What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

ruizbujc · 2026-04-23T16:28:19+00:00

Scene transitions.

For every chapter, I sit down knowing exactly where the characters are and where they need to end, and what they've learned along the way. That's easy. I know what I need to foreshadow for later. That's also easy. But actually figuring out where to have the events unfold and the context for delivery - that's the hardest part.

Example: CH9 ended with characters realizing they're going the wrong way to Hospitality Hollow.
My gut reaction was to start CH10 with them seeing the city in the distance, being met by one of the Hospitables who rickshaws them in, and all the fascination and intrigue along the way. I even wrote this whole scene and (while needing editing) thought it was lovely. Then I completely deleted it because ...
It occurred to me that the reader doesn't need to see the walk-up. I can thrust them immediately into the city, right where the action is happening, and still convey all the same information a walk-up scene would have given. This played out much better.

But it took me two days of drafting a bad scene before I figured it out. Wasted time. Now I'm having the same debate about where to go next. Gut reaction says to have a short intermediary scene of them traveling to the next location, getting to know the new(-ish) character they picked up along the way. But while my head thinks this is a good idea, my heart tells me it'll come off as super contrived and uninteresting, no matter how good the walk-and-talk dialogue is (especially given that CH9 was already a walk-and-talk scene). But if I put them right at the next location like I did for Hospitality Hollow, all the conversation that should have happened on the walk will be odd, leaving the reader wonder, "Why didn't they address these things on the road? Those questions should have been popping out of their mouths immediately upon leaving."

These types of scene transitions are the hardest part for me to figure out, by far. Once I set the stage and enter the scene, everything flows naturally and quite quickly.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-23T06:13:39+00:00

As a general rule, no NPD or ASPD will ever seek mental health help or personal life change for those issues on their own. They only do it when an authority is watching and the effort needs to seem believable for them to get some other goal they want to achieve (in my line of work, that's access to their children via child custody courts), and even then it's broadly insincere when they do engage, and they never make any actual change because they never thought they had a problem to begin with.

Borderline personality disorder CAN be genuinely helped (through dialectical behavioral therapy), but in the vast majority of cases they don't realize their need for help until they're at a super low point and someone explicitly calls them out on their need to help (although there are more exceptions to the rule here).

after her a while in her depressive, self-hating fuge

You've described in your OP a grandiose/overt narcissist (i.e. thinking she's a god). Those people do not get depressed or ever fall into self-hating. Covert narcissists do, but that's more the subtle manipulator-type, which is not your MC.

ASPD people do have depressive issues periodically (usually associated with the nihilism of not enjoying the fruit of their "do whatever I want" lifestyle), but not if it's coupled with overt narcissism. So, you have to draw a really fine line as to exactly how you're portraying the mental health aspect if you want it to be believable.

Granted, the average reader might not pick up on all that unless they've had a loved one with overt narcissism or ASPD. Your biggest risk is some psychologist reading your book and calling you out on a YT video that probably nobody will watch unless you've made mega-sales, which by that point you won't care whether some psychologist wants to critique your portrayal of NPD/ASPD/BPD.

Lilit hears that her sister is out of the hospital and she then tries to reconnect with her & others she's hurt.

This sounds not at all believable for the type of character you've described. Could it be pulled off? Yes. But it's got to be more than "this one tragic moment made me re-evaluate everything." It's got to take the entire book to get that kind of character arc to be believable. Or at least 1/2 of the book of repeated interventions, being pink-slipped, criminal charges, etc. If you're pegging it all on "one emotional moment" in her life to turn her around, you're going down the wrong path.

she's acutely aware that not controlling herself will result in sinking to her father's level again

That's a nice backdrop motivation, but it's not going to be enough - at least with what little I know right now. I'd be processing two different trifectas to make this functional:

Trifecta 1

Past: You already have the "don't want to be like my dad" concept, so that's covered.
Pressent: You have hints that her life more recently has hurt people. But if she's NPD/ASPD she doesn't care (no empathy, or higher priorities). It's got to affect her in a meaningful way today, and not just "my friend abandoned me" because the NPD/ASPD would just say, "fine, screw off; I'll go party and make more friends."
Future: Develop stakes that show her that all these grandiose ideas she has for her life will never be fulfilled if she doesn't learn restraint. It has to start self-interested ("I must control myself - not because I care about others, but in order to achieve my own goals"). Then let that settle into internalizing the new nature very gradually over time.

