#Immersive Writing

[ancientroyalblood]

The Dos and Don'ts of Writing Action Scenes

Action scenes are the pulse-pounding, heart-racing moments in a story where characters face danger, make split-second decisions, and confront conflict head-on. Whether it’s a thrilling swordfight, a high-speed car chase, or a tense standoff, writing action scenes can be a challenging but rewarding endeavor. In this exploration of the dos and don’ts of writing action scenes, we’ll share best…

[lnk-and-lnspiration]

Tips for Writing Memorable Settings: Creating Vivid and Immersive Worlds

In storytelling, settings play a vital role in transporting readers to new worlds, evoking emotions, and enhancing the overall reading experience. Well-crafted settings can immerse readers in your story, make it memorable, and bring your narrative to life. In this article, we will explore effective tips for writing memorable settings that captivate readers and create vivid, immersive…

[kimberlysueiverson]

Fiction writing is more immersive

For those who want inspiration to write on their own these prompts will be visible to everyone at the start of my posts. These are created by WordPress. If I find them inspiring, I might use them in a future post. Feel free to respond in the comments with the answer. Bloganuary writing promptName an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting. If you ever…

[goldenamaranthe-blog]

For those who are having trouble writing or finding a good pace, try using this. It's very helpful to help with writing burnout and calming for when you are writing.

Go leave a like on the video page if you enjoy this!

[chrisschallertideaengine]

Canon, Immersion, and Arrogance

What is the point of canonicity?

(brushing teeth) Everyone breaks canon. No exceptions. It’s a first draft mistake, when you are focused on the story itself clawing at your fingertips to get on the page. You don’t have time to cross-reference the color of the flowers on that planet, you have to write it while you have the story and the energy. Entirely understandable. Canon breaks that get all the way to print? Those are a…

[physalian]

Your colloquialisms are ruining the immersion (or, non-contemporary dialogue)

I am no expert here! Whenever I wrote historical fiction it was anachronistic historical fiction. This advice is from a reader’s perspective and from my experience writing high fantasy.

So what’s the deal with immersive dialogue? I’m going to ignore writing dialects and accents and so-called “old English” with the thee, thy, thou and such. Solely focusing here on the narrative telling me this isn’t set in present times, and yet the dialogue being painfully colloquial like present times.

This is coming from a book I had to read set in HRE times. In it, characters were spouting modern curse words, tacking on verbal tics and crutch words like “or something” and “um” and drawing out words like “daaaamn” and “nooooo”. Rip out the dialogue and toss it in a script with zero context and it would read like two high schoolers from 2009, not two adults from the Holy Roman Empire. Which is a problem, because it completely shattered the immersion. —

1. On so-called “formal writing”

Everybody knows that nixing contractions doesn’t do a damn thing to help your writing look more “formal”, it just looks robotic and stiff, right? We’ve gotten past this as a society? There’s a time and a place for replacing contractions with the full words, but not for every single sentence.

I swear this show keeps creeping into my writing advice but here we go. Transformers Prime. The context for Optimus’ dialogue has a lot to do with his aging voice actor, Peter Cullen, and the perception of the character over the decades from the corny 80s paragon hero everyman type leader to the grizzled and wizened old soul type leader. Optimus isn’t “one of the guys,” he’s old. Very old. He’s the dad of the group (one dad, his grumpy medic is the other dad).

So he gets lines like:

“I fear Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith.”

“But if his return is imminent as I fear, it could be a catastrophic.”

“I bore Skyquake no ill-will.”

He doesn’t curse like the other Autobots. His voice only raises in surprise, horror, or rage. He doesn’t go “um/ah/so/but/eh” and always thinks about what he’s going to say well before he says it. Despite him, Ratchet (the dad medic), and Megatron all being very old, Optimus is the only one who’s “proper” and collected and dignified with his lines. The writers didn’t achieve this simply by omitting contractions, he gets them where necessary and removes them when effective (e.g “We do not.” / “We don’t.”)

