#so I can. in turn. info dump about her Oc in context of my oc

[salempie]

tell me about your daisy girlie i can tell you’re about to burst like a can of soup

i’m mostly curious on how psilirim would affect her, as well as non-psychics. or maybe she was originally a non psychic? i genuinely can’t tell from your post oopsies

but yesssss i love people working in psilirim beyond “makes brain hurt and cause delusions” or whatever rhombus of ruin did. idk i couldn’t play it without crashing because the vr headset i used was ass in a tin

if you’ve already answered something in the same vein ignore this oopsie…. i just immediately wanted to ask before scrolling ur blog

Sorry if this is all a mess, I’m not so good at organizing my thoughts!

I’ve actually tried to put some thought into psilirium, because it’s such a neat rock! But it’s basically just…Psitanium but worse? From what I could glean from the game. And other than ‘psilirium poisoning’ mentioned in the second game (bear with me I haven’t played either in like half a year) it was mostly ignored after Rhombus.

As for how it affects Daisy who yes, was born psychic! The first thing I focused on was its ‘magnetic’ effects when it comes to drawing people towards it. The commune she essentially takes over was formed far before Daisy had even considered running off. And it was formed due to the psilirium drawing people to the area! This quality gives Daisy somewhat of a charismatic edge with all that psilirium getup she’s got on. Call it a ‘magnetic attraction’ but people just seem to like the girl <3!

As for how it affects her psychics, I’m not sure how accurate the ‘fandom wiki’ is but it described psilirium as ‘distorting psychic energy.’ With the only other confirmed effects being “mania, hysteria, hallucinations, suppression of psychic abilities, and paranoia in psychics” (according to the wiki). I figure a handwaving of ‘distorting psychic energy’ is vague enough to let me add my own flair. Suppose it’s somewhat of a souped up version of psitanium the way I have been using it? But with the blatant psychological harm a bit more evident.

When Daisy first arrived psilirium had still been mostly undiscovered in the area, so she hadn’t had too much exposure to it. Some people (rarely) reported having strange hallucinations or unusual dreams, but it was mostly chalked up to the area just being a spiritual hotspot. Occasionally some weird glowing rocks would be found, but with no geologists or psychonauts to identify them, no one really knew what they were and kept them around mainly for their striking appearance. As more and more of the rocks were eventually discovered (or dug up), the effects began to compound.

With worsening mental health abound, as well as the decline of the hippie subculture as a whole into the 70s, many began to leave the commune. This left Daisy desperate, as I think I’ve mentioned before, and not in her right mind, she began to hypnotize the remaining members. Only a few at first but later the commune as a whole (though not on purpose). Those effected would begin subconsciously contributing their mental energy to Daisy, thus making her extremely resistant to the psiliriums negative effects.

That’s great! Because despite her resistance due to her now greatly increased mental energy, her mind was still heavily affected by those neat glowing rocks! She was left somewhat delirious, witnessing hallucinations as well as experiences delusions of grandeur at times. She began to order (like, it was more of a suggestion than an order, man, this is a commune not a dictatorship <3) the rocks be dug up more to aid them in their meditations and spiritual connections. Thus, the commune as a whole became a psilirium hotspot.

This meant Daisy, with her heavily fortified mental energy, was the only one to really be able to effectively use her psychics, with the psilirium’s repression of psychic abilities shown in RoR. Technology in the area bugs out too! So it really is a naturalist ‘utopia,’ at least in Daisy’s eyes.

So that’s! Yeah! Most of my thoughts I think? Idk! Heres also some somehow even less organized thoughts too that I can’t seem to place anywhere well:

There’s kinda just a general vague energy in the air around the commune due to the intense ‘radiation’ from all the unearthed stones

Daisy herself is like! Actually psycho-reactive at this point! Like! A walking hunk of psilirium…on a smaller scale of course. It kinda mixes with her actual psychic energy, making that ‘radiate’ as well. Basically with all that psilirium her hypnosis kinda has the effect of making a certain range of people around her more susceptible to suggestability by her! I wouldn’t call it full hypnosis though.

