The Taylor Stevens Show: Recent Episodes
The Taylor Stevens Show
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss summer plans for the podcast, and Taylor shares a gosling update.
You can read the results on the Bookbub site here:
https://insights.bookbub.com/state-author-newsletters-data/
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS383: A Show Update (and a Gosling story) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the results of a recent Bookbub survey on author newsletters.
You can read the results on the Bookbub site here:
https://insights.bookbub.com/state-author-newsletters-data/
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS382: How are authors using email newsletters? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some recent storytelling observations from the screen that can apply to our writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS381: Storytelling Lessons From The Screen appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener’s question on predictability.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS380: The Paradox of Predicability appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the results of the International Thriller Writers AI Author Survey, published onMarch 14, 2023.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS379: A Discussion of the International Thriller Writers AI Author Survey appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to several more writing-related questions including the importance of theme, fully formed characters, and avoiding preaching in your writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS378: Fully formed characters, the importance of theme, and more appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares and responds to material provided by author C.A. Newsome that explores reader expectations of characters.
C.A. Newsome is the author of the (currently) seven-book Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries. You can check them out here.
Steve also mentions a series with a bumbling woman who works at a PI firm. That series is The Charlie Davies Mysteries, and you can check it out here.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS377: An Exploration of Character Expectations appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to several more writing-related questions.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS376: Setting Aside Projects, Processing Story Ideas, and More appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a variety of writing-related questions.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS375: Fan Fiction, Constructive Criticism, and More appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on dialogue that you can apply to your stories.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS374: Thoughts on Dialogue appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some of the feedback and suggestions we had on book and series bibles.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS373: More on Book and Series Bibles appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, we have a brief discussion on the advances in AI-generated voice technology that can be used for audiobooks, and Taylor shares some updates on her health journey.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS372: AI Voice Technology and a Personal Update from Taylor appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener message (thanks, Karl!) and shares her thoughts on the importance of being sure you get your entire character onto the page.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS371: Getting your entire character onto the page appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the idea of a series bible and discuss how Taylor keeps track of series information.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS370: Do you keep a series bible? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on a recent book she read and how the story’s suspense and pacing impacted her reading.
During the show, Taylor mentions The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS369: What is Suspense? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on some ways the use of character description can add grit to the reading experience.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS368: Make Your Character Description Count appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor takes a look at story by looking at the different elements we use to build our stories.
During the show, Taylor mentions two books, the first was The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand, and the second was How I Write by Janet Evanovich.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS367: Chapters, Scenes, and In-Betweens appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
Taylor is under the weather this week, but we very briefly discussed what we’d planned to talk about and provide a link to the source material, which is below:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1012213658816141/posts/5703081769729283/?cft[0]=AZWN00R7x0qOaN3Ec1nf6hhUYlgTdguumMA08QC_4xKDWoT94r4stP0DoJAYZmagCzHHwCAg9C2cMOnhzdwHF6BwnUEMZhDotlBvlA5Q3nC09bkQrkaPBf_4N6V96iZN3zrv4B9SE_ppd_op89Q6rcdFxVg2_S6-OydBcGayD5L2NI-OEROvlt6pEc-qNhH0dYU&tn=%2CO%2CP-R
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS366: An update and an example of a writer using ChatGPT appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve share their major objectives for 2023.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS365: What One Thing Do We Want to Accomplish in 2023? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve share their thoughts on the value of the new AI (artificial intelligence) tools that have been released recently, including ChatGPT.
You can learn more about ChatGPT here.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS364: What Should Authors Know About The New Artificial Intelligence Tools? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on writing using an Omniscient Narrator.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS363: Taylor Responds to a Listener Question on Omniscient Narrators appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on writing using an Omniscient Narrator.
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS363: Taylor Responds to a Listener Question on Omniscient Narrators appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
We’re thrilled to have John Truby join us this week for an in-depth exploration of genre. He’s written a book about the subject, The Anatomy of Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works, and he and Taylor dig deep into the subject of genres and how understanding them will improve our writing.
This is a great discussion between Taylor and John, one that I (Steve) wish could have gone even longer.
John’s book releases today, November 29, 2022, and you can find your copy here:
http://www.anatomyofgenres.com/
Thanks for joining us again this week, and to John for sharing his knowledge with the Taylor Steven’s Show audience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon-only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS362: An in-depth discussion of genre with John Truby appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, shares some insights she’s had from watching the Pennyworth series on HBO Max AND from watching some friends play a story-rich video game. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your […]
The post TSS361: Storytelling Lessons from the Screen and …. appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to an interesting listener question about the timing for introducing a second primary point of view character. Thanks to J.J. for the thought-provoking question. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You […]
The post TSS360: It’s All About Balance appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to listener feedback and to online writing comments that she collects. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page. Please […]
The post TSS359: Taylor Responds to Listener Feedback appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of opening lines and paragraphs and provides a few specific examples. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find […]
The post TSS358: Opening Lines and Paragraphs appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor discusses the importance of character agency and how when your characters don’t exhibit agency, the story disappointments. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find […]
The post TSS357: The Importance of Character Agency appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor discusses her writing process and how it needed to be tweaked in the writing of a new scene. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or […]
The post TSS356: Taylor Talks Writing Process appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the opening and closing of story loops, and Taylor uses comedians as an example to explain the process. We also discuss comedian Sheng Wang and his show on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81276951 If you have questions or suggestions for future […]
The post TSS355: What Can Comedians Teach Novelists about Closing Story Loops? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the negatives and positives of including current events in novels. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page. […]
The post TSS354: Including Current Events in Novels appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on the oft-told phrase “Write What You Know.” If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page. Please consider […]
The post TSS353: Write What You Know? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss Steve’s observations on attending several sessions at Bouchercon 2022. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page. Please […]
The post TSS352: Take Aways from Bouchercon 2022 appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve use a discussion of two films to consider the importance of establishing story reality. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our […]
The post TSS351: Establishing Story Reality appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, we discuss the difference between narration and internal dialogue, and then dive into our opinions on the mechanics of inner dialogue. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as […]
The post TSS350: Narration vs Internal Dialogue appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on storytelling that she’s had while watching shows and movies. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page. […]
The post TSS349: Storytelling Observations from the Screen appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some in-depth information on prologues provided by Taylor Steven’s Show “Contributor at Large,” author C.A. Newsome. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find […]
The post TSS348: A Primer on Prologues appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor concludes this four-part master class on plot holes and the best ways to overcome them in your storytelling. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or […]
The post TSS347: How to Find, Fix, and Write Your Way Around Plot Holes (Part 4 of 4) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor expands on last week’s show on plot holes and the best ways to overcome them in your storytelling. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or […]
The post TSS346: How to Find, Fix, and Write Your Way Around Plot Holes (Part 3 of 4) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor continues her thoughts on plot holes and the best ways to overcome them in your storytelling. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our […]
The post TSS345: How to Find, Fix, and Write Your Way Around Plot Holes (Part 2 of 4) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on plot holes and the best ways to overcome them in your storytelling. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our […]
The post TSS344: How to Find, Fix, and Write Your Way Around Plot Holes (Part 1 of 4) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this short show, Steve asks Taylor how we can enhance the emotional impact in scenes. Please let us know if you like more of these ‘short take’ kinds of shows.
The post TSST02: Taylor and Steve Short Takes Episode Two appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on how she developed as a storyteller. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page. Please consider supporting […]
The post TSS343: Taylor on Storytelling appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on vagueness in description and highlights what specific types of vagueness to avoid. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our […]
The post TSS342: To Vague or Not to Vague appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on how something as simple as character description can serve multiple purposes in your story. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or […]
The post TSS341: Character Description That Goes Above and Beyond appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on how what readers see in their minds impacts their understanding of what they read. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or […]
The post TSS340: Mental Movies and Reading Comprehension appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor continues her thoughts on the philosophy of story and how storytellers become illusionists while writing their stories. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find […]
The post TSS339: The Philosophy of Story (Part 2 of 2) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares thoughts on the philosophy of story and how storytellers become illusionists while writing their stories. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our […]
The post TSS338: The Philosophy of Story (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor uses a character on the show True Blood to launch into a discussion on the danger of character inconsistency. She mentions a worksheet available on Patreon, How to Solve Problem Scenes here. https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-scene-57649003 She also mentions episode 253, available here: http://theshow.taylorstevensbooks.com/how-to-maintain-character-consistency-throughout-your-story/ […]
The post TSS337: Character Inconsistency appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, we step away from storytelling advice to hear Taylor’s tale of dealing with banks in this age of diminishing customer service. We’ll be back with more writing advice in next week’s, post-Memorial Day show. She also mentions a Patreon story she wrote, […]
The post TSS336: A Short Taylor Tale appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve go deeper into the idea of linking ideas together to strengthen storytelling. She also mentions a Patreon story she wrote, which can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/random-musings-66178012 If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear […]
The post TSS335: Linking Ideas and More on Effective Communication appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on how we communicate with our writing. She also mentions a Patreon story she wrote, which can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/random-musings-66178012 If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can […]
The post TSS334: The Seed of Effective Communication appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this week’s episode, Steve discusses a four-author collaborative story he recently read, and Taylor shares her thoughts on the different styles of author collaborations. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as […]
The post TSS333: A Collaboration Discussion appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on a 2018 Medium post that lists 20 storytelling lessons learned from Marvel. We only cover a few, but the entire list is interesting and you can view the post on Medium by clicking here.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS332: Storytelling Lessons from Marvel appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of character conflict in story structure.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS331: Character Conflict is Critical to Story Structure appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares an example of how using storytelling shortcuts can harm our stories.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS330: The Danger of Taking Storytelling Shortcuts appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the use of location in The Protege, a movie she saw recently, and how we can learn storytelling craft from movies
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS329: Storytelling Lessons from the Movies appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the use of feeling words, and why and when they should be avoided.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS328: What are feeling words and why should we avoid them? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on choosing between first-person and third-person points of view, genre expectations, and switching between first and third person.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS327: Choosing your point of view appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on a listener question from J.J. who asks how to make nearly identical characters, with similar life experiences sound different.
Thanks, J.J. for the great question!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS326: Making similar characters sound different through dialogue appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on a movie that she felt was very much like reading a book and how this movie can serve as a tutorial to authors.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS325: When Watching a Movie is Like Reading a Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor continues with her thoughts from a listener question about setting and whether or not it can become a type of character in your story.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS324: Can the setting become a character in your story or series? (Part Deux) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the phrase Cut to the Chase, and how it can be used to amp up our fiction.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS323: Cut to the Chase! appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this short show, Steve asks Taylor if she has thoughts about a prologue technique he’s seen an author use across multiple series. As you can imagine, Taylor did have some thoughts.
Please let us know if you like more of these ‘short take’ kind of shows.
The post TSST01: Taylor and Steve Short Takes Episode One appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question about setting and whether or not it can become a type of character in your story.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS322: Can the setting become a character in your story or series? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss two different television series and ask what about their different storylines make them so compelling.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS321: Exploring the Mechanics of Story While Watching Television appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
This week’s show is the fifth and final in a series of Hack the Craft Episodes dealing with a submission from author M.Z Lowe. This week’s episode details Taylor’s line edits also has video which you can find here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/62316056
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS320: Flashbacks and other Story Elements, A Hack the Craft Episode (5 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
This week’s show is the fourth in a series of Hack the Craft Episodes dealing with a submission from author M.Z Lowe. This week’s episode also has video which you can find here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/61936830
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS319: Flashbacks and other Story Elements, A Hack the Craft Episode (4 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
This week’s show is a Hack the Craft Episodes dealing with questions on story stakes from author M.Z Lowe. This week Taylor’s responses focus on story stakes.
You can find the worksheet that Taylor created here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-scene-57649003
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS318: What are the Stakes and Why Do They Matter? A Hack the Craft Episode (3 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
This week’s show is the second in a series of Hack the Craft Episodes dealing with a submission from author M.Z Lowe. This week Taylor responds to several questions from the author on the use and style of flashbacks as well as some story issues.
You can find the worksheet that Taylor created here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-scene-57649003
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS317: Flashbacks and other Story Elements, A Hack the Craft Episode (2 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
This week’s show is the first in a series of Hack the Craft Episodes dealing with a submission from author M.Z Lowe. This week Taylor reviews the submission and outlines what she’ll be doing with the material over the next several weeks.
You can find the worksheet that Taylor created here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-scene-57649003
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS316: Flashbacks and other Story Elements, A Hack the Craft Episode (1 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the recent phenomenon of negative reviews being voted to the top at Amazon.
You can find the worksheet that Taylor created here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-scene-57649003
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS315: Why are So Many Bad Reviews Showing at the Top on Amazon? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss his efforts to evaluate individual scenes for plot, character, and conflict.
You can find the worksheet that Taylor created here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-scene-57649003
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS314: Evaluating Scenes for Plot, Character, and Conflict appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to several listener questions from Tania. The questions involve the use of possessives like “his” and “hers”, what Taylor still struggles with in her own writing, and whether or not there’s anything she feels that she doesn’t yet have the skills to tackle as a writer.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS313: Taylor Responds to Listener Questions appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question from Tania, who asks if Taylor has ever changed her mind on anything she once considered to be a rule for good writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS312: Do Writing Rules Change? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question from Tania on dealing with the specifics of culturally specific words. How much explanation should you give without boring readers who already understand the context of the terms?
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS311: Culture and the Context of Specific Words appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question from Tania on the use of similes and metaphors in fiction.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS310: Using Similes and Metaphors appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to social media posts on description, character, and plot.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS309: Taylor Discusses Description, Character, and Plot appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to social media posts on scene purpose and storytelling.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS308: Taylor Discusses Scene Purpose and Storytelling appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
Taylor follows up on last week’s show where she ended by sharing a light-bulb moment on how to fix her broken story. In this week’s episode, she goes much deeper, sharing a worksheet that she’s put together to guide the process of fixing problem scenes.
You can find the complete worksheet she discussed on Taylor’s Patreon page.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS307: Solving Scene Problems appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on identifying the problems in one of her own stories and how she plans to correct those problems.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS306: Fixing a Broken Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question on how she keeps track of and organizes all the details that crop up while writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS305: Keeping Track of the Details appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question about the value of using fewer words to get your point across with your writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS304: When Less is More appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her “writing in layers” process as a follow-up to a post she’d made on Patreon.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS303: Writing in Layers appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a challenge she’s had dealing with a large block of her story, and deciding where and when to begin and end scenes within that text.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS302: Determining When to Enter and Exit Scenes appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question about creating a believable and genuinely evil antagonist. She discusses the idea that there is no universally terrifying villain and that genre will play a prominent role in creating your antagonist.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS301: How to Build a Believable Villain from Scratch appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve chat about the six-plus-year journey from episode 1 to episode 300. No writing talk this week, but a fun chat about how things have changed over time.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS300: Can you believe this is our 300th episode? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Steve shares his first (and likely only) farm story, and then Taylor shares some thoughts on how to build out your story ideas without getting overwhelmed by the details.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS299: Staying out of the weeds when building story ideas appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a Facebook Group question about getting back to the creative process after stepping away from a project. She also shares some thoughts on the importance of “communicating with the work” on a regular basis.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS298: Returning to the Creative Process appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a treasure trove of information from author C.A. Newsome on managing misdirection, which she created after listening to the episode on story weight.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS297: Managing Misdirection in Mysteries and Other Genres appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some feedback to our translation episode, and we discuss the value, both positive and negative, of adding POV characters who play minor roles in a story.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS296: More on Translations and a Discussion on POV Characters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares how she analyzes what she reads and watches to understand better how to tell stories that meet reader expectations.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS295: Analyze your Reading and Viewing to Grow your Storytelling Skills appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question about foreign translations.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS294: A Discussion on Foreign Translations appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a listener question about balancing the need for red herrings in mysteries and the importance of story weight. Thanks to author MZ Lowe for the question.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS293: How to Manage the Story Weight of Red Herrings? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to questions about what she called the inciting incident that led to her writing career in last week’s show.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS292: Q & A from the Inciting Incident in Taylor’s Writing Journey appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor digs deep to share what she’s calling the inciting incident that led to her writing career.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS291: The Inciting Incident in Taylor’s Writing Journey appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor discusses the concept of story weight and the importance of getting it right with the various elements of your story.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS290: What is story weight and why is it important? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor reveals a problem she’s run into with her current WIP and uses that as a springboard to discuss character development through a deeper understanding of character dialog.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS289: Deepening Dialog through Character Development appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a recent life experience and explains how we can use life experiences as research for our own writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS288: Using Life Experience as Research appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor describes several different types of logic ladders with examples and explains why they are important to storytelling.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS287: What are Logic Ladders and Why Do You Need to Use Them? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares the evolution in her writing process and what’s working for her right now.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS286: Taylor Describes Her Current Writing Process appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor explains how being specific with character description can add emotional impact to your story.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS285: Adding Emotional Impact with Specific Character Insights appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on using visual queues as storytelling shortcuts, or as she likes to describe it as an easy way to describe how a character knows something or has figured something out without using a lot of words.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS284: How to Use Visual Cues as Storytelling Shortcuts appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor again shares and discusses some internet memes she’s captured over the years on the topic of storytelling.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS283: A Series of Random Insights into Storytelling Part II appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor reacts to an online dustup involving her friend, Lauren Hough, and her book, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing. Taylor discusses some thoughts on what happened, why it might have happened, and how it turned out. It’s an interesting tale of what can happen in the publishing world when a portion of the social media world takes offense to an online comment.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS282: Taylor Reacts to an Online Publishing Dustup appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares and discusses some internet memes she’s captured over the years on the topic of storytelling. The memes were shared by Scott Myers, and you can find him on Twitter here.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS281: A Series of Random Insights into Storytelling appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, we discuss the importance of character voice and how the voice and the variety of character voices can affect the reading experience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS280: The Importance of Character Voice to your Readers appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor discusses ways to ensure you don’t fall into the assumptions trap and some steps to take which will help you avoid “experting yourself to 1-star reviews.”
