Writing in the Tiny House

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Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH!

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Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH!

https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

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2Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH!

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Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

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For the text of “The Plymouth Express Affair,” follow this link:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66446

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Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

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Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH!

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For the text of “The Plymouth Express Affair,” follow this link:

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Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

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Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH!

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For the text of “The Plymouth Express Affair,” follow this link:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66446

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Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

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2This is the first episode of the discussion of "The Plymouth Express Affair," by Agatha Christie. A reading of this short story can be found in WTH Season 3, Episode 2.

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Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

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2 Find the text to this short story on Project Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66446

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

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Happy New Year, friends! This episode describes the new format we're taking for this podcast this season. It's gonna be awesome!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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As we close this season, I hope you have all had happy holidays, and a happy new year!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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It's more than a creative outlet. It's also a way to explore relationships.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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I experience things seasonally: I begin things, and I end things, and I know that in the future I will start again. Writing is one of the things in my life that has taught me this importnat lesson. Knowing that if I stop something, I can now predict when I will pick it back up again, and at that time I will be in the perfect headspace to do so.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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The benefits of writing tools.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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We start a big thing. We get sick. That thing gets delayed. We move on.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Hope you make it past the finish line with NaNoWriMo!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Happy NaNoWriMo, everyone!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Let's be friends on NaNoWriMo. Username: author_devin_davis

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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This episode has a a super awesome guided meditation to help you through the stressfull process of drafting your work in progress!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Get your tools together for our big drafting sprint that begins November 1st?

And, let's be friends on NaNoWriMo:

username: author_devin_davis

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Join me in NaNoWriMo!

username: author_devin_davis

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Do an outline! It can look many different ways.

NaNoWriMo: author_devin_davis

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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We're doing Preptober by making character profiles!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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We're starting Preptober a week early this year as we prepare for NaNoWriMo.

This week: the benefits of a map! Don't miss out.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

Tik Tok: snow.white.whistles

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Another clip episode where I take you into some of the moments of me going through the beta reading process.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

A dose of reality for today.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. The entire point of this podcast is to help the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and stress management, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in, and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House.

Hello and good morning. It is another [00:01:00] Wednesday. And here we are in the tiny house doing another episode of this awesome show guys. It has been rough. Things have been rough, and I will compile another clip episode on my experience with beta readers later, just because that whole process isn't finished yet.

I have a few beta readers who have not given feedback. I'm going to be meeting one of them tonight for drinks. I'm excited to hear what she has to say, but there has been a reality check in my life, and I have decided to share that reality check with you all today. at the same time, I don't want this to sound bitter or whatever, just because sometimes when we have moments like this, it's really easy to just get mad and it's okay to get mad.

It is also a very healthy way to realize your life and to realize what you're doing, to realize the next [00:02:00] steps to realize. Your reality, hence the reality check. here's the fundamental question with all of this that I don't know that I've addressed in a previous episode of writing in the tiny house, what does it take to be a writer?

What does it take for a person to say that they are a writer and like with so many art based things? I mean, in reality, you don't, you don't have to have painted anything in order to say that you're a painter, you certainly don't have to have sold any of your paintings to say that you're a painter and you don't have to have any of your artwork in your house.

It is something where you can say it. And it is true I mean, with painting, perhaps you, you need to have held a brush at some time in your life, and that could have been at any time. And at that moment in time, you were a painter and you could still claim to be a painter because, because, because of opinions, because of, [00:03:00] you know, time isn't real, anyway, stuff like that.

Writing is the same. If you have written an essay ever in your life, you are a writer and today you could still claim to be a writer. If you have not written a single word since that essay in junior high school at the same time, though, if you do claim to be a writer, people will want to see.

the fruits of your labor. They will want to see what you have done. And so if you say that you are a writer, especially if it is your profession instead of your hobby, and that's another tricky part with this friends, if you want it to be your profession, there's a lot of stuff that you're going to have to do.

and the fact of the matter is most writers in this world do not support themselves through their writing. If you want to support yourself through your writing, there is a [00:04:00] lot you are going to have to do, and it will take a long time. I mean, there are always exceptions to all of the things that I'm going to be saying, but by and large, most writers don't support themselves with writing and.

Those who do it has taken a long time to get there, or a lot of the writers that we see today are able to write full time because a loved one is actually supporting them Or whatever they write full time because they don't need to worry about income.

Income is being provided somewhere else, either through a loved one or inheritance or whatever, whatever. and like I said, there's always exceptions to that. , but here we are here. We here I am. I finished another pass with TIS and we're doing the beta readers and I received feedback that ti needs to be longer ti needs to be a full on novel instead of just a Nove The beta reader who said that [00:05:00] had all of the reasons to back it up, had all of it for this reason and that reason and whatever the thing is, I originally wrote his. thinking that it would just be a short story. And so I worked it out in the method that we see short stories.

There aren't many characters. There aren't many characters who speak, everything feels pretty condensed. and that's how I wanted it, but was it the best way to do it? This beta reader has shown me that probably it wasn't. So while there were definitely strong parts in Ts, and I appreciate that and I love knowing that those things were there.

thus far, I've gotten a lot of good feedback from ti. Another trick, like another kind of interesting thing with beta readers is if somebody says that they don't like the main character and another person says that they do like the main character, the thing is both of those beta readers are right.

I mean, there's always a chance that the first person missed [00:06:00] something or there's a chance that I didn't do it. Right. Or there's probably. A greater chance of a little bit of both of those possibilities, but I've received very good feedback from ti thus far, but one beta reader wanted to understand the scope of it all.

the thing is TIS is supposed to be the first book of a world of books. I. Hesitate to say that it's a, well, it would be a series, but the thing is, each of the books is not necessarily a continuation of the previous book. Most of these books will have different characters with different plots and different things, but they all take place in the same world.

And so this collection of books, this tales from LAER stuff. That we've been doing for the past while is actually a world of books. It is [00:07:00] a world of lives. It's a world of people and not necessarily all of the books are continuations of a previous plot. and that's where we are. So we have stories that take place in this city.

We have stories that take place in another city and the stories are unrelated except for a single element that ties in later. And of course, all of this builds for the final thing at the end, just because that's how it gets to be. Right. You build for 10 books and then you have the final trilogy at the end with a big battle.

it? It's something that we've seen a lot in fantasy. going back to this idea of being a writer and what it all kind of looks like this beta reader wanted to understand the scope of where we were headed with this of where T was going of the [00:08:00] future projects. that are on the horizon, so to speak.

