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Stories Masterlists
Connecticut
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Village
Salikaa
Grim Knights
The Greeks
Cow
cherry valley forever
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

Janaina Medeiros
noise dept.

Product Placement

★

Andulka
Peter Solarz

pixel skylines
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Xuebing Du
d e v o n
KIROKAZE
Cosimo Galluzzi
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
ojovivo
Mike Driver

#extradirty
art blog(derogatory)

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@wollemi-writing
Wow It's a Pinned Post!
(this blog used to be password protected so ignore all the weird links below the read more)
Stories Masterlists
Connecticut
Koppány's Big Adventure
Village
Salikaa
Grim Knights
The Greeks
Cow
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
Detective Dialogue Prompts!!
⟢ "Everyone in this room is lying. The question is who's lying about the right thing."
⟢ "You called it an accident. I've seen accidents. This isn't one."
⟢ "The victim knew their killer. You can tell by the expression they left behind."
⟢ "I don't believe in coincidences. Not in this town. Not in this case."
⟢ "Someone cleaned this room very carefully. Too carefully."
⟢ "You're hiding something. I'm not accusing you. I'm just letting you know I noticed."
⟢ "The alibi is perfect. That's the problem with it."
⟢ "Follow the money or follow the grief. Both lead somewhere ugly."
⟢ "I've solved forty cases. This one keeps me up at night differently."
⟢ "You're asking the wrong questions. The right ones are scarier."
⟢ "The truth is in this room. We just have to make someone uncomfortable enough to let it out."
⟢ "They wanted it to look random. Nothing about this is random."
⟢ "I've been lied to by professionals. You need more practice."
⟢ "The case was cold for ten years. Something made someone nervous enough to reopen it."
⟢ "Everyone loved them publicly. Find me someone who knew them privately."
Prompt #1300
"Are you drunk?"
"No, just very, very happy."
Things to do with your characters to flesh them out
Write fanfics / AUs about them
Answer personality tests as if you were them
Do various Picrews or other dress up games
Write AITA posts from their perspective
Build their wardrobe by creating/collecting outfits
Figure out their perfume/scent using the search by notes function on fragrantica
Put together a playlist of songs that they would listen to
Create a family tree for them on familyecho.com
Make a concept album for a singer au, with a cover and songs they would write and sing
Create a “What’s in my bag?’ for them
Design their home in homebyme.com
Fill out character templates
Roleplay as them with other people on oc social network (no ai involved or even allowed!)
Design (fake) social media pages for them (Zeeob for most social medias and texting, PhotoNote for fake instagram, Twinote for fake twitter, TweetGen for tweets and replies, Classtools Fakebook for fake facebook, …)
Ways That Fear Can Show Up (Without Saying “Fear”)
When it creeps: • Foreboding — the air feels wrong before anything actually happens. • Ominousness — silence that feels almost... purposeful. • Misgiving — your instincts tugging at your sleeve, whispering, "Don't."
When it hits fast: • Shock — your brain blanks • Startled— your heart slams, you inhale • Panic — thoughts fracture; your instincts beg for escape
When it lingers: • Tension — jaw locked, shoulders up near your ears. • Anxiety — background noise that lingers in every thought • Dread — knowing something bad is coming and having to wait for it.
When it turns physical: • Shivers — cold crawling up the spine. • Sweat, dilated pupils, skin gone pale — your own body betrays you. • Weakness — knees like jelly, grip unreliable.
When it overwhelms: • Terror — too big to think around. • Horror — something has gone wrong. • Paralysis — body refusing orders.
When it distorts reality: • Paranoia — patterns where there are none. • Suspicion — every sound feels intentional. • Unease — the sense of being watched without proof.
How to Fix Underwriting
1. Slow down at emotionally important moments.
Big emotions need space to land. If a scene feels rushed, pause the plot briefly to show how the moment affects the character.
2. Add reactions, not explanations.
Instead of explaining what a character feels, show it through physical responses, hesitation, or small actions that reveal emotion naturally.