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS279: Getting the Details Right, the Danger of Assumptions appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor discusses the importance of having space in your life for creativity, and what happened with her when she was unable to have enough margin for her mind to function at its best.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS278: The Importance of Making Space for Creativity appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor we did deeper into intellectual property rights, including movie rights, language rights, publishing rights, and more.
We mentioned and discussed an article about the rights to Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character in the Hollywood Reporter. You can read the article here:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/judge-cant-figure-out-who-owns-rights-to-jack-ryan-character
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS277: Part Two of the Discussion on Copyrights and Intellectual Property Rights appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a social media discussion she had as a launch point to a discussion of what copyright really is, and then we dive into a discussion of the various intellectual property rights authors have for their work.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS276: A Discussion on Copyrights and Intellectual Property Rights appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss a recent blog post on the Crimereads.com website titled, My First Thriller: Randy Wayne White. In the article, Randy mentions the speed at which he wrote books under the name of Randy Striker in the early 1980s, versus the speed at which he wrote the first book under his own name several years later.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS275: Comparing writing speeds in two different situations appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on moving the goalposts, or, your main character’s objective, in your stories.
In our chit chat Taylor mentions a recent Patreon post which is available here:
Random Musings (From the Farm): A Post – Snowpocalypse Wrap
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS274: Moving the Goalposts In Your Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, recorded during the heart of the Texas cold snap, we discuss the idea of reviewing subplots within your manuscript by pulling them apart from the rest of the story to see how they hold up.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS273: Reviewing subplots within your manuscript appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, recorded during the heart of the Texas cold snap, Taylor shares some cold weather farm stories between power outages at the farm.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS272: Weather Woes, Farm Stories and More appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor continues her response to a series of listener questions about having too much information on characters and the story world, and how to know how much detail and backstory to include.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS271: How Do You Know How Much Detail and Backstory to Include appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to a great listener question about having too much information on characters and the story world, and determining where to actually begin the story.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS270: How to Find the Start of a Story or Scene appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor discusses the choices and psychology involved when including and more specifically harming animals in fiction.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS269: Animals in Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor discusses her reaction to a book she’s recently read and draws some lessons from her experience.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS268: Every Scene Needs a Purpose and Know Your Audience appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the process of building a story framework for The Short Story Project.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS267: Short Story Project – The Story Framework appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the response she received from an email she sent to her email list about fear, more specifically, what would you try if you knew you could not fail.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS266: The Fear Factor appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss a project you’ll hear more about throughout the first half of 2021. The project involves creating and writing a short story, using Taylor’s oft mentioned spreadsheet, to be submitted to several short story publishers.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS265: The Short Story Project – Part 1 appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss a recent project of Taylors and the importance of covers and sales copy to the success of your book. We also discuss the difference in the way we interpret the word blurb.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS264: The Importance of Covers and Sales Copy for Your Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the curse and value of having deadlines for our writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS263: The Curse and Value of Deadlines appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a part of the writing life that is rarely discussed, the process of ordering fan give-aways and managing the quality of the products.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS262: How to Order Book Cover Magnets in 297 Easy Steps appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the impact of Covid and other current events on the life of both traditionally published and indie authors.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS261: How is Covid Impacting the Writing Life? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, a follow-up to episode 257, we dive deeper into the importance of satisfying readers with the ending to your stories.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS260: The Importance of a Satisfying Ending appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, we discuss the importance of names in your stories and Taylor shares her thoughts on establishing usage rules for character names.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS259: Should You Set Up Usage Rules for Character Names? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her latest thoughts on the importance of Theme in stories.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS258: Why Theme is Important in our Stories appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of tying up loose ends in our stories. As you’ll hear, she identifies three things that most books should deliver to satisfy readers. Those are emotional closure and conflict resolution, answers to open questions, and loop closures.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS257: Tying Up Loose Ends in your Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some insights on identifying and eliminating overused words and writing tics in our writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS256: Avoiding Overused Words and Writing Tics appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
“Vagueness is what happens when the words on the page don’t say what the author thinks they say.” — Taylor
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of being precise or avoiding vagueness in your writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS255: The Importance of Avoiding Vagueness In Your Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor continues her thoughts on the importance of maintaining character consistency throughout your book or series.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS254: How to maintain character consistency throughout your story – Part II appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her insights on the importance of maintaining character consistency throughout your book or series.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS253: How to maintain character consistency throughout your story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on ways of moving your character from here to there, without boring your readers.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS252: Getting your characters from here to there appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor reviews the homework assignment she gave us several weeks ago during episode 244 where we analyzed the opening sequence for The Innocent.
Author C.A. Newsome, who writes the Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries, provided the winning entry, which Taylor read during the episode. You can check out C.A. Newsome’s first book for free at your favorite e-bookstore by clicking this link.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS251: Taylor Reviews Listener Homework Assignments appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, we share a conversation between Taylor and Steve that was not intended to be a podcast, but it turned out to be an interesting conversation on inner dialog that we hope you’ll find useful.
We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled podcast schedule next week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS250: A short episode on problem-solving through inner dialog appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this week’s episode, Taylor continues her discussion of Accidental Amnesia with a video game analogy, then explains how to avoid it, and or fix it in our writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS249: Accidental Amnesia – Why it’s a problem and how to avoid it in your writing (Part 2) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor explores the issue of Accidental Amnesia, how to avoid it, and or fix it in our writing.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS248: Accidental Amnesia – Why it’s a problem and how to avoid it in your writing (Part 1) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor follows up on a discussion of character aimlessness from episode 211 with a specific example.
We also discuss ideas for strengthening inner dialog by adding new information and keeping it focused on character, conflict, or plot.
Taylor also shares thoughts on character in motion and the difference between your character’s boring motions and her interesting motions, and how to effectively use each type.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS247: Character Aimlessness, Inner Dialog and Character In Motion appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor follows up on the importance of cause and effect with two examples of scenes that violate the Law of Cause and Effect.
As a review, Taylor defines the Law of Cause and Effect as:
Characters only act or react (the effect) in direct response to something that’s happened (the cause). Or, to put it another way, there is always a reason for everything a character does and says.
We also get another segment of Stories from the Farm, where we hear Taylor tell a “coming of age” story for two of her young chickens.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS246: Examples of a Cause and Effect Problems appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of cause and effect and delivers a useful rule for building scenes.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS245: Cause and Effect as a Foundational Principle appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, we once again tackle chapter and scene openings, this time with an example that’s missing some of the critical elements we’ve discussed over the past few episodes.
If you’re going to do our first-ever creative writing assignment, please email her at contact at taylorstevensbooks dot com.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS244: How not to write a chapter or scene opening appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Steve asks the questions he didn’t have the time to ask over the course of the past three episodes about scene and chapter openings.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS243: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene – The Q&A Show appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor shares some additional thoughts on the opening sequence of chapter one of The Innocent, book two in her Vanessa Michael Munroe series. In this episode, she uses a third framework to examine the opening sequence and shows how we can use the same frameworks to explore our own openings.
Taylor mentions a video version of a previous tutorial, which can be found here.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-tm-26853540
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS242: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene (Part 3) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor shares some additional thoughts on the opening sequence of chapter one of The Innocent, book two in her Vanessa Michael Munroe series. In this episode, she uses two different frameworks to examine the opening sequence and shows how we can use the same frameworks to explore our own openings.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS241: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene (Part 2) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the opening sequence of chapter one of The Innocent, book two in her Vanessa Michael Munroe series. In this episode and the next, she uses three different frameworks to examine the opening sequence and shows how we can use the same frameworks to explore our own openings.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS240: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene (Part 1) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on what readers (and for that matter authors) are willing to accept from protagonists.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS239: Can Your Protagonist be Too Evil for Readers? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the difference between organic storytelling and ticking things off a ‘story building’ checklist. We discuss the difference between the two and how to move beyond ticking off check boxes to improving our organic story building skills.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS238: The Difference Between Ticking Boxes and Organic Storytelling appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor expands on the ideas she shared in episode 213 and explains how we can be sure our description serves the correct purpose in scenes.
Taylor mentioned the following episodes at the beginning of the episode:
- 206 – Avoiding The Two Extremes when it Comes to Writing Description
- 211 – Avoiding Character Aimlessness to Improve Pacing and Characterization
- 213 – Every Scene Needs a Purpose: Description
- 225 – How Going Deeper Than The Obvious Makes Characters Feel Real and Alive
- 235 – Using Inner Dialog to Guide Conversation
Taylor also mentioned the following guidelines when creating description:
- When we have description, we need to know what exactly is being described.
- Visual and spatial descriptions (objects and layouts) should always be introduced when something is first introduced through that characters eyes.
- If description can’t serve its ultimate purpose, it must serve a different purpose in order to belong. (The ultimate purpose of description is to provide context so the character isn’t forced to perform in a spatial voice.)
- Sometimes filler and throw-away details becomes worse than filler and throw-away detail.
- If we can’t give a visual or spatial element of a character’s the history the emotional weight it deserves, we’re better off not including it at all.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS237: Every Scene Needs a Purpose – Part III appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor expands on the ideas she shared in episode 213 and explains how we can be sure our description serves the correct purpose in scenes.
Taylor mentioned the following episodes at the beginning of the episode:
- 206 – Avoiding The Two Extremes when it Comes to Writing Description
- 211 – Avoiding Character Aimlessness to Improve Pacing and Characterization
- 213 – Every Scene Needs a Purpose: Description
- 225 – How Going Deeper Than The Obvious Makes Characters Feel Real and Alive
- 235 – Using Inner Dialog to Guide Conversation
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS236: Every Scene Needs a Purpose – Part II appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor discusses the idea of using inner dialogue to build a framework around questions and to guide conversations.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS235: Using Inner Dialog to Guide Conversation appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor shares an example of how a small tweak to a scene ending can help to salvage the scene and keep the reader turning the page.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS234: How a Strong Ending Can Salvage a Weak Scene appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on Sidekicks and secondary characters, and the importance of the respect between main characters and sidekicks.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS233: Sidekicks and Secondary Characters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor talks about the importance of treating your readers like the smart people they are by eliminating redundancy and unnecessary explaining in your stories.
Here is a link to the Max Folsom except we discussed at the beginning of the show: https://www.bakersomerset.com/excerpt-1/
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS232: Never State What Can Be Implied appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor shares her experience and evolving thoughts on the topic of profanity in fiction.
We also mention Taylor’s article Oh Xxxx, Swearing! Click here to read the essay.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS231: The Pros and Cons of Using Profanity In Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor shares a laugh-out-loud funny story about parenting geese in bad weather. Then we discuss the use of callbacks in stories and review an example of when less is more from The Informationist.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS230: When Less Is More appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor discusses the value of negative feedback, and what it means when someone says “I don’t like the writing.”
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS229: What does it mean when someone says they don’t like the writing? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor shares the reasons why she recently read Julia Heaberlin’s upcoming book We Are All the Same in the Dark, and what kept her reading the book for eight straight hours.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS228: Taylor’s Experience In Reading A Book From Cover To Cover appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of cause and effect in storytelling. Then she shares how the lack of a proper cause and effect relationship in her work in process caused a significant re-write.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS227: The Importance of Cause and Effect to Keeping Your Story on Track appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
We begin this week’s episode by discussing Taylor’s recent email / Patreon post about Covid-19. If you haven’t read it yet and wish to do so, it’s available here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/break-from-34892965
If you’ve read her message, you’ll remember that she worked very hard to avoid including her worldview in the article, so we picked up on that theme as the topic for this week’s show.
We discuss the pros and cons of including your world views when writing fiction, and how, to a certain extent it’s unavoidable.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS226: Adding your Worldview to your Stories appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of going deeper with your characters and how that helps to bring them to life in the minds of your readers. As you’ll hear, it doesn’t take a lot of additional words to make this happen.
Again this week, we’re pulling from The Informationist, so if you have a hardcover version, she’s talking about a scene that begins on page 211.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS225: How Going Deeper than the Obvious Makes Characters Feel Real and Alive appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor discovers an interesting source for teaching material, her first book, The Informationist.
As you may know, she’s reading The Informationist for the first time as a reader, and she’s finding teaching moments inside the material.
In this week’s episode, she shares part of a scene in chapter 15 as an example of developing character in a plot-driven story.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS224: How to Develop Character in a Plot-driven Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some recent experience with gardening and how it relates to refilling her creative well. Then we get into an in-depth discussion of the Hack The Craft concept of Thought, Action, Speech.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS223: Thought, Action, Speech, and… Gardening. appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the idea that we don’t all “hear” the same things in our minds. Some have thoughts that form as words and sentences, while others have thoughts as concepts, or what Taylor refers to as bolts of lightning.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS222: The Way Thoughts Present Themselves In Your Mind Can Affect Your Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we start with chit chat (as usual) and Steve shares his reaction to Liar’s Legacy. Then we get into questions that we’ve gathered over the past few months for Taylor.
For those who can’t get enough of Taylor, check out her podcast on Corks and Conversations, here: https://gameofbookspodcast.com/corks-and-conversation-with-taylor-stevens/
And here is the first interview between Taylor and Steve that Taylor mentioned at the end of the show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS221: We’ve Got Questions, Taylor Has Answers appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on teleportation issues, how they differ in movies and writing, and how to avoid them with your stories.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS220: How To Avoid Teleportation Issues In Your Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, which comes from a reader question, we consider the difference between showing emotions to your readers and evoking emotion in those readers.
If you don’t yet have your copy of Liars’ Legacy, you can get it wherever books are sold, or if you want to support an indie bookstore you may still be able to get an autographed copy from Interbang Books here:
https://www.interabangbooks.com/
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS219: What’s the difference between showing emotion and evoking emotion in your readers? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we discuss putting your best foot forward with readers if you choose to give away free books as lead generation for your email list.
If you don’t yet have your copy of Liars’ Legacy, you can get it wherever books are sold, or if you want to support an indie bookstore you may still be able to get an autographed copy from Interbang Books here:
https://www.interabangbooks.com/
Taylors upcoming schedule:
- January 21 – Murder by the Book – Houston Texas
- January 24 – Arboretum Barnes and Noble – Austin, Texas
- February 13 – Interbang Books – Dallas Texas (6:00 PM)
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS218: Should You Give Away a Free Book to Encourage Readers to Signup to Your Email List? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we dig into the strength of your protagonist, and how that strength depends upon your antagonist.
If you don’t yet have your copy of Liars’ Legacy, you can get it wherever books are sold, or if you want to support an indie bookstore you may still be able to get an autographed copy from Interbang Books here:
https://www.interabangbooks.com/
Taylors upcoming schedule:
- January 21 – Murder by the Book – Houston Texas
- January 24 – Arboretum Barnes and Noble – Austin, Texas
- February 13 – Interbang Books – Dallas Texas (6:00 PM)
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS217: Do You Know Your Villain as Well as You Know Your Hero? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we dig into the idea of flow — one of the three primary components of the Hack The Craft process. We talk a lot about Anchoring and Perspective on the podcast, but this is our first lengthy discussion of Flow, or what Taylor calls the heartbeat of the story.
If you don’t yet have your copy of Liars’ Legacy, you can get it wherever books are sold, or if you want to support an indie bookstore you may still be able to get an autographed copy from Interbang Books here:
https://www.interabangbooks.com/
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS216: Keep the Flow Moving Smoothly In Your Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we (finally) have the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion of Taylor’s new book, Liars’ Legacy. We discuss the characters, the complexity of the story, and the challenges that complexity brought to the writing of the book. We also discuss favorite characters for each book, and the addition of a major new character in book two.
Autographed copies of Liar’s Legacy will be available at Interabang Books in Dallas, and they can also be ordered online. You can find contact information for Interabang books here:
https://www.interabangbooks.com/
Or, you can pick up your copy of Liars’ Legacy at your favorite physical or online bookstore. Here’s a link for online purchases:
https://books2read.com/liarslegacy
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS215: The Liars’ Legacy Episode appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we dig into the need to avoid the easy route in our writing. This will become an over-arching topic for us, but in this episode, we’re focusing on Dialogue.