2. Thesaurus Rex

Continuing with the Optimus example, no other character in that show would use “zenith” unironically. Or “ill-will”. This doesn’t mean crack open and abuse a thesaurus but there’s a huge divide between:

“Megatron’s gone crazy and he’s going to implode soon” and “Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith”.

I can’ think of a better word to use than dignified, perhaps distinguished to describe his dialogue.

He doesn’t say “what?” when he’s confused, he pauses and says something like “please elaborate”.

This is both word choice and a syntax issue so if you’re struggling to fit a non-contemporary vibe for your work, pay attention to both.

3. When to abstain from cursing

There’s something very special about the dialogue in the Lord of the Rings movies: It’s PG-13 so they can’t curse, but if they had, it would have probably ruined the trilogy. These characters are able to yell in rage and anguish, spit vicious insults at their enemies, and stare down armies that are determined to kill them, all while never breaking the immersion.

Insults like:

“Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear.”

“Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, you witless worm.”

“Your words are poison.”

And all three were said by or about Grima Wormtongue.

Characters aren’t dumbasses, they’re fools, with the exception of Gollum’s insults toward Sam, the “stupid, fat hobbit”.

Even devoid of name-calling, Denethor absolutely trounces his second son by asking (and I’m paraphrasing) “Is there any man here willing to do his lord’s bidding?” right after Faramir expresses some apprehension about a suicide charge with his remaining soldiers, completely ignoring him and implying that he’s not a real man.

LOTR is full of juicy lines beyond curse words, too. One of my absolute favorites is: “Dark have been my dreams of late” as opposed to “I’ve been having nightmares lately.”

Do you see?? It’s poetry. The motif of Shadow and Darkness as if they’re real, physical things, all the lines of poetry pulled straight from the books like Theoden’s “where is the horse and the rider” monologue just before Helm’s Deep.

It’s dignified.

—

This one was a bit harder to, ironically, put into words without doing a full-blown case study into either franchise’s ability to write dialogue and monologues. I didn’t even talk about Ratchet’s several monologues (one of which was done perfectly in the sound booth on the first take) because Jeffrey Combs has a voice like ambrosia.

TLDR: Immersion goes far beyond your vivid setting descriptors and the clothing or the names and languages. I mostly write fantasy and sci-fi and whenever I read or watch fantasy and sci-fi that isn’t meant to be a world different from our own, or about characters who don’t speak modern English, and they go off with modern slang, syntax, and verbal tics, it just feels sloppy and weak. Pay attention to the following:

Syntax

Modern slang and jargon

Filler words/verbal tics

Curse words/curses

Flat, unmotivated vocab

*All of the quotes were from memory because I watch both of these franchises way too often. So apologies if I got any wrong.

[zabreus]

one thing i see a bit with disco elysium fan script is a conflation between a failed skill check and bad advice from a skill. one of the beautiful things about DE is the skills are not arbiters of truth; successful checks won’t always lead to the correct outcomes, and a skill level being too high can impair you. in that sense, a failed passive (“anti-passive” according to wiki) wouldn’t be a skill giving bad advice, but a skill failing to fulfill its duty.

(bad example ahead) so it wouldn’t be:

LOGIC [Trivial - Failure]: Stick a fork in the toaster.

but more like:

BREAD-TOASTER: You peek into the narrow opening at the top of the electric bread-toaster.

PERCEPTION: You find a slice of bread wedged between the filaments. Smoke wafts into your nostrils. It’s burning, and you seemingly have no way of retrieving it.

INTERFACING [Challenging - Success]: The metal fork you found in the cupboard. It should be both long and sturdy enough for the job.

You: Grab the fork.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium - Success]: The tips of your fingers tingle. This seems like a very bad idea.

LOGIC [Easy - Failure]: You are uncertain of the outcome here.