To add to that, she is constantly (and I do mean just like 100% of the time (except sleep I suppose?)) levitating! Part of the vague ‘radiation’ of her psychics. As well as her generally just being in a great mood thanks to weed and delirium!

The psilirium itself ‘warps’ and amplifies her psychics abilities a bit. It kinda ‘enhances’ them in the sense that there is sooo much psychic energy it’s just bursting to get out.

For example, she’s an Empath of sorts (an ability @spaloonbabooguuscooties came up with for her Franke in our ramblings) but, distorted in a way so that, while she can still somewhat feel what others are feeling, it’s more her forcing her own emotions onto them. Not fully but, they can certainly feel what she is feeling. In addition her ‘sensing’ of emotion isn’t just relegated to having to touch them either! Close enough, in tandem with her rudimentary telepathy, she can basically understand entirely what her ‘followers’ are thinking and feeling! Though it’s partially due to their obvious psychic connection.

Her hypnosis of course was effected, becoming a vague radiation of charisma and charm around her even when not using her own abilities.

Aside from just the constant, constant, use of it, her levitation wasn’t changed much.

Her herbophony hasn’t really changed much either, but some of the plants in the area have become psycho-radioactive as well, giving them a bit of a psychic edge. It allows her better communication with them as well as giving some plants psychic abilities for themselves.

Most of what psilirium has done to Daisy is make an unstable person more unstable and a psychic person more psychic. But in an obvious much worse, much faster, and much more overt way than psitanium. Or at least I hop im that’s how it comes across <3!

[marshmallowprotection]

WARNING! VERY LONG! AND ALSO TALKS ABOUT ABUSE AND MANIPULATION AND ALSO MENTIONS OF ALCOHOL.

Please don't read if that triggers you!

ALSO MAJOR AND I MEAN MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DRAKENGARD 3 AND POSSIBLY EVILLIOUS CHRONICLES TOO. — Submission

It has been like a millennium since I have sent you any sort of things about a character (or in this case, characterS) but as I recently revised the story of this very fucked up pair of twins, I decided to show them to you. They are specifically characters in an RP of mine with my friend Jade which is a crossover between Evillious Chronicles and Drakengard 3.

Here's a bit of context:

The Intoners are beings that can use the power of song, but their true purpose is to destroy the world. The original Intoner was Zero, who became an Intoner after the Flower, some sort of being that the Gods created to destroy the world, took root inside of her corpse and effectively 'revived' her as an Intoner; also, Zero wasn't always called Zero, previously she was named Rose (which wasn't her birth name, as she has no birth name), but she changed her name to Zero after she became an Intoner (it's unknown why). After Zero tried to kill herself when she realized that she'd eventually be forced to destroy the world by the Flower, the Flower, sensing her hostility towards it, birthed five beings from her as sort of 'backups' in a sense to ensure it would succeed in destroying the world: One, Two, Three, Four, and Five. These beings are all in some way like Zero, as they were created from fragments of her memories, personality, and resemble people from Zero's past; e.g. One resembles a rebel girl who Zero was tied up next to as she was left to die in town's square of some village as punishment for her crimes of murdering hundreds of people; Five resembles a nun who Zero had killed at some point before she became an Intoner; etc. The Flower did this on purpose to make Zero hesitate in killing them, which...on paper it would seem to be a good idea, but Zero's not the type to hesitate in killing anybody, unless it's someone she cares about (which, the only people she cares about are not even really 'people', their dragons), and she don't give two fucks about the other Intoners at all, so, yeah.

'HERS' is a acronym for 'Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome' and its a fictional disease in Evillious that when your infected you become compelled into doing violence, as the goal of anybody whose ends up with HERS is to destroy the world and everybody in it; well that's an oversimplified explanation of it.