Taylor also mentions that autographed copies of Liar’s Legacy will be available at Interabang Books in Dallas, and they can also be ordered online. You can find contact information for Interabang books here:
https://www.interabangbooks.com/
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS214: Don’t Make it Easy with your Dialogue appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve expand on the idea that every scene needs a purpose, with a focus on description. She also shares some thoughts on how unnecessary details can bog down readers, and she reminds us of the ultimate purpose for description.
The Ultimate Purpose of Description is to provide the context and environment that your characters inhabit so that they aren’t forced to exist in a spatial void. — Taylor Stevens Here is the original section that’s Taylor is using for example purposes, from Chapter 4 of Steve’s Reggie book.
Chez Reggie is a 1,452 square feet cottage that has survived three hurricanes, six owners and the relentless march of bigger, newer, and more expensive since 1956. Originally built as a winter getaway for Chuck and Brenda Powell, the cottage passed through several hands before I bought it for a song from an old-timer who didn’t want it torn down and replaced with what he called a “damn monstrosity”.
The house is a boxy structure that was completed before things like floodplains were a part of city planning. That meant that it didn’t need to be built on a mountain of fill dirt. My home sat sedately at ground level, where all of Elan had been back in the day. Each time one of these old cottages are demolished to make room for a new three-story temple of success the city loses more of its charm. At least in the way I define charm. Granted, I may be in the minority.
I’d had the shingle roof replaced with tin a year ago, and the sound inside the house during rainstorms is magical. Some female guests of Chez Reggie find the sound of rain on a tin roof to be an aphrodisiac, making me one of the few people in Elan who look forward to multi-day tropical storms.
Unfortunately, the only sound inside my lonely home tonight was the sound of my pen scratching against a moleskin notebook.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS213: Every Scene Needs a Purpose: Description appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss a process for dealing with manuscripts that you’ve written and tucked away in a (digital) drawer.
We also discuss a chance meeting Steve had with author Echo Miller at the 20books Conference in Las Vegas. Echo’s book is The Insider Club, which you can check out at Amazon here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS212: What Should You Do With That Manuscript You’ve Tucked Away In A Drawer? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on avoiding aimless scenes in your books.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS211: Avoiding Character Aimlessness to Improve Pacing and Characterization appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, we apologize for being unable to record an episode for this week, but we will be back next week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post Yikes! The Apology Episode appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In our final episode from Bouchercon, Taylor shares some thoughts on confirming that all scenes have a purpose and how to create that purpose when ‘bookending’ flashbacks in your writing.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS210: Creating Purpose with the Bookends to your Flashbacks appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Episode 209 marks the first-ever (drum-roll…..) face to face podcast recording session for The Taylor Stevens Show. Taylor and Steve meet up for the first time ever in Dallas Texas at Bouchercon 2019.
In this episode, there a little bit of conversation about writing, but we focus our conversation on the Bouchercon conference and the experiences we’ve each had during the week.
The psychological suspense panel at Bouchercon We hope you enjoy this special (at least to Taylor and Steve) episode. Thanks to Steve’s wife Julie for memorializing the event by taking such great pictures, and thanks to all of you for joining us again this week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS209: The Bouchercon Edition (Where Taylor & Steve finally meet) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the upcoming conference schedule, and then get into a discussion of “why” and how your why relates to your writing.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS208: What’s the Why For Your Writing? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve discuss the long-time writing maxim of “killing your darlings.” We discuss what can qualify as a writing darling, and how to decide which of your darlings should be removed.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patreon only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS207: How to choose which darlings to kill appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In today’s episode, we discuss the importance of description, the ultimate purpose of description, and how to avoid the two extremes of writing description in your stories.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS206: Avoiding the two extremes when it comes to writing description appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In today’s episode, we discuss the importance of action and emotional beats in our stories, and how to be sure you gain maximum benefit from those beats.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS205: The Importance of Getting Your Action and Emotional Beats Right appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In today’s episode, we finish what we started last week, by digging deeply into the idea of building characters for whom smarts is their secret weapon.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS204: How Careful Plotting Helps To Make Your Characters Smarter appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In today’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the need for subject matter expertise when it comes to choosing the weapon of choice for your protagonist.
The show opens with a chat about Friday the 13th (not the movie) and winds up with Ricochet Rabbit.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS203: Choose Your Weapons – Guns, Knives, Fists, or Smarts appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In today’s episode, Taylor uses the show Deadwood as a springboard to a discussion of adding emotional depth to the villains in your stories.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS202: Adding Emotional Depth To Your Villains appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Today we have something completely different. Taylor recently purchased a new computer, but she chose a different path, (the path with a Hello Kitty USB drive). She bought an inexpensive Windows laptop for the sole purpose of setting up Linux and running it as her primary operating system.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS201: Taylor Gets A New Computer, A Cautionary Tale appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Do books have expiration dates? Steve read a recent blog post in which the question of expiration dates for books was raised. In this week’s show, we discuss that concept as well as Taylor’s new hobby.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS200: What’s The Expiration Date On That Book? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we discuss the issue of delivery dates within publishing contracts, what happens when those dates aren’t met, and the value of an agent when it comes to dealing with contract issues.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS199: How Do Delivery Dates Work Within Publishing Contracts appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we begin by chatting about a recent Library event that Taylor attended, then she shares her experience in working with libraries and librarians and why they’ve been so important to her career.
We also spend time sharing thoughts on how both traditionally published and indie authors can improve the chances of getting their books into library systems.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS198: The Importance of Libraries to Your Writing Career appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor shares a question she saw online the other day about the differences between teaching art and teaching writing, which got her thinking about the fundamentals of writing. Are there fundementals that hold true for everyone, or do the fundamentals change depending on the student?
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS197: What Are The Fundamentals of Writing? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor takes on two additional writer questions. The first comes from a writer struggling to finish because she keeps adding storylines as she polishes. The second question has to do with the issue of time-skipping, and when and how to skip forward with your story.
We also mentioned the Lessons From The Screenplay YouTube channel, which can be found here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS196: More Q&A – Including questions on finishing and time-skipping. appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor tackles a question from an author who is curious about the possibility of including scenes whose primary purpose is to show the personality of your main point of view character.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS195: Keeping Your Scenes Connected to Your Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor and Steve discuss professional organizations for authors, including:
International Thriller Writers
Sisters In Crime
Mystery Writers of America
Romance Writers of America
Science Fiction Writers of America
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS194: Should You Consider Professional Organizations as an Author? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor shares a story that you’ll just have to hear to believe, and then we get into creativity. Do you have to be creative to be a successful author? Can it be taught? And how to avoid the toxicity that can kill creativity.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS193: How Important Is Creativity to Your Success as an Author? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we hear Steve’s reaction (recorded immediately after we recorded the four back-to-back Hack The Craft episodes) to Taylor’s work on the scene we used. Then we dig into what can be done when you’re stuck working on material that just isn’t working.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS192: What to do when your material isn’t working appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor finishes the line by line comparison of Steve’s original material with her re-writes and explains why she made the changes she made to the scene.
This started out as something that would focus on Dialogue, but as you hear (and see if you check out the video on Patreon) her work goes well beyond just dialogue and into several story elements including character depth, motivation, and consistency, and defining the purpose of the scene.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS191: Making the Most of your Dialogue – A Hack the Craft Episode (Part 5 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor goes line by line comparing Steve’s original material with her re-writes and explains why she made the changes she made to the scene.
This started out as something that would focus on Dialogue, but as you hear (and see if you check out the video on Patreon) her work goes well beyond just dialogue and into several story elements including character depth, motivation, and consistency, and defining the purpose of the scene.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS190: Making the Most of your Dialogue – A Hack the Craft Episode (Part 4 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor digs even deeper into the material we’ve been discussing for the past few weeks.
This started out as something that would focus on Dialogue, but as you hear (and see if you check out the video on Patreon) her work goes well beyond just dialogue and into several story elements including character depth, motivation, and consistency, and defining the purpose of the scene.
The full video will be posted as soon as it’s been produced, but this is a long one, so it may not come until later in the week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS189: Making the Most of your Dialogue – A Hack the Craft Episode (Part 3 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s episode marks the beginning of a four-part deep dive where Taylor works through a 2,000-word scene that Steve wrote for an upcoming book.
This started out as something that would focus on Dialogue, but as you hear (and see if you check out the video on Patreon) her work goes well beyond just dialogue and into several story elements including character depth, motivation, and consistency, and defining the purpose of the scene.
The full video will be posted as soon as it’s been produced, but this is a long one, so it may not come until later in the week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS188: Making the Most of your Dialogue – A Hack the Craft Episode (Part 2 of 5) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor takes a deep dive into dialogue, what it must accomplish in fiction and how to balance between the need to reveal character and to inform your reader and drive the plot forward.
This is the first of what will become a series, and the next episode(s) will include video. In this episode, we give an overview of what this series will include.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS187: Making the Most of your Dialogue – A Hack the Craft Episode appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This is part two of this short Hack The Craft episode, where Taylor digs deep into the importance of quickly setting up the readers mental movie with chapter openings and after narrative breaks.
We split into two episodes to fit into our normal timing for the show, but the entire program can be viewed on Taylor’s Patreon page (no-registration or membership required) by clicking this link:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/hack-craft-tm-26853540
Liar’s Legacy is the next book in Taylor’s Jack & Jill Thrill Series, and it’s available for pre-order now for pre-order at digital stories everywhere.
Click here to order your copy.
Thank you to author C.A. Newsome for providing the material for this week’s show. You can get A Shot In The Bark, the first book in her Dog Park Mystery series for free at several online booksellers.
Click here to get your copy of A Shot In The Bark
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS186: Part Two of Critical Elements with Chapter Openings and Narrative Breaks appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this Hack The Craft episode, Taylor digs deep into the importance of quickly setting up the readers mental movie with chapter openings and after narrative breaks.
The podcast is split into two episodes to fit into our normal timing for the show, but the entire thing can be viewed on Taylor’s Patreon page (no-registration or membership required) by clicking this link:
https://www.patreon.com/taylorstevens/posts
Liar’s Legacy is the next book in Taylor’s Jack & Jill Thrill Series, and it’s available for pre-order now for pre-order at digital stories everywhere.
Click here to order your copy.
Thank you to author C.A. Newsome for providing the material for this week’s show. You can get A Shot In The Bark, the first book in her Dog Park Mystery series for free at several online booksellers.
Click here to get your copy of A Shot In The Bark
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS185: Critical Elements with Chapter Openings and Narrative Breaks appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we get caught up with Taylor’s publishing journey, and then into the topic of creating emotions in your readers.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS184: Generating Emotion In Your Reader appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s program, Taylor shares her thoughts on how and when to reveal information in your stories. As she puts it, “Story sense really is a revealing of information and the timing of that reveal.
Things mentioned on this show: The Mackenzie August Series at Amazon
The Go Into The Story Blog from Scott Myers
Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles at Amazon
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS183: Withholding and Revealing Information In Your Stories appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we discuss the lengthy delay between shows, and how the writing life can so often feel like failure when the reality is that if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you’re in the process of accomplishing your writing goals.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS182: What Does Failing Forward Look Like? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In today’s show, Taylor shares her thoughts on character growth over the course of a multi-book series as a way of answering Steve’s question on his current work in process.
As a note, we’ll be taking the next two weeks off so that Taylor can focus exclusively on her writing, and we’ll be back towards the end of March when we’ll get the story behind the gap in episodes.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS181: Character Growth Over A Multi-book Series appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, author and listener Jessie Garcia joins us to share her experience with writing, producing and narrating her audiobook, Death At The Dog Park, released as an audio exclusive in late December 2018.
We dig deep into the process that Jessie used to produce her audiobook, including her use of a studio to record, her selection of Author’s Republic to distribute her audiobook, the post-production process she used with Death In The Park, and the humorous way she learned her audiobook was available for sale.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Links:
Connect with Jessie on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Jessie-Garcia-456494587770227/
Buy Death At The Dog Park at Amazon/Audible
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
The post TSS180: Narrating your own audiobook, with Jessie Garcia appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we discuss the value of the Wandering Mind to the writing process, and how the busyness of life can eliminate the wandering and force us to think on the page. Taylor discusses how changes in her own life have forced her to find new ways to allow her creative mind the freedom to roam.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS179: The Value of a Wandering Mind for Authors appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a problem that she’s had for the past week or so with the way two of her point of view characters interacted in a scene. She explains the source of the issue and a simple solution that solved the problem for her and could work for us as well.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS178: What Can Happen When You Allow Plot To Drive Your Characters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
During the intro for week’s episode, we discuss this year’s Bouchercon conference which takes place in Dallas, October 31st – November 3rd. Both Taylor and Steve will be there this year and we’d love to see you there as well. You can get more information here:
https://www.bouchercon2019.com/
Our topic for this week’s show is the importance of understanding the market for your books, and how knowing your readers can help you to find the audience for your books.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS177: The Importance of Understanding The Audience For Your Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
We open this week’s show with a discussion of superhero movies and how they relate to a previous show, then we get into this week’s topic on not hitting our (Steve’s) writing goals.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS176: What Happens When you Don’t Hit Your Writing Goals? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we discuss Taylor’s post-publication marketing activities and then get into the ways in which the life you’ve lived can affect your writing in ways that you may not understand.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS175: How Your Life Impacts Your Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we discuss fight sequences and how to keep them interesting for your readers while maintaining the non-fight-scene drama of your story.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS174: How To Keep Your Fight Scenes Interesting appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor shares her thoughts on the value of empathy when writing. She believes empathy is a great tool for creativity, which can expand and improve your storytelling.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a story about a story written for a college class and explains how telling a story in the way we might experience a video game can improve our writing.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS173: Empathy As A Tool In The Writer’s Toolbox appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a story about a story written for a college class and explains how telling a story in the way we might experience a video game can improve our writing.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS172: Video Game Story Telling appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on plot points and other story building techniques. Not surprisingly, her insights are thought-provoking.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS171: How Important Are Plot Points to Your Story Building? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on something both she and Steve are currently working on. Tying up the loose ends at the end of your story.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS170: Tying Up the Loose Ends In Your Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s ultra short episode, we share a few of the things we’re thankful for during this Thanksgiving week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS169: A Short and Woefully Incomplete List of Things We’re Grateful for This Thanksgiving appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we consider the ways in which we can identify the areas where our writing could stand some improvement.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS168: Figuring Out Where Your Writing Could Stand Some Improvement appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we open with some anti-good-health tips, and then Taylor responds to a listener question on dealing with the things that take him out the writing zone while he’s working.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS167: Use Workarounds to Avoid Squirrel Chasing While You’re Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we talk about Taylor’s life, otherwise known as dealing with deadline pressure, and how that pressure can lead to questioning yourself in ways that are not healthy. Taylor shares the last several months of her life, and how some major life changes
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS166: Dealing with Deadline Pressure appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we discuss Taylor’s new book, Liars’ Paradox. We chat about the story behind the story, the process of selling the book to her publisher, and the process of working through multiple versions of the book.
You can pre-order your copy of the book wherever fine books are sold. This link will take you to your bookstore of choice.
Pre-Order Liars’ Paradox
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS165: Everything (Almost) You Need to Know About Liars Paradox appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor explains why challenging your assumptions can help you keep clichés out of your writing and increase the entertainment value of your stories with readers.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS164: Techniques For Keeping Clichés Out of Your Writing – Part Two appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor shares her thoughts on clichés in writing and specifically in thrillers. She shares her own experience with clichés, how she fights to keep them out of her own work, and how we can join her in trying to eliminate clichés and ill-conceived tropes from our own writing.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS163: Techniques For Keeping Clichés Out of Your Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This is part two of a two-part episode to show how your line editing can strengthen your clarity and prose. Steve sent a scene to Taylor with some specific questions regarding the action beats, and Taylor pulled on her Hack The Craft hat and went to work on the material.
The podcast is split into two episodes to fit into our normal timing for the show, but the entire thing can be viewed on Taylor’s Patreon page (no-registration or membership required) by clicking this link:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/21483295
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS162: Line Editing to Strengthen Clarity and Prose (Part Two) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This is part one of a two-part episode to show how your line editing can strengthen your clarity and prose. Steve sent a scene to Taylor with some specific questions regarding the action beats, and Taylor pulled on her Hack The Craft hat and went to work on the material.
The podcast is split into two episodes to fit into our normal timing for the show, but the entire thing can be viewed on Taylor’s Patreon page (no-registration or membership required) by clicking this link:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/21483295
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS161: Line Editing to Strengthen Clarity and Prose appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Taylor shares her thoughts on the value of beautifully written prose and the way what she calls ‘her OCD’ makes the decision on the speed versus prose question in her writing.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS160: Why Your Writing Goals Should Guide Your Beautiful Prose Versus Speed Decisions appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s pre-Bouchercon episode, Taylor responds to listener questions on Author Voice, her ideal writing schedule, and when an author should expecting the writing part of the job to get easier.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS159: Taylor Responds To User Questions This Week appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we get into the importance of character motivation, and when (and why) to share it with readers. It’s always important for the author to understand her character’s motivation, but knowing when and how to share that motivation with readers can be equally important.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS158: How to Avoid Having ‘Moving Prop’ Characters In Your Stories appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares her strategy for using blocks to simplify the process of writing complex scenes and chapters. She also explains why she uses blocks and how they help her to press on with her writing without allowing the complexity of the scenes to slow her down.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS157: Using ‘Blocks’ to Write Complex Chapters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor explains publishing sell-through and how it relates to authors by using hypothetical examples.