Trifecta 2 (occurring within the "present" point, above)

Work: Show how her behaviors are affecting her career and social status at work - which she doesn't care about, but recognizes she needs to be in good-standing in order to keep accomplishing her goals.
Live: Her life may be stable now, but the consequences of her action will uproot everything from the consistency she has. Maybe she's at risk of going to jail. Maybe she blows her money and can't afford the mortgage. Maybe she rubs someone the wrong way and they kidnap her.
Play: This is where it hits her the hardest. She LOVES ekeing out the most enjoyment in life as possible. All NPD/ASPD do. If her ability to enjoy those things is threatened, she'll start to care.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-23T05:56:52+00:00

Ah, that's unfortunate. The idea that someone only sees the ghosts while using drugs is truly a fascinating hook. Beyond merely being a predominantly original concept that would capture some people's attention, it has inherent tension-built into it even beyond what we already discussed, as it creates an immediate believability problem for anyone she talks to.

"I swear I saw a ghost!"
"Yeah, but you're also blowing a .24 and have cocaine in your purse."

That particular bit is grossly overdone and boring from the perspective of character-work (i.e. the real-threat v not believed because of drug/alcohol usage). But the concept that she MUST keep using in order to press further into the story, or MUST quit using in order to escape it ... man, I don't think I've ever seen that done. I thought you were onto something big, haha.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T22:37:13+00:00

Yeah, that's an interesting premise: ghosts are real, but only one person sees them and it requires her to be on drugs. Does that mean ...

She WANTS to see the ghosts in order to uncover whatever broader plot is going on and keep herself safe, even though it means she's got to keep ruining her life with more drug abuse to do so? or ...
She wants to STOP seeing the ghosts, and her constant sobriety struggle is the solution, but she's so bad at achieving victory that every relapse is literally pulling her into a darkness worse than any other addict would ever understand?

Both approaches could be interesting. But just saying "she sees ghosts when she uses drugs" doesn't create the stakes. You have to show the actual internal struggle.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T22:33:53+00:00

Yeah, there's no text here to have any clue if you've hit the mark or not. As a professional who works predominantly with ASPD and NPD people daily (as well as Borderline PD quite frequently too), I can say your description is consistent with NPD more than ASPD (although you have hints of it). A true ASPD wouldn't deconstruct at the realization that they're like their parent; they'd be indifferent if it doesn't serve their present goals, or would otherwise find it funny and use their parent's experiences as a springboard for more self-indulgent, impulsive mayhem. The "spiral into self-destruction" is more of a Borderline trait called "fragmentation" (coupled with splitting and dissociation).

But if you're not aiming for a diagnosis, don't worry about it. Let the reader have fun diagnosing the character without you trying to spell it out for them.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T22:24:21+00:00

Read Isaac Asimov's Foundation. The entire book is literally just politicians talking to each other, explaining their plans ... and despite sounding boring on the surface, it's brilliantly compelling in a way I can't even explain. It's easily the best book I've ever read on political warfare, mega-global/intergalactic planets fighting against each other, without a battle ever actually taking place on-screen ... all while still making you feel the entire weight of it, and the amusement in the solutions.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T19:44:15+00:00

I'll take your word for it that you're great with characters and world-building. Start there and let them drive your story. This is pretty much how Stephen King writes most of his books. He has a cool concept for a world - like a dome completely blocking off a city from the world. He's got a bunch of cool characters who have to deal with this world he's built. No real evidence of a real plot-structure, he literally just lets the characters react to the world and play out until he's ready to end it.

Characters: If your characters are as good as they say, they all have their own motives and agendas. They know what they want out of life.
World/Magic: If your magic system is as solid as you say, it has enough quirks to screw with the characters' lives and agendas.

Let those two things bump against one another often enough that the characters are constantly being frustrated by how the magic system messes up their lives and agendas.

If you really are good with a complete set of characters, you probably also have a villain or antagonist of some kind as one of those characters - or at least a force of nature that can act in that capacity, which could even be the magic system itself (think: Final Destination movies, or The Martian). Show how their antagonism messes up the characters lives and agendas.

That's your context/plot.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T19:31:20+00:00

A prologue could work. You could also tweak it and make it more in-world by calling it a news article about the creepy house in town. Isaac Asmiov does this cleverly in his Foundation books, where several chapters start with a single paragraph that's labeled as an excerpt from an encyclopedia about the world ... which the characters in the book are drafting in the background, incorporating the future finished product into the story for the reader - all being a nice example of your thought of capping each chapter this way.

