark because the dialogue isn't ending. But then the new paragraph does have a quotation mark to remind the reader it's still dialogue.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."

Again, confusing to read, and rarely needed or used in modern fiction. But something to know about. A better way would be to break up the dialogue with some "Blocking"--a stage term for people moving around the scene.

This would be a new paragraph, as it focuses on something else, and then another new paragraph continuing the dialogue. If we focus on a different character with the in-between paragraph, you might want to remind them who is speaking when they continue.

Lincoln stood for a moment, taking in the crowd. Then drew in a breath. "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The crowd looked uneasy, a low murmur floating across them. Lincoln shook his head. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."

Going back to dialogue tags... Other verbs can be used instead of "said," to better describe how it was said.

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine muttered.

There is a general tip that the same word shouldn't be used over and over in quick succession, because it draws attention to itself. But this doesn't apply to all words. Structural words like "a" and "the" shouldn't (and often couldn't) be replaced with a new synonym every time they're used.

This is because they simply fade into the background; the reader knows that they are common words and don't matter to the meaning of the sentence so much. So they just sort of brush over it. "Said" is one such word.

Don't be afraid of "said."

Some writers still try to not use "said" much, and instead use "thesaurus words"--synonyms with the same meaning--throughout their writing. However this actually draws more attention to it that using the simple "said," which people brush over anyway.

Take a look at the following examples:

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine said. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine stated. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine explained.

Is "stated" describing how the line was said better than "said"? Not really. And is "explained" adding anything to the story that isn't from the dialogue? Nope.

If there is a line of dialogue, then it was said/stated/explained/said in reply/asked, depending on what was said and the context. We know what was said. So when a character asks something, the verb "asked" doesn't do anything that reading the question didn't do. So you may as well put "said."

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine smirked. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine yawned.

And if you go too far with it, trying to incorporate an action into it, you can get yourself into a real mess. Smirking is not saying anything. You can smirk while saying something. But if the action you are performing is a smirk, or yawn, or laugh... you, my friend, have uttered no words!

These are known as "said-bookisms": words used to avoid writing "said." And named after a book that was written listing such words for writers to use (you may have seen similar posters/graphics on the internet). But as we don't need to avoid writing "said," we can safely throw out the book!

Earlier we used "muttered" instead of "said." Was that okay? Well, did that add to story? Does it tell the reader more about what was said? Yes! Now they know the words weren't simply spoken; they were said quietly, muttered under the breath.

Anything that tells us more about how the dialogue was said is fine. If the character shouted or screamed, or they muttered or mumbled, or slurred... they aren't necessarily obvious from the dialogue. So if they fit, and they describe the utterance of words, then go for it!

Sometimes writers have entire actions as a dialogue tag.

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine moved over to the window, peering out.

That action isn't describing the act of saying that dialogue. So it doesn't make sense for it to be part of the same sentence. Just split it into its own sentence, and you should be good.

"The sky isn't blue." Geraldine moved over to the window, peering out.

However, these things may be indicated earlier in the paragraph, before the dialogue begins.

Geraldine looked up. "The sky isn't blue."

Because Geraldine has been established as the focus of this paragraph, any dialogue will be assumed to come from Geraldine.

Here, the first sentence describes an action the character took. But it could be a narrated thought. Or an expression. You can indicate the focus of the paragraph in many different ways, but however you do it, that can be used by the reader to infer who the speaker is.

You can of course add a dialogue tag anyway, using the pronoun of the character.

Geraldine looked up. "The sky isn't blue," she said.

The tone of the dialogue--the way it is said by the character--can also be implied by the context in the paragraph up to that point.

Geraldine laughed. "The sky isn't blue." Geraldine gasped. "The sky isn't blue."

Whatever context the reader has before the dialogue will colour how they "hear" it in their minds as they read.

Geraldine whispered, staring up in awe. "The sky isn't blue." Geraldine screamed. "The sky isn't blue!" Geraldine staggered through the door, drunkenly. "The sky isn't blue."

In the last example, the character's general state or attitude is shown. So as you read what she says, you'll naturally imagine it being said differently. That's the beauty of writing...

The final story in the reader's mind is made from the teamwork between writer and reader.

You can actually get away with having no indication of the speaker at all, in particular circumstances.