Near the end, we also get into audio as a method of distribution and if there are specific plans for Liars’ Paradox in audio.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS156: What is Sell Through and Why is it Important to Traditionally Published Authors? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show comes from a listener question regarding the timing in which libraries get books from publishers, and whether or not publishers might delay sales to libraries to increase sales of new releases. Taylor briefly responds to the user question and then goes into much more detail into the process by which physical wind their way from the publishers to the reader.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS155: Understanding the Distribution Process for Books appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we discuss the importance of your author platform, with some specific advice on getting the most from an author platform without adding too much stress to your life.
We also mention the advice and books by Steve’s friend Chris Syme, and her book, Sell More Books with Less Social Media.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS154: Quick Tips On Building Your Author Platform appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
We open this weeks episode with Taylor’s thoughts on her time at ThrillerFest, then respond to a couple of interesting listener questions on finding the right editor for your situation and book. Thanks to Chris for sending in the great questions!
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS153: ThrillerFest and Finding the RIGHT Editor for Your Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Steve expresses a concern that the antagonist in his book is not bad enough and asks Taylor’s advice for handling the situation. We also discuss Taylor’s upcoming trips to Thrillerfest (New York) and Bouchercon (Tampa).
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS152: Dealing with a Likable Antagonist appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor responds to a listener question on narrative distance. The author wants to shift from wide to narrow and back again throughout a story and wants Taylor’s thoughts on how best to accomplish the changes.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS151: Shifting Narrative Distance in a Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, Taylor and Steve consider a listener question about releasing an “audio only” version of a book, then get into the growth of audiobooks, the changing nature of books, and Steve’s new podcast, Earcrush.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS150: Should the Growth in Audiobook Sales Change Your Publishing Plans? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor shares a problem she had last week while writing a chapter of her new book and the quick online research she did that allowed her to finish the scene. Because of the way Taylor provides readers with description through character movement, she needed more current detail than what her memory provided from her last trip to Berlin. We discuss the process she used for this research and how it allowed her to work through her writing problem without going through a lengthy research process.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS149: Research, Character Movement, and Dog Crap appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor replies to listener questions, the first of which was a request for advice on pumping up a weak character that neither the author nor early readers liked. The second question addresses the issue of dialogue as the opening sentence in a novel.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS148: Taylor Responds to Listener Questions appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Today’s show comes as a result of a listener question to Taylor about the fear of letting others read your work. But the question goes well beyond fear, as does Taylor’s response. She discusses the way a fear can become a phobia and how she’s dealt her own phobia level fear.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS147: When Fear Goes Beyond Fear appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This tutorial is part 5 of a 5 part series in which, at the author’s request, we go through the process of converting a first-person present tense piece to third person past tense and then move on to line editing.
In part 4 (TSS Episode 145) We began the line editing process but due to time constraints were only able to complete half. This episode picks back up where we left off and finishes out the line editing. We learn:
- How to rewrite to keep key concepts close together for impact.
- How to organize information within a paragraph to eliminate unnecessary words.
- Where extra information needs to get added to allow the story flow to make sense.
- How small textural details and characterization can create instant depth that will draw the reader in.
- How and where to include those types of details.
- How to avoid a character inadvertently coming across as cold or selfish with humanizing touches.
This show is also available in video and can be seen on Taylor’s Patreon page here. (When available)
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS146: Line Editing for Texture and Characterization appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This is part 4 of a 5 part series in which, at the author’s request, we go through the process of converting a first-person present tense piece to third person past tense. In this episode, Taylor begins the line edits.
In this tutorial we begin the line editing process where we learn:
- How to rewrite to avoid overusing pronouns.
- How to rewrite to keep key concepts close together for impact.
- How to organize information within a paragraph to eliminate unnecessary words.
- Where extra information needs to get added to allow the story flow to make sense.
- How small textural details and characterization can create instant depth that will draw the reader in.
- How and where to include those types of details.
- How to avoid a character inadvertently coming across as cold or selfish with humanizing touches.
Due to the length of the material we were only able to complete half of the line edit in this episode. The next episode will see us to the finish line.
If you’ve found this tutorial helpful, please feel free to share the link with other authors and writers who might benefit.
This show is also available in video and can be seen on Taylor’s Patreon page here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS145: Line Editing for Texture and Characterization appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This is part 3 of a 5 part series in which, at the author’s request, we go through the process of converting a first-person present tense piece to third person past tense.
In part 2 (TSS Episode 143) we used the opening paragraph to provide a visual of the differences between first person present tense, first person past tense, third person present tense, and third person past tense, to show how verbs and pronouns change from one to the next.
In this tutorial we go through the actual conversion process step by step with:
~~ Search terms used to auto convert pronouns from first to third
~~ Search terms used to auto convert present tense to past tense
~~ The manual cleanup process to catch what the auto conversion missed.
We then move on to the fully converted piece which allows us to see:
~~ The three reasons overuse of pronouns weakens your writing.
~~ How writing in first person can create an over reliance on pronouns.
~~ How any overreliance on prounouns that was invisible in first person will become glaringly obvious in third person.
~~ How small tweaks can eliminate unnecessary pronouns.
~~ Areas that may need attention to keep tenses correct.
In the next episode we will line edit the fully converted piece.
This show is also available in video and can be seen on Taylor’s Patreon page here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS144: Steps for Converting from First Person to Third Person appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Show Notes
In this week’s episode, Taylor walks us through the various changes necessary to change the point of view of your story from first person to third person.
We first use the opening paragraph some listener submitted material to provide a visual representation of
- first person, present tense
- first person, past tense
- third person, present tense
- third person, past tense
and compare them against each other to show how verbs and pronouns change from one to the next and examine the difference in “feel” that each provides.
This show is also available in video and can be seen on Taylor’s Patreon page here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS143: Changing Point of View from First Person to Third Person appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we respond to a listener email by launching a series on points of view and tense. In this opening episode, Taylor compares first person and third person points of view and we discuss the relative merits of each.
Which is right for you? (Or for me?)
As you’ll hear, it depends. If you’re a long time listener, you know that Taylor writes primarily in third person, but near the end of this episode, she reads from an unpublished novel of hers that she wrote in the first person.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS142: Comparing First Person and Third Person Points of View appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we have our version of listener questions. Topics discussed include avoiding stereotypical minor characters, hooking readers with open loops in stories, and the timing of research to avoid going down rabbit trails that lead to few words written for the day.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS141: Taylor responds to questions from odd-ball listeners appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor walks us through her process for working through the copy edits she received last month for her next book, Liar’s Paradox.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS140: Taylor Walks Us Through Her Process for Dealing with Copy Edits appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this weeks episode, Taylor responds to a listener question from Bruce, about the idea of balancing new writing projects that provide creative growth, with the need to continue an existing series to satisfy readers and continue to pay the bills.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS139: Balancing new writing projects and an ongoing series appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this weeks episode, Taylor shares a twitter conversation that she spotted a few weeks ago between an editor and an agent, regarding rewrite requests. She explains what your agent or editor really means when you get that request.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS138: What does it mean when your editor asks you for a rewrite? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, the second of a two-part series, we introduce 6 key questions to use as a guide when writing a scene. These questions are:
~~ Whose eyes are we seeing this from?
~~ Where are we?
~~ Who are the characters?
~~ What is the conflict?
~~ What are the key points this scene must convey?
~~ What is the character doing?
We then revisit the original material, introduce the author’s second version, and run both through these questions. We use the answers as a foundation to rewrite the sequence. Through this rewrite process we learn:
~~ Why getting character in motion is critical to story movement.
~~ Why character in motion is critical to depth of character.
~~ Why character in motion is the basis for good description.
~~ Why character in motion is what creates a vivid sense of place.
~~ Why we cannot have character in motion without place, and cannot have place without character in motion.
~~ How to use one to build the other.
~~ How this automatically resolves big picture issues such naval gazing and misordered visual elements.
This show is also available in video and can be seen on Taylor’s Patreon page here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS137: Setting the Scene – A Hack the Craft Episode appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, the first of a two-part series, Taylor digs into some listener submitted material and shares her thoughts on the importance of structuring sentences correctly and avoiding what she calls navel-gazing. In this episode Taylor focuses on:
~~ Naval Gazing: What it is, the problems it causes, and how to avoid it.
~~ How to feed visual elements to the reader in the right order.
~~ Why we must establish a sense of time and place for anything that follows to make sense.
~~ Why we have to show the reader what the character sees as she sees it and,
~~ How failing to do this creates confusion and a jarring reading experience.
This show is also available in video and can be seen on Taylor’s Patreon page here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS136: Sentence Order, Navel Gazing and More – A Hack the Craft Episode appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we go overboard with chit-chat, then respond to some great questions from William, who is fairly new to the show but is working his way through the entire catalog of podcasts. We cover things like writing technology, Digital Rights Management (DRM) and multiple viewpoints on the same storyline.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS135: Taylor Finishes a Project, Listener Questions and WAY Too Much Chit Chat appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is part three of what will be a three-part series on intellectual property rights and how managing those rights correctly can make a HUGE difference in your career as an author.
Taylor covers the foreign rights this week and includes some important information for you to consider when signing a publishing deal.
In the chit-chat portion of the show we discuss a blog post on Lori Puma’s site, These 33 Podcasts Will Help You Write, Publish, and Promote Your First Novel in 2018.
She was kind enough to mention our show, but she also mentions a number of other shows that our listeners would find interesting. Give some of these shows a try and let us know if you find some additional favorites.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS134: Understanding Foreign Rights For Your Books appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is part two of what will be a three-part series on intellectual property rights and how managing those rights correctly can make a HUGE difference in your career as an author.
Taylor covers the film and television rights this week and includes some important information for you to consider when signing a publishing deal.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS133: Understanding Film and Television Rights for Your Books appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is part one of what will be a three-part series on intellectual property rights and how managing those rights correctly can make a HUGE difference in your career as an author.
Taylor covers the basics of intellectual property rights this week and includes some important things for you to consider when signing a publishing deal.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS132: The Importance of Understanding Your Intellectual Property Rights appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is part three of a Hack the Craft series on the importance of word order to your to maximizing the impact of your stories.
The material covers roughly 1200 words and is taken from within chapter 5 of a contemporary romance.
In this scene, the main character experiences a panic attack during a grappling session while at judo practice. The author’s biggest concerns were avoiding cliches and making sure the character’s actions and reactions didn’t create confusion.
In this series our primary focus is on:
- How to spot out-of-order character movements.
- How to reorder elements within a sentence or paragraph for clarity and emotional impact.
- How to avoid feeling words.
- How to avoid vagueness.
- The issue with “ing” words and the “Don’t Start a Sentence with a Gerund” rule.
- Why and how it’s okay to break that rule.
- How to utilize thought -> action -> speech within multiple paragraphs.
- How paragraph breaks and white space can become one of your most powerful writing tools.
We recorded this as one as video as well. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
You can also download a copy of the document Taylor worked from this week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS131: Restructure Word Order for Maximum Impact – Part 3 appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is part two of a Hack the Craft series on the importance of word order to your to maximizing the impact of your stories.
The material covers roughly 1200 words and is taken from within chapter 5 of a contemporary romance.
In this scene, the main character experiences a panic attack during a grappling session while at judo practice. The author’s biggest concerns were avoiding cliches and making sure the character’s actions and reactions didn’t create confusion.
In this series our primary focus is on:
- How to spot out-of-order character movements.
- How to reorder elements within a sentence or paragraph for clarity and emotional impact.
- How to avoid feeling words.
- How to avoid vagueness.
- The issue with “ing” words and the “Don’t Start a Sentence with a Gerund” rule.
- Why and how it’s okay to break that rule.
- How to utilize thought -> action -> speech within multiple paragraphs.
- How paragraph breaks and white space can become one of your most powerful writing tools.
We recorded this as one as video as well. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page after she has it posted.
You can also download a copy of the document Taylor worked from this week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS130: Restructure Word Order for Maximum Impact – Part 2 appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is a Hack the Craft episode and part one of what will be a three-part series on the importance of word order to your to maximizing the impact of your stories.
The material covers roughly 1200 words and is taken from within chapter 5 of a contemporary romance.
In this scene, the main character experiences a panic attack during a grappling session while at judo practice. The author’s biggest concerns were avoiding cliches and making sure the character’s actions and reactions didn’t create confusion.
We recorded this as one as video as well. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page after she has it posted.
You can also download a copy of the document Taylor worked from this week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS129: How to Restructure Word Order for Maximum Impact appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, we’ve got something completely different. This show features Taylor and her friend and tax advisor, John Pollock on John’s show Financial Gravity. In this episode, you’ll hear some of Taylor’s backstory that we rarely discuss on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS128: The Importance of Treating Your Writing Career as a Business appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor tackles the topic of improving as a writer and compares the process of improving your craft to climbing a ladder.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS127: We’re all at different steps on the writing ladder appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this weeks show, Taylor takes a deep dive edit into a scene sent in by a listener who wanted to be sure her main character didn’t fall into the background in the group scene the listener sent in as an example.
We recorded this as one as video as well. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS126: Editing to Keep Your Main Character Front and Center in Group Scenes appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor responds to an email she received about character archetypes and any advise she has for how best to study them. As is often the case, Taylor responds at length on the importance of writing characters as real people which leads to a discussion of stock characters in fiction.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS125: Should you Study Character Archetypes or Study People? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s episode is the third and final episode of a three-part series where Taylor takes a deep dive into how removing detail can help to better develop your character and improve your story. This week we work through the document and see (and hear) Taylor’s revisions of the document, and she explains why she chose the changes she made. Thanks to S.M. Fedor for providing the source material.
We recorded this as one as video as well. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
You can also download a copy of the document Taylor worked from this week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS124: The Importance of Keeping Your Characters in Motion appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s episode is the second of a three-part series where Taylor takes a deep dive into how removing detail can help to better develop your character and improve your story. This week we begin fresh with a second draft rewrite and begin the work of line editing to shape it into a compelling narrative.Thanks to S.M. Fedor for providing the source material.
We recorded this as one as video as well. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
You can also download a PDF version of the color-coded document Taylor worked from here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS123: Line Editing to Shape a Compelling Narrative (Part 2 of a 3 part series) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s episode is part one of a three-part series where Taylor takes a deep dive into how removing detail can help to better develop your character and improve your story. Thanks to S.M. Fedor for providing the source material.
In the pre-show chit chat, we debate which of the two of us prepares the better Thanksgiving meal. (Spoiler alert – we called it a tie so, like five-year-old soccer players, we both claim victory.)
We recorded this as one as video as well. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS122: Cutting Back on the Description to Bring Your Story to Life appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
What’s the best path to success as a writer? Finding and having someone validate your perfect idea for a story OR writing, developing your voice and improving your craft.
Taylor received a message from someone who found an article she posted on her website (see below) and uses that question to explore the idea of developing the mentality of success, not just for writing, but for life.
Here’s the article that started that launched the topic for this week’s show. How do you know if your writing is good enough?
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS121: Developing the Mentality of Success appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, which builds on last week’s show, Taylor works through an excellent action scene from some epic fantasy material provided by a listener. Her objective is to slow down the action and to focus the reader’s attention on a specific character trait of the lead character.
We recorded this as one show for video purposes, but have split it into two podcast episodes to keep the time closer to our normal show length. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS120: Line Editing to Slow Down the Action – Part 2 appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor works through an excellent action scene from some epic fantasy material provided by a listener. Her objective is to slow down the action and to focus the reader’s attention on a specific character trait of the lead character.
We recorded this as one show for video purposes, but have split it into two podcast episodes to keep the time closer to our normal show length. If you want to watch as Taylor works through the material, you’ll find the video on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS119: Line Editing to Slow Down the Action (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show Taylor answers a listener question on editing from a subscriber to her email newsletter:
About my current non-fiction book project, please at what time should I consider the book fit enough to be sent to a professional editor to do his part of the job? My initial draft is completed, but I always see the reason to re-write every time I read it. I started to feel like I am going around the circle and wasting the time I could use for another project. (I mean a part of me is saying the draft is good to be shipped to a professional editor, but another part of me is saying the write-up is not flowing through enough and need modification). Is it the job of the proofreader to make the job flow or my job?
In addition to the editing part of the conversation, we also discuss finding an audience for a non-fiction book, and platform building.
In the pre-show chit chat, Taylor mentions visiting the Texas State fair and seeing a display of artwork from cartoonist John Knott. Steve doesn’t know if this is one of the cartoons Taylor saw, but it a good example of the work.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS118: Taylor answers a subscriber question on when and how to find an editor appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Listener C.A. (Carol) Newsome is refreshing the first book in her Lia Anderson Dog Park Mystery Series, to try and bring the level of her craft up to that in the later books in the series. Carol send the prologue and some of the first chapter to Taylor to get her input on a couple of issues she was dealing with. THANK YOU, CAROL for sending in the material, which will be the source of our next two shows.
