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All of these come down to: Choose a very small moment, and don't leave it, just keep digging on it. Instead of one line about an event, spend 750-1500 words on it.

A favorite version of it: give your character a task to do during dialogue, and focus on the task. (i love angst so) Their partner is talking about how maybe they should end this, your character is having big emotions. Instead of writing the panic/sad/avoidant emotions, write about the activity. Wash the carrots, peel the carrots, chop the carrots, wait they're not lined up evenly, okay now chop them, some of them aren't even, go back, very precisely hold the round up vertically and cut it in half, but be careful of your fingers. 10 sentences of dialogue becomes a thousand words of emotion. Also applicable to horny moments if that's your preference.

My personal sin as a writer is that I full stop forget to give visual descriptions. I have hyperphantasia. It exists in my head. I forget other people don't have access to what I can see. One of the things I force myself to do is write the long excessive descriptions as practice.

Intro level is to look across the room where you're sitting and describe in detail what you see. Ideally not a list of possessions. If you're describing visuals in a story, there's a reason and a perspective. Is the top of the dresser messy, chaotic, the only flat surface available, irritatingly untidy? Is it like that bc the character left it like that and doesn't care? is depressed? a messy person? If the pov is someone else, how do they feel about it? Higher difficulty is to describe a room you're imagining from scratch.

You can do that with a meal/banquet. Put them on a hammock and talk about the light through the tree and the smell of plants. Or give someone insomnia and write every single detail of the room as they're looping between frustrated and bored. This kind of exercise stretches the muscles for writing more words, and simultaneously lets you work on perspective and tone.

As a very general rule, the more tone and interiority of your narrative, the more words you end up with. If you're 3rd person omnipotent, you can more easily skip speculation and confusion from a character and just say exactly who/what this is. When you're in a limited pov, your guy can't always look up and know that's Becky from Accounting. That's the woman they've seen around the office, who always seems uncomfortable in large groups, but wears the loudest, brightest patterns in her clothes. She's on her way over, and your guy has no clue why, and they can speculate -- and reveal the guy's perspective and opinions -- while she does. And then, she gets there, and his knowledge and opinion shifts.

A very helpful thing you get from staying interior to your character is that you can tell the audience about who they are without stating it outright. Are they a person (in general or in this moment) who notices every article of clothing and can specify that its a tailored deep navy wool suit with french cuffs, slightly out of fashion, probably purchased a few years ago. Or, are they the type to say that its a suit, and its some sort of blue, but talk about the wine, the architecture, the music, instead? Do you pause for 200 words for them to think about where that accent came from? You can show the tension, the pacing, and the priorities with that.

Eg. if they're being chased by chainsaw wielding werewolves, the narrative probably shouldn't slow down to talk about the color of the wallpaper and dirty linoleum floor. but! when they duck into a corner to hide, the adrenaline has them frantically noticing everything. The pause builds tension, the rapid, almost flattened description of actions increases the pace.

If you struggle with action sequences -- fair, lots of people do -- do a quasi inversion of the chopping carrots example. Hyperfocus on a small thing, then blow past six others, and drop into focus on a new piece. High intensity action is rarely compelling if you're trying to detail it as 'and then he parries low, and then she turns and strikes from the upper right, so he ducks one and half steps to the left, and she advances on a pivot and he--' for 1500 words. But choose one strike and parry, stay in that bc it almost ended the fight, hold onto the tension and hope, let it fail, go back to faster description, and if its your vibe, you stop and talk for 300 words about the killing blow, and the sound/smell/feel of blood.

Now, having said that, for pure practice, and if you want to write a character dissociating (not hiding) from emotions, write a high detail scene of exercise. Tai Chi, yoga, weight lifting, ballet. Anything repetitive or intentional. they didn't 'do three sun salutations' in this version. They bring their hands to their chest and inhale deeply, raising their arms overhead, then bend slowly forward into a fold on a long exhale. Their hip pinches as they walk their hands forward into a plank, so they hold that longer before continuing. When you get to the next one, you drop the baseline details, and write what's changed. They're pleased that their hip didn't protest the second one, but they realize their shoulders are too tight. You can do that as pure practice to find words for physical actions, or you can weave in an emotional state that changes along with the action.

Purple Prose gets a bad rep. Put that argument to the side, and go nuts. Get decadent. It's an exercise not a test. Choose a metaphor and just keep going until you've exhausted the thing.

If your dialogue feels too short, a fun practice is writing intoxicated characters. They'll wander, they'll double back to a topic from a minute ago. They also tend to wildly swing between emotions, actions, and tone.

If you're the type of person to have an entire conversation with your microwave as you daydream; try writing it down. The full one. With the uh, um, and pauses. With the repeat of a sentence because it wasn't clear enough the first time. Include the interruptions, and the seven traded lines as they overlap or trip on each other's words. Then go back, read the dialogue aloud, and when you find yourself pausing differently, adding asides, etc... put those in too.

jesus fuck this is getting long. Can you tell I love talking about writing, and also use too many words for everything??

Abbreviated version: Placemaking. Interiority. Perspective and Opinion. Wallow in emotions. Rambling conversations. Metaphors.

Shortest version: Let yourself fall in love with your own story.