The Climb One is a ship that the last Earthlings from the Second Period used to escape their dying planet.

The First Period was the very first world in Evillious, which heavily resembled our world; the Second Period was a virtual reality created by the people of the First Period which also heavily resembled our world. At some point the First Period died (it's implied that a nuclear war happened there which is why everybody there died) and thanks to Behemo the Earthlings on the Climb One were taken into reality and they found the ruined First Period planet and on its ruins was built the Third Period (which was a world of its own). Oh and the humans from the Second Period are referred to as Earthlings in order to differentiate them from First Period/Third Period humans as they were originally not even 'real'.

Sickle is a robot built by an Earthling named Luna Hazuki and eventually he becomes a god and takes the form of a bat who observes the people of the Third Period.

Medora is another OC of mine from my RP with Jade. Her story is a story for another time ^^'

Aurende is an original kingdom of mine, not a country that's canonly in EC.

Why are Lumina and Eliora Romanian? I dunno I found out Lumina means sunshine in Romanian and just went with it; it's an insignificant detail anyways that's not exactly very relevant to Lumina and Eliora's stories but is just there.

Alright the context dumping is done with ^^''''' go onto the Evillious Chronicles and Drakengard wikis, they can give you a lot more less simplified context for this stuff but I think I told you the bare minimum you need to understand whats going on? I hope I gave you enough context to understand ^^'

But anyways on with th character info and Lumina and Eliora's story!

Name: Lumina

Aliases: True God Twins (With Eliora)

Lumi (By Eliora)

Lumina Ardelean (Full Name)

Hypocritical Strawberry (By Sickle, Mockingly)

Age: 1,045+ (On 499 E.C.)

Looks 18

Height: 163 cm/5’4’’

Weight: 49 kgs/110 lbs

Cup Size: C

Bust/Waist/Hip: 84/59/85

Sex: Female

Gender: Female

Classification: Human (Till 529 B.T.)

Earthling (Till 528 B.T.)

God

Race: Romanian

Hair Color: Strawberry Blonde

Eye Color: Gold

Born: 546 B.T.

Died: Varies

Status: Varies

Sexuality: Bisexual/Demiromantic

Relatives: Unnamed Mother (Deceased; Died In Childbirth)

Unnamed Father (Deceased; Died of Alcohol Overdose)

Eliora Ardelean (Younger Twin Sister)

Flower (Creation)

Zero (Flower’s Host)

One (Creation Via Flower)

Two (Creation Via Flower)

Three (Creation Via Flower)

Four (Creation Via Flower)

Five (Creation Via Flower)

Medora Aurende (Prototype Intoner)

Occupation: Creator of The Flower And Intoners

Affiliations: None

Favorite Food: Chocolate-Strawberry Sundae

Loves: Eliora, Revenge, Inducing Suffering In Others, Chocolate, Sundaes, Sweets, Strawberries

Hates: Alcohol, Her Father, People Who Hurt Others, People Calling Out Her Hypocrisy, Faeries, Her Father’s Girlfriend, Five

Weapons: Magic

Background + Personality: Lumina is a prideful but vengeful girl, whose been irreversibly scarred by the events of her and her twin sister’s childhood. Her mother died giving birth to her and her sister, which caused her father to blame her and her sister for their mother’s death, giving him an excuse to constantly beat her and starve her and her sister. Lumina did her best to protect Eliora from their father, taking most of their father’s beatings. Due to their father being an alcoholic and his alcoholism only causing her and Eliora to be abused even more horribly and brutally whenever he was drunk, Lumina developed a hatred of alcohol, especially beer and wine, which her father drank often. Her father eventually got a girlfriend, who also often abused the two girls, and ironically, this girlfriend heavily resembled Five, the youngest Intoner sister, which caused Lumina and Eliora to often be uncomfortable whenever she is in Five’s presence later on.

