writethisfanfic

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I'm one chapter away from being done with editing what's already been published of Vorare, my Victory Tour era Hunger Games fic! Very excited about that as my hope is that I'll be able to finish editing that last chapter tomorrow and go back to typing up my continuity notes.

I gave this writing advice on my blog today, but I'm going to say it here, too. Paragraph breaks are your friends. I've learned a lot since I first started writing Vorare back in 2014.

I wish younger me had broken up her paragraphs. It would have made for a clearer and more readable experience.

Once I finish editing what's been published, I'm going to make the update all in one go. Then I'll worry about working on what I've written so far of the next chapter.

Here's a little piece from the opening nightmare sequence:

The cold air bites at her cheeks. She buries her nose in the scarf Madge knit her to ward off the chill.

Mindful of the leaves and twigs on the ground, she pulls Cinna’s gloves tighter across her fingers as she walks.

A peal of laughter brings her to a halt. A shadow passes swiftly in her peripheral vision followed by another and more laughter. She turns.

Two girls are running ahead of her, zig-zagging past the trees. Their feet crunch against leaves as they play at catching each other.

One girl screams, ‘Slowpoke,’ to the other’s shrill of delight in spite of being foiled. Her laugh echoes through the forest, young and bright.

Their playing compels her feet to follow. A smile slowly blooms to life on her face as she tries to keep pace.

Both girls resemble her.

One shares her skin tone and dark hair. The other is pale, but she shares her features. An arrow for a nose, and a bow for a mouth.

Like twin banners, the girls’ red scarves trail behind them, flapping in the wind in ripples.

She opens her mouth to call out to them, but before she can another shadow passes in the corner of her eye almost too fast for her to catch.

She turns, a smile still spread across her face, and finds a beast nearly as tall as her with sweat slicked golden fur.

It looks at once familiar and unfamiliar as if she’s looking at a contorted version of something she’s seen before but never this close and never this looming. The smile slips slowly from her lips.

With its nose pressed to the ground, the creature sniffs until it catches a scent it likes. A rumble sounds in its throat before its head whips in the direction of the two girls.

For a moment all it does is watch. Then its muscles shift and it charges after them.

Fear crashes through the warmth she’d felt seconds ago.

Other than working on this project, I aim to find some writing advice on how to break up dialogue. I'm fine until a character is speaking for awhile without interruption, then I run into some trouble.

I don't want just blocks of text, but I also don't want to just add dialogue tags and description when it isn't necessary. Any advice would be much appreciated.