And she said that the story is too big and the world is too complicated. And the intricacies of the magic system are such that it cannot all be properly developed in a Nove. And the thing with releasing a collection of short stories and a collection of Noves over time is the entire world is not fully developed in each Nove.

And unless the Noves are all released at the same time, the reader is only going to get a half baked world in each Nove over the next. Many years until I'm finished with them. And so I can either release a collection of Noves all at once, or I can kind of flex my muscles and do all of the world building and make [00:09:00] TIS a big beefy novel, which will then set off this entire collection of this entire world of books with a splash.

There's a lot of. heat writing on the first book of any collection of stories and any series. The first book is super important and I am convinced right now that a Nove is not the best way to do a first book. It was a year ago. That I was seeing a trend of people releasing a Nove as a way to test a theory or to test the market, to see if releasing something larger or something, you know, along those lines of the Nove later would land well.

And so the novella was a way to test the market and the thing. Now that we are [00:10:00] 18 months beyond that, beyond me hearing about that first trend, I have not seen the fruit of any of the people following those trends yet. I know of one person who released a Nove. His name is Daniel Green. and it was his first, anything that he ever wrote, he has a very large following on YouTube, a very respectable, big following.

And so he's self-published because he already has a big audience that he directly addresses, I think two times a week on his channel on YouTube. And he released a novella and I don't know what has come of. I don't know if he has continued with that or not, or if it was just a good project that he did.

And now it's done. Who knows? I mean, I could, I could figure it out and I probably shouldn't include that on a podcast episode, but here we are just standing here thinking so. [00:11:00] considering the length of time that comes in between these projects is a Nove the best way to go. Like I said, I'm convinced that it's not, that also means that ti gets to be largely rewritten.

And so to be a writer, here's the thing, friends here is the hard thing

to be a writer you write to be a writer does not mean that other people will have to read what you have written. You do not need to land yourself a big following in order to be considered a writer. I have thus far written, literally hundreds of thousands of words. Literally hundreds of thousands of words that all belong within this world of lado.

And this dates back to my first novels that I released when I was 24. I mean, this was forever ago. And I mean, it's what happens when you're 24 and you're eager to have a book out in [00:12:00] the world. And so you release a book that has not had a final proofread. So those books are not available now, but they take place in lado and so, here we are. I have written hundreds of thousands of words. I am going to write hundreds of thousands of more words until a readership gets a hold of any of it. And so the question of the day is, and I ask this very seriously because I already know my own answer, but I'm going to pose it to you.

The listeners of writing in the tiny house. I'm, I'm assuming that most of you are writers are hoping to be whether professionally or as a hobby or whatever writing fulfills in your life. If you end up writing hundreds of thousands of words and a handful of people only ever get to read some of it, is it all worth it?[00:13:00]

So go ahead and think about that because hundreds of thousands of words represents hours and hours, hundreds of hours. if not more and as a writer, is it worth it? If only a handful of people ever read a fraction of the stuff you have written. So for me, the answer is yes, that's something that I've been toiling with for a long time.

And I have this big ass series. That I have been struggling with for a long time to begin to start. And now, because life is different than it was 10 years ago, I can start it, but this is something that will likely carry me into my sixties. There's enough books and enough, there there's enough content to carry me into my sixties.

we get to just wonder if something that takes up so much [00:14:00] of my life, doesn't get read by somebody else or only a handful of other people and whatever else is it going to be worth it, something to think about. So thank you for joining me. And I leave you with that sobering thought.

And that is it for today. Before we go, I need to say that my current work in progress Tiz the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is ready for beta readers, people to read the novella and share with me their experience. It's a big, important step before publishing. So if you wish to be a part of this project, reach out to me on my social media handles; on Instagram I'm @authordevindavis, and on Twitter I'm @authordevind. And remember that my short story Brigitte is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible as an audio book. Check those out today. [00:15:00]

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Even if you take time away from your manuscript, make sure to take notes while your brain (and beta readers) tell you changes to make during your next pass of edits!

If you are interested in being a beta reader for Tiz, my novella, be sure to contact me on my social media handles.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

Well, hello and happy [00:01:00] Wednesday. It is another episode of writing in the tiny house. And thank you so much for joining me. So like I, well, like I have mentioned in the past couple episodes, my work in progress ti is in a place where it needs beta readers. And if you are in a position where you want to be involved, please let me know by contacting me through my social stuff.

So all of that is listed in the show notes. Don't be bashful with beta reading. It's reading in a casual way, just like you would any other novel and then giving feedback. I don't want you to flex your muscles when it comes to editing. We're not to that stage yet. I just want feedback on content, but guys, today is a little bit about what to do in the interim between drafts and beta reading.

We are at a point with ti where I have a group of people reading my book [00:02:00] and giving feedback, and they are giving feedback at different rates at different times during the week. And there aren't very many of them, but here's something to understand friends, beta readers are. Wonderful volunteers who are incredibly valuable to the process of writing.

However, they are going to require an amount of reminding your book is not nearly as important to them. As it is to you. And if you are in a spot where you are ready for beta readers and you start to get your program together, it's important to spell out to everybody who wants to read your book when you want them to have it finished.

And. That you are going to be following up with them throughout the process. It's important to let them know that so that when you pop in halfway through just to see how it's going and they haven't started [00:03:00] yet, they won't be mad and it won't be unexpected. I mean, like I said, these people are not getting paid.

They are doing it out of the kindness of their heart. And so it's important to be grateful at the same time, there is an amount of patience with all of this and when you get feedback and that's what this whole episode is for. Well, two things. When you get feedback, you need to have a way to organize all of that.

And what are you going to do with yourself during this time? This beta reading program has been going on for about two weeks. And I have said in previous episodes that it is important between drafts to let your draft cool off. That means that you don't get to futz around with it. You don't get to tease it apart.

You don't get to pick apart that if different things that are not working or don't seem to be working. And you get to leave it alone. You get to step away and let it cool off. That's what some people call it. At [00:04:00] least when you. Put that time in between you and your current draft, it allows your mind to refresh.

And so when you do finally go back and you start to read it, it's going to be with fresh eyes and it's going to be with a fresh mindset so that you can actually do better editing work. during. Your beta reading program. it is important to have that space, that time built into what you are doing.

