🍁Connor🍁

Great dialogue can come from radical emotional honesty. But in most real conversations, people

dodge questions

answer indirectly

lie (badly)

change the subject

crack jokes to avoid serious answers

lie (convincingly)

say half of what they mean

tell the truth but get so anxious/angry/defensive others now think they're lying

If your dialogue feels unnatural, it might be because everyone is saying exactly what they think, or articulating their thoughts too well. Try letting characters hide things instead.

people don’t always speak in full sentences,

slang can change depending on age range, demographic, etc. &

Just a question.

There was a man.

Yes, there was a man here once.

I have a vague memory of a man before.

He was a man like any other.

And any other man could've been him.

He had a family.

Yes, he would've had one I think.

Perhaps a brother missing him at the moment.

Or a girl waiting for him back home.

Wherever home may be.

Now turned into a man-less house.

Yes, I remember the man clearly.

Some details of his face escape my mind.

Was there a mustache under his nose?

And what were the color of his eyes?

He had a pair of those, that's for sure.

A distinctive voice I can not recall.

A man with a job.

One with bills to pay.

With an unfinished dinner to eat.

And laundry yet to be cleaned.

He liked eating too.

Like any ordinary man would.

He did what normal people did.

Like waking up, wearing clothes.

Yes, I remember the face of the man.

It had a nose right at the middle.

He had lips to speak and a neck to move.

The man had distinctive features.

Such as a pair of hands with five fingers each.

You keep on asking for the man.

But what else is there to know?

He was a man, and he was here.

He had a name. Everyone has one.

The man. The man...

I was friends with the man.

I laughed with him once.

Twice, I believe.

He has spoken my name.

I remember how he spoke my name.

And I remember my name very well too.

I used to know a man.

A forever ago. Like yesterday, maybe.

Or was it five seconds ago?

He was stating there once.

Yes, right there, where you're standing now.

He was there before you. I remember that much.

A man. A... Man?

↳ What lie do they tell themselves to sleep at night? Seriously. What’s the little piece of denial that keeps them functioning? Do they pretend they don’t care what people think? Tell themselves they’re over that one person? Convinced they’re not the villain of someone else’s story? We all lie to ourselves; your OC is no exception.

↳ What’s their emotional kryptonite? A specific thing that absolutely shatters them, like someone crying? Being ignored? Praise from a parent figure? The sound of an old song? The smell of something nostalgic? Find it and use it against them (lovingly, of course).

↳ When do they feel the most alive? Is it mid-battle, mid-baking, mid-breakup? Does adrenaline light them up, or do they find joy in the quiet, mundane things, like folding laundry while listening to sad girl music? This can reveal a LOT about what drives them.

↳ What would totally ruin their day? A bad haircut? Someone touching their stuff? Or is it something deeper, like being reminded of their failures, or seeing someone else succeed where they couldn’t?

↳ Who do they think they should be? And who are they really? This one’s juicy. Do they think they should be a hero, but keep acting like a villain?

↳ What’s the one thing they’d never admit out loud, even under duress? The shameful thought. The inappropriate desire. The thing they desperately want but don’t think they deserve. DONT FORGET: Characters are built on what they repress.

↳ What are they petty about? Don’t pretend your OC is above this, I mean everyone’s petty about something. Do they hold grudges over stolen pens? Get irrationally jealous of someone’s hair? Still mad about a game of Uno from 2007? Petty makes them fucking real.

↳ How do they act when they think no one’s watching? Do they let their mask slip? Dance around the kitchen? Talk to their cat in baby voice? Cry a little?

↳ What would make them snap? Where is the breaking point? What line has to be crossed for them to finally say “Enough”? Is it injustice? Betrayal? Feeling powerless? You’ll know you’ve found it when it scares you a little (Or a lot).

When someone is...

Sad

Face/Body:

Avoidant/reduced eye contact

Drooping eyelids

Downcast eyes

Frowning

Raised inner ends of eyebrows

Dropped or furrowed eyebrows

Quivering lip/biting lip

Wrinkled nose

Voice:

Soft pitch

Low lone

Pauses/hesitant speech

Quiet/breathy

Slow speech

Voice cracks/breaking voice

Gestures/Posture:

Slouching/lowered head

Rigid/tense posture

Half formed/slow movement

Fidgeting or clasped hands

Sniffing or heavy swallows

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

I'll keep updating this as I post more writing content!

