[theplottery]

Non-writing activities that actually help your writing

To get better at writing, you have to write. Yes… But what about the times when you genuinely don’t feel like it?

First of all, it’s alright! It’s not the end of the world! You’re not a failed writer if you have a down day. But if you really feel like doing something that pushes your writing along, but isn’t actually writing, here are some things you can do! →

📚 Planning out your next chapter When in doubt, plot it out. Sometimes you might simply be stuck because you don’t have a clear path forward. A simple outline of all the major beats in your next chapter can really put things into perspective.

📚 Writing an impromptu scene Every writer goes off and fantasizes about a scene in their novel that isn’t actually part of the plan. Treat it as if it was a fanfic of your own novel and give it a shot! Writing it as fanfiction takes the pressure off, and might just get your creative juices flowing again.

📚Reading a similar book for research This is a  super helpful and fun way of doing research for your book. Dig out similar books in the genre and get reading. A great way to get book recommendations is to speak to some bookish people and tell them a little bit about the story you’re writing. Often, they can have great recommendations of a similar book vibe that could help you along.

📚 Actually research For whatever type of book you’re writing, you’re going to have to do some research. Whether it’s describing architecture in a fantasy world, or making sure your facts are correct in a historical setting, research is a crucial part of writing. Perhaps if your creative side of the brain isn’t feeling up to it right now, your logical one might be of us and help you gather some facts to make your writing more authentic.

📚 Edit or rewrite previous chapters If you have the need to work on your project, but can't bring yourself to write some more, work with what’s already there. It’s inevitable that some of the chapters you wrote, you aren’t entirely happy with. This might be the time to try something new - open that chapter side by side with a fresh document and rewrite it by changing one integral part of it.

📚 Think on it Yes, we all fantasize about our projects and our characters. But how often do you actually stop and truly think about your story as a whole? How often do you try to figure out that plothole before saying you’ll leave it for later? It might help to meditate for a bit, clear your head of distracting thoughts and focus on the problem in your writing that you need to solve.

[moonlitinks-deactivated20250331]

completely switched my timezone so my dash is dry + me coming on tumblr during the wrong time rip but figured I could take this opportunity to do a "reblog if you're a writeblr" post!

feel free to like or reblog/comment/interact (and introduce yourself <3) and I'll go stalk your blog

bonus points:

you write ya, contemporary romance, fantasy

love myths and retellings

love getting randomly tagged in games

you're a writer of color and write characters of color (!!!)

[lyralit]

ᴛɪᴘꜱ ꜰᴏʀ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇʀꜱ [ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴀ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇʀ]

don't let your skill in writing deter you. publishers look for the storyline, not always excellent writing. many of the greatest books came from mediocre writers—and also excellent and terrible ones.

keep writing even when it sucks. you don't know how to write this battle scene yet? skip ahead. write [battle scene here] and continue. in the end, you'll still have a book—and you can fill in the blanks later.

find your motivation. whether it's constantly updating That One Friend or posting your progress, motivation is key.

write everything down. everything. you had the perfect plot appear to you in a dream? scribble down everything you can remember as so as you can. I like to keep cue cards on my nightstand just in case.

play with words. titles, sentences, whatever. a lot of it will probably change either way, so this is the perfect opportunity to try out a new turn of phrase—or move along on one you're not quite sure clicks yet.

explain why, don't tell me. if something is the most beautiful thing a character's ever laid eyes on, describe it—don't just say "it's beautiful".

ask for critique. you will always be partial to your writing. getting others to read it will almost always provide feedback to help you write even better.

stick to the book—until they snap. write a character who is disciplined, courteous, and kind. make every interaction to reinforce the reader's view as such. but when they're left alone, when their closest friend betrays them, when the world falls to their feet...make them finally break.

magic. has. limits. there is no "infinite well" for everyone to draw from, nor "infinite spells" that have been discovered. magic has a price. magic has a limit. it takes a toll on the user—otherwise why can't they simply snap their fingers and make everything go their way?

read, read, read. reading is the source of inspiration.

first drafts suck. and that's putting it gently. ignoring all the typos, unfinished sentences, and blatant breaking of each and every grammar rules, there's still a lot of terrible. the point of drafts is to progress and make it better: it's the sketch beneath an oil painting. it's okay to say it's not great—but that won't mean the ideas and inspiration are not there. first drafts suck, and that's how you get better.

