How To Make Your Writing Less Stiff Part 3

When A Character Is in a state of panic they…

breathe rapidly and shallowly.

feel their heart pounding in their chest.

have trouble forming coherent thoughts.

sweat profusely even in cool environments.

tremble or shake uncontrollably.

feel a tightness in their chest or throat.

dart their eyes around frantically.

speak in a hurried and disjointed manner.

feel an overwhelming sense of dread.

have a strong urge to escape or hide.

experience a sense of detachment or unreality.

struggle to make rational decisions.

small flaws to give to characters

These aren’t anything super game breaking that turns the character into a psychopath, but they can foreshadow bigger, more important issues down the line.

—always making the conversation about themselves

—lying about something incredibly stupid but they refuse to back down from

—expecting others to pay for them at every store, restaurant or hotel

—subtle jabs at other people that they always respond with ‘I wasn’t SAYING it was bad! YOU’RE the one making ME look bad!’ (Watch one of those ‘alpha male vs modern feminist’ videos or clips for inspiration if you are brave enough)

—messy, except this time they have other people in their space (like a dorm, shared apartment, or any kind of shared living space) so their messiness makes everyone VERY upset

—refusing to understand or learn another friend/teammate/partners culture or background to even slightly understand then

—loud obnoxious voiced people who physically can NOT make a subtle entrance or just simply exist in a room without yelling or eating very loudly

—asks for permission to do absolutely anything even with people who are on the same or even a lower level than they are

—doesn’t listen to music with headphones on in a crowded space so EVERYONE has to listen to them

God I hope the last one isn’t just a me-thing because I actively want to strangle anyone who does that

Chapter 1

This wan’t how I intended to re-enter the public eye, although frankly I hadn’t intended to go public at all after the operation was shut down. Sure, I had fantasized about it, but I’d never really wanted the attention to begin with, and the politics involved were always a mess. I stood in the aisle, leaning against the armrest of a middle-aged woman’s seat, breathing heavily. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, warning me about the other passengers watching me. Something warm and wet trickled off my lip and dripped onto the floor. I swiped at my nose with the back of my hand, unsurprised to see blood. I had pushed myself too far, used up more energy in two minutes than I had in the past five years. But it was flowing back to me, and it felt good.

The plane shuddered and lurched as we were towed off the landing strip and toward the gate. Pushing myself upright, I stumbled back to my seat. The eyes of the other passengers followed me, and I could see a mix of relief, confusion, and fear on their faces as I passed. The oxygen masks had deployed during the chaos, and they swung in unison, like choreographed dancers. A toddler was wailing over the hum of the airplane systems, and the lights of the airstrip flickered in through the windows as the plane jostled towards the gate.

When I reached my seat I rummaged through the seat back pocket, pulling out an ancient mp3 player, headphones, and my wallet. I stuffed them into my jeans and pulled my backpack out from under the seat in front of mine. The empty plastic water bottle in the side pouch got caught on something and flew spinning up the aisle. The cockpit door banged open, making me jump, and the pilot barreled out. His eyes met mine and he strode down the aisle, disbelief and anger staining his cheeks. He opened his mouth to scream at me, but I’d already had enough of him.

“No,” I held up my hand to stop him and his mouth snapped closed and he stopped halfway down the aisle. He turned even redder, furious, but unable to move or speak. The co-pilot poked his head out after the pilot, and looked nervously at me. “Good. We’re all here.” I straightened up. “Attention everyone, I need everyone’s attention please.” I knew everyone was already looking at me, but I needed the extra few seconds to steady my nerves. “The feds are going to come talk to you.” I added more power to my voice, pulling my audience in. “You will tell them everything you saw. You will tell them the truth, but you may not tell anyone else. After tonight, you will only remember that there was a dangerous malfunction, and this brave pilot,” I gestured to the copilot, still standing by the cockpit door, “managed to get us all here in one piece. He’s a real hero, and you are all very grateful to him. You will forget my face, forget that I was on this flight, and forget what I did.” I zipped up my jacket and swung my backpack onto my shoulder.