So if you remember a few weeks ago, when I finished my first draft and got it. Readable. I let it rest for a few days. I didn't let it rest for as long as I'm about to let it rest. I mean, this has been almost two weeks. I did just a few days. And then I went through and did a first passive edit. Then I gave it to my friend my developmental editor crystal, and she went through and read it and took notes.

And while she was involved with that, I let my [00:05:00] manuscript rest. so that when she had notes to give me, I was in a good place to go through and put in those notes and make those changes. Now that we are at an even better place with the manuscript, I get to let it rest again. So not only am I giving my attention to.

Gathering information and compiling it into a meaningful, easy to understand layout. I mean, it's a Novea, it's not a full blown novel. And if I were doing a novel, I would have a different system to take notes with. All of the information that I'll be getting from my beta readers. And I likely wouldn't have given the entire document to them all at once.

I would've likely split it up into a couple installments so that I could get fresher feedback that is more specific to what they just read. Instead of giving them a really big book and then getting feedback all at once and having them [00:06:00] forget parts, it's just a way to help them help you.

So with a Nove, you don't need to do that. This thing is only 20,000 words. It's only about 125 printed pages or 120, depending on how you format your book, but that's about how long it is. And so there is no harm in just giving the book all at once in this instance. not only am I devoting attention to that, but I am.

Paying attention to what the beta readers have to say. And as they give feedback, it also inspires me to make additional changes, but right now is not the time to make those changes. So here's the deal guys. when we come to swapping ideas and whatever, the wheels will start to turn in your brain and you are going to want to dive right back into your manuscript to make those changes.

Especially if you get good feedback from one of your beta readers, I gave my book to, a young lady [00:07:00] who read it recently. And some of the feedback that she gave was perfect. she said all of the things that she liked, and then she said some things that she wanted a bit more of. And I can add that into the manuscript, but as I was thinking about it, it triggered a little bit of other places where I could add more to some other scenes in the book where I could insert a little bit of this or that just to fill it out and to give a better sense of who is there a better sense of setting and.

That was inspired though. It was not mentioned directly in the feedback that I got recently from one of my beta readers. So this is my advice to you, my dear friends, listening to this episode during these times, when you are letting your manuscript cool off. It is still important to take notes as [00:08:00] far as what your brain is telling you needs to happen with your manuscript.

be sure to have a good place. It can be on your phone. It can be a notebook at home. I have a sticky note on my desktop where I'm keeping a lot of these notes, but have a place To write down that inspiration so that you can have a list of points to make when you go through, another time to make more edits to your draft.

So with developmental edits, you are going to be making several passes of edits until your book is at a good place to send to your editor. And it's important to make those passes. If you think that you're going to be making all of your developmental edits happen in one go, you are going to be surprised or maybe disappointed when it doesn't happen that way.

However, the more that you do it, the more that you practice the [00:09:00] fewer times. Possibly, I mean, most likely fewer times that you were going to have to make passes in order to do some complete developmental edits or. You'll just get better at doing it. So the passes don't take as long and you can be more efficient with your revisions.

I was thinking about a metaphor with all of this, with just this whole part of writing. And the thing is the first draft. if we are going to compare this to a garden or to a farm. Or something where we plant a thing and then it grows. The first draft is largely preparing the soil and planting seeds.

The first draft is rough and it is hard to see some of the beautiful things in your first draft, especially when you read through it after you're done. I mean, there is problems and. It is through the many steps of revision that we coax out from the ground, the [00:10:00] beautiful things that we want and the beautiful things that are already there.

So it's like the seeds and you are growing your flowers or you are growing your vegetables or your pumpkins or whatever else It is the labor and the tending and the weeding and the watering. All of those steps that make those things grow. and all of that comes through revision and through editing and revision, revision revision.

And at the end things just get better. Guys. TIS was in a very good place when I sent it to my beta readers. Now that I'm getting feedback, I'm realizing that I didn't realize before that there are other places to make it fill out and to make it even better, to make it make more sense.

And that's cool because I can see, I can see where it needs to go and then I can put the effort into it to get there. Again, just to sum all of this up while you are taking a break [00:11:00] from your work in progress and letting it cool off, be sure to still take notes. It's important to create some distance between you and your work in progress for an amount of time.

But. It is still important to pay attention and take notes to the things that your brain and other people are going to be telling you about your work in progress. So thank you for tuning in.

And that is it for today. Before we go, I need to say that my current work in progress Tiz the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is ready for beta readers, people to read the novella and share with me their experience. It's a big, important step before publishing. So if you wish to be a part of this project, reach out to me on my social media handles; on Instagram I'm @authordevindavis, and on Twitter I'm @authordevind. And remember that my short story Brigitte is available on Amazon as an ebook [00:12:00] and on Audible as an audio book. Check those out today.

View Details

Devin catched us up on his writing process by taking us through another round of developmental edits. This episode ends the day before he sends copies of his novella Tiz, the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor, to his beta reading team.

If you wish to join his beta reading team, contact him through his social media.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

Tiz is ready for beta testing! Reach out to me so you can get involved today! Contact me on social media.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

Hello? Hello. Hello, [00:01:00] and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. Guys, it's been a really busy summer. How has your summer been? I am doing one last, well, actually, I don't know. It's hard to say just how many passes of a work in progress constitute a session of editing, but I've been doing more content edits more developmental edits for the past while.

And I'm feeling really, really good about my work in progress. Tiz is making huge strides toward being just kind of the perfect thing right now. And I'm getting super excited about it. I have a goal to get this round of developmental edits finished by this weekend so that I can move on to beta readers because we are at that point in our lives, my friends. So beta readers are super awesome and they are a huge part of the publishing process if you are professionally [00:02:00] self-publishing.

just really quickly. If you already know what a beta reader is, and you want to be a part of my beta reading team, please reach out to me on social media on Instagram. I'm @authordevindavis Davis and on Twitter. I'm @authordevind and I will hook you up that way.

If you don't know what a beta reader is, a beta reader is a person who read. A work in progress pretty casually, as casually as you would read anything else that you are reading for entertainment and then simply shares in some way, their experience with the author or whoever is doing the edits for the work that they are involved with. What that looks like.

So all of that is well and good, but this is kind of what the process looks like, just because we're all busy. We all have a lot to do. And a lot of people. Oh, I would love to beta read, but they don't fully understand the importance that they are playing in the process. So [00:03:00] usually when a work is to the point of beta reading, it has been through a number of developmental edits.