3. Ground every scene in the senses.
If a scene feels thin, add one or two sensory details—sound, texture, smell, or temperature—to make the moment feel lived-in.
4. Let thoughts interrupt action.
A line of internal thought can deepen a scene without slowing it too much. Thoughts show stakes, fear, longing, or conflict beneath the action.
5. Expand consequences, not events.
You don’t need more things to happen—you need to show what matters. Focus on how events change relationships, decisions, or self-perception.
6. Strengthen setting where emotion peaks.
The environment should echo or contrast the emotion of the scene. Setting is not decoration—it’s emotional reinforcement.
7. Add specific details instead of general ones.
Underwriting often relies on vague language. Swap “they argued” for one sharp line of dialogue or a specific breaking point.
8. Let dialogue breathe.
Short dialogue exchanges without pauses can feel flat. Add beats—silence, gestures, interruptions—to give the conversation weight.
9. Show transitions between scenes.
If scenes jump too quickly, readers feel disoriented. A brief transition helps establish time, mood, and emotional continuity.
10. Clarify stakes early in the scene.
If readers don’t know what can be lost, scenes feel empty. Make sure the character wants something specific and fears losing it.
11. Use the “what are they feeling right now?” check.
After each major beat, ask what emotion is dominant in that moment. If it’s missing on the page, the scene is likely underwritten.
12. Expand scenes that feel “too clean.”
If a scene resolves too neatly or quickly, it probably needs more tension. Messy emotions and unresolved feelings add depth.
I primarily write non fiction in the form of journaling in a public blog. But I still want my writing to be good. These work for non fiction too.
Happy holidays, @wollemi-whump!
Connecticut Snippet
*after a rough patch with Daisy*
alan: I'm unlovable
tony looks up from the cue with a vague face of disbelief and exasperation
tony: If you were unlovable-
he concentrates, hits the cue ball, narrowly dodging the eight ball, and sinks the nine
tony: -I wouldn't be showing up here twice a week to kick your ass at pool.
Connecticut Masterlist
Will Thompson's Very Bad Day
Bernard's Letter
Snippet I
Snippet II
Miscellaneous I
Bernard's Letter
My dear Maya,
I wish above all else I could see you once more. Things have not been well here. The conditions have worsened and more men have been lost to bullets and disease than any man could count.
We have not moved forward in weeks, though the officers are not dismayed by this. They continue to run inspections every morning and night to ensure we are in sufficient shape for charging the battlefield. But it does not matter as we inevitably retreat once our efforts prove fruitless. It seems a tedious endeavor to clamber up and down, and up and down, and up and down, for a few muddy feet of land.
In the trenches, the rats are relentless. There are more rats than men, and they never cease scavenging. They grow bigger than you would think. It is from all the dead flesh they feast on of men who could not be buried. Yesterday, I killed a rat and watched as three more appeared to feast on its carcass. Looking at my own dwindling rations now, morbid thoughts come to mind.
Occasionally, late at night, when I watch over the quiet devastation of No Man's Land, I imagine walking through the mud to the other side. Never an urge, only a speculation. I imagine how I would be killed were I to do so. Perhaps I would be stabbed as I jump down to the enemy trench. Perhaps the barbed wire would snag my clothes and trap me there to be killed. Perhaps I would never make it so far and instead, as I stand to exit, be shot by a sniper and fall limp to the ground. I know that even with the horrific violence of these thoughts, my death may be as trifling as every other in this trench.
I am sorry to impart such horrendous thoughts on you, Maya, but I have nowhere else to place them. The rotting corpse cannot not care what the man with wet shoes thinks, and the other men with wet shoes already know.
Your letters bring me grace, what little I can afford here. I hope to hear from you again soon. Give my regards to the family.
Love,
Your dear Bernard
P.S. If you could, ask Will for a razor you might send. My beard has been growing, and I would not like to become a home for any more dreaded lice. I can feel them crawling about now.