The other passengers and staff looked glassy-eyed, and some of them shook their heads, as they fought my orders. I took a deep breath, pulling more power from my core. It surged through my body, like electricity, crackling over my nose and stopping the flow of blood. I stepped into the air and willed myself up and away, phasing through the ceiling of the small plane. I hovered there, in the freezing January air, breathing puffy white clouds. Swirling my power around me in a protective cocoon, I felt it shielding me from the wind and obscuring me from view. I pulled out my phone, powered it on, and dialed a familiar number.

“Smith.”

“Hey, there was an incident. Everyone’s ok, but the Department is going to want to come handle this one.”

“Erin? Erin, you need to come in. The director has questions.”

“The director wants to put me in a cage. You know I can’t come back, not after what I did.”

“Let’s talk about this.”

“I know you have to try to get me back, but please just listen. Someone came after me. Someone who knows about the project. I’m the last loose end, and someone is trying to clean me up. We both know that won’t work, but I can’t let other people get hurt in the crossfire, not again.” I glanced at the emergency crews swarming the plane, illuminated by blinding spot lights.

“Erin, listen…”

“Vegas airport. You have until midnight before they lose their memories, although I’m not sure how good of a job I did, so you might do some cursory exit interviews. Don’t bother with the phone, I’ll leave it here for you.”

“Erin, I’m so sorry about what happened. You were kids. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I know.” I knew this was a a ploy to keep me on the line, but there was real remorse behind those words, pain even. I snapped the phone closed. It was a cheap plastic flip phone that I only carried for emergencies. I let it go and it floated beside me, components disassembling themselves and dropping to the ground. I snapped the chips into several pieces, and the wind carried them off. Might as well make it a challenge for them. I pulled out my wallet, removing the driver’s license I used to buy my plane ticket and dropping it to fly away with the bits of my phone. I had liked being Sam Davis, but they would cross check the passenger list with the people who got off the plane as well as the security footage at the airport. It was time to pay a visit to Luca. I sucked in a deep breath of the cold night air, and vanished.

How to make your writing sound less stiff

Just a few suggestions. You shouldn’t have to compromise your writing style and voice with any of these, and some situations and scenes might demand some stiff or jerky writing to better convey emotion and immersion. I am not the first to come up with these, just circulating them again.

1. Vary sentence structure.

This is an example paragraph. You might see this generated from AI. I can’t help but read this in a robotic voice. It’s very flat and undynamic. No matter what the words are, it will be boring. It’s boring because you don’t think in stiff sentences. Comedians don’t tell jokes in stiff sentences. We don’t tell campfire stories in stiff sentences. These often lack flow between points, too.

So funnily enough, I had to sit through 87k words of a “romance” written just like this. It was stiff, janky, and very unpoetic. Which is fine, the author didn’t tell me it was erotica. It just felt like an old lady narrator, like Old Rose from Titanic telling the audience decades after the fact instead of living it right in the moment. It was in first person pov, too, which just made it worse. To be able to write something so explicit and yet so un-titillating was a talent. Like, beginner fanfic smut writers at least do it with enthusiasm.

2. Vary dialogue tag placement

You got three options, pre-, mid-, and post-tags.

Leader said, “this is a pre-dialogue tag.”

“This,” Lancer said, “is a mid-dialogue tag.”

“This is a post-dialogue tag,” Heart said.

Pre and Post have about the same effect but mid-tags do a lot of heavy lifting.

They help break up long paragraphs of dialogue that are jank to look at

They give you pauses for ~dramatic effect~

They prompt you to provide some other action, introspection, or scene descriptor with the tag. *don't forget that if you're continuing the sentence as if the tag wasn't there, not to capitalize the first word after the tag. Capitalize if the tag breaks up two complete sentences, not if it interrupts a single sentence.

It also looks better along the lefthand margin when you don’t start every paragraph with either the same character name, the same pronouns, or the same “ as it reads more natural and organic.

3. When the scene demands, get dynamic

General rule of thumb is that action scenes demand quick exchanges, short paragraphs, and very lean descriptors. Action scenes are where you put your juicy verbs to use and cut as many adverbs as you can. But regardless of if you’re in first person, second person, or third person limited, you can let the mood of the narrator bleed out into their narration.