So in my case, I finished the work in progress and then I cleaned it up so that it would be ready for me to actually read. Because if you remember, I dictated my work. And that required a lot of tweaking afterward, which is fine. It, it was not a waste of time. And I was glad that I did it. It got me through, I cleaned it up as a way to just read it, to be able to sit back and read the content.

I did my own developmental edits, at least one round of them. And then I sent my story to my developmental editor, crystal and a critique partner as a way to. Have them show me holes that I might have missed. And I have had conversations with both of those people in some way, crystal, we speak on the phone and then this critique partner, she actually sent me a big document [00:04:00] with her thoughts and her notes and her suggestions.

And I have paid very close attention to both of those things. Now I'm working through it again, going through the developmental edits again, and things are improving. Things are better. Like the story is starting to bloom and I'm really excited to see that it's such a breath of fresh air to actually see what this can be to me, the magic of writing is in the edits anyway.

And so when you crash out your first draft and it looks like garbage because it is garbage, you are tilling the soil and planting seeds, and then it's through the developmental edits that you water the place so that plants can grow. And I'm seeing that with this. So. This is the way a beta reader program works. while you are certainly going to, let's say that you go ahead and you sign up for my beta reader [00:05:00] program, because you are super interested in what I am writing and you want. Part of it. And you want to be involved in this whole process because you love the arts.

You love fiction, you love fantasy fiction and how fun to be involved, right. Even if you're not a writer. So what happens is, and, and this is how it, it's a little bit different for every author, but I'm going to show you my. Program here and tell you a little bit about what other programs look like. So beta reading is in essence beta testing.

When a person, when a company or when a. Group of people develop a product. They need to test that product to make sure it's something that people want to use. And so if you have been a part of a beta testing trial with new products, what they do is they provide you with the [00:06:00] product so that you can use it.

And in fact, they may have some suggestions with specific applications for you to use it So that you can get a full feel of what the product is even for and what it's about. And then at the end, there's always a questionnaire. There is always a way for you to share your experience and offer feedback now with a beta reading program.

It's much the same thing. An author is asking a person to read a book. So in my instance, this novella, read it, read it casually, read it as you would. Any other book that you read for entertainment? This is not about studying. This is not about asking you for free editing stuff. This isn't that your role as a beta reader is not to sniff out all of the common mistakes and the misspelled words.

It is not to suggest [00:07:00] that this specific sentence would be better if you used this word instead of that word, that's not what beta reading is for. With beta reading, you have a manuscript that is not finished. And so we all just understand right away that it is not a perfect manuscript and there may be typos and little problems in it that you are going to be asked to ignore or to simply read.

Through. I mean, if you're reading and there's a, uh, a paragraph where a section that is really problematic, it is really good of you to mention that, but nobody expects you to put on your editing cap and try to flex your grammar muscles, cuz that's, that's not what the beta reader role is. Your role is to read it and then share with the author or whoever is doing the edits experience.

If you are [00:08:00] involved with a first time author, it is possible that they may not fully have a program developed. And so they may. Fully understand what sharing your experience needs to look like. It has been my experience with previous beta readers and just with other people who have read my stuff that you read a thing.

And then if someone simply says, share with me your experience, you don't really have a lot to say. You just read something, you experienced something, but you don't have words for it yet. So hopefully the program that you're entering into will have questions to kind of probe through your experience so that everybody can get an understanding for what worked, what didn't work.

And it's for the big parts of the story. It's for the relationships it's for setting it's for different things. A lot of authors will release [00:09:00] their books, especially if they have written a larger book and they are professionally self-publishing, they will release their book in sections to their beta readers so that they can have conversations fresh with each section of the book.

And they can gauge how each section of the book is doing instead of throwing this huge manuscript at somebody and expect them To read it and remember everything as they go through it. So, because TIS is a Nove, it's already a shorter document and there's no need for me to release it in sections. But oftentimes the author will say here's the first section or maybe the first chapter.

And then if they are prepared and they know what they're doing, they will have questions ready already for you to respond to. Questions about. How you felt, if there was tension in that specific chapter, if it was working for you, if the love [00:10:00] story is happening in a good way, just whatever the content is.

If they know what they are doing, they will ask. Specific questions and they'll have that ready for you to respond. And usually they will ask you to respond in a timely manner. Sometimes it can be a texting conversation. If it's somebody that, you know, on a more personal level, it can be a phone call. It can be something like Marco polo.

I don't know if. If you know what that app is, but it's basically video chatting or writing letters, but it's video. , that's how I feel that it is anyway. And you can go through and respond to those questions. It is important for you to be thorough. And it's important for you to be a little bit long winded.

super short answers to these questions are certainly helpful, but elaborating. On what you mean by those answers is always more useful, even if [00:11:00] you err, on the side of sharing too much. So sharing all the things, even if you feel all the things is kind of a lot to get through is very, very beneficial to a person who is gauging the content of their story.

And then once the beta reading project is over and done with, if it's an author, Has this all worked out, hopefully they are taking notes and they can go through and revise something or tweak something so that they can get ready to send it to their editor next. So this is a very important step in. All works in progress who were becoming professionally published professionally self-published.

And so again, if you are interested in joining my program, please reach out to me in social media. And I will, uh, I will announce that again at the end of this episode, here is, what other people's programs can look like sometimes. So a [00:12:00] lot of people will recommend 25. Beta readers to read their work in progress.

Sometimes it can be a struggle to find 25 people to read a book, especially if you're releasing a big book. If you're releasing this big epic fantasy thing, that's like 800 printed pages. It can be a lot to find people who can read that in a specific amount of time.

Just because if you're releasing on a schedule, you don't have six months for somebody to get around to reading your work in progress with these shorter works like with TIS and with BJE it. Take as long to find people to beta read, just because they are much shorter works. I mean, JE was just 9,000 words. TIS is 20,000 words. It's a proper novella, but they're not long documents. And so people can read them in a shorter amount of time and it's not as big of a [00:13:00] time commitment. with many people, they suggest 25 beta readers and. I know of some authors who go as high as 45 beta readers.

I have some mixed feelings about that. I do feel that you will flesh out absolutely everything. If you can get 45 people to read your work and respond to your thing. I also know that keeping notes on everybody's thoughts would be pretty tedious and a lot of people would end up sharing. The same things over and over again.

And if you want to endure that 45 times, then that's fine. I don't think that I'm going to be searching out 45 people to read ti. Also with my particular program, I like to release it to a small number of people get their input. And if there are glaring problems, I like to do another round of edits in order to fix those problems.