Lumina one day discovered her mother’s diary and found that her father had in fact heavily abused her mother when she was alive, like he did to Lumina and Eliora, and that her mother had been a way for him to take out all his anger and pain, and her mother believed that that was ok, because this way she had a meaning, this way her ‘worthless’ life had a meaning. Lumina realized her father was not upset about her and Eliora’s mother’s death because he was in love with her mother, he was upset because he had lost his main coping mechanism to deal with all of his problems, and so had replaced her mother with her and Eliora. Lumina became enraged by this revelation and confronted her father about it, but only found herself battered to near death.

The next day, her father died of an alcohol overdose, and she and Eliora ran away and ended up on the streets. From there they were constantly beaten yet again, except not by their father, but by people they had never even met before.

Lumina continued doing her best to protect her sister from the abuse and often took care of her, leading to the two sisters becoming starkly different in their world view;

Eliora’s world view will be stated in her info, but nonetheless here is Lumina’s world view:

Lumina, sick and tired of all of the pain she went through because of the world, developed a hatred of the world and a desire to destroy it all and start again, as well as to punish humanity for being ‘sinful’ creatures, believing that starting from zero again was the only way to end the cycle of abuse. Ironically, Lumina found herself also enjoying watching other people suffer, as she believed that other people deserved it for being ‘cruel, sinful humans’, which made her no better than her abusers and only showed she was a hypocrite in what she believed, as she began actively inflicting harm upon others just like how she had been hurt.

Eventually, Lumina and Eliora by unknown means managed to sneak into the Second Period, where Lumina ended up unknowingly being infected by HERS, which only served to make her desire to destroy the world stronger; Eliora, however, remained uninfected. Lumina and Eliora then snuck onto the Climb One, where they would then end up in the chaos somehow reincarnated into Gods and trapped inside the Climb One with Levia and Behemo, who questioned who they were until Behemo recognized them as the two homeless girls he saw often wandering the streets. Lumina and Eliora would manage to escape the Climb One within a few years thanks to their bodies being intact, and they soon found that they had become gods, which gave Lumina an idea; they enact a plan to destroy the world. Despite Eliora’s hesitance, Eliora went through with it and so the two sisters began their experimentations which would eventually lead to the creation of the Flower and the concept of Intoners.

One of their prototype Intoners was Medora Aurende, a princess of the Kingdom of Aurende, who was later deemed a failure due to not being strong enough to destroy the world, and so the twins disposed of her, leaving her for dead in a forest in the Beelzenian Empire.

Eventually, the Flower was finally complete along with the concept of Intoners, and the twins enacted their plan to destroy the world. They went to the city of Alicegrad in the country of Holy Levianta and infected a human who had been left for dead in the city square named ‘Rose’ with the Flower, and she was soon revived and turned into an Intoner. Rose changed her name to Zero soon after. Eliora began to become more and more hesitant and concerned with Lumina’s plan to destroy the world, but in response, Lumina slapped her and told her

“I’ve protected you for your entire life, you know. It’s time you repaid me a bit by helping me destroy the world that hurt me so much. And this will only serve to benefit you anyways; after all, this world hurt you so much too, despite my attempts at protecting you. Why wouldn’t you want to destroy it as well, Eli?”

Eliora afterward meekly nodded and never questioned Lumina again out of fear of what she’d do to her if she dared to question the plan again, even though Eliora could tell the Flower was slowly growing out of their control.

Lumina’s overall a very hateful, vengeful, hypocritical woman who at this point constantly contradicts herself, claiming that she wants to break the cycle of abuse whilst continuing to harm others. Yet deep in her heart, it seems she does genuinely still care for her sister, although it appears as time passes she slowly becomes more and more obsessed with hurting other people and punishing humanity for its sins as she gradually succumbs to her HERS instincts, and her care and empathy slowly wither away; even her love for her sister and feelings of kinship with Zero is slowly dissipating; until all that remains is her hatred of the world and humanity overall. Sickle mockingly calls her a ‘hypocritical strawberry’ due to her hypocrisy and strange obsession with strawberries.

