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sokokoko · 8 days

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One of the hardest things for me to learn and practice in my writing is that people do not say that much.

My character dialogue frequently feels contrived. They open up to partners too quickly, maintain perfect communication with friends, and hold back exactly the right info from enemies. Yet, irl, I've observed and contributed to much miscommunication, lost opportunities, and unconscious distrust of friendly motivations. Natural speech is not tailored, and appropriately expressing abstract thoughts takes skill.

We've heard film media fans deride "therapy talk" wherein characters uncharacteristically divulge their inner struggles to others and receive perfect, textbook advice in response. This feels inauthentic because most humans don't talk like that! We skirt around our problems, we feel uncomfortable when others vent, we want to avoid conflict and rejection, and our well-meant words often do more harm than good.

People also tend to talk a lot, but say little. As writers, we generally don't want our stories stuffed with useless conversations, banter, and small-talk that don't advance the plot—we want that story grown up and moved out! But please, include those things. Have scenes where friends hide thoughts from friends by joking around or discussing hobbies instead, where a rival saves the MC's thoughtless speech for later, where a happy couple argues over a minor miscommunication. These aspects can add depth to a story that feels manufactured, or life to characters that sound scripted.

If this is you, take your time; natural dialogue takes a while to finesse. Currently, I write the meaning behind the dialogue first then smudge it up in redrafts. As with all the lessons I've learned/shared, each piece of writing advice should come with a "Daily Value" label affixed, lol. Balance is needed and adjustments should be made until you have the story you want.

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#writing tips #creative writing #writing advice #writing tips and tricks #writing help #author tips #author advice #writing blog #writer #writers on tumblr #writer problems #writers of tumblr #writers #writblr #writers community #writerscommunity #writeblr

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sokokoko · 20 days

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Play games with your characters!!!

·:*¨༺𖤐☆✮☆𖤐༻¨*:·

I mean this literally, your favorite game? Play it with your character!

Put your character in The Sims and see what they do. Play The Walking Dead, but make all the choices your character would make. Cards Against Humanity, but your character has to answer everything.

As weird as this sounds, it's a great way to get to know your characters better, and the best part is that you can do it with pretty much any game you like!

Trixed Thursday 28/03/24

#ahh i love this #also a fun video idea if you want to make a YouTube channel with your characters #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writing #writblr #writer things #writers #writerscorner #writerslife

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sokokoko · 1 month

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#twitter #hayao miyazaki #anime #studio ghibli #ai art #writers on tumblr #artists on tumblr

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sokokoko · 1 month

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#writing #writing memes #writers #writers on tumblr #writing humor #meme #art meme #artists on tumblr #soko #writerscommunity

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sokokoko · 2 months

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I feel like sharing this. I wrote it a while ago based off my burn out :p

Burn Up, Burn Out, Little Star

Lately,

I've been

Thinking and thinking

But reaching no end

Squirrelling away

In that place my thoughts tend

I think that I’m sleepy

I think that I’m beat

A sec to rest

Would be pretty neat

I just want to close my eyes

Indulge in things that don't feel wise

What do I care?

Why should I care?

If things go wrong

There's a creature in my chest

Pacing, pacing, I can't rest

Pacing, pacing, back and forth

I'm scared you'll see it and my worth

The creature's in my brain

Doing its song and dance all over again

I'm here with it

The exit’s there, but I can't fit

The guiding light has not been lit

A single task becomes seven, eight, twenty

My plate has already got plenty

Burn up, burn out, little star

No one should wonder where you are

You're just a blip

Some shoulder’s chip

Your dreams have told you so

Your heart has told you so

By now you should know

You're just a blip

Some shoulder’s chip

That heavy heart

Is just the start

Oh, heavy mind, oh, weighty soul

Go back to hiding in your hole

Deep in your head, you can be just be

Cross the line to fantasy

Your problems don't dwell there

This hell won't follow there

Your mind and spirit turn to air

Now your body's lost its pair

It's all done and dusted, then?

You’ll come back to reality exactly when?

You can't just not exist forever

You know this farce is far from clever

You’ll dopamine yourself to death

Reality will steal your breath

With the punch you're soon to get

Are you feeling sick yet?

