What genre is your specialty? What genre do you struggle with, and what portion of it do you struggle with? Let's share tips to help each other! (Writers corner)

[Leyelle]

My best genres are Romance, Drama, slice of life. All things character building and emotion based. So if you use the @ for your questions, i'm willing to do my best to answer them.

I struggle writing action scenes. What methods do you guys use to make action scenes actually FEEL dangerous? I don't have trouble explaining what's going on, but making the action scenes feel as high stakes as they are, and keeping the pacing feeling fast enough is a bit of a struggle.

I'm open for any tips on writing action scenes though, so please do share away.

[AmysGames]

My preferred genre is fantasy! I really enjoy worldbuilding and coming up with cool magic systems.

Re: action scenes, that's something I've struggled with for a long time, and it's only after many years of writing that I've started to feel semi-decent at it, lol. A few tips I've picked up that might help you (or anyone else with similar problems):

• Don't overcomplicate it. I used to stress a lot about characters just doing the same things over and over, but that doesn't mean you always need to try and come up with something new and innovative for every scene.

• You don't actually need to narrate every single action. Again, like I said above, I used to get really bogged down in the details, and found a lot of mileage from glossing over the repetitive stuff and just focusing on key moments.

• The characters' personalities can affect what they do in a fight! e.g. A confident character might be more aggressive, or someone might act more defensive when they know they're outmatched, or my personal favorite "character gets noticeably more aggressive when their loved ones are in danger." Good stuff!

[HostileFren]

My preferred genre is fantasy!

Me too actually! Both of my current stories are fantasy romance although I've written some short stories that were a bit more contemporary fiction.

I struggle writing action scenes.

I also struggle with these, I feel like it is so hard to do the dangers of the situation justice without actually doing any action. My action scenes always feel very short, but I never said my novel was an action novel, lol
I've got a spoiler here from Chapter 13 of my main novel:
The expressions of the soldiers were enough to determine who was on her side and who would side with her uncle. Surprisingly the majority of them seemed to be on her side. Giving the signal to Aza, she immediately jumped into action calling the soldiers to arms.
“You see, I have a good part of your army on my side and I intend to treat my people as they deserve to be treated. Your tyranny ends today!” Alice said as she commanded her animals to join the fray.
They were biting, kicking and distracting any soldier who dared to resist. Per Alice’s order, not a single soldier was to be intentionally killed. Any injuries dealt to her uncle’s soldiers in self defense were okay, but she preferred they were all restrained instead.

[Leyelle]

yeah, i'm working on an adventure story for a competition rn, and since it has to be under 3k words, that means i'll have to bring a lot of action to make it feel adventurous (at least that's how I see it) it's a struggle.

@AmysGames

thanks for the advice!

[kyupol]

My preferred genre is anything to do with philosophy / spirituality... and politics and religion.

As well as action scenes.

My weakness is making characters small talk.

[Leyelle]

did you want advice on writing small talk lol? it's one of my strong points

One thing about writing small talk is to keep in mind your character's personalities. They may be talking about something boring like work, but their personalities will most likely still come through in the scenes. Even if your story is written from a third person perspective, it gives you an opportunity to use little details in the dialog as a way to hint toward what the characters are thinking.

If they are angry at the person they are talking to, it might subtly come through in statements they make while feigning to be polite. If they are romantically interested in a person, but talking in a group setting, they might try to lead the conversation back toward the person they actually want to be talking to.

I think the biggest piece of advice I have is not to write in small talk if it doesn't serve a purpose. I usually use small talk and subtly weave it up to a more important conversation by putting little verbal triggers in the small talk that make the character's gradually change the topic, other times you can use the conversation to hint toward something more important, or have their thoughts playing in the background while meaningless dialog takes place. I use all these methods for incorporating small talk into my stories.

[XiuLyn_12]

My best genre is probably similar to yours! I always include Romance in every story I make!
I tried making Horror comics before, they weren't my best works but I think I did pretty well creating light suspense, haha!

As for my struggles, definitely something with Mystery and Twists involved! I haven't tried making Actions stories, but I think I can do it if I have a specific plot idea!

[Leyelle]

As for my struggles, definitely something with Mystery and Twists involved

what kind of twists do you mean?

[BoomerZ]

I don't really have a specialty. I think my dialogue is pretty good as well as my layouts for panels. I'm doing a romance style comics now so there is lots of talking, but there is still a fair bit of action when called for. I'm still learning color as all my normal artwork was black and white, so I would say that is still my weakness in my comics.

[Leyelle]

Well it's good to be well rounded too. Maybe you'll find a specialty, or maybe what you do will grow evenly all around

[NickRowler]

I prefer writing comedy and slice-of-life.

I guess I struggle with action scenes. Action scenes in media tends to bore me in general so I don't really understand what about it excites people.

[Leyelle]

so then are you trying to write action or what lol?

[Lensing]

Erotic / humour / antiheros and short autobiographic stories which are mainly
about making music.

I would not be able to write fantasy, violenct stories or an action scene / car chase because I´m not
really interested in it.

I don´t feel like I struggle with a certain genre because I only write the genres that
I like but I start struggling when I have to write longer stories. I guess my ideas and
characters are not suited for long stories

[Leyelle]

so did you want advice I on wanting longer stories or no?

[Lensing]

I would like advice for longer stories.

I´m not sure what the problem is though. I usually hate the main character when
I finished the story and they always change during the writing

[Leyelle]

So you like the initial character designs but you find that over the course of long stories your characters change into a character you hate?

(asking for clarity so I can answer the question/offer help)

[Lensing]

Yes, that happened to me a couple of times. It works for short stories but it´s really
hard for me to make longer stories with antiheros

[Vassia]

Is it possibe you don't have your character's growth planned out? Or maybe they don't have enough flaws to start with, so they gain some as the story progesses to make them more rounded? Usually the image I have for my characters at then end is very different from the one in the beginning. They end up growing out or into some of their flaws and even their personalities are a little different. More confidence, more acceptance, etc. I get a little angry at my character's from the beginning because I know how much potential they have and where they're heading, it lets me look forward to their future.

I think having a character that grows is a sign of good writing. It's also very possible that if you're character wasn't the most well rounded person before, them gaining flaws or growing in ways you didn't expect is just a sign that your writing is improving because you're writing more realistic characters. But then you have to balance the fine line of a realisitic character and one that isn't dislikable. My only advice is really just to plan it out a little, don't just have an end goal for the story but also your character's emotional arc as well.

[Vassia]

My specialties are Fantasy, YA, Coming of age and I dabble in historic fiction. Themes that I often play with are enviromentalism, human ethics, healing from trauma, and I don't really know what else.

I'm pretty a bad at sci-fi. I've been trying to get more into it but it's hard for me to write the settings that are soo different from our own. I'm also not great at shorter stories. It's hard for me to fit a plot into just a few pages.

[Leyelle]

One thing that would probably help this process is to clearly define the emotional arc/change you want your character to go through. Then you can orchestrate all the chapters and events that take place between the beginning and the end to make sure you never deviate too far from your intended direction. It also helps to have a character reference sheet to refer to.

Sometimes you don't have to plan out your characters' evolutions ahead of time, though it's usually helpful, but there should always be factors of who they are that remain consistent no matter how much they change otherwise, that allows them to remain the character you love.

These are the center points of your character, and you can change other things around them, but never the actual basis of their personality.

I also find that if you WANT to write longer stories, then developing backstory is super helpful. One, it helps you to have a stronger understanding of your characters so they can remain consistent, and also the more you know about their backstories, the more details you will find to expand upon, to keep the story from feeling like it's length is unnecessary.