In this episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on the importance of anchoring your characters on the page and how doing so effectively allows your dialogue to sparkle!
There is video with this episode, which you can see as a public post on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS117: How Effective Anchoring Can Help Your Dialogue to Shine appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Listener C.A. (Carol) Newsome is refreshing the first book in her Lia Anderson Dog Park Mystery Series, to try and bring the level of her craft up to that in the later books in the series. Carol send the prologue and some of the first chapter to Taylor to get her input on a couple of issues she was dealing with. THANK YOU, CAROL for sending in the material, which will be the source of our next two shows.
In this episode, Taylor shares some thoughts on adding depth to the sole character in the prologue.
There is video with this episode, which you can see as a public post on Taylor’s Patreon Page.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS116: Bringing Your Characters to Life appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we discuss the importance of doing the hard work that will make your writing standing out. The show uses some real examples from Steve’s WIP and provides the opportunity for Taylor to discuss how to use the three Vs (vivid, vibrant, and vicarious) to strengthen your writing.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS115: The Importance of Doing the Hard Work when Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we discuss some of Taylor’s pet peeves with regard to dialogue. How to avoid unnecessary dialogue, conversations that are too formal, and questions that are too pointed.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS114: Using Empathy to Avoid Boring Dialogue in Your Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s abbreviated episode, we discuss the use of Natural Disaster’s in fiction as a way to drive tension, Taylor offers up a juicy hurricane-related plot, and we discuss the synopsis she’s preparing for book two in her new series.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS113: Using Natural Disasters in Your Fiction – The Hurricane Edition appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, we talk transparency and then get into writing advice, discussing character traits or quirks and how they can bond readers to your characters.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS112: Using Character Traits to Bond Readers to Characters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor walks us through several examples of how to quickly show readers the traits of some characters through movement, dialogue, self-talk, action and more. Thanks to author C.A. Newsome for providing the idea for today’s shows.
Show notes
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS111: Showing Character Traits to Your Readers appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week we respond to this question, from author J.W. Benshoof, who wonders how to split a single novel that’s growing larger than anticipated, into a series that will still appeal to readers. Taylor points out several things J.W. should consider, including giving the reader a sense of completion with each book, and the resolution of the primary story line for that particular book.
If you have a question you’d like to hear answered on a future episode, please contact us.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS110: How Can I Break My Ever Expanding Novel into a Series? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s show, Taylor and Steve discuss the fungibility of books, and what Taylor has done to try and make her books less fungible to those who enjoy her work.
Wikipedia defines fungibility as follows:
In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable.
One of the examples they use is an ounce of pure gold. Since one kilogram of pure gold is equivalent to any other kilogram of pure gold, whether in the form of coins, ingots, or other in other states, gold is fungible.
Taylor makes the case that for many readers, genre fiction, thrillers, in particular, are fungible. She and Steve discuss how important it is for authors to provide value outside of just their books to their readers and fans.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS109: Why Should a Reader Buy YOUR Book, Instead of Something Else? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, we take a look behind the curtain, at the decision-making process Taylor went through before deciding how to publisher her next book. Things like writing style, speed, self-knowledge and the library market all played a part in the journey that’s just beginning with her new publisher.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS108: A look behind the curtain at Taylor’s recent publishing decisions appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is the third of a three-part discussion of story structure, where we break down the three-act structure and try and apply it to Taylor’s writing style. The focus of this week’s show is endings.
In this weeks episode, Taylor mentions story fatigue and shares some thoughts on how cultural expectations come into play with storytelling around the world.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS107: Hitting the Right Notes with the Ending of Your Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is the second of a three-part discussion of story structure, where we break down the three-act structure and try and apply it to Taylor’s writing style. The focus of this week’s show is the middle.
In this week’s call to action, Steve mentions an interview featuring Suzanne Orchard, the owner of the Key West Island Books. That interview was just released on this week’s Author Biz show and you can listen here if you’re interested in learning more about what it’s like to own a small indie bookstore.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS106: How to Avoid the Muddle in your Middle of Your Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is the start of a three-part discussion of story structure, where we break down the three-act structure and try and apply it to Taylor’s writing style. The focus of this week’s show is beginnings.
The episode begins with… drum roll…. big news from Taylor where she’s finally able to announce some news she’s been unable to share with us until now.
We also mention a couple of writing books during the show. Links to those books are below:
Full Proof Outline
Writing from the Middle
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS105: Exciting News from Taylor and The First in A Series on Story Structure appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Taylor returns from a visit to New York where she spent time at Thrillerfest and finally met her long time narrator, the incredible Hillary Huber. We discuss Taylor’s travels, Steve’s visit to a fabulous to Key West Island Books, a fabulous little indie bookstore in Key West, Florida and we consider a listener (thanks, Robert!) comment on the use of italics to create an immersive reading experience.
Steve also mentioned the Annotated podcast, where this week’s episode was a deep dive into why indie bookstores are thriving right now. You can find the Annotated podcast here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS104: Thrillerfest, Indie Bookstores, Travel Tales and Italics appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Even if you get critiques that tell you ‘no, this isn’t working,’ don’t let that stop you. It just means you’re not there yet.
—– Taylor
This week’s show is all about advance readers, or beta readers. How they can help with your writing as well as some specific advice on what roles they can fill on your team. We also get into the importance of asking the correct questions when dealing with your beta (or advance) readers.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS103: Should You Use Beta Readers to Judge Your Work? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
If you’re really doing it right then almost the entire narrative, that is not external dialogue is going to be internal monolog.
— Taylor
In this episode, we get caught up on Taylor’s summer, discuss The Dunning-Kruger Effect then discuss a blog post from Anne R. Allen’s blog titled, Stupid Writing Rules: 12 Bad Writing Tips New Writers Give Each Other.
It was fun discussing Ann’s 12 Bad stupid writing tips and hearing Taylor’s opinion on most of them.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS102: Purple Hair and Stupid Writing Rules appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
What I think is really important, and really key to remembering character aspects is how the character behaves, how they’ve responded to situations. That sort of character consistency is far more important than descriptions.
— Taylor
Today’s topic comes via email from Sue who asks if Taylor uses a notebook with photos of her characters and a brief bio on each so when they come back up later in the story it’s easy to describe each of them. That led to a wide-ranging discussion on the value of character bibles, different ways of keeping track of characters and what Taylor feels is far more important than character description, the consistency of a character’s behavior.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS101: Keeping Track of the Characters Throughout Your Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor and Steve recap the first 100 episodes of the podcast and discuss plans for going forward. We also discuss Taylor’s use of the term grit and how it can mean different things to different people.
If you remember episodes 87 and 88, Taylor worked on some material from a scene by author C.A. (Carol) Newsome. A modified version of that scene has found its way to publication in Carol’s recently released book, Fur Boys. We’ll talk about how Carol used Taylor’s tweaks to improve the scene in a future episode of the show.
Congrats to Carol on the release of Fur Boys, which Steve has already read and very much enjoyed. In addition to her writing, Carol is also a talented artist. Her covers are all based on her original paintings.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS100: A recap of the first 100 episodes of the Taylor Stevens Show appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this week’s episode, Taylor, a veteran of numerous book events in a variety of different venues walks us through a planning blueprint that can be used for your next book event.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS099: How to Plan for Your Next Book Event appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I think a lot of the quick switch of POV really comes about through inexperience, in the sense that the author has had a lot of chance to learn how to bring those important thoughts, things that the reader need to know, how to bring them on to the page, in any other way.
—– Taylor
Show Notes
In this week’s show, we consider selecting the point of view for your novel. Taylor shares her thoughts and discusses her experience writing in both third person and first person point of view.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS098: First or Third, A point of View Discussion appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
If you’re going to write something that’s very normal…and I don’t mean that disparagingly, just something that readers are familiar with, then the importance of creating the world in which those characters inhabit, is not as critical, because it’s easier for the reader to suspend disbelief.
—– Taylor
Show Notes
This week’s show is all about writing a series. We discuss some of the mistakes Taylor made when planning her first series and how some of those will be corrected with the current series.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS097: Considerations for Developing your Next Series appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I think an illusion, is that if you did every single thing in this book you would write a novel that’s a breakout novel and you will go on to the bestseller lists. And that’s simply not true.
— Taylor
In this episode, we discuss books on the craft of writing. Several members of the Facebook Group chime in with their favorites, and of course, Taylor shares the books that have been the most instrumental in her writing career.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS096: Taylor’s Favorite Books on the Craft of Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In writing a place and getting it accurate, you’re tasked with the challenge of capturing the essence of a location within sparse details and bringing that to life on the page.
—- Taylor
In this week’s show, Taylor, who is famous for the authenticity of her settings, discusses the two options for settings. Real or fictitious. She shares her thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of each option.
The pre-show focuses on the reality of our podcasting lives, versus the made up reality Steve fantasizes about and we discuss Microphone’s both Taylor’s Blue Snowball and Steve’s ATR-2100.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS095: Should your Setting be Real or Imagined? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
When you’re foreshadowing something you want to have it earlier in the story and you also want it to be organic.
— Taylor
This week’s show opens with a discussion of Taylor’s plans for Thrillerfest in July, then we get into the topic of foreshadowing in fiction. We’ll start with the basics and then get into some examples of how it can and should work and the impact it can have on your stories.
We finish with a far less conventional use of foreshadowing that Taylor used in a recent book to help to guide reader expectations, specifically to let readers know that something WON”T happen.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS094: How to Use Foreshadowing Effectively in Your Work appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Your character’s inner dialogue is like the mold, the form through which the story is shaped.
—– Taylor
This week’s show starts with a specific example of what can happen when story elements that are inside the author’s mind don’t make it onto the page for the reader. As is often the case, what’s missing is character depth, which we discuss in detail in this episode.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS093: How Developing Character Depth Can Improve Your Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
The creative process is excruciatingly difficult for me. It’s really hard for me to sit there and focus, so of course, I’m going to do anything possible to avoid it because it’s just hard.
—– Taylor
This week’s episode is about juggling the projects that make up the writing life. Taylor explains her strategies for getting the work done, and we consider the challenges of choosing to do creative work, versus something more task oriented.
In the chit-chat portion of the show, we discuss Taylor’s recent introduction to Scrivener and I mention a Scrivener course I took from Karen Prince at Udemy. That course is available here. We also mention BookFunnel (thanks, Carol!) during the show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS092: Writers Life: Juggling Multiple Projects appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I don’t consult experts, I do a lot of reading on the Internet because I’m not trying to teach somebody how to pick a lock. I need to know just enough about it to make sure that I’m not saying something stupid and then move on, because otherwise it turns into The Anarchist Cookbook or something.
— Taylor
In this week’s episode, Taylor responds to listener questions regarding research and searching out experts and what an author should do to prepare himself to write in a different genre. We discuss things like writing to market, Taylor’s research into Blackphones and her growing love of video as a teaching tool.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS091: Consulting with Experts and Writing in Different Genres appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
You have a mostly chronological story, but the opening chapters are not the strongest or most interesting, but they are important, in which case a single chapter, or a couple of chapters in the beginning that are out of chronology and then moving on from there might be the best solution.
—- Taylor
Thanks to Scott for providing the question for this week’s show:
How do you manage non-sequential chronology? I’m wrapping up the second draft of my second novel, and I’m thinking that the strongest opening scene may not be the first chronological scene, yet the earlier scenes are not just exposition. They really do serve an important story purpose.
It’s a tricky problem, I realize, and it can smack of gimmickry if mishandled. I’d be interested in learning whether you’ve written in non-sequential form, and if so, what criteria you used to choose that structure, and also, how you handled the transitions.
If you’ve read Taylor’s books, you know that she opened THE MASK in much the way Scott describes. She walks us through that as an example, and we get into other chronology related topics.
If you’ve read Taylor’s books, you know that she opened THE MASK in much the way Scott describes. She walks us through that as an example and we get into other chronology related topics. Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS090: How to Manage Non-Sequential Chronology in your Stories appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
… I got to the end and I realized oh, somethings missing and as an author, you can go back and rewrite history in a way that everything fits. So, if you need something like that, you have that ability to go back and put it in.
—- Taylor
This week’s episode begins with Taylor discussing Patreon, and explaining why she decided to take the leap and launch her own Patreon account. You can join Steve in becoming a Taylor Stevens’ patron here.
Then we get into this week’s topic, which is a doozie. Steve is writing a 5,000 – 10,000 short story for a thriller anthology so we’ve taken this opportunity to build the basic outline of a story from what begins as nothing more than an opening scene.
We’ll get into world building, the inciting incident, character development, the important of characters behaving rationally and outline several basic scenes, including the ending. The deadline for the story is June 1st, but March 31st was the deadline for the first 250 words. The first 250 words turned into 500 words and they’ve been submitted and accepted. Yay!
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.
You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS089: Going from Concept to Story – A real time example appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
That’s how, in writing, you turn chaos into flow. It cannot happen the same way that you would see it in your mind or on a movie screen. In writing, in order for it to make the proper movie it has to happen point by point by point, everything grouped together.
— Taylor
Show Notes In this week’s episode, part two of our two-part series, we continue our deep dive into the importance of anchoring readers in a chaotic, action filled scene. Because of the detailed level of the material being covered, we have once again included a video version of the podcast so listeners could see what Taylor’s looking at as she speaks. Please note that this week, the video includes Taylor’s teaching only. It does not include our flub of the open or our sparkling banter during the chit-chat portion of the show.
We hope the video adds to the educational level of the material, but it’s an experiment. If you find this useful please let us know. Check the connect page for the different ways in which you can share your thoughts, questions, and comments with the show.
Taylor was working from some first draft material that was generously supplied by author and friend of the show, Carol Newsome. You can download the Word document with Taylor’s notes here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS088: Calming the Chaos Part 2: Turning Chaos into Flow appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Scenes that involve more than two characters can be unforgiving in a way that those with only one or two are not. This is amplified when multiple characters are thrown into chaos. The more characters and the greater the chaos, the less wiggle room for author error. In a scene like this, it’s critical to slow down every step and analyze each movement, beat by beat.
— Taylor
Show Notes In this week’s episode, we take a deep (as in really deep) dive into the importance of anchoring readers in a chaotic, action filled scene. Because of the detailed level of the material being covered, we decided to include a video version of the podcast so listeners could see what Taylor’s looking at as she speaks.
We hope the video adds to the educational level of the material, but it’s an experiment. We will do this again next week, but that will be the end of the experiment. If you find this useful please let us know. Check the connect page for the different ways in which you can share your thoughts, questions and comments with the show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS087: Calming the Chaos: how to keep your reader anchored within confusing scenes. appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
What I’m going for is maximum clarity and the least amount of grit, and I felt that putting that in there added grit, so I just took it out.
— Taylor
This week show is part two of our line editing challenge. A long time listener, who we’re calling Bob, sent in some material. But instead of offering corrections, Taylor spent last week explaining what could be corrected and assigning the task to us. This week, she shows us how she’d make changes to the material. To get maximum value from this episode, we’d recommend downloading both documents so you can read along while Taylor teaches.
This week’s download with Taylors Revisions
Last week’s – Download Bob’s story with Taylor’s notes here.
(Note – Taylor’s notes are only viewable in the Word Document itself, not through Google Docs)
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS086: Reworking Fiction: Line Editing Exercise, Part II appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week show brings a fun and interesting challenge. A long time listener, who we’re calling Bob, sent in some material. But instead of offering corrections, this week Taylor just points out what can be corrected, it’s up to us to make the corrections.
Bob’s material is very good as either flash fiction or as the start of something longer. (Steve hopes it’s the start of something longer because he wants to read more. Taylor probably does as well, but as we all know she doesn’t write these show notes )
You can download an MS Word version of the document here, with Taylor’s suggestions for what needs to be improved and why.
Download Bob’s story with Taylor’s notes here.
(Note – Taylor’s notes are only viewable in the Word Document itself, not through Google Docs)
You don’t need to send in the homework, but it will be an interesting challenge to do the work as a writing exercise. Then we can compare notes next week.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS085: How to Rework Your Fiction: A Line Edit Exercise appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
There was a lot of mental mapping, trying to piece together the puzzle and how it fit. And, the danger as a writer, when you’re doing that, is that you can overload the reader with too much information.
—— Taylor
In this episode, the second of two where we step through the comments Taylor made to Steve’s work in process, we look more deeply into her thought, action, dialogue hack, discuss the importance of not relying on what you think you know, consider the value of anchoring the reader and share some seriously good laughs along the way.
During the episode, we discussed the open to Chapter 3 in the manuscript we discussed. The original version is below:
Original:
The front door slammed shut waking me from one of those dreams you don’t want to be awakened from. I rolled right and squinted at the clock. 6:15. Crap. “Be right out,” I shouted, then jumped out of bed and into my shorts and running shoes. She was early this morning. “Is it cold?” “
Don’t be a pansy, little brother.”