write every day. get into the habit—one sentence more, or one hundred pages, both will train you to improve.

more is the key to improvement. more writing, more reading, more feedback, and you can only get better. writing is a skill, not a talent, and it's something that grows with you.

follow the rules but also scrap them completely. as barbossa wisely says in PotC, "the code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules". none of this is by the book, as ironic as that may be.

write for yourself. I cannot stress this enough. if what you do is not something you enjoy, it will only get harder. push yourself, but know your limits. know when you need to take a break, and when you need to try again. write for yourself, and you will put out your best work.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi! Do you have any tips for writing believable romance? I've seen a lot of "draw from your own experiences" advice but as an aroace my experience with irl romance is exactly zero.

I don't want to have the entire romance genre off-limits and I don't want to portray a weird skewed version of romance.

Thank you so much!

Writing a Believable Romance

Like most things in fiction, the metric for "believable" is what you lay out in the story, not anything in the real world.

Take insta-love for example... we love to say that insta-love isn't believable, but it happens all the time in the real world. Two teens meet at a party and are planning their future wedding three days later. Two people meet at a bar, then drive to Vegas the next weekend to get married. People meet on the job and have an instant connection. Insta-love isn't unbelievable, because love isn't about quantity of time spent together but quality of time spent together. What makes insta-love unbelievable in fiction is when there's no quality to the time the characters do spend together, because the writer doesn't take the time to show what the characters have in common, why they like each other, how they bond, and the subtle signs as they start to fall in love.

So, the number one rule for writing a believable romance is to make it believable within what you laid out. The reader needs to believe these characters have enough in common that they can form an initial bond. They need to like each other enough that they want to solidify that bond. They need to have chemistry as illustrated by the "subtle signs of love." That's what sells a romance.

As for writing a romance without experience, I have a link for that! ♥

Here are some posts that will help:

Guide: Creating Romantic Chemistry Guide: Characters Falling in Love Writing Romance without Experience The Subtle Signs of Romantic Interest and Love Transitioning Through Levels of Affection

I hope that helps!

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[kestalsblog]

Sex & Violence in Writing

You might be surprised how similar writing a sex scene and a violent scene are. I'm not suggesting there is something inherently similar between the two, but rather that the craft of writing them can be remarkably alike

1.Subtlety. A strong sex scene and a war/battle/violent scene generally are more successful if they are subtle rather than over-the-top melodramatic. Why? Because both run the risk of sounding either absurd or funny if they're not carefully understated. A sex scene that goes into deep detail of all the anatomical processes can start to sound comedic or gross really fast. And a violent scene about "blood gushing everywhere, spraying like a fountain" or other hyperbolic descriptive language can quickly become gorey to the point of repulsion or humor. Better to leave out some details and focus on the physical only when necessary. Don't forget to utilize the power of the emotional for both kinds of scenes - characters' feelings & thought processes. Authors can get so caught up in the actions and movement of bodies, they forget the internal significance of scenes like this. And writing in a more subtle way usually helps with this problem.

2. Language: This goes off the last point. An author must be careful which words he/she chooses when writing a sex scene. Too formal and it'll sound to your readers like they are reading a surgery or anatomy book. Too in-depth and casual and it becomes prno/graphic or obscene. Also, some terms for genitalia can be offensive or read as hateful when that isn't the author's intention. I personally strongly dislike the c-word used to describe a woman’s vagina and will stop reading as soon as I confront it. (Let me interrupt myself here to say I am far more forgiving if a character uses a word like this in dialogue or thoughts. I expect characters to have different voices, some of them more grotesque. If you, the author, are using words like this, it can come off as very distatesful.) Regardless, make sure you know the different connotations of different words. Some are more vulgar than others. Same goes with fight/violent scenes. I've read too many scenes where the author dwells in the violence in an almost indulgent/romantic way. This feels sadistic and gratuitous. Also, please make sure you understand the correct anatomy for sex scenes AND fight scenes before you start. Many straight authors will portray gay sex incorrectly, for example. Or an author will write a battle scene where the weapons are not clear and/or the wounds don't align with the actual actions. You can get away with a lot by having an ignorant character, but if you're not informed as a writer, it is usually pretty apparent to more experienced readers. Do research if you need to, but choose your diction carefully.