Geraldine smiled, her nose wrinkling. "The sky isn't blue." "I think you'll find it is, Gerry dear," Frank muttered, packing. "No, no, you don't understand... the sky is not blue!" "Poppycock." "Look!"

Did you have any trouble knowing who was saying what? If not, why not? Because we had other context clues.

The first couple of lines had the speakers clearly declared. And, as they're the only two characters that are in the scene, it's natural that they'd each take turns--going back and forth in their conversation. Also, if this is in the middle of a book and you're used to how the characters talk differently, that can help too.

Just be careful to not rely on this back-and-forth effect for too long, because it will get confusing after a bit. Just pepper in something to remind the reader of whose turn it is--the character does something as they speak, or a simple dialogue tag is added. And the reader will keep up better.

#writing #prose #dialogue #speech #conversation #character #said-bookisms

[spurious]

WIP Wednesday

Yep, it's Wednesday here, thank you everyone for bearing with my future timezone shenanigans!

State of the WIPs Live Oak #5: 15,951 Mark on You: 4,168 Bad Things Happen Bingo - "I'm Fine": 3,089 Secrecy: 3,046 Twenty (more) Questions: 1,070 Music fest entry #2 - "R.L.Y.": in the brainstorming phase

This week’s ✨WIP Wednesday Theme✨ is:

All Talk, No Action

Aka, a series of prompts to talk about your WIPs instead of writing them, cause who doesn't love doing that?

💡 What gave you the idea for this one? 😄 What part are you most excited to write? 😧 What are you worried about with this fic? 🏎 Has writing this one been fast or slow? ✏️ Have you deleted any scenes or strayed from your initial plan? 📓 Share an out-of-context sentence or fragment from your fic notes 🎶 Share a song you associate with this fic 🖼 Share an image that you feel goes with this fic 🗣️ Other than "said/says," what is your most-used dialogue tag in this WIP? 🎲 Scroll wildly through your WIP doc and post a snippet from where you land when you stop! 🃏 Wildcard, dealer’s choice: share a snippet, a thought, a concern, a feeling, anything you like!

No-pressure tagging: @audioletter @sparrowsarus @pinkoptics @hero-in-waiting @nimuetheseawitch @texasdreamer01 @luredin @gingerpolyglot

#wip wednesday #fic rambles #wip wednesday prompt post

[mattypattypinky]

Gonna respond to this in a screenshot

BC I don't want this post to go in the FANDOM tags

(mainly bc i don't want to have to interact and argue w ppl bc of a hc😭)

Okay, first of all, everyone is entitled to their opinion / interpretation of him and his character. I mean, I'm a firm believer that he is an adult, but I know other people disagree. And that is okay.

That being said, one of the reasons I head canon him as an adult is simply because the ambiguous age, and the fact that I am one, and ship with him and I'm not going to ship with a 12 year old. (I know, shocking.)

But it goes further than that.

THE ART BOOK

we know from the art-book, that 🐐🌈 is canonically an adult.

I see the 🐐💚 form as nothing but a memory of what he once was.

Fifth anniv. ⏰ dialogues

I've seen a lot of people on Twitter saying that using this dialogue doesn't count, and that people 'erase the context of it' so I'm going to show the full context here.

Here, he sort of claims that he is grown up.

A lot of people argue that right under this line of dialogue he is being childish, and that kids refer to themselves as grown ups all the time, which that is true. But we have to take into consideration that adults are allowed to enjoy things, as well.

He goes against his own statement by hinting at exactly what type of gift he wants, and a lot of people argue that this is proof that he's just a child playing pretend, but I disagree with that mindset. Adults are allowed to want things, when you become an adult you do not just magically stop wanting fun things like coloring supplies and colorful things.

My best example/argument... would be 🍝🦴 himself.

A majority of the fandom interprets 🍝🦴 as an adult (from what I am aware of?) - despite him acting much more childish and innocent than 🌻 is.

He collects action figures, he wants to have a shiny red car, he gets read a bedtime story about fluffy bunnies, he plays dress up with a "battle body" constantly, there's more examples but need I say more??? Point being, despite his childish demeanor and innocent portrayal (despite him being one of the toughest monsters imo) - he is often portrayed or interpreted as an adult.

There is a point, where I feel like it might become a double standard??? imo??

How come 🍝🦴 can act just as, if not more childish than 🌻 does, and yet still be considered an adult?

Now the argument could be something like, oh 🌻 is more childish emotionally.

Well, yeah. He's traumatized???

