#ecbp

Dialogue

This aspect of your writing personality looks at not only the amount of dialogue you use, but what role your dialogue plays in your story.

Expressive (E) – expressive dialogue is important in character-driven stories. You write dialogue that not only gets the conversation moving, but reveals your characters through the subtext of the words not spoken. Your dialogue is plentiful and dynamic.

Stoic (S) – stoic dialogue functions on in a linear path. You say what you mean and mean what you say. Stoic dialogue is often found in idea-driven stories or stories for young readers, since readers of those stories aren’t looking to read between the lines of your dialogue so much as they’re looking to further understand or experience the events of your plot.

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Descriptions

This is the most subjective part of your writing personality, as the amount and type of descriptions you use transcends genres. While there are certainly preferences within genres for different levels of descriptions, don’t feel boxed in or compelled to change how you describe your world based on what you write.

Detailed (D) – detailed descriptions are important for transport fiction: stories heavily relying on readers experiencing something new and foreign, whether it’s a world, a society, or a lover. As a detailed writer, you excel at building empires and psyches in which readers can lose themselves.

Concise (C) – this is used in prose where readers already have context for the setting. Concise writers acknowledge the intelligence and experience of their audience and allow them to fill in the blanks, focusing instead on telling the story at hand. It gives an extra weight to everything you deign to mention.

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Prose

The prose section talks about the length of your story. Notice that the genres listed with hefty or breezy often deal with the amount of information passed (different from how you describe it). Now, length and pacing can be related, but are not necessarily married to one another. In other words, a short book does not mean it’s a quick read, and vis versa.

The cross-over genres for this section are cooking, self-help, science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Of all the genres, these are the most versatile when it comes to length. Just something to point out.

Hefty (H) – hefty prose deals with a lot of information and complexities, therefore requiring more space to detail it all out. As a hefty writer, you’re not afraid of the big projects. An epic fantasy or Julia-Child-inspired cookbook are right up your alley. You want a manuscript you can use as a pillow when you collapse in exhaustion after finishing it.

Breezy (B) – breezy prose is for young readers, page turners, and oral presentations. It’s essentially writing that readers want to consume in only a few hours, not a few weeks. As a breezy writer, you’re skilled at packing in a lot of information and pulling us through all the nuances of your story in a short amount of words.

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Motion

By motion, I believe the graphic is talking about pacing: the progression of plot, tension, and character growth in a given story.

Patient (P) – patient motion is more conversational. There’s still rising action and tension, but the stakes are a lot lower. It’s more common in nonfiction books, but can also be found in writing that revolves more around the exploration of an idea than solving an immediate problem. Patient writers are skilled at creating characters and relationships readers fall in love with so much, we’d read a scene of them shopping in a grocery store, just to spend time with them.

Kinetic (K) – kinetic motion is all about the rising action, big climaxes, and disastrous pitfalls. If you write kinetically, you continue to raise the stakes in your story so the reader is always wondering what’s going to happen next.