Adding Dimension to the Story with Character Flaws
Full show notes out on the blog here .
Jul 31, 2023•46 min•Ep. 156
Write On SC
By writers, for writers, a weekly discussion of writing craft lead by South Carolina Writers Association members and guests.
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Episodes
Rankin Must Die
Full show notes out on the blog here .
Jul 31, 2023•46 min•Ep. 155
Characters Are Not People
Full show notes out on the blog here .
Jul 31, 2023•47 min•Ep. 154
Storytellers Do It With Words
Full show notes on the blog here .
Jul 31, 2023•46 min•Ep. 153
The Write Stuff
Full show notes on the blog here
Jul 31, 2023•46 min•Ep. 152
Jerry Dean Pate's Lost Cause
get the full notes on the blog here. Last week’s episode on war was so rich, I’m glad to continue the conversation this week with author Jerry Dean Pate, a former journalist in print and radio media turned novelist of historical fiction. Pate’s first novel, Plagued by Bad Beliefs was published with friend of the show Alexa Bigwarfe through Write|Publish|Sell. We’ll talk about the novel, the origins of the story, the rigor of historical fiction, and the choice to indie publish the book. Here’s a ...
Feb 28, 2023•46 min•Ep. 151
War. What is it good for?
Get the full show notes on the blog here . So last week we did “conflict” and this week we’re turning it up to 11 with War which, as you might imagine, is extreme conflict. Don’t miss adjacent episodes on raising the stakes and “ White Knuckle Scenes ” which address the concept of “tension” in fiction and our first “conflict” conversation way back on episode 10 . Last week we told you that conflict, according to this resource from Oregon State, means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire. It...
Feb 28, 2023•46 min•Ep. 150
Gotta have some conflict
Get the full show notes on the blog here . We did an episode on raising the stakes and one on “ White Knuckle Scenes ” back in October of last year. And when I texted you and asked, “What should we talk about tomorrow?” you (Rex) said, “tention.” Leaving off that “tention” is a misspelled version of “tension” I assumed you meant how to create drama, conflict, or action in the scene. So we’re going to work on that today: how to make the scene interesting by building the conflict. Because, while w...
Feb 28, 2023•46 min•Ep. 149
Voices In Your Head
Get the full show notes on the blog here . We have done character episodes before. Early on, we did Despicable Characters , Archetypes , Names , and how to Be Mean to Your Characters . Then, more recently, Do you Have to Like the Main Character? and giving them agency , diversity , patriarchy , and arcs . So we might have done it all. Except we haven’t. We haven’t done origins – where do characters come from? And we haven’t done values – what do your characters believe in? And we haven’t done sk...
Feb 28, 2023•45 min•Ep. 148
Stories like Sparklers
Get the full show notes on the blog here . Wednesday night we had a fun time at The Aristocrat on Washington, reading short pieces called “flash” fiction. The official definition of flash fiction is stories that are 1000 words or less. Fiction, obviously, not true. But the crucial part of it is the length. Lengths vary, though, which makes it more confusing. Between 5 and 1000 words? Or between 300 and 1500? So why write flash fiction? What’s the purpose? According to this Writers’ Digest blog i...
Feb 28, 2023•46 min•Ep. 147
The best of times. The worst of times. Classic.
Last week we continued our work with literary devices working on themes and their workhorses: symbolism and motifs. This week we’re looking at flashback and juxtaposition. Juxtaposition – is another theme workhorse so in the interest of continuity for our binge-listeners, we’ll start there. Juxtaposition What is juxtaposition and why should you use it? Not exclusively a literary term, juxtaposition means to put two or more things close together to demonstrate the contrasts between them. Grammarl...
Oct 08, 2022•46 min•Ep. 145
Those Query Pages Suck
Last week we talked about rejection. We’ve all been there. Felt it. Had visceral emotional responses to it. We did not, repeat NOT email those who rejected us with stupid arrogant vitriol about how sorry they’d be someday. We didn’t trash them on social media or lose our fucking minds about their industry, practices, or personal hygeine. Be a grown up. No, we did what professionals do. We moved on. And revised the crappy out of our stories. What did that revision process look like? That’s the to...
