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Why do modern Jane Austen parodies have the best fight scenes?

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Happy 45th Birthday Shaun Evans! (06.03.1980)

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Writing agent Jonny Geller gives advice to young writers. 

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ENDEAVOUR — 01.00 - "Pilot" (2012)

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Do you have any tips for how to slow down time in a story?

How to slow down time

To slow down time in your story you need to use a mix of different writing ingredients: you need different descriptions that capture the reader in the moment as well as internal monologue and different sentence structures.

Detailed Descriptions:

Sensory Details: Use the five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch to describe what the character is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting in intricate detail.

Detailed Observations: Zoom in on small, often overlooked details. The sound a tea cup makes as it hits the ground, the way an expression on a character's face changes, the turning of heads as someone enters the room.

Slow Motion: Manipulate the time by describing how it feels like slow motion to the characters: "Time slowed down, and it felt as if the whole of humanity had decided to stop breathing for a moment."

Physical Reactions: A detailed description of the physical aspects of a scene. The movements a character makes, how their gaze turns, their breathing changes, their body begins to shake.

Psychological Aspects: Focus on the anxiety of a character looking at a clock that never seems to move, their nervousness seeping out of them

Internal Monologue:

Memories and Flashbacks: Add context by showing memories or flashbacks that relate to the situation.

Pondering: Let the character reflect on the situation, their feelings and their plan for the next steps. Let the reader explore the character's inner life.

Dialogue:

Reduced Dialogue: Dialogue brings a scene into real time. Use it thoughtfully and sparringly, with lots of inner thoughts and reactions in between.

Silence: Make use of silence between the characters which can be filled with more descriptions.

Language:

Smaller Steps: Write out each action taken, no matter how small, and focus on describing each step that happens.

Control Pacing: Use your sentence structure to create long descriptions that slow it down, and short, impactful ones to pick up the pace if needed for a moment.

More: Masterpost: How to write a story

- Jana

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Propaganda...

Mr Woodhouse (2020):

Mr Woodhouse (2009): He's got a little pink scarf and the ability to make me cry just with a look. He's got gravitas and vulnerability and will not let your kids eat too much cake. He could have sent his girls away but the man said no way I am a girldad!

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the best part of writing is when your characters start ignoring your outline and you realize they’re better at this than you.

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friendly reminder to everyone that first draft just needs to exist.

it doesn’t need to be good, it just needs to be there. stories go through so many different drafts that nobody is gonna care if your first draft is a little messy.

you can’t edit and clean up something that doesn’t exist, so make it exist!

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Quick Writing Tip: Your First Draft is Raw Material

Painters use paint, brushes, and canvas to create their art. Sculptors use clay, metal, or wood. But as a writer, your raw materials don’t come from a lumber yard or art supply store. You have to create your raw material from scratch by putting words on the page. YOUR raw material is your first draft.

So don’t worry if your first draft looks nothing like your finished story! It’s just material to build with. Cut it up like wood, smear it around and blend it like paint. Chop it to bits. Put it in a blender. Throw away the excess. Be playful.

Don’t expect your first draft to resemble your finished story any more than you’d expect a tube of paint to look like a painting, or a pile of wood to look like a house.

Ever since I started thinking of my first drafts like this, I’ve been a lot less stressed out about writing and revising. Hope this helps someone else, too!

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It took me almost half a century to realize this:

I can write a story when I want to! It doesn't have to be prizewinning, it doesn't have to be clever, it doesn't need to be published, it doesn't even have to be read or liked by anybody else on the planet!

I can just write a story for fun & for myself!

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I hate I when I get an idea for a novel. Like oh no here starts the slow sad slip n’ slide to dissapointment again.

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“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

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AUSTENLAND (2013) dir. Jerusha Hess

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what to do when you're trapped in your aunt's period drama roleplay... Hide!

AUSTENLAND (2013)