Dyonia-Writes

...or maybe yelling into the void, but let's try it anyway because I need more of your lovely wordstuff on my dash.

👋🏼 Please interact with this post if you write original fiction and are a whole adult.

Say hello. Introduce yourself. Tell me what you write. Like the post. Reblog it. Whatever. Make yourself known.

💖 Bonus points (there are no points, but just pretend, OK?) if you...

are over 30

write about queer characters

are a queer character

have a weakness for fictional disaster people making ill-advised life choices

join in writeblr tag games like Storyteller Saturday, last line tag etc. This one is extremely non-essential. It's just a little bonus bonus.

I have a few other projects that I'm not actively working on such as; a cyberpunk superhero story, a steampunk tragedy, a sci-fi mecha story.

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

Readers don't tend to notice 'said', while it's there in the sentence, it doesn't give the sentence any life. It gets the job done, mostly...

Here are some options to try!

whispered / muttered / mumbled → soft or secretive

shouted / yelled / barked → anger, urgency

growled / hissed → danger, teasing, frustration

murmured / breathed → intimacy, vulnerability

snapped / barked / snapped back → irritation, defensiveness

laughed / chuckled / giggled → laughing, fun, playful or flirty

asked / questioned / queried / inquired → curiosity, questioning

demanded / insisted → authority or control

sighed / groaned → fatigue, exasperation, longing

When you're looking to replace said, think about why. You'll generally want to do this when you need the following:

when the tone of the line needs more context.

when you want to show emotion instead of telling it.

when your character’s body language, action, or expression can do the talking instead.

Take a look at the scene you're writing, is the character saying their line? Or are they yelling it? Screaming it? Are they enraged, or perhaps is their voice a broken whisper from grief?

If it's really as terrible as you think, make it again later after you have improved. No one will stop you. Only you will stop you.