Oct 08, 2022•45 min•Ep. 141
The good advice that you just didn't take
Last week we continued our work with literary devices working on flashback and juxtaposition. We took a little bit of time talking about extended flashback novels like The Orphan’s Tale which is also a frame story. So we’ll start with frame story today. What is a frame story? There’s a great video and full definition from the Oregon State University’s English department here . A frame story is a story-within-a-story – think Hamlet and the play happening inside the play, or The Princess Bride whe...
Oct 08, 2022•46 min•Ep. 146
But what does it mean?
Leaving aside that we’re both of the generation totally fu**ed by Alanis Morissette’s inaccurate read of “irony,” and that hyperbole is So.Everywhere. that we probably don’t need an episode on it, and directing you all to the other episodes we did on archetypes ( Episode 181 The Fool , Episode 72 Feminine Archetypes , and Episode 45 Cliche Characters ), this may very well be our last deep-dive literary devices episode. But who knows. We didn’t expect motifs to go into a second week. And yet here...
Oct 08, 2022•46 min•Ep. 144
Dogs at the Poker Table
So we’ve done some cool literary devices in the past but we’ve never done personification. It came up in my house this week because my mom’s dog, Clemson, has been staying with us and we’ve been speaking for her all week: “But, Kasie, I love walking in the neighborhood and sniffing everything and never peeing. Let’s do it again.” All the sarcasm, silliness, and fun of pretending we know what the animal thinks led Charlie to suggest this topic for the show. It made me think of books that have ani...
Oct 08, 2022•46 min•Ep. 142
Learning How to Take Rejection
Okay. Rejection. Got another one this past week. The journal is called The Rupture and they didn’t want my short story, So Close. Today we’re going to talk about all the ways writers get rejected and what you can do about it. My Submittable account has 88 declines in it dating all the way back to 2012. A bunch in 2013, a pair in 2014 and 2015, a few in 2016 and 2017, and the bulk of them in 2018 when I went on my submit-every-week tear and racked up 52 “no thanks yous.” Is that how you build cal...
Oct 08, 2022•45 min•Ep. 140
Choose Your Weapon
Last week we worked personification and anthropomorphism. So this week we’re going to go through the list until we run out of time: Simile and Metaphor. We’ll work these two together like they do in English classes. What is a simile ? A simile is a phrase or comparison to describe something. They’re spotted when you see the word “like” or “as” to create the comparison. Metaphors , on the other hand, are figures of speech that describe something through comparison without using “like” or “as.” Yo...
Oct 08, 2022•46 min•Ep. 143
The Work of Rewriting
Got my manuscript back from the developmental editor and while a lot of what he had to say was great, one word stuck out: ReWrite. He may have even pluralized it. So what’s next? What do you do? How do you do it? This week we talk reasons and strategies for rewrites and build in some practical work for Kāsie during our conversation. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and do the real work of writing a great book. Get the full show notes out on the blog here....
Sep 06, 2022•46 min•Ep. 139
Backstory Essentials
Two weeks ago, we did an episode on lazy writing and came upon this blog talking about plot holes, character under-development and other story-level sins. It picks mostly on Wonder Woman 1984 and Star Wars Episode 7, two films I (Kasie) admittedly liked. But it’s not wrong and it actually makes me cringe to think about how right the author is and whether these scripts needed more work before they went into production. If so, what does that say about all the crap I’m publishing? Don’t we think mo...
Sep 06, 2022•43 min•Ep. 138
Multimedia Storytelling with Dr. Jones
We’re visiting with Dr. Thaddeus Jones, filmmaker and entrepreneur. But above all, storyteller. Here’s some relevant links to learn more about Thad: His IMDB profile – you gotta know this impressed the hell out of my family News from the Augusts Chronicle – a homecoming of sorts for film camp Doko Film Festival includes Thad Link to The Harvest on FilmFreeway so you can see some of Thad’s work So let’s talk about where good story comes from. Here are the show notes on the blog....
Sep 06, 2022•45 min•Ep. 137
Are you guilty of lazy writing?
There are a few kinds of literary short cuts and usually your English teacher just called it lazy writing. But it’s not always lazy, sometimes it’s just a faster way to communicate a bigger idea to people who know what you mean. Today we break down the kinds of short cuts and justify or reject them. As usual, there are no hard rules in this. It all depends on the phrase and the context. Get the full show notes here....
Sep 06, 2022•46 min•Ep. 136
What's Next?