I shook my head and pulled on a long sleeve shirt. After 32 years I was used to the various ways in which Melinda baited me. Pansy was one of her favorites. I brushed my teeth and walked into the living room, accepted the coffee she offered and took several sips. She was dressed in a blue Nike outfit that would keep her warm no matter how cold it was. “Why 6:15?”
Taylor made some minor modifications following her thought, action, dialogue hack, with the results below.
Version 2:
The front door slammed waking me from one of those dreams you don’t want to be awakened from. I rolled right and squinted at the clock. 6:15. Crap. Melinda was early this morning. “Be right out,” I shouted. I grabbed my shorts and running shoes. “Is it cold?”
“Don’t be a pansy, little brother.”
I pulled on a long sleeve shirt.
After 32 years I was used to the various ways in which Melinda baited me. Pansy was one of her favorites. I brushed my teeth and walked into the living room, accepted the coffee she offered and took several sips. She was dressed in a blue Nike outfit that would keep her warm no matter how cold it was. I said, “Why so early?”
This week’s listener question is a request to send in more material that we can work with on the show. Please email your material to contact at taylorstevensbooks.com.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS084: Going through the Edit Notes and More on Anchoring Your Reader appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
“You inform the reader, at the place where it’s necessary for them to know this thing, to be on the same page, no pun intended.”
— Taylor
In this episode, we discuss some notes that Taylor provided to Steve on a new series he’s writing and she includes some of her “hacks” for quicking improving your writing. We discuss the thought, action, speech dialogue rule, different ways of showing emotion through gesture and movement and delivering information to your readers at exactly the point where they need it.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Public Domain image by Pexels
The post TSS083: Hack the Craft to Write Better Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I do so much of this just on instinct, it’s sort of like a storyteller child that’s like how can I keep this exciting, how can I make this worse.
—– Taylor
The topic of this week’s show comes from David, who who asks:
Hi, Taylor – there’s this thing some authors do (you included) where they’ll ramp up the action over the course of a few chapters, only to bring the reader back down a little before doing it again. Is there a term for this? Do you have related tips for your podcast writer-listeners, like how to manage this kind of practice without overdoing it?
You’ve also mentioned adjusting dialog for cadence in the past. Do you have before and after examples to give us an idea?
In show show we address both questions with a sidebar into last week’s Super Bowl, which (not) surprisingly Steve loved and Taylor didn’t watch.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS082: How to Manage the Flow of Action in your Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I get so upset with myself, why? Why do I do this? I know it’s counter-productive, it is not getting me where I need to go in life. When I’m struggling with things that are important it’s the hardest. Why? Why do I do this?
— Taylor
In today’s show, we consider our willingness to turn to less productive activities when faced with the continued challenge of completing difficult work, recognizing why we engage in these time wasting activities and what we can do to stop.
Taylor has written and spoken about her battles with procrastination in the past but has recently spent time thinking and journaling about she does it and comes up with some specific techniques that can help her avoid this type of procrastination in the future.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS081: Why do we Procrastinate as Authors? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
We closed TSS078, Tips on Filtering the Flood of Writing Advice Available to Authors with a request for the best and worst advice you’d ever received as an author. The results of that request were so interesting, we decided to devote an entire show to discussing that advice.
Thanks to everyone who contributed with either best or worst advice through Taylor’s Fan Page and through email. What started out as a show on your reaction to an earlier show turned into something much greater.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative Commons Image from MemoryCatcher
The post TSS080: The Best and Worst Advice You’ve Received about Writing appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I won’t do that to my readers, the cheap, easy way out. Everything has to make sense, everything has to tie together, everything has to have an emotional component and impact because that is what makes a book captivating.
— Taylor
In this week’s show, Taylor responds to a great question from author C.A. Newsome, who shares her own writing manifesto and asks if Taylor might have one as well. Taylor does not have a written manifesto, but she shares some thoughts on what it might look like if she did have one.
Here’s Carol’s original question, which includes the components of her own manifesto:
An earlier thread about JD Robb called to mind the decisions I made about what I wanted my books to be when I started writing. I never formalized it, but I do have a mental manifesto. Like I will make an ordinary nice guy a more satisfying leading man than a billionaire alpha male, I will not rely on magical fixes (such as ever so convenient informants) to move my plots along – etc.
I’d love for Taylor to share her manifesto. What are you dedicated to putting before the reading public?**
Thanks to Carol for the question, and to you for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS079: Do You Have a Manifesto for your Writing? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
… earlier on in your career, you ask somebody for technical advice, or a question about a character, or anything like that, just because someone gives you the information, doesn’t mean you now have to need to change what you’re doing to follow it. You go with your gut.”
— Taylor
“Oh, you’re a writer? I’ve got this great idea for what you should write next.”
Advice, it’s everywhere for authors. We get it from friends, family, readers, agents, podcasts, youtube, books, Facebook, and even conferences. How should we deal with the flood of advice that’s available to us? We consider this as well as the different ways we all learn in this week’s show.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
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The post TSS078: Tips on Filtering the Flood of Writing Advice Available to Authors appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
So much of research is expanding your horizons beyond what you know to create characters and locations that feel real, even if you don’t know anything about them, or you don’t know people like that.
— Taylor
In this episode, we discuss the results of the listener question from our last show, where we asked if you wanted us to keep the informal chit-chat we do at the beginning of each show, or to move it to the end, so we could get right to the topic. then we discuss what happened over the holidays (note the chit chat remains at the beginning) before getting to this week’s topic of research.
Our discussion of research not only covers the obvious, research on cool things like how to blow up cars, like Taylor did in THE DOLL but also things people, settings and getting comfortable writing about characters where you have a limited frame of reference.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS077: Research and Being Willing to Expand Your Horizons appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thanks for joining us as we blow out the candle on a very enjoyable year of kicking writing in the butt, one word at a time.
In this episode, we discuss cookies, goal setting, and readers quitting authors. We also manage to overuse the word aforementioned, which is a word I love using and we discuss listener comments on plotholes that came in after last week’s call to action.
David K, who provided us last week’s humorous opening material played the role of Santa this week, delivering a massive supply of cookies to each of your cookie loving hosts. Big thanks to David for the cookies and to each of you for listening, leaving reviews, comments, sharing the show, buying our books and just in general, being you!
We also mention a great conversation in Taylor’s group. (Taylor Stevens Fan Club (the Author not the Web Star)). If you’re not a member and you’re on Facebook, just click on the link and request membership. If you are a member, check out this thread, which began with author Carol Newsome sharing her thoughts on plotholes and telephone stalking.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1012213658816141/permalink/1185976278106544/
We also discuss some possible changes to the show format beginning with our first show next year, which will live on your podcast app on January 10th. We’d love to hear or read your thoughts on the possible format change as well. Leave a comment here, call the hotline (469-587-9367) or just e-mail Taylor directly.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week and throughout 2016!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS076: More on Plot Holes and Readers Giving Up on Authors appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Getting through that middle, making it all make sense, getting to where it all holds together, THAT is hard. And that is where so many people stumble and fall.
— Taylor
This week’s show opens with one of my favorite show beginnings ever, thanks to a listener who took the time to use our words from TSS072, How Important is the Title to the Success of Your Book, and put them together as book titles. We spend the first few minutes of the show laughing our way through those and offer our sincere thanks to David for the amazing creativity it took to put the titles together.
Our topic this week is started out as finding and fixing plot holes, but quickly evolved into a lesson on fixing story problems. Things that crop up from poorly understood character motivations, timelines and in a specific example, an antagonist that isn’t quite bad enough to drive a story.
In our call to action, Taylor wants to know how you define plot holes or plot problems? If you have a definition please let us know in either the comments or by calling the hotline (check the connect button above for the number.)
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS075: Finding and Fixing Plot Holes and Problems in Your Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Based on the level of difficulty of what I’m going into for that day, I’m like a ninja with knives and swords cutting away other things, trying to protect this little precious bubble in the middle of the forest to keep anything away from it, because it needs that time to be able to be at peace and to work.
— Taylor
Our topic for the week is being productive as an author. Is it just word count, or pages edited? Or are there more ways of being productive. Taylor explains her recent change of thought on the topic and how she now looks for ways to funnel her goal setting into things that she can feel good about, even if she falls short of hitting some arbitrary word count or pages number.
If you’re giving one of Taylor’s books as a gift this year, let her know. She’d love to send you a hand written card that you can give with the book to make a great gift even better. Email her at contact at taylorstevensbooks dot com.
This week’s show begins with a quick Thanksgiving recap in which Taylor expresses her thankfulness for first world problems, whether than those faced by people living in developing countries. She also admits to cooking, and there is actual photographic proof of that cooking.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS074: What makes a productive day for an author? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Why is it that a man can do all these things and readers swoon over him, but if a woman does the exact same thing she’s coldhearted, calculating, manipulative, bitchy and all of these aspects that weren’t written into her character, she was just doing a job?
— Taylor
This week’s show is all about likable characters, or what makes a character likable to readers. Vanessa Michael Munroe, while extremely likable and engaging to many readers, including many regular listeners, leaves other readers either cold or worse, they just plain don’t like her.
Taylor’s been pondering this for awhile, so it’s become the topic of this weeks’ show, with a plea to listeners for help in understanding what makes a character likable to them. If you have some thoughts please either leave a comment, email Taylor directly or better yet – call the hotline and let us know. Let’s see how far we can take this conversation. The hotline number is 469-587-9367.
During the pre-topic chit chat, we discuss some favorite books of the year, including a great one submitted by Karl (thanks, Karl!) who shared LAB GIRL by Hope Jahren. Steve downloaded a copy and raves about it during the show.
Taylor’s favorite reading experience for this year was written in 2007, an oldie but a goodie from Seth Godin, called THE DIP. It’s a non-fiction book that Teaches you When to Quit and When to Stick.
Steve was the only one to recommend a thriller, his pick was STRIPPED BARE, from Shannon Baker. If you want to learn more about this book, Steve reviewed it for The Mysterious News here.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSSS073: Constructing Characters: What makes them likable? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
You know it always makes me laugh when I hear someone going ‘I have the best title for this book,’ and they haven’t even written the book yet. And I’m just like oh good, good for you. Titles are important, and you know they are, but not as important as writing a good book.
— Taylor
This week’s show opens with a status update on Taylor’s latest book. She posted the “it is finished” message in her Facebook group last week, but Steve had some questions on exactly what that means.
Now that Taylor’s new book is with her agent she’s turned her attention to titles. We discuss how the title for THE INFORMATIONIST came to be and how that title influenced the rest of the Vanessa Michael Munroe series.
Then we get into current thriller titles and how certain words become popular in titles for a period of time, including the popularity of the word “girl” in right now. The success of books like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl have influenced titles to the point where five of the top twenty thrillers on Amazon have the word “girl” in the title on the day we recorded this episode.
How do you listen to the show? Taylor asks two questions at the end of this week’s show. The first is how do you listen to the podcast? Are you in the car, or exercising, or maybe walking the dog? The second question is how did you find out about the show. Early listeners came primarily from Taylor’s email list, but the show has grown considerably since that time. How did you learn about the show?
Let us know and maybe even snap a selfie to show us how you listen. Click the connect button above to find all the different ways of reaching us, or just leave your answer in the comments below.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS072: How Important is a Title to the Success of Your Book? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I think another thing, that maybe, for those who can see it, that makes her (Munroe) likeable, to them, because she’s not likeable to everybody, is she’s suffering.
— Taylor
Today’s show focuses on connecting readers to characters, even those characters who, if considered in a vacuum, could be thought of as unlikeable by a large group of readers. Steve tries to use Taylor’s Vanessa Michael Munroe as an example, but Taylor resists, and instead trots out Hanibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs. Then we move on to creating dislike between the reader and a character, and then some thoughts on rehabilitating characters in the eyes of your readers.
Taylor eventually relents, or maybe Steve just wore her down, but she finally shares some thoughts on what may draw some readers to Munroe.
We open the show with a comment from mystery author, C.A. Newsome, who chimes in on our discussion on dialog tags from a few weeks ago. Carol makes some great points and shines a spotlight on the Harry Potter series as an example of a skilled authors use of dialog tags and other techniques to distance readers from some pretty horrific action taking place on the page.
Carol’s latest is Muddy Mouth, the fifth book in her Lia Anderson Dog Park Mystery Series. It’s an engaging story about a well known indie writer, a group of knitting ladies who manage the writer’s business affairs and animals. All of Carol’s books feature dogs, but this one includes a pack of cats as well. The series is set in Cincinnati and a dog park, which happens to be a real place that Carol visits on a regular basis. It’s a fun story and Steve’s favorite (so far) in an always entertaining series.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS071: Heaping on the Hate: How Authors push or pull us toward story characters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
If you’re an author, you know that writing is hard, right?
In this week’s episode, Taylor examines some of the questions she receives at classes and via email and considers the many ways in which questions on plotters versus pansters, or writing technique can often be answered with one response. Writing is hard. We discuss the topic and the best ways to overcome these writing problems. Hint: The answer involves sitting down and writing.
We open the show with a discussion of cookies (thanks, Bruce!) and walk through our EXCITEMENT about the number of listener communications we’re receiving now. Thanks to all of you who have reached out with questions, comments, reviews and messages to our hotline. (See the contact page for the various ways to connect with the show.)
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS070: Sometimes the Answer is Simple: Writing is Hard appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
There was nothing left. I would sit there and I was forcing it, and I was … just dry tank, wheels off, running on the hubs, scraping the concrete, sparks flying, just trying to cross the finish line.
— Taylor
In this episode, we take a step back to examine the question of what happens when doing more, working harder, sleeping less and optimizing things stops getting your closer to your writing goals.
There’s no talk about writing craft in this episode, but instead, Taylor and Steve discuss the danger of burnout, the way it can come quickly or slowly, and the value of taking a step back to refocus.
The show opens with Taylor discussing her recent teaching related travels and then we get into our main topic. As you’ll hear in the intro, much of the show was recorded as a joint episode between The Taylor Stevens Show and Steve’s Author Biz podcast. There were a few Author Biz podcast episodes mentioned, including:
TAB 080 with Colleen Story
Colleen’s Writing and Wellness Blog
TAB 071 with Annie Bellet
TAB092 with Honorée Corder
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative commons image via Timeface.
The post TSS069: What to do when doing more isn’t the answer? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
It is question and answer time again on the show, and we’ve got some excellent listener questions on topics ranging from cookies to plotting, with stops in between at some thorny legal issues and Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Writing.
In the pre-show we discuss the thoughts of the author who shared his work with us for our past three episodes, then we dig into the questions.
Links to things mentioned in this week’s show: Bruce Cantwell’s Mysterious News www.brucecantwell.com
Our Episode featuring Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing (Listen here)
The Self Publisher’s Legal Handbook from Helen Sedwick (Amazon Link)
Author Biz episode with Helen Sedwick (Listen here)
The post-Thrillerfest episode where Taylor discuss the Plotter vs Panster debate (Listen here)
Dallas Area Teaching Taylor is teaching this weekend (October 22, 2016) at the Dallas Area Writers Group at the Desoto Civic Center, in Desoto, Texas. Details are below:
Dallas Area Writers Group
DeSoto Civic Center
211 East Pleasant Run Road, DeSoto, TX 75115.
This is an all-day event. My teaching slot is 2:00-3:30
This link has all the information on times, locations, attendance cost, etc.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative commons image via Timeface.
Note: Links to books at Amazon are affiliate links.
The post TSS068: Q&A Time with Cookies, Plotting, Expensive Watches and More appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I’ve you’re going to have descriptions, the best way to get it in there is to insert it, within dialogue or within movement.
— Taylor
This is part three of our series on massaging a scene that was sent in by a listener who was anxious to hear Taylor’s thoughts on a point of view (POV) problem within the scene. You can listen to parts one and two by clicking the appropriate links.
In this week’s episode, we insert description that had been standing alone into dialogue and movement, then dig into the POV issue that was the source of the original email from the author to Taylor.
Here’s the original material we begin with today:
The man stubbed out his smelly black cigar and reached into a drawer to pull out another, which he quickly lit with a match that stank up the room nearly as badly as the foul smelling cigar. He blew out the flame with a cloud of smoke and tossed it in an ashtray full of butts and burnt matches.
Taylor breaks this section of description into the three “beat” placeholders we added in the first week of this series.
Beat 1 – The man stubbed out his black cigar and tossed it in an ashtray full of butts and burnt matches.
Beat 2 – He reached into a drawer, pulled out another, lit it with a match and blew out the flame.
Beat 3 – The cloud of smoke stank up the room, nearly as badly as the cigar.
When the three description and movement beats are added to the dialogue we worked on earlier, we get the following:
“Yeah, gorgeous, a biggie. You don’t listen.”The man stubbed out his black cigar and tossed it in an ashtray full of butts and burnt matches. “You don’t get to do that until you’ve gone platinum.” He reached into a drawer, pulled out another, lit it with a match and blew out the flame. The cloud of smoke stank up the room, nearly as badly as the cigar. “I been trying to help you and you don’t do a damn thing I say. Oh no, its gotta be your way!”
The rest of the show examines the changing point of view issues that troubled the author and Taylor’s solution for getting the information to the reader without the need to change the point of view in the middle of the scene.
