Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchEpisode 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, 4 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, 4 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, 4 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, 4 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, 4 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, 5 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, 5 months ago
Episode 10: More show and tell, and the grammatical person.
The difference between showing and telling is so important that we continue with it in this episode, including the technique of saving it for later. …
4 years, 5 months ago
Episode 9: Showing versus telling
We'll talk about the most critical skill for vivid writing, showing versus telling. Showing reveals. Telling explains. Showing is almost always mo…
4 years, 5 months ago
Episode 8 - Scene and summary
We'll discuss the difference between summary and scene., and why writing scenes rather than summaries is so important. Point of view will also be br…
4 years, 5 months ago