If Writing Feels Easy, You’re Doing It Wrong — Four Practical Rules from R.F. Kuang

# Why Kuang thinks easy writing is suspect R.F. Kuang—author of Babel, Yellowface, and Katabasis—says smooth, fast drafts often mask lazy choices. In a "How I Write" conversation with David Perell she traced four habits she teaches and practices. They translate to screenwriting even though she writes prose: you still need images, physical detail, and sharper language.

# Four concrete rules you can use today

• Emotion is physiological. Ask where an emotion lives in the body and write only the physical signs. Elevated heart rate, hands that won't stop fidgeting, a throat that tightens, a gaze that searches for an exit—those are showable traits for actors and camera work. Replace "She felt scared" with specific, visible reactions.

• If you're stuck, you're holding back. Kuang ties writerly stalling to fear of pushing scenes to honest places. Her example: a flat draft where a depressed character simply "decides" to live became raw and memorable when she pushed the character into a visceral act—finding a dead cat and responding in a way that embodies the choice to live. If your scene reads comfortable, push it toward an unforeseen, risky action.

• Beware volunteer words. Kuang references Verlyn Klinkenborg's idea that when words come too easily they're probably familiar stock phrases. Those volunteer words keep you repeating what's already been written. Hard writing is the work of resisting the first easy phrasing and forcing a more precise, less imitated turn of phrase.

• Value the hard session. The sessions where you pull teeth often produce the work you can't get any other way. If you're writing quickly and enjoying it, check whether you've chosen the most distinctive expression or are leaning on the safe option.

# How to apply these on a screenplay

• Recast emotional beats as camera and performance beats. Turn internal states into visible micro-actions: breathing patterns, limb movement, micro-expressions, or the way a character interacts with objects.

• Use constraint exercises to break comfort. Put a character into an unusual, sensory-heavy situation that forces them to reveal an ugly or surprising impulse. Write that scene in a short timed draft, then expand only what the body shows.

# Practical mini-exercises

• Body map drill: For a single emotion, sketch where it sits on the body and list five physical signs. Translate two of those signs into action lines for a scene.

• Shock scene rewrite: Pick a comfortable scene and force one brutal sensory detail into it. Rework the scene so that detail drives the character's choice.

• Volunteer word hunt: Highlight every phrase that reads generic in a page of draft. Replace each with either a physical detail or a tightly observed metaphor tied to the character.

# Final point Kuang isn't advocating suffering for its own sake. Her point is tactical: difficulty in the draft often means you're choosing more particular, riskier language and action. That difficulty usually yields material an actor, director, and audience can't forget.