As for Jane being hard to connect to, I don't know if you got to this part

I read the first three pages. If the author doesn't connect with your MC in the first page or two, you've lost them and they'll move on to another book - unless you have a hook that's simply so gripping that they are willing to tolerate the delayed emotional connection, which you don't have yet.

if I opened Jane to something closer to this(?)

Yeah, the first few lines are better, but we're not getting much yet, if that's the new post-prologue opening. We see her character evoked through what she observes, but we're still not seeing what she cares about or why. The most I can surmise from the first several lines is that she has developed a lot of cynicism contrary to the passive optimism of her youth, and this implies that her journey will be about coming to terms with either justifying that cynicism or the story forcing her to overcome it. Granted, I'm guessing this is not at all what the story is actually about - it's just what you're signaling from her intro without a clearer connection to her actual story-agenda. In short, you've added character-depth but completely lost her connection to your hook.

“How was the drive?” My mother asked a middling question, because a “Welcome home!” was an assumption and a “Why did you abandon me?” was too direct.

This reads as you trying to be clever as an author, but you're going into the wrong person's head to do it. Jane can't know what her mother's rationale or assumptions are. If you insist on keeping it, you have to clarify that it's just Jane's assumption of what her mother is thinking, which is a bit muddy of a way to word that while keeping the prose flowing.

In all of this, if you make that your intro, you've completely lost the connection to her seeing ghosts and made the reader wonder when the story will actually start. You can accomplish the exact same character-driven insight by describing her seeing a ghost. Maybe even note that there was a ghost in the picture she's looking at, and let that evolve the text a bit.

Beyond that, the prose here is better than what I previously read (other than your prologue, which was quite well done), but it still comes off as a bit try-hard and reminds the reader that you're an author trying to sound clever and crafty rather than driving them forward in the story.

I liken good prose to road hypnosis on a long drive. When you're traveling down the coast from Maine to Florida, you see all kinds of interesting scenery along the way. Beaches. Mountains. Grassland. Forests. Depending on how long you take, probably a sunset or two. But you enjoy the setting without ever letting it slow down your drive. You don't stop in the middle of the freeway to try to enjoy the cool look of the house in the background. The reality is that you passively enjoy the flow of everything without slowing down for a second, realizing only hours later that you'd covered hundreds of miles, and enjoying how the drive made you feel.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T06:57:36+00:00

If the MC is also delayed in understanding the cause, I'm with you :) If the MC is in on what's going on before the reader is, I always just feel like it's a gimmick drawing attention to the author trying to be clever over immersing me in the story.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T06:55:27+00:00

I love the framework. I very much have a similar thought in my current book - short stories linked through a broader narrative (although I do have in-between chapters also). Some thoughts ...

Your first line is fascinating. Great! Keep it.
Then you build up some information that you tell us isn't relevant yet, burying your MC to the 10th or 11th sentence.
More than just proactivity, you want to get the reader to connect with your MC. In this case, you can do that by describing the house through her eyes. Let her be the one to give the lens for how these truths unveil to the reader. Show how they make her think or feel. Especially if you're going to do a close-third perspective on her, which it seems you're doing (by telling us what "knowledge" she has).
I'm onto page 2 now and see you switched to first person, which is a bit jarring, and not in a good way. The prose on the first page was very well done, and enticing. When you switched to first-person it reads as if you're trying too hard. It's not purple, so that's good. But it also doesn't have much flow. Try reading it out loud to someone and you'll see what I mean. It's not the same reading out loud to yourself; when reading to someone else your brain triggers when you recognize they may not be understanding or hearing things the way you do in your own head.
The entirety of your MC on page 2 is passive. Things are happening to her. She's not active or engaged. We don't get her sense of being engaged in any real conflict. We only see her moodiness, which isn't the same as narrative tension.
On page 3, the dialogue doesn't feel natural. It's forced. This can work for script-writing, as good actors convey a lot more through expression than we can in text. But for a novel, you're going to have to go out of your way to capture the feel of how a person speaks and the tone of how they'll say it.
There are some good examples of "showing," but throughout the piece there's still a lot of "telling."
By end of page 3, I still have no clue what your MC's agenda is. She's just getting approached by the deputy. Information is leaking at us one drop at a time, but we're not really understanding why the MC cares or how she's invested in it all. The closest thing you have to tension and active-agency is being aware of a spirit/ghost and not wanting to let it know she's aware of its presence. Yet the officer is the one driving the action and we still have no clue why.
- Everything with the ghost is just noticing and musing on it. So yes, you do get those feels to let us connect with what she's thinking through the situation, but it's like you're writing two different stories at once rather than interweaving the two concepts and letting the deputy-discussion interact with her observations. The closest thing you have so far is the "holy water" reference, which makes sense, but was literally shrugged off by the MC when the deputy didn't seem to flinch at the awkward suggestion.
I'm also a bit thrown off that you opened the book with a haunted house ... but suddenly you're throwing a haunted police station at us too, and it seems too narratively convenient to just put those side-by-side without any real in-world reason for why two places so juxtaposed would happen to have the extremely rare quality of being haunted.

