Do you yourself have any writing tips? I really admire your style.
Thank you, kind anon! ;u; I'm honoured.
I don't know if these are 'proper' writing tips, but they're what I keep in mind for myself when writing:
Try to get as close to the action/ plot of the story as quickly as possible.
I used to be quite bad for this (still am, in many cases). I'd clump all world building and context/ exposition all at the start to set the scene and then I'd begin the real meat of the story. Or, when I became aware about doing this, I'd put description halfway through in smaller chunks but either way it makes the story smoother and flow more if you sprinkle in details and context as you go. I like to think of it as painting, you can't blob all one colour in one spot as you get stuck looking at it- it needs to be evenly spread out.
Dialogue is important
Building off the above, I like to build my stories and drive plot these days with dialogue. Character actions, thoughts, and feelings are built off of this, as well as environmental details. I like to let my dialogue build my story like a skeleton and then I'll flesh out around it.
This works better with shorter stories but also works great for scenes in longer ones. When I'm reading, my eye naturally goes to dialogue, especially if it's walled off by blocks of environmental detail, so I like to let my dialogue unravel the plot and character development for me rather than block the plot in.
Stick to one character viewpoint per scene
This is something I've only realised I prefer within the last year of writing. If I have more than one character in a scene, I pick one character whose viewpoint I'm going to see through and settle there until a scene or chapter change.
So one character I'll write as, 'X felt,' or 'X saw,' and 'X knew' because I'm looking through their eyes- I AM them almost as a narrator. The other character I'll write as 'Y looked like they were going to say,' or have the first character describe the others feelings, 'You only say that because you did this!' Or, 'I know you feel this way!'
X doesn't know for sure what Y feels, only what they believe Y feels and so we only get description from Y that's very visual- what can be seen and assumed, but not known.
This is heavily dependant on how you want your narrator voice to be, of course, but my narrator usually sits in the mind or close observation of one character at a time. I feel like this helps build intimacy with a character more as you feel as though you're in their shoes. This also allows you to build ambiguity and tension in relationships with the characters and world they're interacting with. In real life, we only truly know ourselves, afterall- everything else is based off experiences.
It also allows for an unreliable narrator which always makes things feel a bit more real.
Less is more
This is something I still struggle with. Although I'm better these days in how I provide description in stories, I still do too damn much and often over explain myself, the detail, the action, or the point I'm trying to make. Not everything needs to be described, your audience is smart. They don't need to know that a character got up, went across the room to lift up an arm and open a curtain. 'He got up and opened the curtains' works just fine. Unless...
'Does this have a point?'
Again, something I'm always trying to work on because this is a weakness of mine, but does the action you're writing need as much detail as you're giving? Unless you're giving key information that's relevant to the plot or character development, does it need to be there? This applies to longer stories more than short ones (I've written whole scenes before that don't have a 'point')- they slow down your story and make it feel 'clogged'. But I feel the advice still applies to shorter pieces: If it doesn't take the story anywhere, consider taking it out. Having less detail helps draw reader focus straight to detail you do want them to notice as well.
Last one before I bore you: tenses!
Find one and stick to it. Different tenses help build different moods and pacing, so consider them carefully. Present tense is still my weakest and I often do the things I listed above 'wrong' because I'm less experienced in it and then kick myself later.
Phew! That was a lot, thanks for the ask! I hope these were helpful ❤