3. Seriousness: This one is important to me personally. I've read so many stories where the authors go straight to the sex and violence without developing the plot/characters enough for me to understand the importance of either of those actions. Of course genre matters for your particular intentions, but I stand by the fact that for most fiction, authors want sex scenes and scenes of violent tragedy to mean something. And it can't mean much if you rush through the story to get to these points. These types of scenes require a certain kind of seriousness, an almost tender quality. (Yes, even for violence!) Because often these moments are life-altering for our characters, they need to be altering for readers as well.

[writerthreads]

How to write a gripping beginning

by Writerthreads on Instagram

Personally, I find beginnings to be one of the hardest parts of the whole book because it's so important. The beginning is what makes or breaks your book. It's what keeps readers interested after they pick it up at a store, or when they first download it on their Kindle. Below are some tips, as well as some analyses, on how to perfect a story's beginning.

Introduce your main character and the setting: Mrs. Dalloway

By "introduce", I don't mean a giant 10-page info dump on royal family tree or the ten kingdoms the world is made up of. Rather, I'm thinking of a character in a place, or doing something. The best, and one of the most famous examples would be how Virginia Woolf started Mrs. Dalloway:

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

Already, you have the titular character, Mrs Dalloway, introduced. She's doing something, too. She's saying that she's going to buy flowers herself, setting up a scene later where she's probably going to, or back out of, buying flowers. The pronoun "herself" suggests to the reader in Woolf's era that she's of a middle-class background and that somebody (eg. a servant) would normally be running errands for Mrs. Dalloway, but the character wanted to do this simple task herself.

I could go on forever about how each word in this simple sentence has implicit meanings and my ex-A Level Eng Lit teacher will probably be very proud of me, but that's not the point. The main idea is that in just a single sentence, a lot is being revealed to the reader without the writer having to info dump anything.

Allow me to continue to the second paragraph of the book:

For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning-fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

More characters are introduced now: we have Lucy, Rumpelmayer and his men. Mrs. Dalloway's full name is revealed, and so is her personality through her thought. It's childlike, whimsical and light, and that's why her name "Clarissa Dalloway" is used here instead of the stiff "Mrs. Dalloway".

In just two paragraphs, we are introduced to the titular character and some minor characters are mentioned. We also know bits and pieces of what's going to happen. Woolf artistically starts off the book with simple prose. Everything is well thought out, yes, Virginia Woolf is a literary genius, yes, but this is something that we can all do: write a simple introduction without weighting readers down with lots of detail we don't need, and get straight into the story.

Start in media res

Fun fact: "in media res" is also the name of our Discord Server!

When you start in the middle of an action, readers are transported straight to the story, hooking them in. For example, if you were writing a rom com, you could start with the main character bumping into a long-lost friend:

Emma saw a familiar cowboy hat bobbing in and out of the crowd in front of her. Emma found herself pushing through sweaty limbs into the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of the person who wore the hat, trying to see whether it was really her friend who had ghosted her five years ago.

Obviously this isn't the best beginning in the world, but you get the point.

Try something interesting

A strong story opening makes you want to know more. Donna Tartt does this perfectly in A Secret History:

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

What is up? Who is Bunny? What's so serious about their predicament? Tell us more!!! Bunny's death makes us want to know what has happened, while mentioning the characters' situation wants us to know what's going to happen. Tartt forces us to continue on to find out the full story.

Lead with a strong statement

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy:

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Tolstoy’s first line introduces the domestic strife that drives the story’s tragic events, using a bold, sweeping statement, while Dicken's catchy first sentence introduces us to the book's main themes.

There are way more examples of good beginnings that you can only learn from by reading. If you're a beginner, literally comb through a library shelf of the genre you're writing in and see how published authors have written their beginnings. Alternatively, you could go check out our post on the best story beginnings for more ideas!

[skylerchasesbooks]

How To Use Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing can be a tricky technique to get right. Give away too little, and you may confuse readers or lose their interest. Give away too much, and you take away your story’s suspense.

Here are some tips for achieving the perfect balance of foreshadowing:

1. Plan your story: You need to know exactly where your story is going before you can decide which events you can foreshadow, and how to do so. You may need to wait until your second draft to properly incorporate foreshadowing into your work. Take as much time as you need to work out every detail before dropping hints. Plan, outline, revise, and plan more.

2. Plant seeds as early as possible: The closer to an event foreshadowing is placed, the less effective it usually is. In fact, foreshadowing immediately before an event can act as a “spoiler” for the reader. Instead, make sure foreshadowing takes place long enough before the event or ending that it is not fresh in your readers’ minds. This will give your readers even more joy when they comb back through your story to find the breadcrumbs you left.

