Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchEpisode 20 - Reasons we fail to start.
Why don't we begin our novel? Here's a reason, and a way to avoid it. Plus, we'll talk about qualifiers and intensifiers, the leeches of language. …
4 years, 1 month ago
Episode 19 - More on modifiers, including the useless and the dangling. And clunky reach words.
Many adjective and adverb s do nothing but pad a sentence, making the sentence rickety. Here are some techniques on avoiding these useless or uninte…
4 years, 2 months ago
Episode 18 - Lots of things to avoid: the negative, cliches, and too many modifiers.
In this episode we focus on sentence-by-sentence writing. How can we make our sentences vivid and powerful? Some strong techniques are discussed, …
4 years, 2 months ago
Episode 17 - Keep it simple but not too simple, and metaphors.
Our writing should be a clear window to the story, and a technique is to, in Einstein's phrase, keep it simple but not too simple. Here are some tec…
4 years, 2 months ago
Episode 16: Theme, odd questions, more on conflict, and vivid writing.
As writers, should we be concerned with a themes for our stories? And a critical question: are writers allowed to be weird? We'll also return to t…
4 years, 2 months ago
Episode 15 - Techniques for writing about settings.
Our setting -- the place and time of the scene -- anchor our characters the the ground. Here are techniques for writing our settings to get the most…
4 years, 2 months ago
Episode14: The fourth wall, the ending, and some bad writing.
Our topics this episode are how to avoid breaking the fourth wall, onomatopoeia (clunk, thud, kersplat), and techniques on ending the novel. We'll a…
4 years, 3 months ago
Episode 13: More on dialogue, and techniques about foreshadowing and coincidences
Dialogue is so important to our stories that we'll talk more about it here. Then we'll move on to foreshadowing--including the Chekhov's famous gun-…
4 years, 3 months ago
Episode 12 - Dialogue
A fictional character's dialogue sounds like a person speaking in real life, but not too much like a person speaking in real life. In this episode w…
4 years, 3 months ago
Episode 11: Point of view and voice.
Here are techniques to control our point of view so that our story doesn't have a dizzying quality as the reader jumps from one character's mind to a…
4 years, 3 months ago