An Incomplete Yet Somewhat Sufficient Guide to Writing Fiction Based in the UK
As many of you know, I am an American who lives and studies in London. I thought I’d make a little general rules list about aspects of UK culture which I feel are misrepresented quite often when I read fiction written by someone who’s never experienced life here. So here it goes, every American fiction writers’ incomplete yet somewhat sufficient guide to writing fiction based in the UK.
KNOW YOUR SUPERMARKETS. Tesco isn’t the only one. Tesco and Sainsbury’s are the two most popular, like Safeway, Albertson’s, or Kroger. M&S and Waitrose are where the posh white people shop. Everything is over-priced; the American equivalent would be Whole Foods (which the UK has but is not nearly as common). Then there’s Morrison’s and Co-Op which are both good but not as popular as Tesco or Sainsbury’s. And then you have the discount supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi, where everything is off-branded so the prices are lower. And of course there’s ASDA which is Wal-Mart only smaller and not as terrifying.
In the UK, pants = underwear. I thought this would be quite known but I still see the mistake all the time? Jeans and trousers, folks!
Accents are hugely different from one another. First you have to learn the distinction between Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and English. Then from there you have all the regional accents. And accents are classed and racialised as well. A middle class white person raised in West London is going to have a completely different accent from a working class PoC raised in East London, even though they may live within 15 miles of each other. If you want to really impress readers, study different types of accents and incorporate them into your dialogue, it makes things much more interesting (think Hagrid from Harry Potter).
Pubs are also classed. There are old white working class pubs that don’t do food (besides maybe crisp packets), are always showing greyhound or horse racing, and still smell of cigarette smoke. Only locals go here, and they usually go pretty much every night. Like the Winchester from Shaun of the Dead. And then you have the hipster pubs, which are expensive and do fancy food. The people working at these pubs usually look pretty cool—dyed hair, piercings, that stuff—but there probably aren’t any ‘regulars’ who come there every day.
Wetherspoon’s is the backbone of society. Wetherspoon’s (or Spoons) is a chain pub that’s pretty much in every damn post code. It’s cheap as shit and beloved by many. You can get a huge cocktail pitcher for under £10, and you can guarantee you’ll get wasted pretty quickly cause they’re full of sugar and have a high alcohol content.
Drinking culture in general is quite different from the US. People start drinking at about age 15/16, and it’s legal to drink at 18. Kids drink WKD (which is like Mike’s Hard Lemonade I think??? I’ve never actually had it but it seems like it’s on the same tier), Smirnoff Ice, Malibu, and cheap fruity wine (Echo Falls, Hardy’s, Blossom Hill, Kumala, and Gallo Family are the usual brands).
Drunk food consists of: fried chicken, chips (+cheese, salt and vinegar, gravy, or curry, depending on the region), kebabs, pizza from a shop with bad graphic design, microwaveable burgers. You can also get delivery from a lot of restaurants, and they bring it right to your house. Indian, pizza, and Chinese are the most common.
Speaking of food, it’s hard to find good Mexican food in the UK. There’s Wahaca but it’s spendy as it’s a sit-down restaurant and it kind of only exists in touristy and gentrified areas. You won’t have any luck finding cheap, authentic street tacos the way you would in Southern California. There also isn’t really any fast food Mexican (although there are a handful of Taco Bells splattered around the country). I’m sure there are some trendy areas which are bringing in Mexican street food in London, but let’s be real, it’s probably not authentic and is also probably stupidly over-priced. I’m getting off topic, sorry.
Nando’s is also the backbone of society. They do grilled chicken there, ranging from mild (but still seasoned) to burn your tonsils off spicy. There’s stuff for vegetarians too, like portobello mushroom and halloumi (a type of cheese you grill—it’s amazing and difficult to find in the US without spending an obscene amount of money) wraps which are incredible. Nando’s is usually packed and they play really fun Spanish/Portuguese/South African music which is really fun when you’re drunk and in the toilets. 10/10, perfect for a cheeky night out with the lads. The kind of place Gryffindors probably love (I’m sorry I keep using Harry Potter references)
You don’t ‘sign for the check’ in the UK. Almost every credit/debit card in the UK has a chip, and you put it in the chip and pin machine, type in your pin, and voila! You’ve paid! It’s actually much more secure than signing, honestly, the amount of times I’ve just scribbled my signature in a US shop and they’ve accepted it without even checking is appalling.