Like, in horror, you can use a lot of onomatopoeia.

Drip Drip Drip

Or let the narration become jerky and unfocused and less strict in punctuation and maybe even a couple run-on sentences as your character struggles to think or catch their breath and is getting very overwhelmed.

You can toss out some grammar rules, too and get more poetic.

Warm breath tickles the back of her neck. It rattles, a quiet, soggy, rasp. She shivers. If she doesn’t look, it’s not there. If she doesn’t look, it’s not there. Sweat beads at her temple. Her heart thunders in her chest. Ba-bump-ba-bump-ba-bump-ba- It moves on, leaving a void of cold behind. She uncurls her fists, fingers achy and palms stinging from her nails. It’s gone.

4. Remember to balance dialogue, monologue, introspection, action, and descriptors.

The amount of times I have been faced with giant blocks of dialogue with zero tags, zero emotions, just speech on a page like they’re notecards to be read on a stage is higher than I expected. Don’t forget that though you may know exactly how your dialogue sounds in your head, your readers don’t. They need dialogue tags to pick up on things like tone, specifically for sarcasm and sincerity, whether a character is joking or hurt or happy.

If you’ve written a block of text (usually exposition or backstory stuff) that’s longer than 50 words, figure out a way to trim it. No matter what, break it up into multiple sections and fill in those breaks with important narrative that reflects the narrator’s feelings on what they’re saying and whoever they’re speaking to’s reaction to the words being said. Otherwise it’s meaningless.

—

Hope this helps anyone struggling! Now get writing.

Writing Resources - Masterlist

This masterlist will host the links to the posts and threads I've saved as writing resources. None of them are mine - all the credits go to the amazing people who made them.

Characters

Author, Narrator, Protagonist, Hero... Who is What ?

Creating Black Characters With Intent

Flaws to Give to Your Characters

How to Write a Character Who's in Pain

Open Letter from a Poc for People Who Are Writing Characters of Colour

Questions for Crafting Problematic Characters

Top-Tier Villain Motivations

Fantasy

Fantasy Guide to Education

Reasons Why Can't Your Characters Use Magic To Fix Everything

Some Locations and Structures to Include in Your Forest

What No One Tells You About Writing Fantasy

Good to Know

A quick Guide to Animal Symbolism

Differences Between UK and USA Military Dog Tags

How Boat Pronouns Work

Medical Facts that are Commonly Overlooked

Realistic Travel Time

Slater's Impromptu List of Military Reference Material

The Symbolism of Flowers

Horror

How to Write Creepy Stories

Most Common Character Flaws in Horror Fiction

"Never Were" and "Used to Be" Monsters

Tips

Resources About Survival in the Wild

How to Make Your Writing Less Stiff

Pep-Talk - You Are Allowed to Be Proud of What You Write + List of YT Channels and Amazon Links for Writing

Write Smarter, Not Harder

Vocabulary

Aesthetic Words to Fill Up Your Vocabulary

Bilingual Characters - German Edition

CoD - Spanish for Ale and Rudy Fics

IRL Operator Phrases/Terms - USA Edition

Gemstone Colors

German Pet Names

List of Wikipedia Articles - British and American Words and Differences

Scottish Phrases and Words for Soap MacTavish (or Scottish Characters in general)

On Using Words that Indicate Sounds and Tones for Dialogues

Voices

A Guide to Write a Mancunian Accent

Growled, Roared, Snarled, Etc... A Brief Description

Other

Backup Your Tumblr Blog

Disable Recall for Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs

Protect Your Stories on AO3

Mii's Blog Recommendations

@deception-united - I love the resources this person shares ! They have a masterpost that lists their useful posts, but they also complete some of these posts as answers to asks and reblog a lot of other resources.

@leisureflame - This blog has a lot of resources, advice and prompts ! The author also offers to help with other people's struggles too, which is immensely wholesome in itself.

@writers-potion - This blog has tons of amazing posts to help writers with their research. I keep coming back to it, and highly recommend checking it out ! Here are this person's extremely useful Masterpost (1) and Masterpost (2).

HOW TO WRITE ROMANTIC ATTRACTION FOR DUMMIES

For anyone who wants to learn, (especially aro/ACE, aspec, ect.)

