Essential Guide to Writing a Novel Podcast Artwork Image

Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

James Thayer

Hosted by James Thayer, the podcast is a practical, step-by-step manual on how to craft a novel. It presents a set of tools for large issues such as story development and scene construction (Kirkus Reviews said Thayer's novels are "superbly crafted') and it also examines techniques that will make your sentence-by-sentence writing shine. The New York Times Book Review has said Thayer's "writing is smooth and clear. it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm only confident stylists achieve.
Episodes
Episode 108 - Every description should do double duty.April 12, 2024
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Episode 107 - The differences between literary and commercial fiction.April 05, 2024
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Episode 106 - How to write a scene's sequel, and plotting the novel's middle.March 29, 2024
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Episode 105 - A technique for plotting scene to scene, and my failed writing experiment.March 22, 2024
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Episode 104 - Let's get to work, and showing with dialogue.March 15, 2024
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Episode 103 - The joy of creating something out of nothing. And, is our new plot point a strong one?March 08, 2024
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Episode 102 - Lovely sentence-by-sentence writing, and pumping up our creativity.March 01, 2024
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Episode 101 - The phrases notebook, and avoiding our plot bogging down.February 23, 2024
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Episode 100 - Getting into the flow, and the power of fiction.February 16, 2024
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Episode 99 - Traps when writing character-driven stories.February 09, 2024
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Episode 98 - Counterintuitive techniques that new writers might resist.February 02, 2024
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Episode 97 - Clothing our characters. Also, how to end a scene.January 26, 2024
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Episode 96 - How to create emotions in our characters and readers.January 19, 2024
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Episode 95 - More strong dialogue techniques.January 12, 2024
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Episode 94 - Seven big dialogue writing techniques.January 05, 2024
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Episode 93 - Can we avoid stupid writing?December 29, 2023
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Episode 92 - Fourteen scene mistakes and how to avoid them.December 22, 2023
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Episode 91 - The benefits of a buddy, and Willa Cather and Nathaniel Hawthorne.December 15, 2023
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Episode 90 - Techniques for creating riveting settings.December 08, 2023
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Episode 89 - Avoiding the biggest mistakes before we begin to write.December 01, 2023
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Episode 88 - Writing the fight scene. November 24, 2023
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Episode 87 - How to write a fabulous first sentence.November 17, 2023
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Episode 86 - The importance of a tie-up later list. Also: sequels.November 10, 2023
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Episode 85 - Dialogue's three most important techniques.November 03, 2023
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Episode 84 - Why we should create a funny character, and how to do so.October 27, 2023
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