Name: Eliora

Aliases: True God Twins (With Lumina)

Eli (By Lumina)

Eliora Ardelean (Full Name)

Pitiable Strawberry (By Sickle)

Age: 1,045+ (On 499 E.C.)

Looks 18

Height: 161 cm/5’3’’

Weight: 48 kgs/108 lbs

Cup Size: C

Bust/Waist/Hip: 83/58/84

Sex: Female

Gender: Female

Classification: Human (Till 529 B.T.)

Earthling (Till 528 B.T.)

God

Race: Romanian

Hair Color: Strawberry Blonde

Eye Color: Gold

Born: 546 B.T.

Died: Varies

Status: Varies

Sexuality: Bisexual/Demiromantic

Relatives: Unnamed Mother (Deceased; Died In Childbirth)

Unnamed Father (Deceased; Died of Alcohol Overdose)

Lumina Ardelean (Older Twin Sister)

Flower (Creation)

Zero (Flower’s Host)

One (Creation Via Flower)

Two (Creation Via Flower)

Three (Creation Via Flower)

Four (Creation Via Flower)

Five (Creation Via Flower)

Medora Aurende (Prototype Intoner)

Occupation: Creator of The Flower And Intoners

Affiliations: None

Favorite Food: Chocolate-Strawberry Sundae

Loves: Lumina (Or So She Claims), Dancing, Chocolate, Sundaes, Sweets, Baby Animals, Children, Dragons, Books, Reading, Singing, Zero, Strawberries

Hates: Seeing People Suffer, Her Father, Her Father’s Girlfriend, Five, The World (To A Much Lesser Degree Than Lumina), Alcohol

Weapons: Magic

Background + Personality: Most of Eliora and Lumina’s backstory was covered in Lumina’s info, so most of it will not be stated here except for any parts unique to Eliora.

Eliora is a meek, weak-willed girl who does as her sister tells her, secretly wishing to deviate from her sister’s will but being unable to as she is blinded by her ‘love’ for her sister and by what Lumina constantly tells her about their plan with the Flower and Intoners being “for the best”, that it’s “better for them to destroy the world here to stop humans from continuing to sin and hurt each other”, that “humanity is a sinful, malicious race that should be annihilated along with this cruel world they created”, even though Eliora knows deep inside that Lumina is merely manipulating her and forcing her to go along with what she wants.

Eliora’s world view is vastly different from her sister’s, as Eliora, who often could only watch as her sister was beaten and hurt constantly, found herself believing that revenge didn’t do much but perpetuate the cycle of abuse that she and Lumina suffered from, and so believed that the only way to end the cycle was to help abuse survivors not repeat the actions of their abusers. But Lumina heavily disagreed with her and forced Eliora, whether through physical harm or threats, to go along with Lumina’s plans and act the part of an ‘evil god who wants to destroy the world’.

Eliora also feels as if she’s indebted to Lumina for her protecting her from most of abuse of their childhood, and so feels obligated to help her even though she really believes that what Lumina’s doing is wrong.

Sickle pityingly calls Eliora a ‘pitiable strawberry’ due to her strange obsession with strawberries just like Lumina and because she’s a person who is very pitiable.

Whenever Eliora is able to, she often spends her time dancing, singing, or reading, loving all three activities immensely and secretly wishing she could have become a dancer or writer or singer or something of the sort rather than a mere instrument in her sister’s plans to destroy the world, and hopes that in some other life she could go follow her dreams rather than be forced to help her sister.

Also unlike her sister, Eliora is a very empathetic person, and despises killing and hurting others, although pretends as if she does enjoy such activities in order to please her sister.

So yeah, that's Lumina and Eliora's story. *me torturing my characters again and again goes brrrr-*

For reference here's their official designs (btw I probably should redo their arts considering their older as I made them back in April so yeah- oof) as well as sketch I made of them I may never finish but who knows:

Left girl is Lumina, right girl is Eliora ^

Oh, wow.