If I agree with them and then release it to [00:14:00] the next set of beta readers so that the manuscript can be continually improv. Before I send it off to my editor. So that's just kind of what the program looks like. That's what a program looks like. That's what beta readers are for beta readers are a huge part to the development of a book,

and like I said, it is beta testing to see if the book would land well, if people would like it, if people would buy it. And if the content is something that would stick around and come across as something important. So beta readers are super a big deal. And this is why all authors are super grateful for their beta reading team.

And that is it for today. Before we go, I need to say that my current work in progress Tiz the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is ready for beta readers, people to read [00:15:00] the novella and share with me their experience. It's a big, important step before publishing. So if you wish to be a part of this project, reach out to me on my social media handles; on Instagram I'm @authordevindavis, and on Twitter I'm @authordevind. And remember that my short story Brigitte is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible as an audio book. Check those out today.

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I went on a binge of LGBTQ fiction after having never read a single book in the genre, and this episode is all about how I became fully converted!

The books I read that are covered in this episode:

Bath Haus, by P. J. Vernon

What if It's Us, by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

Here's to Us, but the same two previous authors

And They Lived ..., by Steven Salvatore

Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, by Jonny Garza Villa

All That's Left in the World, by Erik J. Brown

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

Join me as I take you behind the scenes as I make my first round of developmental edits on my manuscript Tiz.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

Don't allow any aspect of your novel to get too complicated, otherwise you will lose interest from your readers!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

When we're going through our manuscript, whether we are doing edits or full-on drafting, finishing each pass and taking notes keeps us organized and gives us a sense of progress.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have this steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months.

And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House.

Hello, [00:01:00] and welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis and here we are guys. We are over the hump of July. We have made it. We are more than halfway through the summer, I guess, or at least the summer break. And can you even believe that? So I have been diligently working on this pass of edits with the current work in progress, TIS that I have been working on for a while. And now that it has picked up and it has become kind of a bigger thing. It is definitely gaining momentum in my day to day. And that is exciting. It is so good to be excited for a work in progress again. And I think I have some idea as to why, or some idea as to how I got here to this point of being excited.

But first let's talk about TIS a little bit. Because of its length. So [00:02:00] TIS is a respectable novella. TIS is going to be between 25,000 and 30,000 words, which as a printed thing is about a hundred pages give or take ish, you know, and I believe, I believe that due to its length, I should be able to release it as a printed work in addition to an ebook. So with Brigitte being at 9,000 words, that is only about 50 pages of text, actually a little bit less than that. And because of that, it wasn't really plausible or really worth the time and effort or the energy to worry about finding a way to get it into a printed form. I mean, with a short story like that, Brigitte can always be part of a collection of short stories later on.

I'm certainly not going to rule that out and I'm not going to say that I'm never [00:03:00] going to write a short story again, it is certainly not this work in progress with ti and it is not my next work in progress. My next work in progress is going to be a full blown novel, but. Due to length. Sometimes there is not really a plausible or a logical reason, or really just a feasible reason to provide a printed version of that story.

But with TIS due to its length, I believe that I can release it as a paperback and a hardback. Which is kind of exciting. It's going to require some additional steps and some additional formatting on my end. And I'm going to have to get in contact with the guy who designed my cover art and have him expand it into a full wrap.

So an image that does the cover, the spine and the back, which is what you need for a printed book, but at a hundred pages as it being a [00:04:00] normal novella I don't see why not. And that's cool To have it available as an ebook and a printed book.

And of course, I'm going to turn it into an audio book. All of those things just makes it more accessible, which is cool because we all enjoy books in different ways. And so if all of the ways are covered, then that makes it more accessible to customers, which is cool. So that is already really good news, but I told you that this project has picked up some steam and it is becoming a bigger part of my day today. And I am eager to get this pass of edits done. And I believe that I have a secret as to why. So, this is a good rule of thumb when you are doing your developmental edits, which I call dev edits, or even if you're drafting.

And the little trick that I want to talk about today is don't interrupt [00:05:00] your pass. That means that if you are writing your first draft, make sure that you finish your first draft without going through and futzing over the things that don't need to be worried about right now. Or if you know that there is a big plot hole in your first draft, instead of worrying about going through and coming through that and figuring out where it is.

It is 100% okay. To simply take a note of it in your notebook or wherever you choose to keep notes and then proceed forward in your draft as if you already made that change. The thing is guys, it is so easy in these projects, just because everything here is self-motivated. Nobody has hired me to write this book.

I'm writing this book just because I'm awesome. Because I want to do it and I love to do it. That [00:06:00] can also mean. that because it's just me and nobody is standing there tapping their toe in order for a, in order to get a release date or in order to get pages of the manuscript to read or whatever, because I am on my own timeline and only have to respect my own calendar.

It is really easy to just not do it. And it's really easy to slow down and to lose some steam. So if you choose. To not interrupt your pass. So with your first draft or with your first pass of developmental edits or any subsequent pass after that, what it does is it gives you a sense of completion. It gives you a sense of progress.

And so. , if you have taken notes as to where those different corrections and those different holes need to be, then you can go back [00:07:00] when you are done with your pass. and make those changes later. Sometimes we can get so hung up on a word or finding the perfect word or trying to figure out how a scene needs to play out, even though, you know, what the very next scene is going to be, or as I'm doing with developmental edits right now, sometimes patting out stuff.

So I I just discovered. That there are some little things with the relationship between my main characters that needs to be more developed. It needs to be more mature and it just needs to be more right now, they are just kind of. They, they read as colleagues where in reality, they are lovers.

They share a house, they have a very deep relationship. And so I need to work in the more mature relationship stuff that I haven't done yet. And I can. Spazz out about it [00:08:00] and freak out and go through and interrupt what I'm doing now and comb through what I've already combed through to try to find all of those little places.

Or I can carry on with my pass and simply take note that I need to further develop and pat out their relationship. So that on my next pass, I can do that. The thing is guys, we forget sometimes that we are going to be reading. These works in progress like a hundred jillion times and , and sometimes we. Get impatient.

And we forget that this process takes a lot of layers. There's a lot of building with this. and so it's easy to lose focus and it's easy to become impatient. And so in doing that in interrupting what we are doing so that we can go back and do this spazzy little thing of filling in something or worrying about a word or better developing a relationship now.