Public transport is actually good in most cities. Buses are common everywhere, and bigger cities like Manchester, London, Birmingham, Glasgow, etc all have some sort of mass rail system, whether that’s a subway, tram, lightrail, whatever. Also nearly everywhere (even the tiny villages!) at least has a train station. It may be tiny as shit and trains may not go through very often, but they do exist.
All schools have uniforms.
Infant school = preschool, primary school = elementary school, secondary school = middle school/half of high school, further education (6th Form) = second half of high school, uni = college. The first two and last one are pretty self explanatory. At 16, you take your GCSEs, and after that, you’re not required to continue school, but many go to further education and take A Levels, which are like the pre-requisite for uni (although you can get into uni without A Levels, this is quite rare). Most take 2-3 subjects for A-Levels, but I think you can take more if you have a death wish (kind of like AP classes for us Americans). Here’s a good link for people who want to know more about the UK education system: https://www.internationalstudent.com/study_uk/education_system/
No one says “What’s up?” Instead, it’s “Alright?” which is confusing at first, but you get used to it. An example greeting between two friends: ‘Hey mate, alright?’ ‘Yeah, you alright?’ And that’s it.
Religion is different. I actually know very little about religion so I can’t offer a whole lot of insight on this, but I’ve had a lot of people tell me it’s very different. If anyone wants to have their input here, that would be lovely!
Houses don’t have yards, they have gardens. This is mostly just a terminology thing to be honest.
Speaking of terminology, use ‘pavement’ instead of ‘sidewalk’. Obviously people aren’t stupid, they’ll know what you mean if you say sidewalk, but still, gotta stay authentic for the plot.
House layouts in general are very different. Houses are either terraced (town houses in the US), semi-detached (duplex in the US), or detached (typical US house). Terraced are most common in big cities, and most houses are made of brick. Take some time to research different architecture styles (Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian, 60s), the differences between them become quite apparent when you do a bit of looking.
There are also a variety of apartment/flat styles. Old period properties are often divided up into flats, and there are also purpose-built blocks of flats, which is like a US apartment complex. There are also luxury flats, which I think we call condominiums in the US. They’re all really modern and have lots of glass.
Since the entire country is so damn tiny, long roadtrips aren’t really a thing. It’s more like, you drive somewhere to go camping, like Cornwall or Devon (basically Florida for British people).
Holidays to warm places are quite common. South of France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain and some of the usual destinations. You usually fly to these places on budget flights like Easy Jet or Ryan Air, unless you’re rich, then you probably take British Airways.
Stop signs don’t exist. No, I’m serious. If the intersection (or crossroads) is big enough, there’ll be traffic lights or a roundabout. But other than that, you just have to be careful. Which is generally okay, because people in the UK can actually drive.
No one refers to a section of street as a block. Cities in the UK aren’t really set up in a grid the way US cities are. Streets are kind of weird and curvy and don’t make sense, so saying ‘it’s two blocks that way!’ doesn’t really work. Instead, write about distance in terms of vague relation: ‘It’s just up that road a bit, past the M&S, then left at the The King’s Head pub’.
London, in general, is a fucking huge city. You can’t walk across the whole thing in a day. Hell, you can barely drive across the whole thing in a day. Big Ben and Tower Bridge are 2.5 miles apart from each other. I know, it was a shocker for me too when I first got here! Take a look at a map of London and you’ll see what I mean. It is possible to do most of Westminster in a day, but that would be a very full day and you wouldn’t get to really see anything in-depth. And most people live very far away from these landmarks. So keep that in mind next time you have a character who lives in London saying they can hear Big Ben chime from their flat. That character must have a lot of money.