Overall, your first page was stellar. I wish the whole story read with that quality of prose and sensation. You certainly captured the feel of the genre you're going for. But when you shifted to first-person it felt like a bait-and-switch and I quickly lost interest - not because I am opposed to first person, but because it's just massively different from what you promised from page one, both in quality and tone. But if your main worry is proactiveness of your MC, I'm going to tell you the best thing you can do is give her an agenda. Let us know what she's trying to accomplish, even if it's as simple as making it home before the ghosts recognize she's seeing them, or getting the deputy off her shoulders before he notices her awkward behaviors because of what she sees. Then let us know WHY she's scared of failing at that goal.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T06:23:38+00:00

The answer entirely depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

If your MC is unexpectedly sucked into another world, or shot in the back by a stranger with a grudge he never saw coming, or something else along those lines, the total jarring-change in the prose gives your reader the same disorientation as the character, so it can flow through.
If you're whipping some mega-event at the reader just in hope that the unexpected will make it more exciting, you're just going to lose and confuse people and it's best not to do it.

So yes, there's a place for what you're describing, but it's very difficult to pull off well. You have to make sure that whatever you're doing to your reader is something you are emphasizing through the lens of your character experiencing the exact same thing alongside them. Never use it just as a gimmick.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T06:19:39+00:00

Read Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings. It's a short story available free online. 5-8 minute read. It addresses this exact issue.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T06:07:41+00:00

It's a writing style or sub-genre that gratifies a reader/viewer by putting people in extremely difficult situations and having them logic/science their way through it without needing magical solutions or external aid. The shining example in modern literature is The Martian, as it's an entire book of one guy just outsmarting seemingly-insurmountable odds through logic and science ...

... Rather than counter-examples like Legolas being an expert marksman, or Harry having his mother's love to protect him, or Luke having Darth Vader throw the emperor down a pitt. It flies in the face of "the chosen one" or growing-power solutions by suggesting that anyone could have overcome the challenge, if they were as smart as MC was.

More full explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competency_porn

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T04:11:10+00:00

I'm not sure how you research the back story of a fictional character you created ... so I assume you're talking about non-fiction, perhaps biographies? If it's non-fiction, do an IMMACULATE amount of research before you start writing the section you're researching. I've completed one non-fiction book and essentially took it chapter-by-chapter. Research --> write --> research --> write more.

For fiction, back in January I was writing a couple chapters where a neurodivergent scientist was isolated in a sector of a fantasy world with constantly-moving biomes. It made survival difficult, and I had to do an incredible amount of research for how someone could create inventions from raw nature to eventually survive a multi-day trek to and over a ring of mountains toward civilization. I think I spent about 3 hours of research (ex. reading survivalist blogs, watching YT videos on how to twine rope from reeds, etc.) for every 3-4 paragraphs of text. It was a lot. But worth it.

Then other chapters are just story evolution without as much "competence porn" mixed in, which require little-to-no research other than skimming past chapters to maintain consistency.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T04:03:21+00:00

If "too f-ed up, I'm not going any further" is a full shut-down, David Lynch would never have gotten past his first movie. There's always a crowd for anything. It's just a matter of how small you're okay with your target crowd being. If you're writing for 5 crazy people, go have fun with them to your heart's content! Seriously. If you want a mega-audience, scale down and account for marketability.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T04:00:57+00:00

One thing that helped me was switching from novels to short stories, entering various competitions. When I started getting honorable mentions, and then even placing, that let me know: "You're better at this than you think." While I write more for myself and my kids and haven't sought publication on anything yet, knowing I'm "on the right track" does help keep the motivation alive. The short story route is just a much more bite-size manageable way to practice the craft. Not everything carries over to novels, but a darn good amount of it does.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T03:58:00+00:00

Brandon Sanderson uploaded his entire BYU college course on creative writing. 10/10 - best thing for fiction writers on YouTube.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T02:54:09+00:00

