Essential Guide to Writing a Novel
Episodes
225 episodes
Episode 225 - Leave it all on the field.
Cliches can offer solid advice. Pedal to the metal. Go big or go home. Leave it all on the field. We should swing for the fences with a bold plot. Also: a setting can be more than facts about the landscape. T...
Episode 224 - Using all the senses to describe our character.
Some of us may describe our characters using only the sense of sight: what the reader sees when imagining the character. But we can also use sound, smell, taste, and texture to make our characters more memorable. Here are thoughts o...
Episode 223 - Readers can fall in love with our settings.
I talk about ways we can make our settings--the time and place of our story--irresistible to readers. They'll want to live there. Plus: we can use our global search function to almost instantly make our sentences more forceful. ...
Episode 222 - Small techniques can add up to forceful sentences.
Here are pocket-sized techniques that can result in strong sentences; small--even tiny--things we can add to our prose writing arsenal. Also, Elizabeth George on her use of two outlines: the step outline and the running plot outline...
Episode 221 - Writing that is more intense than real life.
For readers, fiction offers escape from their real lives. How can we make our writing intense, and so lift our scenes above real life? Details are a key, and here are ideas on the use of odd and memorable details to make our prose v...
Episode 220 - Cut to the chase.
The phrase "cut to the chase" originated in the film industry. When shooting and editing a movie, if things are getting dull cut to a chase scene. Cut to the chase applies to our novels and short stories, too. Here are ways we...
Episode 219 - How to get our story going.
Here is a checklist of things we likely should think about as we begin our first chapter: some elements to have in the beginning pages of our story and some things to avoid. Also: the strong technique of using contrast in consecutive scen...
Episode 218 - Our writer's voice.
What is a singular attribute that separates Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, and Edgar Alan Poe? Their literary voices. Here are thoughts on our own voices: if and how we should try to develop them. Also: the strong tool of cont...
Episode 217 - Why and how to practice. And Edgar Alan Poe.
Writing is like learning the violin. We can get better. Here are reasons we should practice, and suggestions how to do so. And what sparked Edgar Alan Poe's imagination? Also: how much of our story should be scenes rathe...
Episode 216 - Too many characters is a scene.
What's the problem with having a lot of characters in a scene? Aren't lots of people needed to make street scenes and party scenes and sports scenes and battle scenes credible? I'll talk about the problem of too many character...
Episode 215 - The ratchet, a strong plotting tool.
How can we know if our scene pushes the story forward. Does our scene contribute to the story? The ratchet can test our scene. I talk about the ratchet and show how Cormac McCarthy and F. Scott Fitzgerald used it. Plus, ...
Episode 214 - Famous writers show us how to write and live.
If we emulate famous authors, won't we get better at writing? Here are how some highly-skilled, best-selling authors write and live. Plus: the three dumbest pieces of advice for writers. And: George Orwell's rules of writing.
Episode 213 - Save the cat plotting.
How can we get readers to admire and respect our hero, maybe even to fall in love with him? Our hero can save the cat. Here is how the screenwriters' save the cat technique can apply to our novels. Also, best seller Lawrence B...
Episode 212 - Getting skilled with point of view.
Keeping a tight point of view is critical for our story. Here's how we can stay inside the mind of our main character yet learn what others in the scene are thinking. Plus, how John Grisham works. And: how we can reveal what a...
Episode 211 - How to have fun while writing.
Sometimes writing can be a grind. Here are things that are fun while writing that'll give us energy and keep us at our desks and allow us to pour joy into our words. Also: we should avoid vanilla, meaningless word packages. An...
Episode 210 - Timeless plot patterns.
Folks new to fiction may think because there are a million stories and dozens of genres, plots can be presented in any way imaginable. But successful plots have time-tested patterns, and these are discussed here. Plus, M.M. Kaye's l...
Episode 209 - Avoiding blunders in our story.
How and why should we avoid our character traveling? And how does Orson Scott Card not make blunders in his novels? Here is his tool for having a mistake-free novel. Also: here is why our scenes--almost all scenes--shoul...
Episode 208 - How to paint pictures with words.
Writing is magic. We type on a keyboard, and then the words we type create powerful images in readers' minds. Here is a discussion of our main tool for creating vivid images: detail. Which details, how to use them, and example...
Episode 207 - When the hero lies to the reader.
Sometimes an unreliable narrator can be great fun to create, and great fun to read about. Here are techniques for developing a protagonist the reader learns not to trust. Also, how can we avoid dull interior monologue and inst...
Episode 206 - How to get lots of plot ideas.
Novelist John D. McDonald said he had more plot ideas than time to write them. That's not the case for most of us writers. We usually are in chronic need of more plot, more story. Here are techniques for inventing plot from Ja...
Episiode 205 - How to stop stalling and get going.
Sometimes we are full of ambition to write. Yet we don't. We put off our writing, then put it off again. Why do we do that? And what can be done to get us in front of the keyboard? Here are thoughts on what w...
Episode 204 - Meaningless modifiers and what to cut.
Some words don't add anything to a sentence other than confusion. Here are several modifiers that our story is better without. Also, is cutting ten percent of our manuscript a good goal when editing? What should we cut t...
Episode 203 - Argument makes our dialogue riveting.
Dialogue lets the reader become part of the story, as if the reader is standing next to the characters listening to them talk. Not all conversation between characters is equal: argument is the most engaging dialogue. An argument bet...