This is a really short list and I’ve probably barely even made a DENT so if anyone else has something to add, please do so! And please reblog this to boost it to your followers! Thank you my pals, have a good day, and KEEP WRITING!
- The drinking in a fic is how I tend to know if the author is a Brit (or Irish/European) or not.
- Cards nowadays are mostly contactless and don’t even need you to enter a pin if the amount is under 25 quid. Also, keep in mind that if you’re writing fic set in late 90s-early 00s, then signing the receipt was what we did back then when paying by card.
- The ‘alright’ confused me so much when I first moved to the UK. I kept worrying I looked ill.
- Houses in the south tend to be painted in bright colours (well, at least Brighton and Portsmouth where I lived). Midlands and North it’s mostly brick. Living in a detached house means you earn good money. Semi-detached is usually affordable by a couple with two decent salaries.
- Accents are everything. They reveal where you were raised as well as your class. People will comment on or otherwise make note of your accent. In the first episode of Misfits, the very first thing the characters do when they meet each other is to talk/take the piss off the others’ accent.
- There’s a twitter account which tweets things overheard in Waitrose.
This is incredibly helpful to this American girl that can only dream of an English immersion.
I’m guilty of just throwing a Tesco in there. LOL.
Okay, I have a funny story which, if you’ve been around a bit, you may already know. So, I’m not sure who first started the ‘denims’ craze a few years ago, and in all honesty it might have been me??? Anyway, for whatever reason I/other people thought that Brits called ‘jeans’ ‘denims’ and started calling jeans denims in everything we wrote. Well, some Brit writers (birdsofshore was one of them and could corroborate this if she were on tumblr) saw it and thought, “Oh, I guess Americans call ‘jeans’ ‘denims’. So that they understand, I’d better call them that too,” and then up and started writing denims as well, further feeding into the idea that denims was indeed correct! When in actuality WE ALL SAY JEANS. So in HP fandom in particular, around 2012-2014-ish, there will be a shitload of fics by several people, even some Brit writers, calling jeans denims for really no good reason. If you’re new to HP fandom and reading a lot in that era, just know: We were all wrong and have since stopped the denims madness. Sorry about that. ;P LOL!
The last bit there is linguistic gold. Somehow British fanfic writers became confused enough by American fanfic writers (writing fic set in Britain) to start regularly using a word that Brits never actually use. I’m dying.
(But I thought it was your word! But I thought it was yours!)
The education system has changed since this was written - after GCSEs, you’re required to stay in fulltime education until you’re eighteen, but you can do an apprenticeship for this.
GCSEs are run on the 9-1 system, which no one really understands yet. I’ve had people tell me they hope I get a 1, which would be the worst possible marks. If you get a 3 or lower in maths and English, you have to resit the exam. There are rumours of a 10 being possible within 5 years and everyone hates that. I’m taking 11, but I have friends doing 9 and friends doing 13.
9=A**
8=A*
7=A
6=B
5=C
4=D
Also, my school expects 4 A levels (3 if you have a really good reason, usually only offered to people who did their GCSEs there; 5 if one of them’s PE or EPQ) so it’s getting more difficult.
I live in Northern Ireland and want to point out the differences in schools. In N.I. we have Grammar schools and a test for 10/11 year-olds. My school needed a minimum 95 points out of a total (I think) 132 points to get in.
Schools in England use regions. So if you live just outside the good school’s territory, then you can’t go it to. Many people in England buy apartments that they don’t use, just to get their kids to go to the good schools. (it’s quite a big issue actually). And they don’t have grammar schools.
If your characters have different accents, they mightn’t understand each other. When I talk to people with a strong Belfast accent, I have no clue what they’re saying. And we’re from the same country.
You can say footpath instead of pavement. I don’t think anyone said this: One pound = a quid. 10 pound note is a tenner, 5 pound note is a fiver but a 20 pound note is not a twenty-er. Pretty much everyone says banter (i.e a good time) “It was great banter”. in N.I. we also say craic (said like crack) which means the pretty much the same thing, but you can also say “What’s the craic?” to mean, “What’s up?”
