sophie-hatter-jenkins

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

✏️ Writing Dialogue That Sounds Like Real People, Not Theater Kids on Red Bull

(a crash course in vibes, verbal economy, and making your characters shut up already)

Okay. We need to talk about dialogue. Specifically: why everyone in your draft sounds like they’re in a high school improv group doing a dramatic reading of Riverdale fanfiction.

Before you panic, this is normal. Early dialogue is almost always too much. Too polished. Too "scripted." So if yours feels off? You’re not failing. You’re just doing Draft Zero Dialogue, and it’s time to revise it like a boss.

Here’s how to fix it.

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🎭 STEP ONE: DETOX THEATER ENERGY I say this with love: your characters are not all quippy geniuses. They do not need to deliver emotional monologues at every plot beat. They can just say things. Weird, half-finished, awkward things.

Real people:

interrupt each other

trail off mid-thought

dodge questions

contradict themselves

repeat stuff

change the subject randomly

Let your characters sound messy. Not every line needs to sparkle. In fact, the more effort you put into making dialogue ✨perfect✨, the more fake it sounds. Cut 30% of your clever lines and see what happens.

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🎤 STEP TWO: GIVE EACH CHARACTER A VERBAL FINGERPRINT The fastest way to make dialogue feel alive? Make everyone speak differently. Think rhythm, grammar, vocabulary, tone.

Some dials you can twist:

Long-winded vs. clipped

Formal vs. casual

Emojis of speech: sarcasm, filler words, expletives, slang

Sentence structure: do they talk in fragments? Run-ons? Spirals?

Emotion control: are they blunt, diplomatic, avoidant, performative?

Here’s a shortcut: imagine what your character sounds like over text. Are they the “lol okay” type or the “okie dokie artichokie 🌈✨” one? Now translate that into speech.

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🧠 STEP THREE: FUNCTION > FILLER Every line of dialogue should do something. Reveal something. Move something. Change something.

Ask:

Does this line push the plot forward?

Does it show character motivation/conflict/dynamic?

Does it create tension, add context, or raise a question?

If it’s just noise? It’s dead air. Cut it. Replace it with a glance. A gesture. A silence that says more.

TIP: look at a dialogue scene and remove every third line. Does the scene still work? Probably better.

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💥 STEP FOUR: REACTIVITY IS THE GOLD STANDARD Characters don’t talk into a void. They respond. And how they respond = the real juice.

Don’t just write back-and-forth ping pong. Write conflict, dodge, misunderstanding. If one character says something vulnerable, the other might joke. Or ignore it. Or say something cruel. That’s tension.

Dialogue is not just information exchange. It’s emotional strategy.

Try this exercise: A says something revealing. B lies. A notices, but pretends they don’t. B changes the subject. Now you’ve got a real scene.

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🔍 STEP FIVE: PAY ATTENTION TO POWER Every convo has a power dynamic, even if it’s tiny. Who’s steering? Who’s withholding? Who’s deflecting, chasing, challenging?

Power can shift line to line. That shift = tension. And tension = narrative fuel.

Write conversations like chess matches, not ping pong.

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✂️ STEP SIX: SCISSORS ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND The best dialogue is often the second draft. Or third. Or fourth. First drafts are just you figuring out what everyone wants to say. Later drafts figure out what they actually would say.

Things to cut:

Greetings/closings ("Hi!" "Bye!"--skip it unless it serves tone)

Exposition disguised as chat

Obvious thoughts spoken aloud

Explaining jokes

Repeating what we already know

Readers are smart. Let them fill in blanks.

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🎧 STEP SEVEN: READ IT OUT LOUD (YES, REALLY) If you hate this step: too bad. It works. Read it. Mumbling is fine. Cringe is part of the ritual.

Ask yourself:

Would someone actually say this?

Does this sound like one person speaking, or a puppet show with one hand?

Where does the rhythm trip? Where’s the breath?

If you can’t say it out loud without wincing, the reader won’t make it either. Respect the vibe.

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🏁 TL;DR: If you want your dialogue to sound like real people, let your characters be real. Messy. Annoying. Human. Let them interrupt and lie and joke badly and say the wrong thing at the worst time.

Cut the improv class energy. Kill the urge to be ✨brilliant✨. And listen to how people talk when they’re scared, tired, pissed off, in love, or trying not to say what they mean.