Character Building - Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Character - How to Get to Know Your Character - Get to Know Your Main Character - Aesthetics For Your Characters - How to Write Queerness in Characters Before They Know - Make a Blog For Your Characters - Know Your Characters - Family Trees For Your Characters

Romance - Romance Dynamics to Try - Dramatic Confessions - Arguments

Violence: A Writer’s Guide:  This is not about writing technique. It is an introduction to the world of violence. To the parts that people don’t understand. The parts that books and movies get wrong. Not just the mechanics, but how people who live in a violent world think and feel about what they do and what they see done.

Hurting Your Characters: HURTING YOUR CHARACTERS discusses the immediate effect of trauma on the body, its physiologic response, including the types of nerve fibers and the sensations they convey, and how injuries feel to the character. This book also presents a simplified overview of the expected recovery times for the injuries discussed in young, otherwise healthy individuals.

Body Trauma: A writer’s guide to wounds and injuries. Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. Research what happens in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts to bring added realism to your stories and novels.

10 B.S. Medical Tropes that Need to Die TODAY…and What to Do Instead: Written by a paramedic and writer with a decade of experience, 10 BS Medical Tropes covers exactly that: clichéd and inaccurate tropes that not only ruin books, they have the potential to hurt real people in the real world. 

Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction: Increase Realism. Raise the Stakes. Tell Better Stories. Maim Your Characters is the definitive guide to using wounds and injuries to their greatest effect in your story. Learn not only the six critical parts of an injury plot, but more importantly, how to make sure that the injury you’re inflicting matters. 

* body language masterlist

* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said

* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

* some more body language help

─ .✦ Stubbornness, Unyielding in one's own views, even when wrong.

─ .✦ Impatience, Difficulty waiting for long-term results.

─ .✦ Self-doubt, Constant uncertainty despite evident abilities.

─ .✦ Quick temper, Excessive reactions to provocations.

─ .✦ Selfishness, Prioritizing one's own needs over others'.

─ .✦ Arrogance, Overestimating one's own abilities.

─ .✦ Trust issues, Difficulty trusting others.

─ .✦ Perfectionism, Setting unreachable high standards.

─ .✦ Fear of change, Avoiding changes.

─ .✦ Haunted by the past, Old mistakes or traumas influencing the present.

─ .✦ Jealousy, Envious of others' successes.

─ .✦ Laziness, Hesitant to exert effort.

─ .✦ Vindictiveness, Strong desire for revenge.

─ .✦ Prejudice, Unfair biases against others.

─ .✦ Shyness, Excessive timidity.

─ .✦ Indecisiveness, Difficulty making decisions.

─ .✦ Vulnerability, Overly sensitive to criticism.

─ .✦ Greed, Strong desire for more (money, power, etc.).

─ .✦ Dishonesty, Tendency to distort the truth.

─ .✦ Recklessness, Ignoring the consequences of one's actions.

─ .✦ Cynicism, Negative attitude and distrust.

─ .✦ Cowardice, Lack of courage in critical moments.

─ .✦ Hotheadedness, Quick, often thoughtless reactions.

─ .✦ Contentiousness, Tendency to provoke conflicts.

─ .✦ Forgetfulness, Difficulty remembering important details.

─ .✦ Kleptomania, Compulsion to steal things.

─ .✦ Hypochondria, Excessive concern about one's health.

─ .✦ Pessimism, Expecting the worst in every situation.

─ .✦ Narcissism, Excessive self-love.

─ .✦ Control freak, Inability to let go or trust others.

─ .✦ Tactlessness, Inability to address sensitive topics sensitively.

─ .✦ Hopelessness, Feeling that nothing will get better.

─ .✦ Dogmatism, Rigidity in one's own beliefs.

─ .✦ Unreliability, Inability to keep promises.

─ .✦ Closed-offness, Difficulty expressing emotions.

─ .✦ Impulsiveness, Acting without thinking.

─ .✦ Wounded pride, Overly sensitive to criticism of oneself.

°˖➴ SHOW THE EVIDENCE, not the time!! don't say "three months later" and have everything exactly the same. Show the evidence: the houseplant is dead now, there's a new coffee shop, their hair is longer, the season changed, the relationship shifted

°˖➴ People don't pause their lives!! during your time skip, other characters didn't freeze. They got new jobs, started dating someone, developed opinions, had experiences. When we come back, there should be GAPS in what your POV character knows

°˖➴ Anchor it with a CONCRETE detail!! "The last time she'd been in this room, there'd been snow on the ground. Now the garden outside was screaming with roses." Give the reader something tangible to mark the passage

°˖➴ What DIDN'T happen is interesting!! "Six weeks and still no word from him" or "Another year of birthday candles she didn't make wishes on" sometimes the time skip is defined by absence and waiting

°˖➴ Compress boring stuff, expand important stuff!! "The trial took three months" can be one sentence. But the five minutes after the verdict? That might be three pages. TIME IS ELASTIC in fiction, use it!!!