If you’re writing parents talking to their kids about exams, the kids will say “A-Levels” the parent will call them “O-Levels” because the system changed.
My school only let people with 20(ish) points at GCSE do four A-levels and you needs 12 points to get back in at A-Level. To get back for the second year we needed at least 3 Cs.
In reference to OP’s school names, I have never heard anyone say fucking “infant school”. We say “Nursery School” or “Nursery” for short.
I can be in a different country in 3 hours by driving and 45 minutes by flying. Because everything is closer together, unless your character is travelling from the country to London, their daily commute won’t take longer than half an hour. My commute to school takes 30 minutes depending on traffic and the bus driver. Driving to London can and will take at least an hour. Maybe even longer.
We make up words. In Northern Ireland, a normal conversation could include: “Oi, where’re youse’uns going?” which translates as: “Hey where are you lot going?” Youse is plural of you and “uns” is “ones”. Idk why we put “uns” on the end, but we do. Scotland does similar stuff, but I don’t know enough about their slang.
Finally, in Britain we are “ruder”. We call each other fuckers and wankers and pricks. The Scottish are more creative and brutal than England and Wales, Northern Ireland is on par with Scotland, and Ireland is in the middle.
Oh good shout! Also slightly less relevant but to add on to the points about regional accents, usually people will have different accents from their friends or peers. This is mainly because whilst regional accents are the most distinct from each other, towns (even if they’re only like 20 miles away) also have differences in accent.
For example my school is bang in the middle of a small village town. As such a fair amount of the people there speak in what we’d deem today as ‘standard english’. However that being said, around said village is a ton of poorer, larger towns which often sound more ‘chavy’ (a common slang term for working class).
Moreover, individual schools will have their own slang attached to it so don’t be afraid to make up some slang and dot that on on top of general british slang. For example, for 5 years at secondary I went to a school in a large town - accent wise it was common to drop the ‘t’s’ and ‘g’s’ so I find myself doing that a lot and slang wise we’d have little dumb things like ‘ladies drop your weapons’ to signify a slut drop (don’t ask me why I just went along with it). Whereas at the school I’m at now that I moved to for sixth form, obviously as said before it’s in a different place so not only are the accents different (e.g out of pretty much all my friends and classes I’m often deemed to speak the most ‘chavy’) but the slang is different so if I don’t like something I find myself saying it’s ‘wack’ whereas before I’d have said ‘its peak’ or something like that.
Lastly (before this gets too long), if you’re writing about a secondary school then your characters more than likely realistically going to come from different areas and therefore have a fake rivalry with each other. Eg if we take the village my school is in for example, let’s call it W, then popular jest is that it’s posh and snobby. Whereas if we take the town I live in ® then it’s often said that it’s full of druggies and crime. That’s not to say it is of course, there’s this other town that everyone claims is inbreed and obvs isn’t but that rivalry is still there. So to add to realism I’d recommend either world building the towns around your characters or learning the views put on the towns. :)
All of this but with a few corrections: in England we DO have grammar schools, they’re just very rare and pretty much confined to a small region in Southeast England.
Also, when a British person talks about “Asians” (or British Asians), they mean people of South Asian descent (i.e. Indians, Pakistanis, etc), rather than East Asian descent like in the US and Australia. South Asians are the largest ethnic minority in Britain (5% of the UK’s population), whereas East Asians are incredibly rare over here (and tend to refer to themselves as “British Chinese” – there are even fewer people of Japanese or Korean descent here than there are (Hong Kong) Chinese, who make up 0.5% of the population).
The acronym “BAME” gets used for non-white people over here, and stands for “Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic”, where “Asian” means South Asian, and “Minority Ethnic” includes all other minority ethnicities – such as Chinese, Turkish, Middle Eastern, etc. Hispanic/Mexican/Latino people are so rare it’s unlikely you’ll meet any, even in the big cities.