Taylor’s schedule, which was discussed early in the show.
LINCOLN, NE:
October 15 2016, 10:45am
Nebraska Writers Guild Fall Conference
Info on the entire conference lineup, attendance, etc. can be found at this link.
LINCOLN, NE:
October 15, 2016, 7:00pm
Indigo Bridge Books
701 P St #102, Lincoln, NE 68508
OMAHA, NE:
October 16, 2016, 1:00pm
The Bookworm
2501 S 90th St #111, Omaha, NE 68124
DESOTO, TX:
October 22, 2016,
Dallas Area Writers Group
DeSoto Civic Center
211 East Pleasant Run Road, DeSoto, TX 75115.
This is an all-day event. My teaching slot is 2:00-3:30
This link has all the information on times, locations, attendance cost, etc.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative commons image via Timeface.
The post TSS067: Quick Ways to Heighten Dialogue with Description and Movement appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This is part two of our series on massaging a scene that was sent in last week by a listener who was anxious to hear Taylor’s thoughts on the scene.
The first show in the series was focused on dialogue and the last will be focused on point of view issues. This show covers everything else, so it’s a bit of a hodgepodge episode where we deal with telling versus showing and changing some “showing” language to inner dialogue to add immediacy to our scene.
Here’s the piece we used at the start of this week’s show:
“What does that mean?” Michelle had taken an instant dislike to the man, but at this point she’d gone so far down the ladder of possible agents she didn’t have much other choice. She was repelled by his office, which was filthy and grimy, and by the man himself, who, sadly, fit in with it.
Fat. Comb-over. Dirty fingernails and a stained white shirt with the tails out in the back. Brown plaid jacket. What a repulsive mess.”
Taylor sees some telling versus showing in the two paragraphs above and makes some verbal changes to improve the immediacy of the scene.
Taylor’s notes this section are below:
Here’s the original for the next section we covered:
Michelle breathed a heavy sigh, despite the stench and smoke. She was getting nowhere. So far, she’d spent over two years and most of her savings trying to catch a break. If something didn’t work out soon she’d have to admit defeat and go back to Charlotte. She’d hate doing that, but staying with her parents was her only option until she figured out what to do next. She didn’t want to walk out of here empty-handed though.
“Can you recommend anyone else I might try?”
Taylor’s notes on this section, where we go from reading about Michelle to being Michelle and really ramping up the immediacy of the scene.
Here’s the revised version, where we ARE Michelle.
Michelle breathed a heavy sigh of stench and smoke. This was going nowhere. Over two years and most of her savings trying to catch a break and if something didn’t work out soon she’d be forced to admit defeat and go back to Charlotte. Which meant staying with her parents until she figured out what to do next. She refused to walk out of here empty-handed.
“Can you recommend anyone else I might try?”
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative commons image via Unsplash.
The post TSS066: Being Michelle: Dealing with Telling Versus Showing and Adding Immediacy to your Scenes appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Thank you! We put out the call for dialogue from your work in process and you delivered!
A few weeks ago we asked that listeners send in some dialogue we could use as a concrete example for a future show and several of you were kind enough and brave enough to submit. Taylor selected a scene from a larger work for multiple reasons. One, because it was already very good. But more importantly, there were multiple examples of things we could cover that we felt would be useful to listeners, in addition to the dialogue.
We’ll be going over this scene in detail over the next few weeks, with Taylor making suggestions and providing actual copies of what she marked up for the shows, in addition to before and after versions of what we cover each week. We cover dialogue today, but over the next two weeks we’ll get into show versus tell and point of view issues.
This week’s episode begins with a review of Bouchercon 2016, where Taylor was presented with the Barry Award for her book, THE MASK. Mystery author Carol Newsome took the following picture of Taylor accepting the award.
We discuss the award, which comes from Deadly Pleasures Magazine, and then discuss the reader / listener meetup, where this photo of Taylor and long time Taylor reader and podcast listener Joan was taken.
Then we get onto breaking down breaking down the dialogue in the submitted material for this week’s podcast. We selected a few paragraphs from a larger scene. The paragraphs we worked on this week are in italics.
“Look, baby,” the man growled around a cigar, “it’s not that you don’t have talent, you clearly do. But you bring too many problems, so I can’t work with you.” The man rocked back in his beat-up warehouse chair, its springs squeaking loudly while stuffing poked out of tears in the leather.
Michelle was incensed. “Such as?”
“Your music for one. I can’t sell it.”
“What’s the matter with my music?”
“Well, nothing, and everything. It’s pretty, and you’ve got a great voice. But you just don’t fit.”
“What does that mean?” Michelle had taken an instant dislike to the man, but at this point she’d gone so far down the ladder of possible agents she didn’t have much other choice. She was repelled by his office, which was filthy and grimy, and by the man himself, who, sadly, fit in with it.
Fat. Comb-over. Dirty fingernails and a stained white shirt with the tails out in back. Brown plaid jacket. What a repulsive mess!
“Look, honey, the music business is all about marketing,” the man said, totally oblivious to the irony he presented. “If I’m going to sell you I have to know where you fit. But you’re not country, you’re not rock and roll, you’re not rap. You’re not anything. I don’t know where to pigeon-hole your music, so I don’t know how to sell it.”
“What else?” Michelle simmered.
“Well look at you. You’re freakin’ gorgeous. That oughta be a huge plus. I oughta be able to use your looks to market you. But you’ve already said, ‘No photos.’ Now what the hell is that all about? You think half the women singing C-W would be as big if they didn’t market their looks along with their songs?”
Michelle’s anger began to bubble over. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, a biggee. You won’t listen. You don’t get to do that until you’ve gone platinum, gorgeous. For crying out loud, here I been trying to help you and you won’t listen to a damn thing I tell you. Oh no, you gotta do it your way!”
The man stubbed out his smelly black cigar and reached into a drawer to pull out another, which he quickly lit with a match that stank up the room nearly as badly as the foul smelling cigar. He blew out the flame with a cloud of smoke and tossed it in an ashtray full of butts and burnt matches.
Taylor scanned the notes she’d prepared for the show and those images are below:
The finished version (not the final – there is still work to be done over the next two episodes) with Taylor’s dialogue changes is below:
“Look, baby,” the man growled around a cigar. “You got talent, but you bring too many problems. Can’t work with you.” The man rocked back in a beat-up warehouse chair, springs squeaking loudly, stuffing poking out of tears in the leather.
Michelle was incensed. “Such as?”
“You don’t fit.”
“What does that mean?” Michelle had taken an instant dislike to the man, but at this point she’d gone so far down the ladder of possible agents she didn’t have much other choice. She was repelled by his office, which was filthy and grimy, and by the man himself, who, sadly, fit in with it.
Fat. Comb-over. Dirty fingernails and a stained white shirt with the tails out in back. Brown plaid jacket. What a repulsive mess!
“Look, honey, the music business is about marketing,” the man said. “If I’m going to sell you I have to know where you fit. You’re not country, you’re not rock and roll, you’re not rap. You’re not anything.
Michelle simmered. “What else?”
“You got looks, that’s a marketing plus. But no photos? What the hell’s that about? You think half the women in C-W would be big without looks to go with their music?
Michelle’s anger began to bubble over. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, gorgeous, a biggie. You don’t listen.” BEAT ONE. “You don’t get to do that until you’ve gone platinum.” BEAT TWO, BEAT THREE. “I been trying to help you and you don’t do a damn thing I say. Oh no, its gotta be your way!”
(The BEATS inserted between the dialogue above will make sense after you listen to the episode.)
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS065: How to Tighten the Dialogue in your Novel appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Even though life is random, and things happen just out of the blue in life, it doesn’t happen that way in fiction. Fiction is not random.
— Taylor
In this week’s show, Taylor tackles a question that was posted a couple of weeks ago in Steve’s Author Biz Facebook group. The question came from R.W. Wallace, whose debut novel, THE RED BRICK CELLARS was released earlier this year. (Steve interviewed Ms. Wallace about the book at his CrimeFiction.FM podcast here.)
R.W., who lives in France, asked a question about whether or not a particular scene in a novella she was writing would be offensive to American readers. Most of the responses in the group were positive about the unusual, almost “anti-cliche” nature of the scene and as a group, we didn’t feel the scene would be offensive to American audiences. But Taylor responded to the question in a much different way, dealing with it purely from a story perspective.
While her answer to the question was complete in the group, she takes the time to expand even further on the response in this episode of the podcast, digging into subjects like avoiding randomness in fiction, ways to add depth to even stereotypical characters and the importance of keeping every scene focused on the story.
In our typical pre-show chat, Taylor delivers a funny story about dealing with an auto inspection in Texas. While editing the show, I couldn’t help but wonder how her character, Vanessa Michael Munroe would have handled the situation.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
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The post TSS064: A Question on Political Correctness Turns into Discussion of Story Solutions appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
If you write dialogue correctly, the reader is already going to know, from everything that came before the dialogue and came after the dialogue in that sentence, what the character’s state of mind is.”
— Taylor
Today’s show is part two of our three-part series on writing dialogue. Part one was about writing internal dialogue and part three (in two weeks) will be actually breaking down a writing sample from a willing listener.
We begin this week’s podcast by exploring some of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of writing, specifically the three that deal with writing dialogue. Those are:
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Never us a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
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Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
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Use regional dialect, patois sparingly.
While we’re discussing those rules, Taylor shares some rules of her own, including an editing tip that uses with each manuscript.
Then we move on to a more general discussion of writing dialogue, and how the best dialogue sounds like real people having a real conversation. As an example, Taylor uses the following, grammatically correct sentence: “I don’t think that’s possible.” The sentence is fine, but she believes most people would say, “Not possible.”
We get into the danger of writing stilted conversation and ways of avoiding it, including the liberal use of contractions.
We finish our discussion with some thoughts on using beats to break up large blocks of conversation to avoid the dreaded wall of text. Then, since we all have our favorite dialogue beats (mine is the word glared), Taylor shares her technique for balancing them out in later drafts of your manuscript.
The show opens with a discussion of Taylor’s trip to Bouchercon, including her reader / listener meetup which will take place soon after her 3:30 panel on Writing Violence ends. The gathering will take place at 55 Fahrenheit Lounge / Bar on Friday, September 16th, at 5:00 (ish) o’clock.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
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The post TSS063: A Way With Words: Tips and Tricks for Improving Dialogue in Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Internal dialogue is really about keeping the story moving and explaining things to the reader that the character knows, or why the character is doing what they’re doing, and doing it without actually voicing it. It allows you to keep it short and punchy. — Taylor
Steve sat at his desk, fingers poised over the keyboard, early morning sunlight reflecting off the monitor’s blank page. Sweat dampened his forehead. The first sentence was hardest. Inner dialogue…internal dialogue… talking… words… speech. Even weekly podcast show notes needed a beginning. Get it started, though, and the rest would come. He just needed the right…
A beep drew his attention to the bottom of the screen. Skype? Yes. He’d sent Taylor an email asking for title suggestions. A title would make the challenge easier. He switched on the microphone, slipped headphones over his ears, and powered up the volume. “Good morning.”
Today’s show is the first in a series on dialogue, with internal dialogue being our primary topic today, and those two paragraphs above, written in 3rd person, is a quick, tongue in cheek way of demonstrating the topic.
In previous episodes, Taylor has mentioned using thoughts, or internal dialogue as a tool for adding depth to our characters, so we’re devoting an entire show to the topic. We’ll discuss different reasons for using internal dialogue and share some examples along the way.
Near the end, you’ll hear Taylor mention how great it would be to have real examples to work from, so if you’ve got a troubling section of internal dialogue you’re dealing with, please sent it along. We’d love to use it as source material for a future show, and you’ll get Taylor’s specific thoughts on possible ways of improving the writing.
During our pre-show chat, we discuss Taylor’s trip to see Jason Bourne and some three-month birthday pictures from my adorable (and handsome) grandson, Wyatt. And yes, that IS what handsome looks like!
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
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The post TSS062: Internal Dialogue: Taming the Inner Voices appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
What can the new Jason Bourne Movie teach us about Character Development?
In this episode, Taylor tackles a listener question based on a review of the new movie, Jason Bourne. The reviewer criticized the film for having characters that were less three-dimensional and less engaging than past movies in the series.
While the time constraints provided by movies are different than the page number constraints imposed on authors, the character development techniques can be surprisingly similar, especially when comparing action movies with the high-octane character studies that Taylor writes in her Vanessa Michael Munore series.
Believable characters all have their own wants and desires and they’re more interesting when readers (or viewers) are able to understand their flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities.
Of course, “superhero” type characters like Bourne and Munroe can be seen in places other than film and novels. Steve grew up reading Superman and Batman comics and shares some observations on the three-dimensional nature of the heroes and some of the supporting characters in those comics. Taylor carefully avoids picking a favorite in the long-running Superman vs. Batman debate, but Steve’s bias for Batman does sneak its way into the discussion.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show oniTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative Commons Image by Geralt.
The post TSS061: Going to the Movies for Lessons on Character Development appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
You don’t want to be boring. If you can find a way to fit something in, in such a way that it’s not boring, then you can break a lot of rules … You can do whatever you want. IF it’s not boring. — Taylor
This week’s show comes courtesy of a telephone question from Jill, who asks Taylor’s advice for dealing with the passage of time in storytelling. She used the specific examples of meal time and car rides, both of which we consider. Thanks, Jill for delivering an entire show worth of content in your single question!
A problem that many new writers have to learn to deal with are the various ways in which time can pass in a story. Many of us feel compelled to include far too much detail when explaining the passage of time. Taylor shares examples of how to avoid those mistakes using the specific transitional examples of scene cuts and scene changes.
Then we get into some good and bad examples of people eating together in fiction. In Jill’s question, she refers to two individuals finishing a meal before talking about what they came together to discuss. As she put it, “Who does that?”
A meal is a perfect example of something that can serve multiple purposes in a book. We discuss techniques for making mealtime work for character development and for keeping readers informed about what’s happening in the story. Among the things Taylor likes about using meals as settings are the different action beats writers can use to display emotion that aren’t available in other settings.
When we move to car travel we use Taylor’s award-winning thriller, THE DOLL as an example. In that book, there are stretches of conversation and silence in a car between Munroe and a kidnapped young woman. Taylor wrote the scenes to allow character development to flow through conversation and action, each of which create tension to drive the story forward.
This week’s show begins with a discussion of Taylor’s new kitten and her story of the cat clawing its way into the hearts of she and her kids. Somehow collars, ringing bells, and kittie treats work their way into this mysterious tale and by the end, we’re not sure who was training whom.
Here are some pictures of the kitten from early days to her current age of five months old.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative Commons Images by Monoar and Seadog
The post TSS060: Killing Time: Getting from Here to There Without the Boring Stuff appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
When you remove that one detail, the “in the knee”, then the reader just keeps on going, they feel the excitement, they see their opponent drop, and they never pause to figure out how, mechancially, this happened.” — Taylor
In this episode, we expand our discussion from last week where Taylor mentioned two “pet peeves” for writing a fight scene. Those are the use of the words “as” and “suddenly” by authors when writing those fight scenes.
As a joke, I (Steve) wrote a fight scene sentence breaking both rules. After Taylor started offering suggestions for making the joke fight scene better, by doing what we laughingly refer to as “Taylorizing” the sentence, we decided to use it as the basis for this week’s podcast.
Before we go any further, let’s define the term Taylorize, which is what I call applying the writing hacks that Taylor teaches us through these podcasts.
During the show, Taylor and I discuss the joke sentence I wrote. Then we get into my attempt to Taylorize the sentence and Taylor’s suggestions to improve my version.
Here’s the original joke sentence, written to break both of Taylor’s pet peeves for writing fight scenes:
I spun around and drop kicked him in the knee as he ducked and suddenly poked at my eye.
Next is my attempt at Taylorizing this dreadful sentence, with an action added to the end:
I spun around and drop kicked him in the knee. He ducked and poked at my eye. I cried like a baby and ran like the wind.
Next, Taylor explains what’s right and wrong with my version, and makes some in-depth suggestions for adding pacing and tension to what I’d written by removing redundant words, cliches, and mismatched metaphors.
I spun and drop kicked him. He ducked and jabbed my eye. I was overmatched. Half-blind and hurting, I scanned the room for my out.
We hope you found this show interesting. It was an experiment to see just how much detail we could squeeze into the podcast format. Please let us know in the comments below if you’d like more of this kind of show in the future.
We began the show with a discussion of Taylor’s end of summer relaxation trip, which involved “tubing the river.” We learn during the show that this involves floating down a river with her kids, a cooler and a phone wrapped in plastic to take pictures like the one to the right. It sounds like a fabulous way to relax as the summer comes to a close.
Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
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The post TSS059: Punching up the Pacing and Tension in a Weak Fight Scene appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
… twisted here and then he leaned back and thumb punched him there, and then he did this, and his left hand did this and right foot to this and whatever … that completely ruins it.” — Taylor
This week’s show is all about getting bad and breaking bones in our fiction. Or, to put a slightly different spin on the topic, this episode is about writing kick-ass fight scenes. Taylor has her own particular way of writing these scenes that allow readers to go deep into the mind of Vanessa Michael Munroe while she’s fighting.