The creature’s in my insides

Pacing my lungs, my stomach, mind

It churns my gut to see them try

I can't reach back, oh, ceaseless ‘why's

I waste my time in just a blink

It churns my gut to watch me think

Reality is just a blip

Reality’s my shoulder’s chip

Burn up, burn out, little star

Your supernova travels far

That heavy heart

Is just the start

Your mind and body; worlds apart

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sokokoko · 2 months

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Day infinity number infinity of looking at something good I wrote and thinking what ghost possessed my body when I wrote this?? That line slaps 😳

#writing #just writer things #soko #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writeblr

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sokokoko · 2 months

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Prompt #26

"I think it hurts more that, sometimes, things were normal. It wasn't always bad, but for some unfathomable reason, a part of me wishes it was. I stopped trusting the good times because it felt like bad was always lurking around the corner."

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sokokoko · 2 months

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dialogue prompts: three words

!!please credit/tag me if you use any! I'd love to see what you write!!

"Power breeds corruption."

"Come here, dumbass."

"Did you care?"

"Hey, it's fashion."

"I can't die."

"You love me?"

"Sir, you're dying."

"Yep, three masters."

"You ignored me."

"I'm very concerned."

"Come on, dance!"

"You were... lying."

"Shhhh, come here."

"Three more hours."

"I was yours."

"Everything ends, eventually."

"Cereal is soup."

"Can't you see?"

"I wanted everything."

"You didn't listen."

"Can I sit?"

"Let me talk."

"Woah, you're dead?"

"Hold onto this."

"She clouds judgement!"

"Don't love me."

"One more chance!"

"I suffered alone."

"Could we try?"

"She was mine."

"You. Are. Disposable."

#writing prompt #dialogue prompt #writing prompts #dialogue prompts #three words #prompt list #writeblr #writers on tumblr #31 prompts #creative writing #writer #writblr #writebrl #write #writers community #writing #writers #writerscommunity #writers of tumblr

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sokokoko · 2 months

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I love writing. Such writer.

#writing #soko #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writeblr #writers #just writer things #sillyposting #my writing

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sokokoko · 2 months

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Prompt #25

"I just feel like some hollow, empty thing."

#writing #soko #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writeblr #writers #creative writing #writing prompts #story prompts #prompt #prompts #story prompt #writing prompt #angst prompts #angst prompt #writing angst #dialogue prompt #dialogue #dialogue ideas

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sokokoko · 3 months

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Feel free to use to your heart's content!!!

#for later #dreamer #angst #writing #writeblr #writing prompt #writing inspo #writing prompts #writers on tumblr #angst prompts #dialogue prompt #prompts

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sokokoko · 3 months

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this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings

mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.

the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social caste system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.

the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.

then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.

then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.

i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.

the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.

they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.

the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.

#mean girls #writing #film #rant #filmmaking #film adaptations #mean girls musical #lost in adaptation #feminism #wokeness #missed the point #not getting it #losing values #social commentary #not not writing #this is technically writing

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sokokoko · 3 months

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Prompt #24

"I'm not sure how to be someone's child."

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sokokoko · 3 months

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Prompt #23

Sometimes, what ought to be is not what is.

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sokokoko · 3 months

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I've thinking about that last post about the sentient house and my brain went:

Houseahaki disease 😭

If the ones who live in the house don't keep a good relationship, don't love each other back, love each other like they're supposed to, the house falls apart.

Just try and tell me this house doesn't have some twisted form of hanahaki ( ͒ ඉ .̫ ඉ ͒)🫸🍵

#what happens if the ppl who move in aren't lovers or family?#unanswered questions #now answering #ppl who are just friends? maybe not even so. maybe roommates?#they just need to be civil and not hate each other #it's hatred and anger that tears the house apart #let's say twenty ppl lived there and only 1 person had beef with other people #or only two ppl had beef with each other? then the house would experience less severe damage but damage nonetheless worsens w worserelation #if only one person lives in it?#love urself #or the house falling apart ✨#self hatred = damage caused by hating/ being angry with others #house falls apart maybe even worse because ppl tend to go big with self hatred tbh #writing #soko #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writeblr #writers #creative writing #original story #the house of wreck and ruin #wreck rack ruin us #pov the house #random thoughts #silly shit #hanahaki disease #but not

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sokokoko · 3 months

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Guys, I was going to post a really interesting writing prompt but half way through it churning in my brain I decided that maybe I want it for myself??