And yes, we are ruder. Like the Australians, it’s not unheard of to call someone a “cunt” in a joking way (although it’s usually used as an insult, and is not a gendered slur over here like it is in the US).
London is very very racially diverse, but outside of the cities, the UK really isn’t. My husband grew up in a part of the English countryside that’s like 99% white (probably even 100% white). Whenever we visit, I am literally the only brown face there.
Also, I feel like gay culture in London is quite different to what Tumblr often portrays LGBT culture as? Homophobia still exists, like it does everywhere, but in my experience, many gay and lesbian people in London are quite openly gay/lesbian – whether that’s out and about or at work or whatever.
Foreign holidays are reasonably common. The vast majority of Brits will have been abroad (i.e. outside the UK) at least once in their lives, even if it’s just to Europe (and in Britain, we think of “Europe” as the mainland part of the continent where they don’t speak English as a first language. Americans tend to refer to Brits as “Europeans”, but we generally don’t tend to see ourselves as Europeans ourselves… although the Brexit vote in 2016 changed some of that in some people’s minds).
Also, social class is much, much, much more a thing over here than it is in many other (every other?) countries in the world. Social class in Britain is not just about wealth and aristocracy – although it used to be – but social class markers that people will pick up on (and immediately use to figure out which social class you belong to) will include your accent, what type of school you went to, what kind of food you eat, what kind of leisure hobbies you have, even down to how you dress. And yes, this even applies – to some extent – to those of us who are non-white or have immigrant parents.
sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four
now for all your bodily perception needs
I've noticed a lot of people advise writers to read their stories aloud. And I absolutely agree. But I've also mostly seen people mention it in like a 'you'll better notice where there are little mistakes, and where the phrasing is awkward' way. Which, again, is absolutely true.
But that's a 'read the story aloud to see what's wrong with it' advice.
And I think there's maybe an even more important reason to read your fic aloud.
It will show you all the things that are RIGHT about your story.
Because there inevitably comes a point where you've read your own story in your head so many times that all the words are a bland mush that will leave you convinced that there's absolutely nothing interesting or good in your writing.
And if you go back to it many months later, you might realize... oh, this is a pretty interesting fic. And that's because the brain has had time to forget every tiny detail of phrasing you came up with, and you can actually read it like a reader, not the author.
But that road takes months, and until then, you might be inherently convinced that the story is literally the absolute worst thing you've ever written.
But... WHEN YOU READ ALOUD, you automatically start giving the words inflection, inflection that, when you're reading something that you haven't written yourself, you kind of hear even when reading quietly. But for your own story, all that inflection and weight has been sucked out by way too many rereads while you were looking for grammatical errors. The fastest way to be able to see it again? To hear it.
Anyway, read aloud to defeat the monster on your shoulder telling you your writing sucks.
6 Quick Writing Exercises to Wake Up Your Imagination
We all hit those blah writing days. Your fingers are ready, your doc is open... and your brain goes static. That’s where writing exercises come in — small creative boosts to shake off the dust and get back into your story flow. Here are six to try when your words feel stuck in traffic.
1. The 5-Minute Word Sprint
Pick a random word (use a generator or close your eyes and point at a book), set a 5-minute timer, and write anything involving that word. No stopping, no deleting.
2. Dialogue Without Context
Write a short convo between two people. No descriptions. No setting. Just back-and-forth lines.
3. Rewrite a Scene in Another Genre
Take a scene from your current story and flip the genre. Drama becomes comedy. Fantasy becomes sci-fi. Romance becomes horror.
4. Describe a Place Using the Five Senses — No Sight Allowed
Can’t mention what anything looks like. Only sound, touch, smell, taste, and intuition.
5. Character Swap POVs
Write a paragraph from the POV of a side character reacting to your main character. Bonus if the POV is brutally honest or completely wrong.
6. One Line Story Hooks
Write 3 one-sentence story starters that make you want to keep writing. (Example: “I woke up married to my enemy, and worse — he knew it before I did.”)