How does she do it?
As she explains during the interview, she writes fight scenes that take place very slowly. The faster the scene moves, the more she slows it down. When she’s asked how she makes the violent scenes feel so real to readers, her typical response is that she removes the details to allow the reader to visualize the scene.
Taylor shares two words that authors should never use in fight scenes and explains why eliminating the words enables the reader to see your scene as a seamless transaction of movement. The two words Taylor wants us to remove for our battle scenes are “as” and “suddenly.” As she puts it, “there is no suddenly in suspense.”
Taylor and Steve discuss the importance of accuracy and details in fight scenes, and how that importance changes, based on your background and what you bring to the table as an author. Then the get into a discussion on the importance of reader satisfaction with these scenes, especially those that are part of the book’s final few scenes.
The show closes with Steve asking Taylor to share her favorite fight Munroe fight scene, but she claims not to have one. She does admit to a favorite book, and it’s because of the presence of Munroe’s rage throughout the story. If you’ve read THE VESSEL, you know what she means when talking about the rage.
Thanks for Listening! Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
The post TSS058: Getting Bad and Breaking Bones: How to Pull off a Good Fight in Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show is about writing backstory, both generally and for recurring series characters.
When you’re creating your characters, and you know they have this huge history just remember … all the reader really needs to know is what matters in the moment. — Taylor
Hi, Steve here! This week’s episode came out of a conversation that Taylor and I had following the recording of last week’s show. I made a comment, then Taylor starting teaching and then asked, “Hey, is the recorder running?” It wasn’t, but I turned it on, and she began again, which is where we pick up the teaching part of this show on writing backstory.
As Taylor explains during the show, it’s a balancing act the author must perform, giving first-time readers just enough information to understand the character’s motivation without annoying long-time readers who already know the character’s history.
Taylor explains the way she weaves backstory into her novels in small chunks, from the perspective of the character as a way of creating that all-important tension for the story. Then she shares the story of how her agent influenced the way she incorporates backstory in her novels now.
Taylor then shared that she keeps a notecard on her desk that she turns to when she’s mired in the muck of writing and isn’t clear on what the reader needs to see in a scene. Taylor holds the car up for us in the image to the left. The five things on the card are:
- Whose eyes are we seeing this from?
- Where are we?
- Who are the characters?
- What is the conflict?
- What are the key points this scene must convey?
All excellent points, and I’ve made a similar card for my writing desk!
Since this week brings the start of the Summer Olympics, we open the show with a discussion of the Olympics and Taylor shares which Olympic sports she’d most like to be good at for both the Summer and Winter Olympics. Her choice for the Winter Olympics is figure skating, “of course” but for the Summer Olympics, she surprised me by choosing swimming or equestrian sports “that don’t involve broken bones.”
Thanks for Listening! Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
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The post TSS057: How to get Backstory (Not Infodump) into your Book appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
I would never advise someone sending a young woman off into a dark and abandoned building, by herself, without ever letting anybody know that she’s there … simply because they’re trying to make it big, bad and scary. Because, readers read that and they roll their eyes and go, “Seriously?” — Taylor
In this week’s episode, we discuss the process Taylor uses for selecting the right setting for her books and some of the memorable scenes in those books. Of course, Taylor’s books are different than yours, so she provides plenty of advice for books that aren’t tied to exotic locations the way her Munroe series is.
First, we get into the geographic settings for a story, discussing why Taylor chose Japan as the setting for THE MASK and how her research trip to Japan helped to develop the storyline for the book.
Then we get into some of the specifics of selecting scene settings, including her desire to use a Hostess Club as the setting for some crucial scenes in THE MASK.
We discuss some of Steve’s favorite scene settings in the Munroe series and consider the value of using recurring scenes in series fiction. We use the Alexandra Cooper series from Linda Fairstein as an example of great use of recurring scene settings.
How do you listen to podcasts? About half of you listen using the podcast app on the iPhone, but what about those of us using Android? Taylor and Steve discuss Steve’s favorite Podcast App for Android, which is Podcast Addict. (Available free at the Google Play store.)
Steve has been using the app for the past year, but Taylor, who is holding her phone in the picture to the left, is a recent convert. She installed Podcast Addict as her first ever podcast app soon after we recorded this episode.
How do you listen to show? Let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for Listening! Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative Commons Image via werner22brigitte
The post TSS056: Choosing the Right Setting for your Scenes and Story appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Today’s episode is all about tension, specifically, ways to ramp up the tension in your writing.
But before we get to the show notes for today’s episode, we’d like to welcome you to the new home of The Taylor Stevens show. We’re exciting to have more room for show notes and to be able to share links to the books we mention during each show.
Today’s show begins with a quick wrap up of Taylor’s early July trip to Thrillerfest in New York, which she describes as both tiring and fun. She participated in a panel discussion called: PLOTTER, PANSTER or HYBRID, The pros and cons of Outlining and shares some thoughts on the topic. We close the intro with Taylor’s surprising favorite New York City meal for this trip.
Then we get into the topic of raising the tension in your writing. Taylor offers several specific suggestions, including methods of raising the stakes by putting your character into either physical or emotional jeopardy.
Taylor mentions THE STORY GRID, What Good Editors Know, by author and editor Shawn Coyne. It’s an excellent tool for writers and is something we’ve referenced multiple times on the show.
We specifically mention two of Tayor’s books as examples of putting characters into Jeopardy during the episode, and those were THE DOLL and THE INNOCENT. In both novels, Munroe was rarely in physical danger, so Taylor used emotional risk as a way of ramping up the tension.
Since this is our first show on the new show page, we’d love it if you would share the show on your social media platforms to help us grow the audience.
Thanks for Listening! Thanks so much for joining us again this week.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Creative Commons image by jamesvaughan
The post TSS055: How to Ramp up the Tension in Your Manuscript appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, we discuss endings, what they should include and what they should do for the reader. Taylor describes what she considers the most important role of a novel’s ending, when to begin wrapping up the threads of your story, and the critical role reader fulfillment plays in driving book sales through word of mouth. We also discuss Taylor’s trip this week (Week of July 4th) to Thrillerfest and her planned Thrillerfest meet and greet with readers and fans.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Steve’s Website www.stephenrcampbell.com
The post TSS054: What Should Your Novel’s Ending Include appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS054: What Should Your Novel’s Ending Include? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Breathing Emotional Life into Your Characters
In this episode, the second in a new two-part series on going beyond the first draft, we dig deeply into Taylor’s process for adding emotional life to her characters. For her, this step can take place in a third pass, which she refers to as adding the “fine brush strokes” to the story. Have questions? Please call the show to leave them via voice mail so we can respond during a future episode. The google voice phone number is 469-587-9367.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Steve’s Website www.stephenrcampbell.com
The post TSS053: Breathing Emotional Life into Your Characters appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS053: Breathing Emotional Life into Your Characters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, the first in a new two-part series, we discuss the way Taylor creates the different drafts of her manuscripts. She shares the reason why the initial 25% of her first draft takes so long, and why the rest gets progressively quicker. Then we dig into her process for the second and third drafts, where she adds the texture and emotion that make the Munroe series so unique.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Steve’s Website www.stephenrcampbell.com
The post TSS052: Going Beyond the First Draft appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS052: Going Beyond the First Draft appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, we discuss dogs, cats and the importance of the well-developed antagonist in fiction. We pull from examples like the easy to hate Dollmaker in THE DOLL, to Nonomi Sato, the antagonist that many of Taylor’s fans may have pulled for in parts of THE MASK.
We also announce a new way to get in touch with your questions – by leaving Taylor a voicemail at our new Google Voice number, which is 469-587-9367. We’ll play your question and Taylor’s answer on a future podcast.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Steve’s Website www.stephenrcampbell.com
The post TSS051: Writing a Richly Nuanced Antagonist appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS051: Writing a Richly Nuanced Antagonist appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This episode concludes our two-part series comparing the publication processes for one traditionally published author (Taylor) with that of one indie published author (Steve.) On this show, we discuss what happens after the manuscript has been finished and the editing process is complete. Everything from cover design and layout to writing back cover material, marketing blurbs, handling advance reader copies (ARCs), public relations, marketing, and launch strategies. We also announce a new way to get in touch with your questions – by leaving Taylor a voicemail at our new Google Voice number, which is 469-587-9367. We’ll play your question and Taylor’s answer on a future podcast.
You can listen to part one of the two-part series, From Manuscript to Novel, in Episode 49, here.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Steve’s Website www.stephenrcampbell.com
The post TSS050: Comparing Indie and Traditional: After the Editing is Finished appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS050: Comparing Indie and Traditional: After the Editing is Finished appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
In this episode, we begin a two-part series comparing the publication processes for one traditionally published author (Taylor) with that of one indie published author (Steve.) Both processes start with the completion of a manuscript, but differences appear soon after the manuscript is finished. Our primary focus in part one of the series is the editing processes.
You can listen to part two of this two-part series, Comparing Indie and Traditional: After the Editing is Finished in episode 50, here.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Steve’s Website www.stephenrcampbell.com
The post TSS049: From Manuscript to Novel: Comparing Indie and Traditional appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS049: From Manuscript to Novel: Comparing Indie and Traditional appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
Our focus this week is on how writers can keep their butts in the chair and why it’s so important to do so. Of course, it’s not just the simple act of sitting down that we discuss, we also get into the motivation behind sitting down to write and the fears that can keep us from our writing chairs. We discuss ways to avoid kicking your own self in the butt and the value of holding yourself and your writer friends accountable.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
The post TSS048: How and Why to Keep Your Butt in the Chair appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS048: How and Why to Keep Your Butt in the Chair appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
It’s Q & A week where Taylor tackles listener questions. This week’s inquiries include: Has she considered using any of the great cast of secondary characters she’s developed in a future book? How has feedback from her agent, editor, publisher, and readers influenced the direction of her Munroe series? And, what do authors need to know (and bring) to survive their first writer’s conference?
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
The post TSS047: How to Survive Your First Writers Conference appeared first on CrimeFiction.FM.
The post TSS047: How to Survive Your First Writers Conference appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.
This week’s show focuses on “writing rules” and when authors should consider breaking them. Taylor explains how these rules have evolved to smooth out the reading process for those who consume our books. We discuss several examples of breaking those rules, both in her books and others.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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Writers conferences are a little like shoes; there is no “one size fits all” strategy that works for everyone. In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the biggest benefits of attending writers conferences and why her experience will likely be different from yours. Then she shares how her experience as an attendee of conferences has influenced how she now presents when attending events.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we consider the synopsis. For some, it’s a form of outlining, while for others, it’s a step in the process of getting the next contracted book approved by their publisher. Taylor shares the process she uses when writing a synopsis, and describes the proposal package she puts together for her agent when it’s time to pitch her next book.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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Regardless of what your next project is, the time you’re committing to the project is considerable. Before you invest that time, take a step back to be sure you’re doing what you can to maximize the value of your investment. In part 3 of our 3 part series on choosing which ideas to develop, we explore the importance giving 100% to your current project, discuss the importance of versatility in your protagonist and consider different ways of dealing with character development over the life of a series.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we discuss ideas for choosing projects that will achieve your goals as an author and help you meet reader expectations for your chosen genre. Whether your idea is a small cozy mystery, or a big, globetrotting thriller, it’s important to understand your genre. Then we answer a reader question on how to avoid adding fluff to hit genre based word count targets. Taylor suggests adding “heft” to your story by adding multiple layers of conflict and shares some details from a recent project of hers.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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How do we decide what to write next? It’s a large question and one that we’ll spend the next three episodes discussing. In part one we discuss several factors you might consider when deciding on your next writing project. At the top of that list of considerations are your goals as a writer. Are you writing for fun, writing to indie publish, or are you writing to sell a project to a publisher? Do you have an established fan base? If so, is your next project big enough to meet their expectations? Taylor shares her thoughts on the subject and delivers specific examples from her current project list.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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This episode is all about characters. Everything from character arcs for supporting characters to the number of point of view characters we should have in our stories. Then we get into character names, the value of common names for characters and we discuss the value of limiting the number of named characters in our work.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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What best supports your writing, inspiration or desperation? In this episode, we discuss the way each can be used to keep the writing engine moving forward. Everything from using music to jump start creativity to the desperation of deadlines. We consider a variety of activities that can trigger creative progress. Of course, Taylor also advises that there’s nothing quite like the inspiration of just sitting down and getting to work.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we respond to a listener question by discussing different ways of improving the dialogue in your writing. Taylor shares several tips and some specific advice on what to do and what to avoid when writing dialogue. Among the specifics we discuss are dealing with accents and foreign languages, how to avoid info dumping with your dialogue, and why reading our own dialogue aloud isn’t as valuable as having someone else read it to us.
If you have questions you’d like us to discuss on a future show please email them to contact at taylorstevensbooks dot com and include as much detail as possible.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, Taylor shares her tips for controlling the chaos that can infringe on our writing time. We discuss the significance of knowing what matters most to you when setting your priorities, the value of saying no (even when it’s uncomfortable to do so), and the importance of protecting your mental energy.
Taylor also shares a book recommendation on the topic, 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, by Hyrum W. Smith.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we discuss the importance of understanding the standard and the not so standard clauses of an agent agreement. From what you should expect to what you should avoid, we discuss standard rates for print, film and foreign rights, the danger of the “perpetual agency clause” and how to avoid a the “rights grab” that can be a part of some agency agreement.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we walk into the thorny issue of plots, subplots, and themes in fiction. Taylor simplifies the concept of subplots by referring to them as “the different layers in a story.” Then we narrowly avoid the first instance of singing during the show before finally discussing the moral conflict of the story and how that is often the driver of a novel’s theme.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, Taylor answers listener questions about writing and how she kicks writing in the butt, one word at a time. Questions include: Does she use digital tools to help with the writing process, how does she get herself to stop googling and start writing, and how can we as authors enlist the aid of experts while doing research. We finish up with a short discussion on the value of asking for help.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we unveil (drumroll please) the new tagline for the show and discuss the value of taking a break from your writing and other creative work. Taylor believes that occasionally taking a step back opens up space for other activities that can be used to recharge the creative batteries.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we discuss several questions about literary agents. What’s the value of an agent? Should you have one if you’re planning to publish your own work? Can a good attorney replace an agent for you? Then we discuss some tools and best practices you can use to identify the perfect agent for your book. Tools include the websites for Preditors and Editors and Publishers Marketplace.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, Taylor describes the hazy nature of book sales reporting for traditionally published authors. We discuss some of the tricks and tools she uses to try and intuit where and how her books are sold, then get into some thoughts on price promotion for books and how it’s different depending on how an author is published.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we go Hollywood, as in what it really means when your book is optioned for film. We discuss the different types of options and what the odds of a book that’s been optioned are of making it to the big screen. Taylor shares her thoughts on meeting James Cameron in California last year and why he’s the perfect person to bring Vanessa Michael Munore to film audiences.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we discuss the different ways you can fix a story that isn’t working. Taylor shares specific information on revamping characters or strengthening their motivation, shifting material to different places within your story, and the importance of asking yourself how and why to make simple changes to enhance your plot.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we discuss the critical nature of the inciting incident in fiction, which Tayor describes as “a single thing without which none of the characters in the story would have come together.”
We use examples from Taylor’s book, THE CATCH and a story that Steve is working on to illustrate how the inciting incident drives the story forward. We also discuss the reasons to avoid episodic elements in your writing, Taylor’s special talent as a chef and her Thanksgiving cooking plans.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we attempt to answer the question of completion for authors. More specifically, when is a book finished? As you might expect the answer varies, but Taylor makes a valiant effort to respond, both as an author writing under contract and as an author writing a speculative novel.
Along the way to finding our answer we delve into the value of rejection, the pain of paper cuts and hear Taylor trying to keep a response going while the doorbell is ringing and the dog is barking.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we discuss the differences and the similarities between writing high-octane character focused thrillers and a young adult novel. Among the many challenges facing an author writing in a different genre is finding a publisher. Success in one genre does not necessarily help an author quickly find a publisher for a second.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
Taylor’s Hack the Craft website www.hackthecraft.com
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In this episode, we discuss Taylor’s recent visit to the North Lake College in Irving, Texas, where she spent time teaching a class that included creative writing students and several faculty members. Taylor’s done a great deal of public speaking and has taught several writing classes, but since her formal education ended after the 6th grade, teaching a college class was something very new for her. We discuss the class’s reaction to her and her self-taught writing methods.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
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Is there a Recipe for Creating Unforgettable Characters?
With the understanding that she’s still learning, Taylor shares five ingredients she believes are critical to the creation of memorable characters. While delivering the recipe Taylor uses the phrase vicarious kickassery and shares a quote that she posted on Facebook some time ago, “It’s frustrating when you don’t know the recipe to your own secret sauce.”
Thanks to friend of the show Bruce Cantell for indirectly suggesting the topic of this episode.
Taylor’s Website www.taylorstevensbooks.com
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