Pitch: A house that falls apart along with the relationships of its residents. The damage was noticed for most of their lives, but at some point when the house gets to dangerous beam falling levels, they can no longer see how it's falling apart (they grow so accustomed to the damage that after numerous years, they physically can no longer see it). How does this work? POV, the house. When the residents can no longer see its damage, the house feels every little bit of their failing family. When they move out, the formerly derelict house transforms into something almost brand new. But.

An arguing couple crosses the threshold and a crack forms in the bricks of the house when they close the door behind them. They have major problems in their relationship that they've elected to ignore, not knowing it's likely for those things to fester and create a vicious cycle regarding this house's owners.

I'm thinking:

Short story ✅

Goes through the family's lives over the years and how the children pull away from their parents and find what family means to them ✅

Outsider POV kind of feel to it, as the house can't interact with anyone else ✅

Not first person, 3rd or whatever else ends up feeling natural ✅

Possible title: The House Of Wreck & Ruin

Based off phrase: rack and ruin

(Wikipedia ⬇️)

(idiomatic, proscribed) Complete destruction.

Etymologically incorrect, due to confusion of rack (“torture, suffer”) with wrack (“destroy”). Correct is wrack and ruin, which is accordingly preferred by style guides; however, both are common and well-established. Unusually, rack and ruin replaces wrack with rack, presumably by alliteration; other confusions instead replace rack with wrack.

wreck: to destroy or badly damage something

(Cambridge ⬆️)

wrack and wreck are synonymous enough, and the former is archaic, so I figured wreck is more etymologically correct than rack and I want that kind of twist to the phrase in my title ✎✎✎ regardless of correctness, I like the title.

ALTERNATIVELY:

Wreck, Wrack, Ruin Us

OR

Wreck, Rack, Ruin Us

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sokokoko · 3 months

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How to make your readers Feel emotions for Dummies

(Characters crying edition!)

So... You can't write characters crying? (Or you just want to read this for some reason) Well, neither do I so let's get right into it! I should be packing for a trip but oh well who cares? Not me!

Yeah. Your character is crying and you want to know...

How to not make it cringe af

How to make the Readers relate to it

How to make the readers not only relate to it, but feel DEPRESSED

Step 1 - Do NOT over describe it I've tried to write this so many times and failed that I've realized it's just like good horror. If anything, don't describe the tears, describe their impact, describe the horror of why they're happening, what they're doing to your character. (Example at the end)

Step 2 - Make it at a time when we've had time to connect to the character Put it in the middle of the 1st or only book at the earliest. Other than that, put it later. The more time you spend with the characters, the more their breaking down will emotionally scar you. And that's what we want

Step 3 - Describe other actions for the character Deep breaths, falling to their knees, screaming, choking, cradling the body of a loved one, sad dialogue, other concerned characters, ect. Actions speak louder than words and that is sooooo true in writing. This one of those rare cases where show don't tell is a must.

Ex. (I'm using A and B for the character names cause I'm lazy)

The world seemed to slow as everything came crashing down around her as his body hit the ground, a soft thud the only sound she heard as the grass slowly turned from the light lively emerald of life, to the deep crimson red of death. He was gone. She ran over to him, his quickly fading labored breaths and her crunching footsteps the only sound as the sun shone into her eyes, blinding her. She dropped to her knees beside him, the tears already beginning to fall as she began to choke on her own words, unable to speak as she grabbed his hand. It felt warm in her palm as she clutched his hand close to her chest as the world came crashing back. The burning light of the sun in her eyes, the heat of it and the adrenaline on her skin, her brother's cooling hand, his raspy breaths, her sobbing gasps, the clash of metal against metal, the falling bodies, the raining blood. Then the screams. "A! A! What are you doing?! We're in the middle of a fight! Don't you remember what I taught you?" B nearly screamed at her, causing A to cry out in a mix of anguish and agony, panic finally reaching her as the impact of what had just happened finally hit her.

(Side note: If you liked the example, it will be part of my Fantasy Book series Coming out soon! More in my profile if you're at all interested)

That wasn't as sad as it could of been because you didn't know the characters, but it's definitely better than just an extended description of crying.

Anyway, thank you lovelies and I hope this helps you even a little bit! Love you, continue being awesome!

#creative writing #fiction writing #writing community #writer things #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writing #writers #write

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