He got murdered, and is stuck in a time loop and a flower essentially, and has grown too cold to feel for others. Of course he is going to be explosive, irrational at times, and immature. It's because he's been hurt, his mind works different than 🍝🦴's because he has gone through more pain than he has and remembers it.

I feel like the argument that "Oh he acts immature so he's a child" is harmful not only bc it stimulates this belief that adults just magically lose their immature / happy fun sides, but also I think it's a little bad for neurodivergient people out there who are a lot like him.

There are adults out there who can still want childish things, and that is okay. There are adults out there who still react immaturely to their emotions, and that is okay.

Hell, I'm gonna be turning 19 in like... 2 months, and I still would KILL to have like, toys and colorful things decking out my room and whatnot. It would be really, really nice. Does that make ME a child?

And I still spiral out of control sometimes with my emotional outbursts.

There are bipolar people, there are narcissists, and there are plenty of other things, and I know an adult who is about to be in their 40's who get excited over batman toys at five below.

Point being, I interpret him as a neurodivergient adult who is traumatized and deserved time to heal.

I probably will have more to say about this at some point later. Again this is just my interpretation/thoughts on it ur allowed to see him different

#mattypattypinkyposts #🌻💔 #ruins romance #ruins ranting

[lifesarchive]

DEVIL HOUSE by JOHN DARNIELLE (REVIEW)

quickly: a true crimes writer moves into the building where the murders in his latest book took place (a writer questioning the ethics of his process / the past catching up with the present / lasting works of art / stories about stories / small towns outside of big cities / housing, drug, and mental health crises / mothers who love their sons / SATANIC PANIC! / swords, knights, and castle doctrines / the monsters are the people, but are the people monsters?)

This is not horror and hardly a thriller. There are no ghosts, demons, or spirits. There are indeed bumps in the night, but they come from the living. It’s a fresh take on mystery writing, but not really mystery either. It’s an exposition. We follow the main character, Greg, as he completes his latest true crime novel. The voices change throughout the story, so sometimes Greg is speaking to us, other times to someone else. The fun part of this story is the writing and the behind-the-scenes peek into the world of true crime. The not-so-fun part is the ending. 

John Darnielle’s writing spirals and descends. He takes his time moving around the subject, encircling it with details, getting closer and deeper at the end of every paragraph. Then, as you are rounding the last bend, the entire picture becomes clear from the inside out. It was like unraveling a beautifully woven ball of yarn, expecting a rare jewel at its center, but finding the end of a string instead. (Maybe, this is the entire meta point of this story… life is just a series of strings ending. Nothing special.)

★ ★ ★ ★

more thoughts: SPOILERS

Some personal context… I came across this one because I was scouring the goodreads tag for “horror” and looking for interesting things that came out in the past year or two. The cover got me, as they tend to do. I rarely check the reviews before I read the story, but I always check after, just to see what there is I might have missed. I think I liked it more than most. As interesting as this book was to read, it didn’t deliver the THRILL I thought it would. It read like a poet writing a Wikipedia page… an intricate balance between truth and perception and the philosophy of cause and effect.

I recently read TROOP, and one of my gripes was the dialogue for the young teens that the story centered on. It felt so outdated and inauthentic. The dialogue, actions, and inner monologues for the teens at the center of DEVIL HOUSE were immaculate. Perfectly nuanced, and varied. The sophisticated unraveling of emotions and motivations is moving. He totally encapsulates the angst of aging. Now that I think about it, I actually would’ve loved to have seen John Darnielle do a version of TROOP.

The story is divided into 6 parts, and they each have different voices.

1: Chandler

We open with our good friend Greg Chandler, whose family lineage of kingship becomes a recurring thematic element in this story. He introduces us, right off the rip, to who he is, what he does, and his latest project. His agent has hipped him to the story of a couple of people murdered in an old porno shop in Milpitas, CA, outside of San Jose. 

He walks us through his process… one of immersion, invasion almost, that requires him to be in the places where these crimes took place. He, again with a nudge from his agent, devises a plan to purchase ‘DEVIL HOUSE’, which has been renovated, turned from a shop into a home, and is currently for sale. As he goes through the process of buying the house and moving in, he takes time to expound on the details of the case. He gives us an introduction to necessary persons and places, and at the end of Part 1, he tells us that what he discovered differs from the story that is told. He also tells us that he does not want to write the story he was sent there to write.