That’s where the good stuff is.

—rin t. // thewriteadviceforwriters // official advocate of awkward silences and one-word replies

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Hunted Moodboard

To give you an aesthetic flavour of my casefic project (as discussed in this post)

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Hey love

In a hinny draught right now, feels like all my favorite hinny authors have taken a break from writing (rightfully so), so any fics that you can recommend, completed or ongoing, old or new ( prefer adult rated ones) to someone hinny starved ?

Take your time and have a good day !!

Hello! Sorry for the delay!

I promise I am still writing (and I just posted about the new novel-length fic I'm working on), but I do have a bunch of awesome Hinny WIPs that I'm following, all of which are rated E, and all of which I would very highly recommend.

In no particular order:

The Island by TheKillerTigerBunny

Estranged friends Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione vanish without a trace - only to land on a mysterious island alive with secrets and lurking danger. How did they end up here? Can they escape? And more than anything, can they survive each other? Romione & Hinny all the way.

Marriage By Capture by @ginnyw-potter

The new law states anyone who manages to capture you can marry you. Ginny leaves her home and family behind to avoid a forced marriage and tries her hardest to stay out of the grip of men. Harry was orphaned in his teens and has been traveling since, doing jobs here and there but leaving before they realise he has magic. One faithful day, the two have a rather unpleasant meeting in the woods and then another...

Chastise by @seriouslysam8 and @justalittleconfusing

Eight months without Ginny Weasley had been pure torture for Harry. To repair their broken relationship, they found themselves between the bedsheets to learn dominance and obedience.

you don't know what's lost 'til you find it by mp143 (trigger warning for a major character death)

THEN When tragedy strikes, Harry offers his support to the only person who could possibly do the same for him: his best friend's younger sister, Ginny. The romance that follows is much like them: passionate, understanding, and just a bit reckless. They fit like a puzzle and seem destined for a future together. NOW Ginny and Harry are best friends and co-parents to a four year old daughter, but they haven't been a couple in three years and still haven't completely come to terms with the end of their relationship. Their friends and families are determined to get them closure — and just maybe a happily ever after, after all. This is a No Voldemort AU story told in two separate timelines, alternating between the present and past. Details will be revealed by moving between NOW and THEN.

The Red Fury by @vaffyu

Harry Potter is on his way to India. His mission? To marry Ginny Weasley and catch an infamous pirate named Red Fury. What will he do when the two of them turn out to be the same person? A tale of romance and adventure set in the late 1800s during the height of the British Raj in India.

The Hating Game by @brightlybound

A misunderstanding in the threshold of an elevator starts off their (mostly) one-sided feud. Ginny swears to hate him for all eternity, and Harry is smitten with her right from the off. A modern/magic, enemies-to-lovers, fake dating AU very loosely based on The Hating Game by Sally Thorne.

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

super specific tag game

Tagged by @ginnyw-potter

one piece of jewellery you can't go anywhere without: My wedding and engagement rings

most worn shoes: It's summer, I will be wearing either Birkenstocks or Stan Smiths.

new book/fic that has you in its grip: one more time now, with feeling, by the wonderful @gigglesandfreckles-hp

one drink you can't go without: English Breakfast tea. Brewed strong with plenty of milk and no sugar, thanks.

latest kitchen fail: Honestly, it's been ages since I've had a disaster. At risk of sounding boastful, cooking is one of my things.

a piece of media you have been wanting to watch for ages but never got the time to: Nobody Wants This, on Netflix. I don't think it's really Mr Sophie's cup of tea, so perhaps I'll watch next time he's out of town.

latest character to enter brainrot mode: Potter Man obsessive, right here. James or Harry, not fussy.

tagging @kay-elle-cee @livelaughlovetoread and @justalittleconfusing

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Tuesday Snippet (because it isn't Monday anymore, sorry) And New Fic Update!

Tagged by @tedwardremus

I've been so awful at responded to tag games lately, but I really, really want to do this one, because I know it must look like I'm not writing much! But I am, I promise!

For anyone that doesn't know (and frankly, actually cares - which will be a much smaller group!), I've been working on a new novel-length fic for over 18 months now. It is called Hunted, and it's a Hinny Muggle AU police procedural. I won't be posting any chapters until the whole thing is written, because there is a very heavy mystery/casefic element, and I want to make sure I fix any plot holes before it sees the light of day. The good news is that I reckon I am about 80% through, and I hope to be able to start posting soon/in the next few months/later this year, depending on how positive I'm feeling.