It, it can create a lot of chaos and a lot of [00:09:00] disarray in the whole process itself, especially if you are really early in the process now it is important to go through and complete whole passes of your book. And to have a notebook or a place to keep notes so that you can keep track of where all of those changes need to be.

And you can write down where they are so that when you're done with your pass, you can relocate those locations and futz about them. Then also, when it comes to things like word choices or some of these other things where. We're hitting a wall and we can't figure out what's actually happening or how the perfect wording for how things need to happen to lead to the next scene.

Sometimes when we are already past the next scene, we have already finished our past. Sometimes we are in a far better head space to problem solve than we were when we were in the middle of our pass. and [00:10:00] so then we are better equipped to improve our manuscript in those little chunks. And once those chunks.

Our improved upon, we make another pass. That's how editing goes. That is how this whole process goes. You are going to be reading your work in progress a number of times. And so it is important to read it in whole passes. So that is the news for today. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode on developmental edits and whatever.

I've decided to do a little collection of episodes on developmental edits, because that's what I'm doing now. And I am going to be compiling another little clip show on how the developmental edit kind of looks like as I'm doing it. Like I did with completing. First draft with ti. So that will be coming later probably in August.

[00:11:00] And yeah. Thank you for tuning in and be sure to tune in to next week's episode as well. Have a good day guys.

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Would you like a collection of meditations specific to the writing process to appear in upcoming podcast episodes? Let me know! Reach out on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Join me as I take you through the thought process of completing a first draft. Everything was recorded in the moment!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Let's take a look at the Neflix adaptation of Heartstopper, a teen romance of two boys who meet, become friends, and fall in love. This series, and the graphic novels they are pulled from, subverts tropes and cliches left and right in order to give us a straightforward and powerful message about the beauty of self-discovery.

(Also, there are at least 2 different ways to say the name Tara, and I apparently use them interchangeably. *shrug)

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:01:00] Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. My goodness, friends. It is the final episode that I have for you in this very special month of June. I don't know about you, but this Pride month has been a huge roller coaster for me. There has been a lot to do. There has been a lot to celebrate. And I wanted to carry on with this for one final episode, but I promise it applies directly to creative writing, but we are going to delve in to a Netflix series and a comic coincidentally enough that has made its way into my heart and into the hearts of millions of people around the world. we are going to be talking about heart stopper, which is a Netflix series taken from the comic of the same name, which is created by a woman named Alice Oseman. Heart stopper came to Netflix just over two months ago [00:02:00] and it has been received with incredible positivity and a huge fandom already. I don't think that the people who created heart stopper could have ever imagined the success that it would get in just two months. And it has been astounding. Some of the things that I have seen on the internet, heart stopper has encouraged so many people to share in such safe spaces, their own stories of coming out, their own stories of struggling with this or that. And it has created wonderful communities of engagement for people to share these stories.

And I personally believe that one of the most important things that we can do to heal one another is to listen to each other's stories. So today on Writing in the Tiny House, we are going to pick apart Episode three of heart stopper. And yeah, this is going to have spoilers. And so if you want to go ahead and hop on the [00:03:00] bandwagon and join the fandom of heart stopper, please do that.

And if you don't want to hear these spoilers, then go ahead and pause this episode and take four hours out of your life to watch Season One of heart stopper on Netflix, and then come back and listen to what I have to say about it. This is not a critique of the show, and this is not a review of the show.

I'm not going to pretend that everything about the show is perfect. But what we are going to do is talk about subverted tropes and subverted cliches, and the power that comes with keeping a storyline simple. I mean, sometimes a complicated storyline is absolutely what you need. If you are writing thrillers, if you are reading thrillers, then that's kind of what comes along with the genre.

However, if you have a very simple message about a situation that is oftentimes misunderstood, sometimes keeping it simple is the [00:04:00] most powerful thing to do. As I go through episode three of heart stopper, I'm going to share with you what happens in the episode and then share with you the different cliches that come about in teen romances and in some of these other LGBTQ plus related movies and other series that heart stopper avoided.

And what consequences it would have had had they played into that. So hard stopper is a very basic storyline and I love that. I mean, in the tagline for heart stopper, Alice Oseman says, boy meets boy, boys become friends, boys fall in love. And it's as simple as that. our main characters are Charlie and Nick.

Charlie is an openly gay kid and Nick is a rugby player, a popular one too. And they attend the same. [00:05:00] All boys, school of Tru um, grammar school. And they are a grade apart and due to reassignments and stuff, they're in the same form and this is how they meet each other. Through this series, we see Charlie coming to grips with self-esteem and his role of how he gets to have some of the happiness that other people can give him.

He has a history of being bullied and his coming out was not taken. Perfectly his coming out story was not easily accepted in an all boys school. On the other side of the coin or on the other half of this relationship, we have Nick who has, it seems never had a moment to explore or think about his sexual preferences or his sexual identity until he meets Charlie.

And. This first [00:06:00] season of heart stopper covers his coming to terms with his bisexuality. He comes to realize that he likes both boys and girls, and this is him coming to feel that out and to embrace what that actually is. So in seat, let's see, in episode three, The main part that I wish to talk about is the birthday party.

So this is a privileged kid's birthday party. He comes from a rich background and they rented an entire venue for him to celebrate his birthday. So the really like the ballroom, the really high ceilings. And of course, if you follow the staircases, there are empty rooms. all around. This is a very big building and they rented the whole thing to celebrate this kid's 16th birthday. During this party, it seems that everybody showed up and there are two other characters that become very, very [00:07:00] important.

I feel at this point in time. So Nick is. Brought face to face with a girl that he kissed three years ago. Her name is Tara and. While they're talking to each other. they have a private moment for a second in kind of a quiet hallway or a corridor or whatever. Tara gets the courage to confide in Nick that she is dating a girl and that she is gay and yay.

And Nick appears to be really appreciative of this and through their little conversation. We realized that Tara is very new to this scene, but she and her girlfriend Darcy are deciding to be more brave and less conservative about how they are. Dealing with their relationship. So they have decided to become a little bit more brave and to be a little bit more public with how they are showing their affection to one another.

[00:08:00] And Nick seems to admire this a few moments later, everybody is on the dance floor and the camera zooms in on Tara and Darcy. and they're dancing. They're having a great time. There are the fluorescent lights everywhere. There's the really loud, really exciting dance music. And the two of them share a kiss and it is one of the funnest.

beautiful moments in a teen romance that I have witnessed in a long time. And not only is it just a beautiful moment, but everything that comes afterward. So they are in a crowded dance floor and they have the courage to kiss each other potentially in front of all of these peers. and then immediately after the kiss, they get to celebrate by dancing.

