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by James Thayer
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- 4 days ago26 min
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 rather than summary? The answer: should fill our story with scenes that play out in real time in front of the reader like a movie. Support the show Buy the master class.
- 1 weeks ago26 min
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 characters, and how we can fix the crowded scene so it doesn't lose focus. Also, a quick almost magical way to make our sentences stronger using the global search function on our computer. And lovely setting descriptions from Rachel Joyce. Here...
- 2 weeks ago25 min
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, a technique for searching for instances of telling in our manuscript so we can change them to showing. And C.S. Lewis's rules of writing. Support the show Buy the master class.
- 3 weeks ago26 min
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. 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...
- Apr 17, 202625 min
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 Block on how we can use our pleasure reading to improve our fiction writing skills. Support the show Buy the master class.
- Apr 10, 202631 min
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 character is thinking through facial expressions. 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 foc...
- Apr 3, 202626 min
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. And here's how Kate Chopin worked. Support the show Buy the master class.
- Mar 27, 202626 min
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 lovely setting descriptions, so elegant her writing might be called the voice of magic. And: how the best-selling romance novelist Emily Henry lives and works. Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering p...
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About Essential Guide to Writing a Novel
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.
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