Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchEpisode 183 - A key to making our sentences forceful.
What do Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, and Elmore Leonard have in common? Powerful stories, yes. But also lean and forceful sentences. Here's how they do it. Also: in our plotting,what's an …
Published on 7 hours ago
Episode 182 - Things to think about as we write the end of our story.
After months and month if writing, we'll near the end of our story. Our novel is almost finished. Here are things we should consider as we wrap up our story. Also, for many of us editing our own s…
Published on 1 week ago
Episode 181 - A critical difference between scene and summary.
Why should almost all of our story be scenes rather than summaries? Here's how we can avoid summaries and instead write moment-by-moment real-time scenes in our fiction. Also: here are perhaps the …
Published on 2 weeks ago
Episode 180 - The critical distance between the reader and the action.
The reader is like a camera as the scene unfolds. Where should that camera be? How far away from the characters and the action? Here are thoughts on authorial distance, about the benefits of placi…
Published on 3 weeks ago
Episode 179 - The critical writing techniques all in one episode.
Here are the most important fiction writing techniques boiled down to twenty-five minutes. I've talked about all these elements in prior episodes but sometimes it's useful to hear things again. Thi…
Published on 4 weeks ago
Episode 178 - How to make readers laugh.
We may be writing a comic novel or we may want to add humor to our thriller or romance or horror or literary novel. Humor adds a strong element to most any story. Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in Goodf…
Published on 1 month ago
Episode 177 - The description double duty technique.
Good descriptions of characters should do double duty: they can let the reader know what the character looks like and the description can also suggest something about the character's personality. He…
Published on 1 month, 1 week ago
Episode 176 - Inventing a fabulous title.
The title is the book browser's first impression of our novel. The title should tempt the browser to pick up and open the book. Here are thoughts on how we can give our story a strong, enticing tit…
Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago
Episode 175 - Writing funny dialogue.
We can write dialogue that makes readers laugh. Here are thoughts on creating funny conversations between our characters. Plus, we don't need to have our character look into a mirror to describe he…
Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago
Episode 174 - How to ruin our story's first sentences.
A story's first sentence should make the reader ask, "What's next?" They should propel the reader into the story. Here's how to do it right and how to do it wrongly. Also, three master writers sho…
Published on 2 months ago