You don’t need to write a masterpiece every day. But showing up — even for a silly exercise — keeps the creative part of your brain warmed up. Try one of these before your next writing session, and see where it takes you. 🍒
Hey hey hey writers!!! Especially y'alls who are struggling to develop character or have white room/still character syndrome!!!
Look into Uta Hagen's acting techniques, specifically her 9 questions. I'm not kidding. She built off Stanislavski's techniques to help actors develop their characters and roles & bring that to the stage- specifically, and this is why I'm pushing Hagen specifically and not anyone else, their relationship with the set, props, other characters, setting (yes that's different from set), history and the play's plot, and how that changes how they act and speak. I have my textbook open I'll take some pictures.
If you need a transcript/image description I'll put it under the cut, they're a little blurry cause I'm bad at holding my phone... I know alt text is a thing but I don't want y'alls to have to scroll through a tiny box lmao.
100 Dialogue Tags You Can Use Instead of “Said”
For the writers struggling to rid themselves of the classic ‘said’. Some are repeated in different categories since they fit multiple ones (but those are counted once so it adds up to 100 new words).
1. Neutral Tags
Straightforward and unobtrusive dialogue tags:
Added, Replied, Stated, Remarked, Responded, Observed, Acknowledged, Commented, Noted, Voiced, Expressed, Shared, Answered, Mentioned, Declared.
2. Questioning Tags
Curious, interrogative dialogue tags:
Asked, Queried, Wondered, Probed, Inquired, Requested, Pondered, Demanded, Challenged, Interjected, Investigated, Countered, Snapped, Pleaded, Insisted.
3. Emotive Tags
Emotional dialogue tags:
Exclaimed, Shouted, Sobbed, Whispered, Cried, Hissed, Gasped, Laughed, Screamed, Stammered, Wailed, Murmured, Snarled, Choked, Barked.
4. Descriptive Tags
Insightful, tonal dialogue tags:
Muttered, Mumbled, Yelled, Uttered, Roared, Bellowed, Drawled, Spoke, Shrieked, Boomed, Snapped, Groaned, Rasped, Purred, Croaked.
5. Action-Oriented Tags
Movement-based dialogue tags:
Announced, Admitted, Interrupted, Joked, Suggested, Offered, Explained, Repeated, Advised, Warned, Agreed, Confirmed, Ordered, Reassured, Stated.
6. Conflict Tags
Argumentative, defiant dialogue tags:
Argued, Snapped, Retorted, Rebuked, Disputed, Objected, Contested, Barked, Protested, Countered, Growled, Scoffed, Sneered, Challenged, Huffed.
7. Agreement Tags
Understanding, compliant dialogue tags:
Agreed, Assented, Nodded, Confirmed, Replied, Conceded, Acknowledged, Accepted, Affirmed, Yielded, Supported, Echoed, Consented, Promised, Concurred.
8. Disagreement Tags
Resistant, defiant dialogue tags:
Denied, Disagreed, Refused, Argued, Contradicted, Insisted, Protested, Objected, Rejected, Declined, Countered, Challenged, Snubbed, Dismissed, Rebuked.
9. Confused Tags
Hesitant, uncertain dialogue tags:
Stammered, Hesitated, Fumbled, Babbled, Mumbled, Faltered, Stumbled, Wondered, Pondered, Stuttered, Blurted, Doubted, Confessed, Vacillated.
10. Surprise Tags
Shock-inducing dialogue tags:
Gasped, Stunned, Exclaimed, Blurted, Wondered, Staggered, Marvelled, Breathed, Recoiled, Jumped, Yelped, Shrieked, Stammered.
Note: everyone is entitled to their own opinion. No I am NOT telling people to abandon said and use these. Yes I understand that said is often good enough, but sometimes you WANT to draw attention to how the character is speaking. If you think adding an action/movement to your dialogue is 'good enough' hate to break it to you but that ruins immersion much more than a casual 'mumbled'. And for the last time: this is just a resource list, CALM DOWN. Hope that covers all the annoyingly redundant replies :)
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