And so they're holding each other's hands. They're doing the spinning in circles thing because the age group of this crowd is about 15 and 16 years old. And so they're [00:09:00] celebrating as teenagers would, this was a big milestone for them. And it seems that even though it is a crowded room, Nobody really saw them do it except Nick and Nick stands there and it is obvious. With the way it is portrayed. And with the way it is filmed that Nick finds this to be a very special moment and a big gift for him to explore his own feelings and a few moments later, he and Charlie go to one of the empty rooms up upstairs.

Now they're not bedrooms. This is a venue. This is like a smaller ballroom upstairs, or a smaller meeting room upstairs. And they're alone in this other room and they find the moments to very adorably share with each other that they have feelings for each other. And they, Nick and Charlie share their first kiss [00:10:00] immediately after that, because Nick is Venturing into uncharted waters. He hears some of his friends call his name. So he runs out of this smaller room to go talk to them because he's just worried. He doesn't want them barging in to see him and Charlie kissing and Charlie who is dealing with some of his past trauma and some of his distrust and his own self-esteem issues.

Cause his dad. Completely heartbroken to come pick him up and he leaves the venue and goes home. And you expect this to be probably the worst thing in the whole world, as far as the way the series goes. However, at the end of episode, three, Nick shows up in the rain and you know, that they are going to make things right.

And that is how episode three ends. So. Let's go through this again and talk about all of the tropes and cliches that heart stopper [00:11:00] chose to avoid in this. And I'm not, I'm probably not going to be able to touch on all of them, but I am going to mention some really big ones that show up in teen romance.

And I'm going to say right now that some of the things that show up with the LGBTQ representation or the one or two LGBTQ characters, oftentimes those characters are there to be funny. it seems the male character is there to be snappy and witty and sassy and.

Oftentimes, that is just kind of the role that they play, the stereotype that they get to be in with heart stopper. The entire thing is based on same gender, or there is one relationship that is transgender. And so representation is all over the place. But in this series, everything is treated as completely normal and that is already a huge.

Step that is [00:12:00] already a very big point to be made here, but let's get to episode three again, to this birthday party, it's already kind of a trope that there is a rich kid who can rent out an entire venue for his 16th birthday. I was raised in very small town USA, and I don't remember really anybody celebrating their 16th that big.

I mean, perhaps we could have rented out like, the front room of the days in or something. I mean, there were nice places in the city I grew up in, but these really big 16th birthday things, weren't something that we saw much where I was raised. I do know however that they do happen immediately. we see the absence of things that come up in a lot of teen romance or teen drama And the first thing that we get to not see is the presence of a lot of heavy drinking. So in almost I, in so many American. Teen dramas or teen romance series [00:13:00] and movies. If there is a party, it is going to be unsupervised and there's going to be buckets of underage drinking.

I know that underage drinking is a thing, but it seems that it shows up everywhere in cinema. I also know that this does not take place in America and underage drinking as far younger over there. And so that's fine. But this is actually the important thing. Nobody was drunk at the party.

there might have been something that I missed. I mean, there was one character kind of acting silly, but there wasn't drinking there wasn't drugs. There wasn't even talk of any of those things. And the reason why that's important is because these super tender moments that happen while at the party in.

Their own private ways. That first conversation between Nick and Tara, if Nick or Tara had been drunk or on something that conversation couldn't have been so intimate and so full of trust immediately, [00:14:00] it was because everybody was level headed that Tara decided to open up to Nick and tell him that she was a lesbian and was dating Darcy also.

On the dance floor when Tara and Darcy share in their kiss in front of all of their peers, the energy of that would've been entirely different. Had anybody been impaired, if that had not been a completely level headed kiss filled with love and joy and excitement and a huge moment of celebration, it wouldn't have carried the same weight and it would've not affected Nick in the same way.

Did. then later with the first kiss that Nick and Charlie share, we have all seen the movie where that first kiss or that first. moment or that first vulnerable moment, one of the people in the relationship is drunk and does something by mistake. It would've completely ruined the storyline of this season, or it would've just created a [00:15:00] problem that would've had to be resolved later and probably wouldn't have been resolved very well.

When when Tara and Darcy were on the floor and they have their kiss, they get a moment to celebrate and a moment to be excited about it. And Nick was there to see, there is always in a team drama. It seems that there is somebody looking out to stab somebody in the back. If that kiss would've been immediately ruined.

It's possible that Nick would've not had the courage to share his affection for Charlie. If somebody would've stepped in and made fun of Tara, of Tara and Darcy for kissing on the dance floor, the entire tone of the party and the entire tone of the events that could have come later, would've changed.

And it would've been more about throwing a wrench in the plot of the story, rather than showing [00:16:00] us the beautiful innocence and the beautiful transformation of these fun relationships. It also could have discouraged Nick from being brave and exploring his feelings for Charlie one last cliche, and then we'll wrap it up.

in episode three, Nick and Charlie have their kiss. and then Nick hears his friends calling out his name and because he's scared for whatever personal reasons. It doesn't really say what perhaps he was worried of them. Worried that they would walk in and find this and he wasn't ready for that. He immediately stands up and runs out of the room to go talk with them.

And who knows how long they were actually talking So a cliche that was avoided in this situation was actually having somebody walk in or having somebody listen in or having somebody a fly on the wall.

[00:17:00] Invade the privacy and the tender moment of these two boys sharing their, a admitting their affection for one another. And then that person holding it over their head as a form of black male. We've all seen that before. We've seen people kissing people and somebody seeing that who shouldn't have seen it and then holds it over their heads as a way to get what they wanted or as a way to ruin a reputation or just ruin something a way to exact revenge or a way to. Pull negative attention away from themselves or whatever that didn't happen here.

And I believe that had it happened that way. It also would've ruined the plot of the story. That was not the point of this. That was not the PO like that stuff is not the point of heart stopper. It's not how heart stopper works. in many of the current teen romances that [00:18:00] involve gay characters. It seems that many of the gay characters are very sex forward. And so to admit your feelings for somebody automatically leads to sex in those stories, that didn't happen with heart stopper either. In fact, there's no sex in hot in heart stopper, at least not in season one.

and that's nice. So the reason why we are talking about subverting tropes and subverting cliches is because hard stopper is all about exploring and inviting the viewer or the reader. If you are reading the comics, because you remember this is a Netflix adaptation of the comics that share the same name.

