Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

Latest Episodes:

Episode 19 - More on modifiers, including the useless and the dangling. And clunky reach words. Jun 06, 2022

Show notes

Many adjective and adverb s do nothing but pad a sentence, making the sentence rickety. Here are some techniques on avoiding these useless or unintentionally funny modifiers. Plus, some words are just too much. We'll avoid these, too.

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Episode 18 - Lots of things to avoid: the negative, cliches, and too many modifiers. Jun 04, 2022

Show notes

In this episode we focus on sentence-by-sentence writing. How can we make our sentences vivid and powerful? Some strong techniques are discussed, such as avoiding cliches like the plague.

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Episode 17 - Keep it simple but not too simple, and metaphors. May 29, 2022

Show notes

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 techniques for doing that, along with a discussion of metaphors and similes.

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Episode 16: Theme, odd questions, more on conflict, and vivid writing. May 21, 2022

Show notes

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 the need for early conflict in our stories, and then go on to discuss vivid writing.

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Episode 15 - Techniques for writing about settings. May 16, 2022

Show notes

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 from them, so that they play a strong role in the story.

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Episode14: The fourth wall, the ending, and some bad writing. May 11, 2022

Show notes

Our topics this episode are how to avoid breaking the fourth wall, onomatopoeia (clunk, thud, kersplat), and techniques on ending the novel. We'll also talk about some bad writing, really bad writing.

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Episode 13: More on dialogue, and techniques about foreshadowing and coincidences May 06, 2022

Show notes

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--and coincidences., where one is fine but two are not.

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Episode 12 - Dialogue Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

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 we'll talk about dialogue techniques that draw the reader into the story.

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Episode 11: Point of view and voice. Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

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 another character's mind. We'll also discuss a writer's narrative voice.

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Episode 10: More show and tell, and the grammatical person. Apr 16, 2022

Show notes

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. Plus, we'll talk about the grammatical person.

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