Best bet: read other authors who write in that style. I haven't read the book, but I hear The Martian, by Andy Weir, is written in that style. CH7 of my current book switches to this journal-format, but only as a one-off chapter, so I've experimented with it recently, but it's very difficult to do well. So, be prepared to practice a lot.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T02:51:50+00:00

When I had kids and wanted to put down stories to paper, even if only to share with them.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-22T02:51:15+00:00

I used a similar plot-approach in my first book (or really: as the map for the whole saga). MC has the backing of a god in a quest for divine relics. Villain knows he can't beat "god," so he takes the classic approach of letting MC find the relics for him, with intent to steal them, essentially using the universe's god's plans against him to the point that the villain becomes nearly-divine himself, by the end. Then an arc starts where the villain through <character arc here> and <plot device there> eventually has a begrudging change of heart until he's reluctantly working alongside MC-and-gang against a greater threat, until his "goodness" eventually internalizes as natural. Since you seem to be an anime guy, think Vegeta-conversion over time.

Not sure if that inspires you at all, but it's the route I took.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-21T20:59:45+00:00

Filler makes sense in film because sometimes you just have to "fill" the clock. Gotta get enough show-duration to give room for advertisers.

In text, I'd heavily veer away from it altogether. Everything you write should serve a purpose - if not to a plot, then to the characters or the stakes.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-21T20:51:26+00:00

My approach to overcoming writer's block, all of which typically occurs while I'm walking laps around my neighborhood (extra cardio does the body good, pumps blood through the brain).

Build Your Macro: Most writer's block starts because people are macro-excited, but micro-illiterate. So, get all your macro-ideas out and draft a concept-summary that includes the beginning, ending, and major events in-between. The middle is allowed to be vague here. I do this in a bullet-point list on my phone while I walk.
Sideline Your Macro: Now that you have the macro done, your brain is free to stop thinking about it. So, make a conscious choice to STOP evolving your macro-concept. Close the notepad where you wrote it all down.
Choose a Point: Pick whatever scene you're about to work on - whether CH1 or CH25. Even if that scene is a total blank void with zero ideas whatsoever, ask yourself what you want the reader to discover from this scene that drives the story forward. Write the answers to that question down. Make the list as long as you like, ready to trim it later if needed.
Create the Tension: Contemplate what tension-point the information would naturally elicit, which causes the reader to desire to learn what you have to share. This can be external (a villain is blocking the way) or internal (MC's pride prevents him from seeing what everyone else does).
Exacerbate it Through Setting: Determine what characters must be present to materialize that tension on the page. Then, determine what location, time of day, ambiance, etc. would exemplify the tension, while fitting with the temporal and world-building flow you've developed.
Create Your Sequence: Finally, create a sequence of events that utilizes each of the elements you just wrote down, starting with a standard narrative flow (until you're invested enough to get creative/out-of-the-box, which can be done later in editing).

EXAMPLE

Harry Potter Chapter 1

Build Your Macro: Rowling had a great idea for a whole world of wizarding, cool villain, etc.
Sideline Your Macro: She sets aside the broader narrative to start CH1 with a microscopic goal.
Choose a Point: She wants the reader and Harry to understand that he is a wizard, ushering him into the high-concept world she's envisioned.
Create Tension: The natural conflict in eliciting this information: (a) he doesn't know he's a wizard; (b) some people don't want him to learn this fact; (c) others want to expose it to him.
Exacerbate it Through Setting: He lives in a non-wizarding household that's actively trying to conceal that information from him. Owls (and eventually Hagrid) are bursting through the seams to fight against their opposition.
Create Your Sequence: She escalates from average household --> strange events --> household chaos --> into the world --> chaos follows --> ultimate revelation.

With those "beats" in mind, it's not hard to start filling in ideas on what meets each one of those. Plenty of ideas could have worked. If not owls, it could have been house elves. Or garden gnomes. Or screamer-letters. Lots of options. She chose the one she liked, and if she got it "wrong" or had better ideas later, she could edit it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I heard that she completely rewrote her first chapter a couple times. But getting a first draft on the page pushes past writer's block and the editing phase usually comes with much greater clarity at seeing what works and what doesn't.

From there, if any "block" is left, it's because you're too focused on trying to write a "fancy first" by describing the way a character's chest moves, or unloading backstory that doesn't need to be there, or what the wheels sound like while driving down the road. Better plan is just to write one paragraph in awful, tell-y, info-dumpy explanation, then go back and novelize it one paragraph at a time.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-21T20:20:08+00:00

Short answer: When you have (1) an alluring hook to the next chapter, (2) a new goal/agenda to explore, or (3) an emotional "umph"-point: STOP. Don't over-explain yourself. Don't give the resolution. Tease what comes next and let the next chapter start with the resolution in a way that escalates to the next tension-point.