Requested by the lovely @darkandstormydolls

Alrighty! Welcome back or welcome to my blog! I'm dipping my toes back into the category of posts that gained me my exposure!

So if you're here, you want to know how to write romantic attraction/romance!

Strap in and let's begin!

(Pls spread this to people you think would benefit from seeing it, or anyone who requested it bc I forgot, ANY ASPECS)

Step one -

Your characters must admire one another at the beginning, Romantic feelings usually do not present themselves as obvious until you really think them through, meaning your characters may not notice they have a crush until it's too late

These are general statistics and light stereotypes. So feel free to not use this tip:

Male characters usually tend to notice physical things first, like body shape, hair, skin, clothing, the way their lover moves, ect

And Female Characters Generally tend to notice more small things and personality-based traits first, like their lover's humor, speaking mannerisms, shifts in expression, ways they fidget, emotion in their voice, ect.

And someone who is in love will generally show more interest in this particular person's movements, actions, words, and anything in general.

Step 2 -

The character will show more interest in sharing their love language with their lover/crush

Physical touch - People with physical touch love languages may want to hold hands, cuddle, hug, or just lean on their crush whenever they are close to them moreso than they want to with others

Gift giving - Gift givers will want to get more gifts more often for their crush, probably thinking of them whenever they see little trinkets or wanting to get them big gifts for special occasions or signs of appreciation

Acts of Service - Acts of service people will offer to do extra favors and a bunch of extra stuff they don't have to do twice as much as normal

Words of Affirmation - Flattery, they will generally flood their crush with kind words and compliments

Quality time - Quality time people will want to spend time with their crush at almost every turn, and when they want company, will turn to their crush first

Step 3 -

After a while, these urges while become very prominent and more noticeable to the person having them

They may find themselves fantasizing about their crush or having them show up in their thoughts more and more, feeling nicer and happier when they're around, or when they're thinking about them

Smiling when they think about them, cutsey little fluff thingies like that

A crush is essentially: I want to date that, I want to be near that always, I want to marry that, I want that to snuggle me (or other love languages)

Or in simpler terms: if that asked me out, I would say yes (or at least want to say yes if your character is in denial)

Step 4 -

The character's urges to be close to this person grows strong enough that they do smth about it, whether prompted by another character. Or they just don't know I how to not anymore (like when you wanna eat candy and you don't want to, but you do anyway bc I JUST NEED THE CHOCOLATE OKAY?)

(Or for Aro/Ace, garlic bread)

People who are in love are generally very prone to be all dreamy and poetic and VERY EXTREMELY BIASED towards their crush

Then Yada Yada they kiss & shit

You're welcome, BYEEEEEEEE 👋

Happy writing!

Love you! Thanks for reading, And Ghost Tumblr Mother says go drink some water and have a snack, you've earned it, and you are beautiful <333

Have a good day! :]

@blue-kyber @thisisntrocket @cosmolumine @i-do-anything-but-write @paeliae-occasionally

@supercimi @the-letterbox-archives @sunglasses-in-the-bentley @vyuntspakhkite-l-darling @artsandstoriesandstuff

@corinneglass @wyked-ao3 @urnumber1star

Ideas to Show Secret Pining

"Why don't you join me?"

"I'll give you a ride, don't worry."

*does something they don't like* "What? I like it."

*immense staring at every chance they get*

*thinking of their crush while listening to songs*

"You said you liked it so I brought it for you."

*finds ways to spend more time with them*

*friendly bullying intensifies*

"I'm looking forward to seeing you there."

"Are you gonna be there?"

"How about we sneak off, just you and me?"

"Why don't I cook for them? What's their favourite dish again?"

*aggressive google searches about how to propose to your crush*

"I'll join those dance lessons, maybe then she'll notice me."

*hopeless around them*

*failed flirting attempts*

*increased compliments*

"My problem is that I like them a little too much for my sanity."

*gets jealous* "So, are you seeing them or something?"

"Are you okay?" // "Completely okay!" (definitely not okay)

*tries to sabotage their crush's date*

*gets into trouble so they can be scolded by their crush*

"I want you to come with me, please?"

