How Korean Dramas Taught Me to Sit With Silence

Photo by Tsuyuri Hara on Unsplash

And why that’s made me a better writer.

There’s a certain kind of scene that Korean dramas do so well,
The kind where no one says anything.

A long pause.
A glance held a second too long.
The hum of traffic in the background.
Two people in a room, saying everything without a single word.

At first, I didn’t notice it.
I was too focused on subtitles. On the plot. On “what happens next.”
But somewhere between my sixth and sixteenth drama, I started to feel the difference.

K-dramas don’t rush their moments.
They let them breathe.

The silence isn’t empty. It’s intentional.
It’s where emotion lands.

And the more I watched, the more I realized
That’s what I’d been missing in my own creative process.

As a writer, I used to rush.

Get to the point.
Write the headline.
Land the insight.
Move to the next idea.

There was pressure to sound polished, clever, and efficient.
But in that rush, I often skipped the pause.
The moment between thoughts.
The breath between sentences.
The space where the real feeling could land.

Watching Korean dramas taught me the power of that space.

They show you that it’s okay for a scene to linger.
That silence can carry more weight than dialogue.
That not everything needs to be explained immediately.

Sometimes, the most memorable moment is a character blinking back tears.
Or a door left slightly open.
Or a conversation that almost happens, but doesn’t.

That kind of restraint? It’s not a lack of expression.
It’s emotional pacing.

And I’ve started applying it to how I write.

Now, I leave more space between ideas.
I don’t rush to fill every pause with explanation.
I sit with what I’m feeling before I try to make it into a sentence.
I let thoughts settle before I try to wrap them in structure.

Because writing, like life, isn’t just about what you say.
It’s about what you allow yourself to feel first.

And feeling takes time.
It needs silence.
It needs space.

Korean dramas reminded me of that.

That not everything needs to be loud to be powerful.
That emotional depth often lives in quiet places.
And that sometimes, the most honest writing starts in the moments we don’t know how to put into words just yet.

So if your creativity ever feels stuck, don’t fill the silence too fast.
Sit with it.

Not because it’s comfortable, but because it’s necessary.

The pause isn’t a gap in the process.
It is the process.

As this Korean sign says:

널 위해 준비했어
조금만 기다려줘
“I prepared this for you.
Please wait just a little longer.”

Just like in your favorite K-drama scene
Sometimes, the pause is the point.

Let it.