Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchEpisode 184 - Skipping the dull stuff in our plot.
In his famous ten rules of writing, Elmore Leonard says that we shouldn't write things readers tend to skip. What are those things? How can we avoi…
6 months, 4 weeks ago
Episode 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…
7 months 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 …
7 months, 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 s…
7 months, 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 …
7 months, 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 bu…
8 months 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 m…
8 months, 1 week 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 sugges…
8 months, 2 weeks 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 o…
8 months, 3 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 ha…
8 months, 4 weeks ago