Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

Latest Episodes:

Episode 79 - Tips for writing YA fiction. Also: adding detail to our scenes. Sep 22, 2023

Show notes

Young adult fiction is a vast market, and many wonderful writers create YA novels. Here are some thoughts on YA, some techniques we might keep in mind as we put together a story meant for teenagers. Also, what is the balance between not enough detail and too much detail in our scenes? I'll set out a formula.

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Episode 78 - Developing a distinctive voice, and flashbacks. Sep 15, 2023

Show notes

A distinctive voice can add a charming or compelling aspect to a story. What is voice? And do we need a distinctive voice? Maybe not, maybe so. Here are thoughts about a voice for our stories. Also mentioned are ideas and techniques regarding flashbacks.

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Episode 77 - Eleven techniques for writing strong sentences. Sep 08, 2023

Show notes

The words on our page should be a clear window to our story. How can we do that? Here are eleven techniques to make our sentences forceful and clear. Also, some comments on the story arc. What is a story arc? Is the concept useful?

Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more. Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes. The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars. If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.

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Episode 76 - Writing our synopsis, and avoiding filters. Sep 01, 2023

Show notes

A literary agent or a publisher may ask for a synopsis of our novel, a three to five-page summary. Here are techniques on how to write one. Also, can artificial intelligence write fiction? We'll find out. Plus, ridding our sentences of filters to get the reader closer to the scene.

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Episode 75 - The magical difference between scene and summary. Aug 25, 2023

Show notes

New writers tend to put too much summary into their stories. I'll talk about how to avoid that mistake, making sure that most of our novels are scenes. Why is this so important? Scenes are much more engaging for the reader than are summaries. Also, here's how to show--rather than tell--about our characters' aches and pains. And here's a list of the twelve best novels of all time.

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Episode 74 - How to describe our villainous villain, and how to get unstuck. Aug 18, 2023

Show notes

A great pleasure in our fiction reading is coming across a dastardly villain, someone so bad and so well-described we will never forget him or her. Hannibal Lecter. Nurse Ratched. Huckleberry Finn's father Pap. How can writers create such a villain? Here are techniques, in particular regarding the physical description of the villain. Also discussed is how we can get unstuck in our plotting or writing.

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Episode 73 - How to make settings work for our story, and how writers get to work each day. Aug 11, 2023

Show notes

Here are two errors we might make when describing our setting. First, using a dull setting. And, second, making the setting inert, that is, not having the setting contribute to the story. Here are techniques to avoid both mistakes. Plus, we'll look at how other novelists get to work each day, how they manage to sit themselves down and start writing.

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Episode 72 - Finding an agent, and writing a query. Aug 04, 2023

Show notes

Once we have completed our novel, it may be time to obtain the services of a literary agent. Here are thoughts on how to find good ones, and how to write a query asking them to look at your manuscript

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Episode 71 - Using the critical tool of contrast. And writing vivid character descriptions. Jul 28, 2023

Show notes

Blue is bluer when placed next to yellow. Here are techniques on the use of contrast to make our scenes and characters more vivid. Also, we can learn how to describe characters--and we can be inspired--by reading how the masters create their characters.

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Episode 70 - Writing a story in the first-person. Jul 21, 2023

Show notes

Here are some thoughts about how we can write our story in the first-person, some techniques that will capture the reader. Also, usually the fewer the adverbs and adjectives, the stronger the writing. Here's how we can reduce the number of modifiers in our fiction. And here's a list of the six funniest novels of all time.

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