-ashlee

“Oh,” They giggled, cheeks pink.

“Oh!” They gasped, hands to their mouth in horror.

“Oh,” they whined, gripping their hair in frustration.

“Oh,” they breathed, head back and lashes fluttering.

“Oh,” they mumbled, shifting awkwardly.

“Oh,” they deadpanned, arms crossed.

“Oh?” they asked, brow arched and smile bitter.

“Oh,” they chided with a smirk.

“Oh?” they asked, head tilted curiously.

“Oh!” they hissed, scrambling away.

“Oh,” they mumbled, rubbing their neck.

“Oh,” they uttered, eyes wide in awe.

“Oh,” they muttered with an ill-impressed frown.

“Oh!” They cried, throwing their arms around them.

“Oh,” they goaded, smiling mischievously.

“Oh,” they taunted, skipping backwards.

“Oh,” they snarked, hands on their hips.

“Oh,” they breathed, putting it all together.

“Oh,” they said softly, hugging themselves.

“Oh,” they whispered, holding back tears.

“Oh!” they gasped, ducking out of the way.

“Oh,” they uttered, and smacked their forehead.

“Oh,” they laughed, brows wiggling.

“Oh,” they tittered, batting their lashes.

“Oh,” they hissed, gritting their teeth.

"Oh."

Tag your dialogue.

Instead of "Said", consider

replied

stated

exclaimed

remarked

declared

mentioned

commented

responded

articulated

noted

announced

asserted

observed

suggested

opined

acknowledged

claimed

professed

explained

affirmed

CORRECTLY Writing "Morally Gray" Characters

Want to write a hot, cool, and bad character but DON'T want he/she to come across as toxic, downright bad, or, god forbid, cringe? Well, I've got a couple of tips that may help you create exactly what you want!

1. Softness

Okay, yes we want this character to be tough and cool, but there also needs to be a certain softness, no matter how small, that comes with them. If there's someone that your character prioritizes or cares about, there has to be a point or two that it shows--a moment where they're soft only for the people that they care about. Why? Because this establishes the humanity in them. It shows the readers that your character IS human, not an emotionless monster.

2. Goals

Key to any good characters are their goals. The thing is, for this type of a character, their objectives can't be so random. They need a reason for their actions, and it needs to be valid. Usually, this is reasoned out by some kind of past epiphany, which is crucial because without it, your character doesn't have anything solid backing up their goals.

Bad things, but for a good reason.

Now, why is this important? Because it can pull readers to their side. As long as they understand the cause, they have a chance to follow your character's side, increasing their likeability!

3. Neutrality

Notice how this is a "morally gray" character, not a "completely evil" one. Why does this matter? Well, a trait people tend to overlook when writing these characters is the morally gray, or neutral, part. It's important to just occasionally show that your character is walking the fine line and in my opinion, a great way to achieve this is to have them help the protagonist out (instead of always fighting against them) one, or even two times!

4. Positive Characteristics

This is a very simple one, but make sure to depict a couple positive qualities (besides just being hot) of your character! Like my first point, it's pivotal to illustrate that they have some humanity, and this is an easy and great way!

Throw in a few good characteristics (I have a post with some examples of redeeming qualities for villains if you need some help), and let it show that they are still respectable!

5. Backstory

I believe that with certain characters that play certain roles in the story, explaining their backstory is a NEED for them; and this character type is no different! Introducing even a bit of their past can get the audience interested in your character. It also allows for better understanding of them and shows how they changed over time.

6. CONFIDENCE

Be confident in your skills when writing this character! To many, the idea of "cringeness" makes them second-guess how they should write. In reality, it's better to write it however you wish, because if you're confident in one moment and clearly less in another, the readers are able to sense any unexpected changes in things in your character's tones, expressions, and actions.

It's important to keep your character in, well, character. Still, there's going to be a few moments that break it, but it shouldn't be in any unnatural way.

If your character is flirty, then let them act flirty. If they mess around a lot, then let them mess around. Don't limit their actions or words just because you think some people might find it cringe!

Alright, that's it for me! What do you think? Are they valid or unreasonable?

Happy writing~

3hks <3