Adjectives are too wide
“Gentle” alone walks into stock sentences. Write the thing they do before you ask.
The same word is three different people. Pick one with a scene, not a thesaurus.
At least three scenes
How they go quiet, how they answer an insult, how they refuse to admit they care. Keep the three apart. Do not collapse them into “cold outside, warm inside”.
One action and one line of dialogue each. Action before explanation.
A contrast needs a condition
Cold to whom, and not to whom. Without a subject, the two moods take turns and the person changes.
A flaw is something they do: bad with streets, silent when hungry, will not apologize first.
Character
Back to the journal