swetergrl86

[swetergrl86]

literary kinsey scale time

i’m just curious what mix of fiction and nonfiction the average tumblrina is consuming

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sometimes writing isn’t about talent. sometimes it’s about sitting in your chair and suffering for 45 minutes until a single sentence crawls out of your skull

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you’re not “behind” on your story. you’re building something. and sometimes building requires standing in the ruins for a bit.

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✏️ 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:

[swetergrl86]

Get out of your own way.

write badly. write weirdly. write like a cryptid in a cave with one candle. that’s where the good shit starts.

[swetergrl86]

the struggle is surreal

every writer has that One Scene that came to them and now they have to write an entire story around it. what is that for you?

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season 4 Let's gooooo!

I knew that the fabulous Matteo van der Grijn who plays Matthijs, the Dutchman, would be coming back in, and I thought that was rather lovely because thankfully he and I did have great chemistry. The thing that I love about Rebecca and him together is that you see her for the first time literally ever with her shoulders down. There’s just something lovely and free and young about her when he’s around, and girlish and silly and kind of giggly. Which we’ve not seen her [like that] with anyone. Even...with Sam, she was measured and in control. She was a woman with Sam, whereas she became a young woman again with Matthijs. [O]f course, the lightning is the Dutchman crashing back into her life.

Hannah Waddingham (L.A. Times)

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I am a huge fan of retiring to my quarters

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Reblog if you’re grateful for your commenters <3

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Honestly, this started as a couple of paragraphs of a headcanon, so I decided to nurse it and here we are. This is an extension of a detail from https://archiveofourown.org/works/58800136.

[swetergrl86]

When people (loosely -- high schoolers to full-on adults) post these extremist POVs, I wonder if they flunked English in middle school, or they never received any positive reinforcement on their efforts. Both are reparable, tho.

"If you use em dash in your works, it makes them look AI generated. No real human uses em dash."

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

REBLOG IF YOU'RE A HUMAN AND YOU USE EM DASH

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lightning!

Commission for @effiestrinkets for her fic "heart still works" ! ❤💙💛

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ted lasso amsterdam episode u will always be famous to me… rebecca meeting her soulmate. trent colin queer bonding. jamie teaching roy to ride a bike with his hands on his waist and sharing trauma which ultimately leads roy to apologise for the way he took his anger out on him earlier, showing that he’s more willing to be vulnerable and care about him honestly despite his initial discomfort with genuine emotion in the beginning of the series because jamie is trusting him with the vulnerable parts of himself and they’ve both made significant character development alone and together. trent’s gay little cheetah print shoes. jazz. david bowie.

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Could we do a poll for "Do you wait to leave kudos until a work is finished?" With the options yes/no/i don't read unfinished works/nuance

Thank you for running this blog!!!

[swetergrl86]

#supportfanfic

A group of us did another round of a Ted Lasso comment-a-thon recently. It resulted in 678 comments on TL fanworks and this collection of prize snippets for the participants! This is a multiship collection—lots of Ted/Rebecca and some Roy/Ted, Keeley/Rebecca, Keeley/Roy, love square, Beard/Nate, and a plethora of friendship including Barbara & Keeley & Rebecca, Beard & Ted, and Rebecca & Nate!