HEY! NO! AHHHH

HEY! NO! AHHHH

(Go read all the tags! Sobbing!)

thinking about how annie didn't get the chance to bury finnick…

thinking about how katniss didn't get the chance to bury prim…

thinking about how peeta didn't get the chance to bury his family…

thinking about how katniss didn't get the chance to bury madge…

"What if my friends secretly hate me?" What if they pray for you before bed? What if they hear a song come on and it makes them immediately think of you? What if when times are hard for them, they close their eyes and think of the memories they've shared with you? What if they study your face closely to see how you're feeling? What if they listen to your stories? What if they smile when you text them first? What if

The new Hunger Games novel is called “Sunrise on the Reaping”

And Peeta’s favorite color is “orange like the sunset.”

Haymitch is the beginning of the end. The dawning of change. Without him going first Katniss (and Peeta) wouldn’t have made it out.

Lucy Gray was forgotten, like a dream.

Peeta and Katniss are the sunset of the Games. And afterwards they are safe and can close their eyes. And when again they open, their children will grow up in a safe and warm world.

Haymitch is in the middle. I’ve connected the dots.

The single most important piece of writing advice I would give to a lot of amateur writers is to write less beautifully - or at least to write beautifully less.

I rarely find a piece of writing I can't read because it's too simple, or too concise and to-the-point - not memorable, perhaps, but also not a headache on a page. On the other hand, I see loads of pieces which are effectively unreadable because they're far too rich to swallow, and badly in need of watering down a bit.

The absolute worst culprit is the dialogue tags. I'm a big fan of letting people write in their own style, but I would love it if a lot of writers could please cool it with letting me know every time a character blinks or licks their lips. I don't need to know that, especially if it happens every time they speak.

So many dialogue excerpts look like this:

"So this is how we talk?" he queried quietly, his eyebrows furrowed into knots. "Apparently," she replied with a puzzled grin, bouncing on the balls of her feet with restless energy. "Isn't that... exhausting?" he questioned, a lop-sided smile snaking its way across his lips. "The bouncing?" she asked shyly, her eyelids fluttering in shame. "No, of course not," he told her, his lean arms reached out to pull her closer. He buried his face into the mess of her hair, taking a deep breath of her perfume. "I just feel a little nauseated by all of these actions." "I don't know what you mean," she giggled, brushing the hair back out of her eyes as her cheeks flushed red. "Don't worry," he sighed, rolling his eyes up towards the ceiling.

I'm assuming this is a convention that comes from somewhere, given its ubiquity - perhaps somewhere in the world of fanfiction, where there will be short, intimate pieces entirely focused on the ways in which characters interact with each other. But to me, in an original work, it's so exhausting that I can't make it down the rest of the page.

Dialogue tags may be the worst, or most obvious offenders, but the same principle extends pretty much everywhere else. Each line doesn't have to be some great quote you can hang on your wall, and it's hard to read a whole story written like that.

There's been some recent backlash on here against modern films where every line of dialogue is a quip, at the expense of building an authentic conversation, but that's how a lot of people start out writing - thinking that each sentence should be made as flowery as possible, when too many flowers in the same pot will crowd each other out.

You need to leave some gaps to let the sunlight in, and illuminate the beauty of the occasional flourish you do include. Think of it like vanilla extract, to make a reference that was topical when I started writing this post: you need to add a little for flavour, without which the writing will be too dull, but tip the bottle and I will actually be sick. Write beautifully less. Learn to embrace the prosaic.

Nightwing: "We'll have to talk to Agent A, but it shouldn't be a problem."

Flash: "'Agent A'? Who's that? And why do you need to ask their permission? Batman's right here."

Nightwing: "You don't actually think Batman's in charge, do you?"

Flash: "What?"

Nightwing: "We can get away with upsetting B, but we'd all rather die than upset A. It's why their names like that, by the way. A's in charge, B's just the public figure."

Batman: "That's not true and you know it,"

Nightwing: "You gonna look me in the eye and say that?"

Batman: "..."

Nightwing: "That's what I thought."

Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.