2: White Witch

Here, the story changes abruptly. Now, our narrator is no longer talking to us. Now, attention is directed to ‘The White Witch’, and we have become the ‘White Witch’ being addressed. (An interesting use of narration perspective, though I understand how some could find it jarring and confusing.) Eventually, we will come to know her life… a high school teacher who murdered two students while they were invading her home. Part 2 is a grand spiral around the details of her life leading up to the invasion and murder. In the open, she was just a school teacher. In the end, standing on the beach with bags of body parts, she has turned into the satanic WITCH living in the hills. Both in some real reality, but also in the minds of those always needing a villain to blame the evils of the world on.

3: Devil House

Our narrator returns to addressing us, and the White Witch’s story is paused. Now the focus returns to Milpitas, to Devil House before it was known as such. We get a grand historical overview of the influences that conspired to make the porno shop possible. This includes the history of the land and the landlord. However, the bulk of this part of the story is about the last occupants of Devil House, before our narrator Greg. 

We go back to it when it was MONSTER ADULT X, a porno shop on the side of the highway where 17-year-old Derrick works, unbeknownst to his parents who only want to best for him. MONSTER ADULT X (I’ll refer to it as MAX from here on out), is in its last days as the owner Anthony Hawley can’t keep up the rent payments.

Hawley closes the place down, but because Derrick still has his key, it is open to him. He hangs out there drawing and sketching. Then his friend Seth starts joining him. Then their homeless friend Alex, who’s been missing for some time joins them and lives there. Just at the tail end of things, Alex’s friend Angela pops in for some of the fun. 

This is their paradise, away from the impending world of adulthood and all its anxieties and broken promises. Things are fine until the landlord starts showing the place, in preparation to sell.

4: Song of Gorbonian 

A short and unexpected chapter, written in Olde English. Obviously, this is an imaginative prelude for some of the story’s later motifs and actions. Yet, it could just as well be a short story written during a reprieve Greg was taking from writing Devil House… or a rambling from one of MAX’s occupants during its last days… who’s to say? The Song of Gorbonian is a tale of a young king’s promise to avenge his father’s death and restore the gods of the old world.  

5: Devil House

In this part of the story, Greg updates us on the stories of MAX’s occupants. He catches up with modern-day Angela, Derrick, and Seth, all living different adult lives far away from Milpitas, having escaped any punishment, (but receiving tons of blame for the murders). The only one we don’t get an update on is Alex, who has managed to disappear. 

6: White Witch

Now we are back to the story of the White Witch, but not like before. Instead of standing in her place while Greg speaks to her, we are instead placed in the shoes of Jana, Jesse’s mother, one of the kids killed by Mrs. Crane, The White Witch. We are standing in Jana’s shoes as Greg reads (or summarizes rather) a letter Jana wrote. In reading this letter back to her, we come to understand the forces that shaped the life of the home invaders we met in Part 2.

In between the breaths of this letter, Greg is restoring Devil House to its former glory… breaking glass and pulling up carpets. 

7: Chandler

The perspectives change again. Now we are standing in the shoes of Greg’s childhood friend, as we reconnect with Greg after several years and he expounds on the new project he is working on, writing about a murder in Milpitas where he (we?) grew up. At the close of Part 7, we learn that this has all been a fabrication. Derrick, Seth, Angela, Alex… not one of them was real. At least, not in the form that Greg portrayed them to be in his book. The real culprits were likely men living on the streets, squatting for the night, running into the landlord, and reactions ensuing. 

Greg reveals his grand philosophy on what the public expects from true crime, and how the true story of Devil House would not satisfy the psyches of the consumers. Then the book fades out in a hazy memory of childhood, where the days were spent playing games.

Before I could complain too much about the ending, I had to remind myself that Greg told us exactly to expect: “What I learned contradicts the account I first read, which I understand to have sprung from the need for a certain sort of telling, a hunger for known quantities.” In other words, the salacious story of teens murdering to defend their clubhouse is something cooked up by the collective psyche, not by reality.

More than a fictional true crime book, this entire work seemed to be a rumination of the big machine of true crime itself and how we respond to these violent acts as a society. What do we want from these stories? Who do these acts of violence affect? At one end of a story, a person may look like a demon, but if we trace back all the influences and occurrences, we may find this person may have been someone else at some point… and if it is true that they were someone else, how much responsibility do we place on all the option-less choices people are forced to make, and on the uncontrollable forces that shape the boundaries of our lives?