So anyway - here's a snippet from Chapter 23, which I'm currently working on!

Unsurprisingly, Harry woke on Sunday morning feeling like utter crap. The blazing fury that had carried him through Saturday hadn’t dissipated one bit overnight, holding his muscles in constant rigor and leaving him stiff and sore, teeth aching from the constant clench of his jaw. Equally unsurprisingly, an evening spent brooding, alone on his sofa whilst self-medicating with several measures of single malt whisky hadn’t helped matters in the slightest. No, all it appeared to have done was to add an insistent, painful pounding at his temple, along with eyelids that felt like sandpaper against his dry, itchy eyes, and a raw sourness at the back of his throat. Trudging towards the kitchen in his boxers, he scowled the whisky glass where it sat abandoned on the coffee table, next to the now-empty bottle of Glenmorangie, annoyed at the reminder that at least some of his symptoms were self-inflicted. One triple espresso later, he felt at least a little more human, though not quite human enough to venture out onto the towpath for a run. Instead he made his way to the gym, heading towards the punch bags rather than the free weights.

Open tag for anyone that wants to join in, because I have no idea who's already been tagged!

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Marriage by Capture

Strangers to Lovers, cosy fantasy

Hinny

Explicit

The new law states anyone who manages to capture you can marry you. Ginny leaves her home and family behind to avoid a forced marriage and tries her hardest to stay out of the grip of men. Harry was orphaned in his teens and has been traveling since, doing jobs here and there but leaving before they realise he has magic. One faithful day, the two have a rather unpleasant meeting in the woods and then another…

Chapter 1: The cave

Harry woke up in a cave, his hands bound together behind his back. His feet were free but the stalagmites and stalactites in front of him would slow down his escape, if he were to make one. He wasn’t even sure how someone had managed to drag him behind it at all.

He noticed a woman by the fire, poking it with a stick to get it going. She had long red hair going down to her middle, the top part put into a braid to keep it out of her face. He grunted as he adjusted his position and noticed his head was throbbing. Then he remembered getting whacked in the head.

As soon as she noticed that he was awake, she took up her sword and walked into the cave towards him. An unneeded measure, he was currently no threat to her.

“How did you find me?” she asked, her face hidden by the shadow.

He blinked for a moment. “How can I find you if I don’t know who you are?”

She knelt down so he could look at her face. She had thin curvy lips and a cute round nose to go with it. Her brown eyes were focused, but the colour was muted by the lack of direct sunlight. Most of all, she looked angry, and quite strong.

“Ah,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he told her. “But I didn’t find you, because I wasn’t looking for you.”

She huffed, twirling her sword around. “That’s what they all say.”

“All?” he abruptly looked around in search of the last poor lad that got captured, but to his relief there was no skeleton to be found. “Is capturing men a hobby for you?”

Full chapter on AO3

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Chastise Update!

Chapter Three: Castigation

HERE WE GO AGAIN. New kinks. Harry finally making some connections. It's got it all.

@justalittleconfusing

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

We always joke that Ginny Weasley was the female embodiment of James Potter and to me that means Severus Snape loathed her, even more so after Harry Potter started dating her.

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

James Potter moodboard

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Painfully familiar.

😺

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

I don’t even leave the house to go to work and yet it is still true.

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Hinny in Scarlett

See the Romione companion piece (x)

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

I can answer this! Or rather, @fizzyginfizz can answer it: Divorced Jily are 1) hilarious and 2) very bad at being divorced.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52511875/chapters/132839959

You’re welcome ☺️

Alright, what a divorced Jily AU.

