Favorite Thing to Write?

Color me curious. What parts of a story do you like writing most? Why? What do you think you're best at?

Characters or plot? Plot or intrigue? Intrigue or foreshadowing? Foreshadowing or description?

What kinds of scenes do you like? Chill, quiet scenes? Tense scenes? Conflict-driven scenes? Emotional scenes?

I love writing scenes with lots of character interaction. Super emotional scenes are the best!

I love writing scenes with a lot of action and tension - be it an emotional or physical fight, I find it really fun to pit characters against each other and see how they fare. I also really like dialogue in general, especially with my characters who have strong personalities.

I also love goofy banter, and letting funny characters play off of each other and their circumstances. Just cause, I mean, I'd like to think I'm funny?? Lol, so I get to joke around haha.

All of the above??

I love writing first scenes and last scenes. Swoopy/mushy romantic scenes are probably my favorite - like the kind when they realize they like/love each other, or they get super vulnerable, or share a first kiss/first touch that's full of butterflies and feelings. (I'm feeling all mushy just thinking about it :p)

I love writing characters - especially introspection and dialogue.

I love sprinkling in foreshadowing or Easter eggs.


(i always have to force myself to go back and add description. blegh. description. my nemesis :p)

I love writing my "key scenes." When I start thinking about and planning a story, my very first ideas are almost always one or two key scenes with powerful plot/character moments (usually the climax or the midpoint of the story). I picture that scene in my head and build the whole rest of the novel around it. And when I finally get there, it's seriously awesome to see how everything has come together.

I also love scenes where my characters just work, where they bounce off of each other in interesting ways and their dialogue flows naturally. I'm not great at characters, so this is somewhat rare. I also like (though this is something I can only do in 2nd drafts and later) creating the atmosphere of a scene with setting description and tone. To me it makes my world and my story come alive, and I read it back and get chills.

I don't think I'm that great at any one part of writing a story - it takes me a long time to settle into a story and actually start writing it well, no matter how much planning I do. But hey, I'm getting better!

@Lariene what are YOUR favorite things to write?

I do better at plot making and character development.
Emotional and dramatic scenes are my best forte.
Sometimes, I do well at doing plot twist depending what I am writing.

I'm not sure what I'm good at, but I like writing comedy scenes (even if I probably suck at them).
I do enjoy descriptive stuff and mysterious things equally as much, too.
I am told my descriptions are pretty good. :3

@soundofmind To be honest, I'm not sure!

I like character driven scenes though. Most of my plots are character driven so I have a lot of opportunity to write these kinds of scenes. I also like working description in here and there, and establishing ambiguous emotions of other characters in 3rd person limited.

I also really like scenes and characters with hidden motives. So Character A seems like a good guy, but he's actually hunting the secrets of immortal life and would put everything on the line for that. Or Character Z is strict and unyielding but that's because she has a plan she hasn't revealed or is acting in someone else's best interests.

I also enjoy behind the scenes writing - setting up stuff, like A's motive or Z's secret plan, that the reader won't know about until much much later because the MC isn't aware of it. Or they might never learn about it at all, like a war between kingdoms outside their own, but it informs the way another character acts.

Stuff like that.

I like writing outlines and backstory! For one of my short stories, I had about one thousand words of notes. The notes really help me immerse myself into the story. It's also fun to see what actually ends up making it into the story and what I have to leave on the cutting room floor.

I think I enjoy coming up with characters over plot! It's fun to sit down and figure out someone's backstory. It's like creating a Sim but even better. I need a plot outline before I can start writing, but the plot is usually subject to change while my characters tend to mostly stay the same.

Writing introductions scenes is great for me. Building a good atmosphere in the beginning is key for getting my reader to understand the tone of the world and the plot. It's incredibly fun to set up the characters and the foreshadowing while wondering if I succeeded in my goal of immersion.

Hurt/comfort. Emphasis on comfort.

There's something remarkably soothing about writing a deeply impactful event that hurts a lot, and writing the comfort that happens after that. Writing the pain being made okay after it happens. Writing the pain is fun, sure, don't get me wrong, but writing the recovery from that pain is in a lot of ways why I write.

My pacing balance ends up thrown far far far into the "too slow" direction because I often spend too long on that portion of the plot and not enough moving it forward, but that's what editing is for.