#devil house #john darnielle #4 stars #fiction #review #books & libraries #currently reading #book review #booklr #booklover #booksbooksbooks #bookworm #literature #reviews #2023

[carochinha]

19 Questions for Fic Writers!

I got tagged by @storybookprincess, thank you so so so much!!!

1. How many fics do you have on AO3?

Roughly... 16. That's not bad. Quite a respectable number!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

328,674

Damn. That a lotta word. Wild to think a third of those words are from a single fic huh

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Bit of a lot of things. Hunter x Hunter and Daiya no Ace are my big ones, but I've also written for Kingdom Hearts, Haikyuu, Black Clover, Project Sekai and....... Homestuck.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

"A Very Hisoka Wedding" stands head and shoulders above anything else at 1,143 kudos, which is legit insane. This fic isn't close to being my best. It isn't close to being my most innovative. It isn't even the longest! And yet it has more Hits, Kudos and Bookmarks than anything else I've ever written. Wild. Following that, we have "(Country Roads, Take Me)Home for the Holidays" at 365, my actual magnum opus so far, "Kiss Me Once, Kiss Me Twice" at 321, a short Black Clover ficlet that somehow keeps getting love, "Weekend at Leorio's" at 295 and "Pink Love" at 256.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I used not to respond to comments, but in the past couple of years I've been trying to respond to every comment I get. I like getting responses to my comments when I post on other fics, so I also want people to get that happiness. Besides, it's only polite!

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

...what is angst, signed, a permanently happy ending girlie.

Anyway it's probably "Quadratum Has Pocky", a KH drabble I wrote for Pocky Day which did not leave me with a lot of space for happy endings.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Literally all of them LMAO

But I guess "Red Eyes, Take Warning", my HxHBB fic this year gets special mention by giving Kurapika, the fandom's tragic boy, a happily-ever-after.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Sometimes. Home for the Holidays got a couple of comments once we got to the spicy part about how I should have tagged which character topped. That was wild. I'm talking like, HUGE paragraphs.

But not usually, no.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I did once! It was the vanillaest M/M ever written, but I sure did write it!

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I do really like inter-sports-anime crossovers. I once wrote a Haikyuu x Daiya no Ace ficlet that was quite fun!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not since I was 15 doing it myself translating my terrible Digimon fics into English lmao.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Favourite is a complicated word. All-time, however, isn't.

I've been an Akuroku girlie since 2005 and by GOD I will persist.

(the ship I most wish would become canon, however, is also from KH, but it's Soriku, which I've never even written about.....yet)

14. What’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

My Hunter x Hunter Praxis AU.

Huge AU, spanning five years, each of which focusing on a different set of characters, with highly specific references to a highly specific university culture from my country that like two people reading would understand. It's also technically a Reincarnation AU.

Yeah I'm never getting that written.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Apparently, characterization and making my character actions and plots seem believable in the context of canon. Which is good, because I really do strive for character voice matching the original, so I'm happy with this assessment by my readers LMAO

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

DESCRIBING ACTION.

If I ever have to write an action scene, I just don't. There is no combat in my fics, not because I dislike it, but because I can't write it lol.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Have done it. Will continue doing it when I find it appropriate. Helps when the POV character also isn't supposed to understand the language, because then you're just on the same page :D

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Digimon Adventure my beloved <3

(the fics themselves are also beloved, because although they're bad, I can see where I came from and how that shaped me into the writer I am today. My bad fics are a part of me and my journey just as much as my 100k word epics are.)

19. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Pausing + looking off into the distance.

You do realize this is an impossible question?

All the fics for me are... connections, within myself and with the people around me. Writing each one was a battle of finding the right words within me, the joy of sharing little snippets with friends, asking for help and bouncing off ideas. Listening to music and building the plot in my head as I walk, thinking about it as I fall asleep. Pouring my longing, my affection, my grief, and my hopes into these words, trying to connect with whoever will read them.

So I guess I'll say it's "All The Things He Said". It's the first fic I wrote for Daiya no Ace, a fandom I knew no one in. And I needed a beta. Trying to find that beta actually led me to finding one of my best friends, so I'm very thankful to this fic.

Anyway, tagging people! I'll tag @wingsonghalo because she had to read my bad Digimon fic and @tomioneer because of all I said in the last question!

#tag games