1. Use the fork to fish out the toast.

2. “This is beneath me.”

3. [Half-Light - Godly 16] Establish dominance. Fuck the toaster.

[beanarie]

i never wanted water once

@sanguinarysanguinity prompted me to write tommy also baking through it.

tw: mention of past child abuse

~

"Where did all these flatbreads come from?" Cap asks. "Did one of you save a cafe and forget to log it in?"

"Yeah, huh. I dunno." Not looking up from the couch, Tommy turns a page on his manual. "Box was waiting by the door when I came in."

"Oh damn. Did you get to try the one with the goat cheese and arugula?" Jenner asks, her mouth full. "So good."

Tommy concentrates very hard on the words in front of him and tries to ignore the little pulse of warmth in his gut.

The feeling of bread dough between his fingers, dry under a dusting of flour and pillowy soft, smelling of yeast and occasionally olive oil or rosemary, reminds Tommy of his mother. Of Saturday afternoons when he came back from baseball practice and sat in the kitchen to stuff his face and maybe help out a little. The record player would be on with her favorites, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Paul Simon, Laura Nyro, or Cat Stevens adding to the dreamy atmosphere.

She wasn't perfect. She didn't talk much, especially not when some random, pointless, petty thing crawled up his dad's ass and he blamed Tommy for it. But she sang along to her records with a sweet, clear voice, and sometimes she pulled him out of his chair to rock him around the floor in a sort of dance. For those few hours before his dad returned from the VFW, Tommy was safe and happy. She loved him. He'd like to think she'd love the man he turned out to be.

He hasn't thrown himself into baking like this since he was discharged from the army. Once he finds his footing, the results pile up quickly. He starts leaving a box or two behind on his way out for B shift, not only to make space in his kitchen but to hopefully throw anyone off his scent. He considers stopping by on his off days in time for C shift as well, before deciding that's a little unhinged.

Two weeks after leaving Evan, Tommy mentally checks out while shopping and finds himself with the ingredients for keto-friendly focaccia. The dough feels wrong. The smell is off. It seems like all he's doing is building an abomination. But he drowns the whole thing in olive oil infused with thyme and tries a sliver. It's more than passable. He doesn't want it and doesn't want to inflict it on his team, who don't have any dietary restrictions apart from one vegetarian.

He pays someone from Taskrabbit to deliver it to the 118 along with a couple of stromboli stuffed with pepperoni and salty cheese. He gets the tasker to write the labels, not trusting his ability to anonymize his own handwriting.

Then he loses himself in trying to figure out zeppole. They keep coming out too dense, or not frying all the way through.

[conscydraws]

Order 38. Undelivered.

[ladycatashtrophe]

I know many people need their silly little scenario time before bed to fall asleep at night, but I for one also require a decent amount of immersive-daydreaming-time immediately upon awakening to fortify my soul for the day and that's why I'm an English major.

[bidokja]

i know this has been said a bajillion times already but. the white coat being representative of a page of paper... i have never felt more ill. in my life.

[wandermit]

my future au vanessa because im getting over my hatred of drawing digitally 🫡 (click for better quality)

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Now that I know more about writing, I'm upset at all the writing advice that urged new writers to find the one best way to write stories, when they should be telling us to play with writing techniques like toys.

Don't tell us to avoid certain points of view! Don't box us into the one currently popular prose style! Let us play and see what effects different techniques achieve, so we can learn the best ways to make use of them! Give us a whole ton of possibility instead of one cookie-cutter template!

[rosetta222]

Valentine's Day Poll Winner: The Narrator!

"Dear Valentine,

I thank you dearly for your well wishes and support. Honestly, I was a little surprised to be summoned back, but it is a welcome change. I think Stanley will be green with envy of the mountain of gifts I've received. Well, I suppose that's the perks of being the more popular one~

Happy Valentine's Day, you have my gratitude and appreciation.

Sincerely,

The Narrator"