All of these come down to: Choose a very small moment, and don't leave it, just keep digging on it. Instead of one line about an event, spend 750-1500 words on it.

A favorite version of it: give your character a task to do during dialogue, and focus on the task. (i love angst so) Their partner is talking about how maybe they should end this, your character is having big emotions. Instead of writing the panic/sad/avoidant emotions, write about the activity. Wash the carrots, peel the carrots, chop the carrots, wait they're not lined up evenly, okay now chop them, some of them aren't even, go back, very precisely hold the round up vertically and cut it in half, but be careful of your fingers. 10 sentences of dialogue becomes a thousand words of emotion. Also applicable to horny moments if that's your preference.

My personal sin as a writer is that I full stop forget to give visual descriptions. I have hyperphantasia. It exists in my head. I forget other people don't have access to what I can see. One of the things I force myself to do is write the long excessive descriptions as practice.

Intro level is to look across the room where you're sitting and describe in detail what you see. Ideally not a list of possessions. If you're describing visuals in a story, there's a reason and a perspective. Is the top of the dresser messy, chaotic, the only flat surface available, irritatingly untidy? Is it like that bc the character left it like that and doesn't care? is depressed? a messy person? If the pov is someone else, how do they feel about it? Higher difficulty is to describe a room you're imagining from scratch.

You can do that with a meal/banquet. Put them on a hammock and talk about the light through the tree and the smell of plants. Or give someone insomnia and write every single detail of the room as they're looping between frustrated and bored. This kind of exercise stretches the muscles for writing more words, and simultaneously lets you work on perspective and tone.

As a very general rule, the more tone and interiority of your narrative, the more words you end up with. If you're 3rd person omnipotent, you can more easily skip speculation and confusion from a character and just say exactly who/what this is. When you're in a limited pov, your guy can't always look up and know that's Becky from Accounting. That's the woman they've seen around the office, who always seems uncomfortable in large groups, but wears the loudest, brightest patterns in her clothes. She's on her way over, and your guy has no clue why, and they can speculate -- and reveal the guy's perspective and opinions -- while she does. And then, she gets there, and his knowledge and opinion shifts.

A very helpful thing you get from staying interior to your character is that you can tell the audience about who they are without stating it outright. Are they a person (in general or in this moment) who notices every article of clothing and can specify that its a tailored deep navy wool suit with french cuffs, slightly out of fashion, probably purchased a few years ago. Or, are they the type to say that its a suit, and its some sort of blue, but talk about the wine, the architecture, the music, instead? Do you pause for 200 words for them to think about where that accent came from? You can show the tension, the pacing, and the priorities with that.

Eg. if they're being chased by chainsaw wielding werewolves, the narrative probably shouldn't slow down to talk about the color of the wallpaper and dirty linoleum floor. but! when they duck into a corner to hide, the adrenaline has them frantically noticing everything. The pause builds tension, the rapid, almost flattened description of actions increases the pace.

If you struggle with action sequences -- fair, lots of people do -- do a quasi inversion of the chopping carrots example. Hyperfocus on a small thing, then blow past six others, and drop into focus on a new piece. High intensity action is rarely compelling if you're trying to detail it as 'and then he parries low, and then she turns and strikes from the upper right, so he ducks one and half steps to the left, and she advances on a pivot and he--' for 1500 words. But choose one strike and parry, stay in that bc it almost ended the fight, hold onto the tension and hope, let it fail, go back to faster description, and if its your vibe, you stop and talk for 300 words about the killing blow, and the sound/smell/feel of blood.

Now, having said that, for pure practice, and if you want to write a character dissociating (not hiding) from emotions, write a high detail scene of exercise. Tai Chi, yoga, weight lifting, ballet. Anything repetitive or intentional. they didn't 'do three sun salutations' in this version. They bring their hands to their chest and inhale deeply, raising their arms overhead, then bend slowly forward into a fold on a long exhale. Their hip pinches as they walk their hands forward into a plank, so they hold that longer before continuing. When you get to the next one, you drop the baseline details, and write what's changed. They're pleased that their hip didn't protest the second one, but they realize their shoulders are too tight. You can do that as pure practice to find words for physical actions, or you can weave in an emotional state that changes along with the action.

Purple Prose gets a bad rep. Put that argument to the side, and go nuts. Get decadent. It's an exercise not a test. Choose a metaphor and just keep going until you've exhausted the thing.

If your dialogue feels too short, a fun practice is writing intoxicated characters. They'll wander, they'll double back to a topic from a minute ago. They also tend to wildly swing between emotions, actions, and tone.

If you're the type of person to have an entire conversation with your microwave as you daydream; try writing it down. The full one. With the uh, um, and pauses. With the repeat of a sentence because it wasn't clear enough the first time. Include the interruptions, and the seven traded lines as they overlap or trip on each other's words. Then go back, read the dialogue aloud, and when you find yourself pausing differently, adding asides, etc... put those in too.

jesus fuck this is getting long. Can you tell I love talking about writing, and also use too many words for everything??

Abbreviated version: Placemaking. Interiority. Perspective and Opinion. Wallow in emotions. Rambling conversations. Metaphors.

Shortest version: Let yourself fall in love with your own story.