If you’re anything like me, you know where you need your story to go, and you’ve planned out every beat. You’re so big and smart, you’ve figured the whole thing out. 

But when you sit down to actually write the scenes, it feels like smashing dolls together and hoping for the best. 

Outlining has sucked the dopamine right out of the story.

Congratulations, you’ve played yourself.

But all hope is not lost.

I, too, was in your shoes, until I realised that what I really needed was to stop looking at the big picture and focus on the scene. 

First, think of your scene in terms of start, middle, and end. Just picturing it in this way instead of “stuff happens” is going to help. 

Now, before you write, answer these questions:

Describe the scene in one sentence. What’s going on? Make it as simple as possible. What does the POV character want in this scene? What stands in their way? What changes by the end of this scene?Now, put it all together: “In this scene, ___ tries to ___, but ___, and by the end ___.”

What emotion do they feel at the start? At the midpoint? At the end? What triggers the shift? And most importantly, what is the hidden emotion or thought that they won’t admit/say out loud? 

What does the character believe about themselves or the world at this point? How does that belief (false or otherwise) shape their behaviours and thoughts? Does anything in this scene change that belief? 

Tension and power dynamics are often the spine of a juicy, well written scene. So think about this next. Who is in a position of power at the start of the scene? (this can be anything - information, magic, status, love, fear). What leverage do they have? Who thinks they are in power? Does that power shift? 

Now, make sure you sprinkle in some sensory detail. Focus on specificity. Write down visual, sound, texture, smell, even physical sensations that are filtered through your character’s experiences. 

1. Slow down at emotionally important moments.

Big emotions need space to land. If a scene feels rushed, pause the plot briefly to show how the moment affects the character.

2. Add reactions, not explanations.

Instead of explaining what a character feels, show it through physical responses, hesitation, or small actions that reveal emotion naturally.

3. Ground every scene in the senses.

If a scene feels thin, add one or two sensory details—sound, texture, smell, or temperature—to make the moment feel lived-in.

4. Let thoughts interrupt action.

A line of internal thought can deepen a scene without slowing it too much. Thoughts show stakes, fear, longing, or conflict beneath the action.

5. Expand consequences, not events.

You don’t need more things to happen—you need to show what matters. Focus on how events change relationships, decisions, or self-perception.

6. Strengthen setting where emotion peaks.

The environment should echo or contrast the emotion of the scene. Setting is not decoration—it’s emotional reinforcement.

7. Add specific details instead of general ones.

Underwriting often relies on vague language. Swap “they argued” for one sharp line of dialogue or a specific breaking point.

8. Let dialogue breathe.

Short dialogue exchanges without pauses can feel flat. Add beats—silence, gestures, interruptions—to give the conversation weight.

9. Show transitions between scenes.

If scenes jump too quickly, readers feel disoriented. A brief transition helps establish time, mood, and emotional continuity.

10. Clarify stakes early in the scene.

If readers don’t know what can be lost, scenes feel empty. Make sure the character wants something specific and fears losing it.

11. Use the “what are they feeling right now?” check.

After each major beat, ask what emotion is dominant in that moment. If it’s missing on the page, the scene is likely underwritten.

12. Expand scenes that feel “too clean.”

✦ first rule: don’t over-explain. once you give me the monster’s exact height, weight, claw count, and dental record, it’s not scary anymore. it’s a pokémon. mystery is the muscle. a shadow that almost looks human will always hit harder than a full description of a swamp beast. leave gaps. let the reader’s brain fill them in with their own worst fear.

✦ physics should not apply. horror monsters are terrifying when they break the rules of the world we think we understand. a body folding in ways it shouldn’t. joints bending the wrong direction. silence in a place that should echo. footsteps that sound like they’re coming from the ceiling instead of the floor. once you warp reality, the reader doesn’t feel safe in their own.

✦ chasing is fine. but waiting is worse. scarier than claws, scarier than snarling—try a monster that just stands in the corner and watches. even scarier? it smiles. because predators don’t smile unless they know something you don’t.

✦ let it act like it knows you. a growl is scary, sure, but a whisper of your name in the dark is worse. a hiss of your birthday. a laugh in your mother’s voice. monsters are no longer “other” once they feel personal. they’re invasive. they’re inside your head.

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!

* body language masterlist

* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said

* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

* some more body language help