3. Scatter those seeds: When choosing where and when to foreshadow in your story, be as sly as possible. Think of it as a scavenger hunt: you wouldn’t hide all of your treasures in the same place. Instead, distribute your foreshadowing evenly throughout the story for maximum enjoyment.

4. Foreshadow in moderation: Don’t wear your reader out. Add too much foreshadowing, and your readers will feel as though they’re getting all “setup” and no “payoff.” Not enough foreshadowing, and your readers may be frustrated by an unexpected resolution. Craft the right balance, and your readers will find themselves re-reading your stories to find all of your clues.

5. Enlist a second set of eyes: As the person closest to your story, you may feel that your foreshadowing is perfectly clear—but if a reader can’t see or appreciate it, your clues will be ineffective. Grab your friend, coworker, or neighbor for a cup of coffee and hand them your manuscript. Once they finish reading it, ask them if the clues were too obvious, not obvious enough, or just right.

Hope these helped! Like and share! Follow For more content, tips and guides!

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

It’s so healing to wake up in a silent house and silently make your own coffee or tea and enjoy the beautifully intricate fullness of the morning silence while remaining calm and collected and unbothered by all outer and inner noise and it’s so low-key elevating and pacifying to rejoice in the silent atmosphere of your own house and just silently block the rest of the world…it’s a slice of heaven

[writingwithfolklore]

Writing Prophesy (Ides of March)

All you classic lit fans out there know what yesterday was! That’s right, it’s the ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was betrayed by his closest friends—if only he had listened to his wife’s prophetic dream…

And that’s what we’ll be talking about today--writing prophesy into your stories, and how to use it in a way that feels earned and exciting. If you’ve ever tried to write a prophesy into your story, you probably already understand why it can be really difficult. While stories don’t survive off surprise, a certain amount of the unknown keeps us interested—which can be hard if someone has prophesized all the events.

However, having your prophesy not coming true at all—unless some amount of lore or intention can explain it, feels incredibly cheap. Can we really claim it’s prophesy if it doesn’t come true?

So here’s how I’ve gotten around this issue (you have a couple options).

Option 1. Make the prophesy so unbelievable that it’s surprising it actually comes true.

My last project started with a very simple promise, that someone was going to die. The story revolved around his friends attempting to find a way to save his life, with an amount of success that it felt hopeful, believable that they were all going to get through it okay. So of course, when the prophesy comes true at the end… it’s still surprising, still a satisfying ending, and allows the prophet some integrity.

There was a certain amount of mythology behind it. How do you save someone from their fate without muddling a bit with the universe? So consider how you can make readers believe that the prophesy can be circumvented. Is it through gods? Magic? Powerful beings? Wishes? Otherworldly creatures? In your world, what has power over fate, over prophesy? Make it believable, and we’ll have hope, only for the big reveal at the end, that prophesy always comes true.

Option 2. The prophesy comes true, but not in the way you think it will.

I also mixed in a little bit of this in my last project, and I’d recommend that you do combine your options to maximize the effect. This one is pretty obvious, you say the donut is going to get eaten, you assume by the main character, instead it’s by the goat. Encanto does a lot of this with Bruno’s gift, we see a vague prophesy and assume it comes true in one way, but instead it comes true in another.

Think about how you can create assumptions by the readers, and set up an expectation that seems so obvious until something alternative happens.

I would caution against choosing to be super vague in order to do this. If it’s vague, it’s not very surprising because really anything could happen—you’re setting up the expectation for anything to happen rather than controlling the narrative. So, make it specific, but leave room for something surprising. In Julius Caesar we know he will meet his end on the Ides of March, but he never would have guessed it was by his closest friends.

As well, to have prophesy you need a prophet. This is the character that foretells the future, or senses the omens to come. Consider what gives the prophet their gift. Were they born with it? Cursed? Gifted? Was it a sort of sacrifice? The one thing I’ll caution against is the “blind prophet” stereotype—there’s a great video about stereotypes surrounding disabled characters I’d recommend watching HERE if you’ve never heard of this.

What does prophesy add to your narrative? Does it create suspense? Tension? Mystery? Sometimes it’s an added component to the narrative, sometimes it’s the center stage.