Authors are typically doing one of 5 things: Reading Writing Revising Querying Marketing / selling Each activity has its own positive impact on the writer’s work. And each one has its own tools and takes its own allocated time. Some can be done simultaneously. Get the full show notes here.
Sep 06, 2022•46 min•Ep. 135
Tech Nerd or Savvy Author?
Here are a few things I think we can safely take on in a general “How does this affect authors” kind of way: Digital platform building and the insights we’re giving away Digital marketing tools like email lists Digital plagiarism Search engine optimization (SEO) Scrivener, Google Docs, Word and other tools writers use to create manuscripts Temi and other voice-to-text options Wattpad, Vella and other serialization platforms Digital submissions – via email or submittable Twitter and other ways to...
Sep 06, 2022•45 min•Ep. 134
How You Know You're Writing a Hero's Journey
Full show notes are out on the blog here . So let’s start with the basic outline of the Hero’s Journey and then we’ll do some examples and pick apart our favorite parts: The Call — being chosen to undertake the journey The Companions — who will accompany the hero? The journey itself — distance, obstacles, treachery Monsters Temptations Deadly opposites or opposing dangers — think colliding armies The underworld — death itself or a glimpse of the other side in the form of visions and insights gle...
Mar 12, 2022•46 min•Ep. 133
Character Arcs: The Moral Descent
Get the full original show notes here . At the beginning of November, to help out our NaNoWriMo’ers, we did an episode on Character Arcs. In the third segment we briefly touched on the negative arc, or the moral descent. Here’s some notes from that episode : The disillusionment (or negative change) arc, the character also believes a lie, is confronted with the truth and is able to overcome the lie, but the new truth — existence after accepting the truth — is tragic. This is Michael Corleone. He ...
Mar 12, 2022•43 min•Ep. 132
Carolyn Hartley
Complete show notes and links to Carolyn's books here . You’ve met Carolyn Hartley before, she’s one of our Patrons and the owner of J. Merrill Press in Chapin, South Carolina. The vision for J. Merrill Press has always been to publish stories of courageous women and never is this more true than in Adele’s duet. The first book, Redemption: One Woman’s Dream to Overcome Oppression, Find Family, Love, and Forgiveness introduced us to Adele. Born into wealth before her father died, Adele and her mo...
Mar 12, 2022•43 min•Ep. 131
Long Fic or Short Fic? That is the question.
Full show notes out on the blog here . After reading an article about the reason we need to keep reading novels, I (Kasie) suggested to Rex that we take on this idea of critical reading and how we build that skill set. We take it for granted that people read. For two reasons: 1) we read a TON and think that’s normal and 2) we write and we are hoping (hoping!) that people will buy our shit and read it. This week we take a look at this reading thing. What do the trends look like? What are the oppo...
Mar 12, 2022•46 min•Ep. 130
More Writing “How to” that we may or may not believe
Full show notes out on the blog here . In entrepreneurship, we encourage founders to tell their stories so we can see all the millions of ways people come into ownership and no two stories are the same. And writing is the same. Everyone does their thing differently and so hearing a bunch of stories is a great way to stay encouraged. That said, I found this awesome Joanna Penn blog with some “what I’ve learned” and thought we could riff on that. These are things she’s learned from being an author...
Mar 12, 2022•47 min•Ep. 129
Stupid Shit Other People Pass Off as ‘How to Write’
Full show notes out on the blog here . Professional writers who depend on volume for income (like those one-book-a-year professionals John Grisham and Nicholas Sparks) have the creative process down to a science. And all those teachers who teach “How to Write” have also disseminated their craft down to a process. We’re going to work on that today. Since Rex teaches writing and I used to, many moons ago, we’re uniquely qualified to discuss what total horseshit some of this stuff is. We’ll break d...
Mar 12, 2022•46 min•Ep. 128
What’s Your Writing Style
Full show notes out on the blog here . Today’s session is a good “beginning of the year” session, I think, because it can be part of your 2022 writing plan. We briefly touched on some writing goals we have and we’ve done entire episodes on setting, measuring, and keeping writing goals. So today’s exploration of the various writer types and what your type means for your writing habit should come in handy. Take an actual quiz here. Let’s start with the three levels: Lawful – this means you stick t...
Mar 12, 2022•48 min•Ep. 127
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