#augh.......

Do you have any training? Because your stuff reads like a professional

And tips or recommendations? Ie books you’ve learnt from etc etc

Thank you 🙏

ahhhh gosh thank you so much!! i'm so glad you think so. that's something i've really had to work on balancing tbh - the long introspective parts with the dialogue. i can get distracted with the narrative and forget that nobody's spoken in a while and have to go back and fix it lmao. i wouldn't say i have any training! i took a creative writing course in university but it was a very surface level 101 class for one term and we didn't really dig into much. i think it's just time, probably, time and effort doubling down on what i think works for me and what doesn't. i've been writing and posting fic online for... fourteen years? going on fifteen? i was very young when i started, lmao, i think i was twelve, and i'm about twenty-six and a half now, and i've made a lot of progress since then.

a lot of how i handle it now is considering context!! i skim a scene and my notes/draft for it and i try to see if it feels like it passes too quick, or if it misses the point i'm trying to drive home in the mind/heart of the character whose point of view i'm in. if it does, i go back over and try and beef up the narration/introspection. if it feels like it lingers too much or isn't getting to the point quick enough or it just feels like a boring section, i try and clip from dialogue to dialogue faster. if i want it to feel disorienting or detached, i'll keep the paragraphs shorter. if i want the pov character to feel like they're spacing out or dissociating or caught up in their own feelings even if they aren't expressing them, i'll spend longer in their head. if you feel like it's getting clunky, take a step back. look at the clunky piece and go why? does it feel clunky because it's repetitive? is the dialogue not anchored to the internal thought enough when it should be? is it moving too much from thought to thought without spending time on what those thoughts mean, how they feel? those kind of questions can help you get to what needs fixing!

ultimately, it's mostly practice, like most things with writing, i think. take notice of what you like and what you don't like, how you think it fits together. i think in terms of books i've read that made me want to write more, my most recent picks would be the last unicorn by peter s beagle and the locked tomb series by tamsin muir - though tlt is like... probably not what i'd go to for a standard balancing of dialogue and introspection. those books are very stylistic so if that is not the specific style you're going for, it could be difficult to take cues from. in terms of just flat out good, mesmerizing writing, though? yeah. hot damn. highly recommend. and the last unicorn is some of the just, straight up best writing i've ever read.