Okay. You’ve really edited and revised a lot of the story. The girls are looking really good, too. Angst can be a good device to help you channel your emotions in a healthy and constructive way. I think you’re building a really fun universe that just works for you and all of this design, planning and care takes a lot of time and effort. Never discount that work you put into it.

They are foils of each other.

They suffered but they handled it differently. That makes for an interesting arc for the both of them as they try to make sense of reality.

[theguildedtypewriter]

What Did You Say? A guide to writing good dialogue

(Remember all pieces of advice are meant to help guide, that is all. They are not dogma.)

Ever read something and heard the dialogue in your head, and you just stopped. There was something off about it and for a solid minute there you couldn’t tell if the character was supposed to sound like that or if the author just didn’t have dialogue down. Chances are some mistakes were made. 

Dialogue can be tricky. There’s no doubt about it.

You need to make it sound like the characters are having a real conversation but if you write it exactly like people talk it can get confusing and sound even worse. 

“So how do I write good dialogue?!”

You can usually sense when your dialogue needs work. So here’s a set of some dialogue trick that might help you. When you think something is off with your dialogue use this to help you figure out what and make some changes.

All about that Flow-

It’s said all the time about your first draft, the important thing is to get the words on the page, you’ll refine later. This technique applies to your dialogue, and you’ll even come up with lines you never would have if you spent your time trying to be perfect.

You can even try writing the dialogue first. Get down what your characters are arguing about, planning, revealing, etc. Do it fast, pay no attention to who said what. Just get the words out.

This dialogue can give you a good idea what the scene is about and it might be different than what you thought. Then just go back to it and fill in.

This can be good for when you’re in a slump.

Talk it Out-

You can also practice dialogue or get yourself going by speaking the lines of two of your characters as they interact. An argument or conversation between your two character except you say all the lines as they come to you.

Overt the Obvious-

A very common mistake is creating a simple back-and-forth. Each line directly answers the previous line, often repeating a word or phrase from that previous line, echoing it. Ex:

“Hello, Tina.” “Hi, Jane.” “I really like your blouse.” “Oh, my blouse! You mean this old thing?” “Old thing! You’ve never worn it before.”

No surprises and very little interest. Some direct response is alright, but your dialogue will be better if you overt the obvious:

“Hello, Tina.” “Jane. I didn’t see you come in.” “Nice shirt.” “Did you finish your half of the project?”

Okay, I don’t know why they’re pissed at each other but this exchange is way more interesting and suggestive of what’s going on behind the scenes than the first.

(How could I not use the Crow?)

Zip It-

Another powerful way to overt the obvious is silence. It can be the best choice for an exchange. Hemingway is good at this. By using a combination silence and action, he gets the point across through a short but compelling exchanges. Look at “Soldier’s Home”:

“God has some work for every one to do,” his mother said. “There can’t be no idle hands in His Kingdom.” “I’m not in His Kingdom,” Krebs said. “We are all of us in His Kingdom.” Krebs felt embarrassed and resentful as always. “I’ve worried about you so much, Harold,” his mother went on. “I know the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak men are. I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day long, Harold.” Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on the plate.

You can express a lot by what a character doesn’t say.

Confrontation is your Friend-

We all want to avoid the info dump. Telling out readers everything that happened in the backstory in one chunk that slows down the story. You can avoid this by  using dialogue. When you create a tension-filled scene, typically between two characters, you can get them arguing and then have the information come out in the natural progression of the conversation. 

The not so great way:

Regina Black was a cop running from a terrible past. She had been fired for bungling an operation while she was drunk.

Try it out in a scene:

“I know who you are,” Nancy said. “You know nothing,” said Regina. “You’re that ex-cop.” “I need to be—” “From the 54th . You got your partner killed because you were drunk off your ass. Yeah, I know you.”

This can give you dialogue weight and increase your pace.