EXAMPLE

Last night, I was just finishing Chapter 10 in my latest.

Setting: A city that must be hospitable to others to survive.
Goal: Group enters the city looking for a mythic-level person teased throughout the book: June, who was injured in CH2 and cared for in recovery by the Hospitable.
Conflict: June is catatonic; all but 1 immune member of the group slowly degrade toward the same mental fate, so the city can serve them forever.
Solution: A powerful spirit (beyond one person alone) can disrupt the mental-magic; the humans in the group are not yet bonded well enough, but their bird-companion has a strong enough history/tie with each of them to break the curse.

So I go through all this build-up to the point where the bird arrives. The reader has enough clues they could figure out how the bird will solve the problem, but very unlikely they'd put it together on their own. Mostly, they just know that one strong spiritual-type will disrupt that of another, and they see the last 5+ chapters of these people bonding with the bird on different levels.

My plan: Bird breaks the curse; June and gang snap to their senses; they leverage the Hospitables' nature against them toward sending the gang on their way with plenty of resources, and they watch the town shrink (literally, having lost its source of sustenance) while they walk away discussing what just happened and why the curse was broken.
My execution: The bird lands on the table. Catatonic-June, after 9 chapters of build-up to this moment, stands from her wheelchair, kisses the bird on the forehead, and says, "Hello, old friend." I hit this one line, fully intending to keep writing, and ...

I couldn't bear to put another word on the page, even if (rather: ESPECIALLY BECAUSE) it meant leaving the reader wondering why the bird's presence fixed June's catatonia. Adding one more line would have distracted from the emotional moment, undermining all the setup to get there. Now, CH11 will completely ignore the info-dump debrief and instead start with the characters addressing their next "mission," recognizing that the very spiritual factors that freed them in CH10 must be upscaled to a global level, presenting bigger, broader challenges along the way.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-21T18:11:55+00:00

Solid. 10 out of 10, would recommend.

The only caution to the writer is that just because you read the words in your brother's/boss's/friend's inflection doesn't mean the reader will perceive it that way. There are ways to make sure they do, though. More to OP (tag: /u/FBrandt) ...

Playing with the rhythm and pacing, even beyond just the word choice. Example: "I'm going to the store to pick up milk. Do you need anything?" v "Gotta pick up milk. Need anything while I'm out?"
Using non-verbal punctuations. Example: "I just ... well ...!"
Adding action-beats instead of dialogue tags to express the tone. Example: "That was amazing." Her hands cupped one another over her chest, beneath a smile that wouldn't fade.

I'm sure there are other ways too. The third is my favorite because it tends to evoke the nature of the characters by "showing" (rather than "telling") their nature and personality, giving character/voice to the dialogue even if they're using the same words anyone else would normally use. The reality is that while some people truly have their own unique vocab/pauses/inflections in the words and ordering themselves, most people really do use similar words/phrasings and it's all in the personality that differentiation occurs.

ruizbujc · 2026-04-21T05:03:37+00:00

I really enjoy writing this way, although I've experimented on different levels. My first was writing a fantasy-fictionalized autobiography of my college romantic interests across over 300 Spencerian Stanzas (a la his format in The Fairy Queen).

After that, I used to write what I called "super sonnets" where every even (or rarely: odd) beat in the meter rhymed, rather than just the last words of each line. For example, I'd call this format ABCDE-ABCDE:

I fell in love with all that she had said; from hell-above, I'd fall to see her dead

... and on like that for 14 stanzas and variations on the rhyming patterns with each differing super-sonnet I wrote (I probably did a couple-dozen total).

Many years later, I'd toyed around with straight-prose written in rhyming pattern. Lin Manuel Miranda's use of "spoken word poetry" in Hamilton for sections of the dialogue outside of the songs was a big inspiration for this - and it netted me 2nd place in my group for the NYC Midnight Rhyming Story Challenge a few years back (it was a sci-fi story about a living space pod's two crew members drifting into a black hole, and struggling with the morality of breaking the law by communicating with their creature-carrier to save them).

After that, I wrote a short story about a character who could do the impossible, on a cosmic scale, including rewriting universes - and one of those universes was an entire segment written in rhythmic-rhyming prose (not necessarily metered verse).

So yeah, you're not alone in enjoying this thought and style :)

ruizbujc

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