How would that play out?

in terms of sirius and lily getting together? i can't personally see it. not while james is in the picture in any capacity.

if you're just asking about a divorced jily au in general...hm. i can only handle them getting divorced if it ultimately leads to them getting back together because i need my endgame jily. but, that doesn't mean i can't see circumstances in which jily may have gotten divorced:

the most obvious. they rushed into things too young and realised they weren't done growing as individual people before smooshing themselves together and eventually feel trapped. i can see how this could be realistic, but...here's why i don't buy it: that's my personal story. hahaha. i married the guy who i started dating when i was 16 and it can work!!!!! simultaneously growing up together and alongside each other brings it's own challenges but it creates a special/unique kind of dynamic that i'm just really partial to. i love that i got to see my husband go from gangly teenager to young man! sometimes i watch mr. giggles do something particularly "grown-up" like pick our kid up from childcare or take a work call and i just laugh thinking about how mad i was that he waited so long to ask me to senior prom. so ANYWAY i think jily could have totally made it work but i can buy this if approached in the right way.

post-war/survivor's guilt. in an au where they made it through the war, i can see them waking up one day and realising their entire reality has been altered. the context that existed within their entire knowing each other is gone and they don't know how to handle that. they are so used to the adrenaline and paranoia and high stakes aspect of every day and now they're faced with the discomfort of normalcy. it makes me sad to think about but this is something i can realistically see happening with jily because of how "in it" they are for the duration of the war. it starts before they even get to hogwarts! i think it would be a slow disintegration in this context. james tries to make himself busy and distracts himself with a million things/ways to try and continue to keep the same pace as the war. lily tries to process everything from the previous ~10 years but doesn't know where to start. james is doing his own processing in a different way so she doesn't go to him for comfort in the ways she used to. they stop communicating in the ways they always have. lily withdraws and james notices too late. he presses in to try and fix things, she feels suffocated and pressured. it blows up. but...and this is important to me...they stay friends/amiable for harry. i don't see a world in which either of them compromises on that.

ok this one makes me sad to say but. in a reality where they lose harry? i can see the fall-out leading to a divorce. their shared grief manifesting as them blaming each other and themselves and every conversation being marred in some way by the loss and misery. they can't remember what they had in common before harry. their relationship resorts to fighting and sex with no in-between and lots of overlap until one of them finally realises how unhealthy that connection is and ends things altogether. (but also they take some time/years to heal and find their way back to each other because my jily always WILL)

BUT OK I AM NOT A JILY DIVORCE TRUTHER AND YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT.

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Harry & Ginny ❤️

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

can we just appreciate how harry potter truly gives no fucks?

he will choke you in broad daylight on a public street for stealing something from his dead godfather.

he will beat you bloody, again in broad daylight in front of his entire team and an entire stadium of people for mocking his best friend.

he will use an unforgivable torture curse on you for spitting on one of the few adults he actually respects.

he will laugh at and mock and wave at the death eater, who just killed his godfather and is trying to kill him, for how much trouble she’ll be in with the darkest wizard ever for failing to get the prophecy like he instructed.

he will call some random boy’s mother stupid for believing bullshit stated in the prophet.

he will mock the spoiled boy for his father being in jail when it was him that put the boy’s father in jail.

he will also mock the spoiled boy’s mother for her shitty husband being in jail even though he’s the reason her husband is in jail and will also dare her to take a shot at him there and then in a public store.

he will mock his dead father’s friend to his face for trying to be a daredevil like his godfather and leaving his pregnant wife behind.

he will make fun of the same girl for crying because:

1) she thought his best friend of four years was his girlfriend

2) she lost the quidditch match to him

3) her best friend who sold out his illegal resistance group and his best friend put a permanent acne jinx on her best friend

he will send his bitter teacher across the room with a protection spell and treat said teacher like he’s his subordinate.

he will throw a badge at his best friend’s forehead for not believing him and mock him for being jealous of his fame.

he will lie saying his godfather is a convicted murderer to get his abusers to abide his requests.

he will threaten to reveal his identity as a wizard to their guests if they fail to meet his commands.

he will carry out masterful psychological warfare using the memory of his death mother on a member of authority to get what he wants out of him.

harry’s jar of fucks is empty and collecting dust on the shelf. the fucks he gives are buried six feet under with his family. it’s so funny to me when people who haven’t seen the books call movie harry rude or bitchy or annoying because it’s like mate, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. these weaklings would NOT be able to handle book harry.

he’s so iconic.

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

I thought McGonagall and Aberforth, actually…

are mcgonagall and dumbledore subbing in for marilla and matthew?

mcgonagall YES! but not dumbledore, although.....i'd love to see that man be a farmer. or...even better, i'd love to see that man try to have a paternal conversation with lily. i just know she would get so tired of his cryptic shit so fast and be lowkey happy when his heart stops lmaooo