You Don’t Need ALL the Words-

People don’t often speak the say way we write things. We leave words out, we use contraction, we shorten. A standard exchange might go down like this:

“Your mom was killed? “Yes, she was in a car accident.” “What was her name?” “Her name was Martha.”

Try something more like this:

“Your mom was killed?” “Car accident.” “What was her name?” “Martha.”

This is leaner and sounds more like real speech without sounding too weird or chopped up for a reader to understand.

Don’t Explain Everything-

I know we always want to make sure that our readers understand exactly what we’re getting at. But consider the following:

“That’s amazing news,” he said gleefully.

Look right to you? 

Well, it’s not technically wrong so yeah. But this is a pretty commonly trap. You’re telling your reader your character’s feelings twice. The adverb ‘gleefully’ really isn’t needed here. Now, that’s not to say that adverbs have no place. For example:

“That’s amazing news,” he said mournfully.

Oh wait what? He’s not happy about that? Why? See in this context the adverb actually gives the reader important information quickly. Many people that they don’t like adverbs but I find them useful when not stuffed into your writing too much.

Here’s another example:

“I can’t believe it!” Marnie said.

Here, there’s no dialogue explanation, so it’s tightened up and the focus is on what is being said rather than how. Plus, readers can now imagine my OC’s surprise, which helps them get closer to my OC.

You really shouldn’t have to explain your dialogue.

Keep your dialogue transparent-

When your dialogue is powerful, the last thing you want to do is move the reader’s attention somewhere else. Explanations and ‘ly’ adverbs can break the flow because they jump out to the reader, making them focus, if only for a second, on the fact that they’re reading instead of being engrossed in the story.

Now, people may not like this, but said is NOT dead. When we see the word said, we tend to gloss over it like it were a comma or period. And that’s exactly what we want. We want the reader to pay no attention to the word but accept it’s purpose.

Study Conversations-

Coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. Fantastic places to do some people listening. This kind of people studying can really help to create dialogue that sounds so natural. I am personally a huge fan of Buffy for this because it genuinely sounded like teenagers/young adults and the pop culture references where amazing. People talk in cliches, gestures, and movie/TV quotes. So many quotes.

Also remember, conversation isn’t just words. It’s body language, tone, eye contact, facial expressions, etc. Consider this:

“You lied to me,” said John.

“I did it to protect you,” said Tate.

James moved toward John and reached for his hand. “We didn’t want you to get hurt—”

John pushed his hand away and backed away from them. “I trusted you.”

You can use actions to break up dialogue. This is a creative way to move the conversation along and show what the characters are feeling using their responses and gestures together.

Just keep in mind that if you intersperse action between every line of dialogue it loses it’s usefulness.

Don’t keep pointless prose-

As writers, we frequently stuff too many details into dialogue. You need balance realism and dialogue purpose. Dialogue is suppose to help move the story along, offer depth, and convey information. When dialogue doesn’t fulfill any of these purposes, it has to go. Look at this:

“I saw Todd in the park the other day,” said Steve.

“Oh yeah?” inquired Susan. “How is he?”

“He has a new job. He has a flexible schedule, so he has way more free time,” said Steve.

“Well, good for him,” said Susan. “Do know how he’ll use his free time?”

“No. I meant to ask him, but forgot,” said Steve.

This conversation is slow, boring, chunky, and serves no purpose. This didn’t really relay any new information and it didn’t move the story anywhere. Now, if the point was to show a stilted conversation between ex-lovers, friends, or a conversation about nothing because the characters can’t face the hard stuff, this would be great for that. But honestly, that’s a purpose right there. If you can find no purpose for the prose, take it out.

Read it aloud-

The last tip is to read your work aloud. I do this. Complete with facial expressions, gestures, and voices. It can be a really fast way of finding a problem. Pace, punctuation, flow. When you read out loud, issues with these things become crystal freaking clear.