Prophesy can be a really clever story element if you use it well and create expectation without spoiling the rest of the story. Good luck! And happy Ides of March!

[katelyn-marie323]

I think when a woman tries to bury her femininity, she creates an unrealistic standard for herself.

She starts to view her needs as a woman as something to overcome rather than something to embrace. The erasure and belittlement of femininity creates a woman who believes her strong emotions are her weakness rather than one of her greatest strengths.

I have very different mental needs than my husband does. I cry a lot more, I desire things to be aesthetically pleasing, I need to take care of my outward beauty, etc... That doesn’t mean my needs are lesser than his or that I’m mentally weaker, we’re just different.

I know that when I don’t take care of my feminine needs, I end up extremely rundown, depressed, and more irritable. I think this applies to a lot of women, especially those who believe their femininity to be weakness and those who don’t feel safe to express their femininity.

[1crepe-remade]

[wishfulthinkment]

[theyoungwritersmind-aristanelson]

[natalieironside]

Steve Harringron in season 1 of Stranger Things is the most character. He did some bad stuff and immediately went "Aw, beans. That wasn't cool. I better go apologize" at which point The Plot he'd been blissfully unaware of for the entire show immediately tried to eat him.

[iloveyou-writers]

Reblog to give your writer friends, or yourself, a pat on the back, to let them know you’re proud of them. This is a message of love and encouragement.

[punmster]

The first of many (hopefully) advices from an idiot...writing characters that drive a plot

I'm too fucking tired because tumblr deleted my first draft so here's a bullshit shorter version of what I was gonna post before it got yeeted into oblivion.

So here's my shitty understanding of how to make sure your characters aren't cardboard being thrown around by the plot and to develop that middle bit of the story nobody seems to know how to do

First of all, understand that likes, dislikes, gender, sexuality, etc. don't really matter unless they are the focus of the plot. In fact, they are typically results of the plot (eg. a character likes choccy milk, so rejects the strawberry milk that is poisoned...using red wine vs vodka or goat cheese vs rat cheese will work just as well)

With that in mind, here are the 9 things I believe to be necessary to write a character that influences the plot (personality affects plot, my friends), and therefore to understand how your plot may flow realistically and without OOC

Note that you can interpret these categories as you like, and I recommend writing whatever you think is relevant while always keeping in mind the extent to which these things apply (hence why I didn't just put a list of character traits or a list of character dev questions, which I think are either too vague, too specific/narrow, or too absolute for making realistic characters)

Here's a character sheet you are free to use, print, open in MS paint, put in a google slide like I did (with credit):

Rank: Authority. 

I have 3 P's, one of which is position. This means things like status (a wanted felon can't do as much as a knight captain or prince), relationships (the prince might not be able to go against their fiancee from the duchy), and literal physical position (can't help a problem in Russia if you're in Africa)

Class: General purpose of the character

Listen, why have a character if they don't even do shit for the story? Even if not explicitly said so in your story, a character may be a mentor for another, a friend, a voice of reason, etc. 

Preferably don't have two characters with the same role

Charisma: Everything to do with socialization (ew)

Important b/c if your character isn't literally the only conscious being in existence as I suspect they might be, they will need to interact with others

Notably, other characters will have to react to them (which we will discuss another time)

How do they interact with others? How extroverted or introverted? Are they talkative with certain people? How shy? 

How kind? How involved do they get? How much are they willing to step on others for their goals? How considerate are they of others?

How convincing are they? How well liked are they?

Are they competitive? Do they have a general dislike of people? Are they bad at interacting with certain demographics like children?

Are there types of relationships they struggle with? Are there some they don't want at all?

Speed: Patience and complacency

How quickly a character acts can influence your story's pacing. When they act is generally important to figuring out the timeline of your story.

How quickly do they respond (regardless of how well they do)? How patient are they? How complacent are they?

Do they follow the rules? Do they only act on the orders of others? 

Do they rush in recklessly or do they make a plan? Would they do one in some cases (eg. only reckless if it comes to their loved ones)

How much are they willing to stand in terms of punishment, pain, insults, etc.?

Intelligence: Skillset and methods

Another of the 3 P's: power. Even if a character is in the position to, do they have the ability to do something?

What a character is able to do will obviously affect what actions they can take regarding conflicts in the plot. Note that failure can even be a good chance to develop character, learn, add more conflict, etc.

What is their job? What skills do they learn from that? What experiences do they have?