Where did you stumble or pause unnaturally? Fix that. Any accidental rhymes or repeated words? Edit them.

Does the dialogue match the character? If your character is uneducated , make sure they sound that way. A professor? Make sure the OC sounds smart.

When you read a bad sentence you’re sure to flinch or stumble along the way. When you do, you know where there’s work to be done.

Applying your dialogue tips- 

The tips above aren’t quick fixes. You’ll need to work on them throughout the course of your writing. Don’t feel overwhelmed. Consider them one at a time. Do whatever works for you. This is all just meant to help. 

And remember,

NEVER STOP WRITING!

[tysonrunningfox]

So question for you. I know you're a big fan of Star Trek Voyager (Who isn't tbh) and I was curious. If you could replace the crew with people from Festerverse....who would do what?

Yes, a star trek ask, my heart.  

And this is hard, I don’t know if I can really do it justice within the context of voyager because it’s hard with my festerverse crew, mostly because of age differences.  Like…if I”m talking about these people, Astrid, Hiccup, and Eret Sr. are looking at being admirals and captains and commanders and like Eret III is basically Wesley Crusher at this point, like, a smol bean being put at the helm of a super big ship.  

So instead I’m just going to kind of sort them and say where I think they’d be in the context of starfleet?  I think that makes more sense?  And then we can just pretend they’re all on the same ship dumped in the delta quadrant and they pick up not-evil!Johann/Neelix and I don’t even know who would be Kes.  I just can’t with Kes.  I still don’t believe Kes happened.  

(this goes for like…a Long Time and I’m sorry)

Eret Sr. wouldn’t still be in starfleet, for one, the whole Eret III thing would have left a bad taste in his mouth about it.  Astrid would have been a lieutenant commander before the whole Eret III debaucle and I could see her stepping away from her rank to avoid the scandal.  In the context of Eret III, she’d step back into her rank and I’m just going to pretend that starfleet would be cool with that.  Hiccup would be a ship’s captain who’d had offers to move on to being an admiral, but he’s not willing to give up the whole trekking through the stars thing and also, as an admiral, he wouldn’t have a chance to cherry pick a upstart young ensign graduating early from the academy.  You know him, he’s got an ironic name and a thirst to prove himself?  

Eret III would be an academy star, honestly, his heart’s in the right place for starfleet and he’s smart and hard working and honestly, the kind of kid that would really really like his name being on plaques on a wall because he likes validation with a physical presence.  He’d get shunted towards engineering again and again because he’s crafty and good under pressure, but his heart is in command (until he gets that paternity info back, but whatever).  

Fuse is in engineering and isn’t necessarily good at it.  They want the warp core in one functioning piece and Fuse really wants to drop it on something.  This gives her a reputation of brilliant, but distracted, but I could see her coming into her own when a frustrated and not entirely honestly promoted Eret ends up a lieutenant in charge of her in engineering.  He knows how to talk to her to get her best work and that is a good thing because it’s star trek so there are always shenanigans afoot.  

Arvid barely graduates the academy because he wanted to drop out and go the soldier route at every turn and his mom was always like, no.  He and Eret would graduate at the same time even though Eret is younger and Arvid would struggle with that.  

Aurelia would also be pushing for early graduation from the academy, but she struggles in the physical aspects of star fleet training as well as the general nature of the thing.  Aurelia is my daughter and she is brilliant and strong and stubborn and trying, but she is not unfailingly kind or loyal.  She would not have that captain composure in a no win situation.  She is not above calling teachers stupid when they’re wrong.  Hiccup would probably be forced to endorse her early graduation, even though he doesn’t think she’s ready, because he’s more than a little worried about her getting kicked out otherwise.  

Ingrid would be an upstart safety officer.  Smitelout would be an engineer specializing in replicator function.  Rolf would be an assistant professor at starfleet academy.  Stoick would still be a small, sassy child.  

This got really long.  I’m sorry.  I just love my garbage oc’s and also love star trek.