Are they street smart? Book smart? Have common sense? Creative? Or by the book?

Are they emotionally intelligent? Can they analyze and understand others' actions? How good are they at planning?

Note that OP characters aren't really Mary Sues, if they have a good conflict regardless (eg. One Punch Man is unbeatable but still has interesting problems…as a result of his unique situation)

Defense: Vulnerability and openness

Kind of charisma but applied to themselves? Not actually sure how to explain this one so you don't get an explanation

Important because everyone hates miscommunication trope (jk jk….I say as I write a miscommunication arc spanning seven chapters….which I need to edit soon)

How secretive are they? How trusting? Who would they trust? Do they prefer to live in ignorance?

How willing to communicate and how willing to share with others?

Tenacity: Morals and bottom line

Once your character decides to do the thing, how much will they do for the thing? Important to know your characters' limits.

Note: This is partly related to motivations > what your motivations are will obviously affect what you will and won't do, especially if those things go against what you are trying to achieve

Will they kill, steal, lie? Are there some people they won't do those things to (as mentioned in charisma)? Are there things they will do that thing for, even if they are usually against it?

How far do they act before things get too overwhelming? Are there certain things that are too scary or too embarrassing or too risky that they won't do?

What are their morals?

How hard do they work to improve? What do they do to improve? Will they cheat or do things honestly?

Flexibility: Adaptability, self awareness, open-mindedness

The ability or lack thereof to change is important for character development.

How well do they respond to sudden situations? Will they fall and fail and panic in certain ones? Will they remain calm?

How willing are they to accept or give help?

How much do they acknowledge their flaws? How willing are they to improve?

How receptive are they to different opinions? How willing to change their beliefs? How eager are they to change? How much proof or influence from outside until they change?

Motivations: Obviously, goals

What a character wants to do will drive their entire role in the plot. It is the last of the 3 P's: purpose. A character will be unlikely to act against their own goals (although, maybe that can be useful as a plot twist, showing them sacrificing their goals…)

I recommend listing these in priority, as well as acknowledging that some goals will spawn further goals.

Final note: if you wanna write a relationship, you should ensure that the other character likes some of the above traits in their friend/partner/whatever

[foxymoxynoona]

How do you manage to write such realistic dialogue and genuinely funny moments? Lone Blue Egg was full of them, and I loved how easily JK rolled with Rana's weirdness. How easily they laughed during sex, how his mind processed things and how her mind processed things.

You did the same with Amended and so many others, it's just such fantastic and grounded writing that's easy to read and enjoy!

😭 Thank you so much, I'm really touched you enjoy it! I really enjoy writing humor into things, and I love writing dialogue.

I did coursework in college on playwrighting, screenwriting, and comedy sketch writing, both of which I think were really valuable to me in terms of pacing scenes and using dialogue to tell multiple levels of a story instead of relying on exposition. I love listening to the way people talk to each other, and really settling into the scene in my head. Sometimes I really just sit there and let it play in my head a little bit so i can think through the staging --who is where, who's saying what, what non-verbal cues are they giving.

OK here are the dialogue tips I can think of, because I actually had been thinking about this recently! I like writing about writing but I never know if it's helpful or patronizing to share tips haha. But since you asked!!!

The easiest tip I can think of for leveling up dialogue is: cut almost all the names. People don't actually say each other's names as much as I see in a lot of ff. It usually is either to get someone's attention or a make a point without words (you know, like a character says "Jungkook" and that emphasis means something, it's actually saying something else like 'come on.' Or 'baby' suddenly because you want something, etc.)

The second important thing is to remember as a writer that the characters don't know what the other one is going to say. Most people don't think about the best thing to say until hours later!!! Let characters react honestly to what they hear. Let them misunderstand. Let them ignore it because they're still trying to prove their point. Let them get frustrated and say the wrong thing.

And I think my last more advanced tip is: make the dialogue carry its weight. There should be a secondary reason the dialogue is there. What story is taking place beneath the things people are saying. what are we learning about the characters. What are they not saying. One of my FAVORITE thins to write in dialogue is when characters are actually having two differnet conversations but don't realize it --this happened in Lone Blue Egg and Amended, and I think it adds depth and can also add that comedy!

I'm so happy you enjoyed those kinds of scenes 🥰 And I hope this is useful to anyone who's asked about dialogue lately when I couldn't think of anything useful to suggest.