It allows the viewer or the reader to witness this beautiful blooming, this beautiful blossoming of something new. when it does that, the, [00:19:00] the reader or the viewer gets to see this happen and it allows them to feel, and it allows them to experience. The honesty of these situations and the honesty of these emotions, the thing is subverting all of these tropes and all of these cliches allows the entire emotion of.

Heart stopper to be 100% honest feeling. I mean, it's a work of fiction. None of this is real, but it allows it to feel authentic and because it feels authentic, there's something to learn about it. We get to see in Charlie, a person struggling and overcoming the effects of bullying and The hard times and the hard job that it is to overcome all of that and still remain happy.

He still struggles with it throughout the thing. And he's not 100% arrived at being better. at the end of the first season, And spoiler alert. The effects of [00:20:00] bullying actually gave him an unhealthy relationship with food, which is set up throughout all of season one. All of this completely makes sense also with Nick with him just being a simple rugby player.

Popular doing his best, but not living life in a very deep way. And coming to this awakening that he is bisexual, that he likes both men and women. And right now he really likes Charlie. And so he's going to pursue a relationship with Charlie and coming to the realization. Oh my goodness.

I am different. and, oh my goodness. What does this actually mean? Keeping everything honest and authentic pulls the reader in. So a lot of times the little tricks that I mentioned that heart stopper avoided, we throw those things in as a way to build tension in the storyline so that people will continue reading.

But the thing is one of the [00:21:00] biggest things that I have learned about writing is. That people continue to read because there is a reason to continue reading. They continue reading because they want to. So regardless of if it is tension, if it is a thick plot twist, or if it is the threat of blackmail or if it is a big mistake, because someone was drunk, sometimes it is more of a simple.

Honest heartfelt thing that will keep a reader hooked and a watcher in this case, because this is a TV show too. It will keep someone hooked to continue witnessing what comes next. So with heart stopper, we are watching the gradual budding and blooming of this beautiful same sex relationship. Actually, a couple of them.

[00:22:00] Tara and Darcy's relationship was a little bit further along the path. It started out further along the path at the beginning of heart stopper, but everything ends in a more beautiful place. And we see the very beginnings of a relationship between a trans girl and a straight boy. because this is only season one and there is already a huge cannon of comics. It, it makes us immediately want to go read all the comics. We do that because we know That unless we read more, unless we see more, unless we continue with all of this, we are not going to see the roses that are inevitably going to be at the end.

So that's the thing, friends, these little tricks, the little trophy things, the little cliches. Sometimes they do succeed in building tension, but sometimes. like in the case of heart stopper, they can [00:23:00] really pull us away from a deeper, more beautiful and more simple form of storytelling.

And it can prevent that from conveying a very beautiful message. So one of the biggest takeaways That has formulated in my mind is that all of this, the same sex relationships love can look any way that it wants to. And here is a beautiful example of how, and to be gay, a person can understand that they are gay from the very get go.

there are still other people who don't know. If they're attracted to men, women, or whomever in between until they are given the chance to decide, just because in Nick's case, it's possible that he never considered it. He never considered what all of that looked like for him until.

he was met with a boy who [00:24:00] peaked his interest and they became friends first before they became boyfriends. So that is the take home for today. If you are a writer or a creator of some form of content, where you have a lesson about a topic that is largely misunderstood.

And it can be about anything Sometimes keeping the story simple. Is a way to keep it powerful so that's all I have for you today. I hope that you have had a wonderful pride month. This has. One of the biggest months, probably in my adult life that I will remember. And I love the reason we celebrate pride. I am going to be celebrating pride in a very big way from here on out. So thank you for being with me all throughout this.

Thing. It has been a huge journey and I appreciate the support of each and every single one of my listeners. And [00:25:00] so go out and have fun writing. We will see you next week. On another episode of writing in the tiny house.

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.[00:26:00]

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“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months.

[00:01:00] Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. My goodness friends. It is toward the end of June. Can you even believe it? This has been the most eventful June in the history of ever for me, at least, usually June is kind of that forgotten month in the summer before all of the vacations happen.

And before the weather gets really, really hot, and it seems like I tend to forget that June even exists. However, with pride and with different things like that, this June has been crazy busy and it has been super eventful. Please tune into all of the other episodes this month. There's like three, all of them.

And yeah, they've been super personal. They have been very inspirational at the same time. When it comes down to the nitty gritty of writing, that's kind of not what this month has really been all about. So today we are just going to do a bit of an [00:02:00] update as far as writing goes. And little bit of tips and tricks with some stuff that I have learned as I've been compiling some of these more special episodes.

So you get to know that as of today, I have finished the first draft of Tiz which I have found out because of its word count is a modest novella. So it's about I think, 23,000 words, which makes it a novella according to the measurement of some. And that is super exciting. It means that I can delve right into editing and I prefer editing to drafting anyway.

And so I have been itching to get this far. The next episode that we have with Writing in the Tiny House is going to be more of a clip episode that brings you along for the ride with Tiz, with doing this first draft. That is something that I have never done on this show before. It is nothing that I have heard of in a podcast episode anyway.[00:03:00]

And so it should be a pretty good experience. And I'm really eager to share that with you. Sometimes it's fun to talk about what the steps are, what they look like. Sometimes the mental tracks that we go down and the thought processes that we have along the way, and other times, it's fun to demonstrate what all of those things actually look like.

And so while I have been drafting Tiz I have been recording thoughts and just feelings and challenges that I have encountered along the way and this way, as I compile another clip episode, you can kind of get the idea in real time, sort of in real time in the moment like live in the moment, but you understand what I'm saying?

So Tiz the first draft is finished and I will keep you abreast as to what the other steps look like, just because it is going to require a lot of editing. They [00:04:00] all require a lot of editing, but this is the roughiest rough draft I have ever done in my life. And that is the whole point of today's episode. So I have learned the value of dictation.

I can dictate four times as many words that I can write and so this doesn't mean that I still have two hours to simply dictate because that is really overwhelming. And that's not what I can handle.

What it does mean though, is I can dictate the same amount of stuff that I could write in two hours in 30 minutes instead. And because I am a person who has no free time, and this is something that really stresses me out, being able to dictate what I would do in a day in 30 minutes, frees up a lot of the stress and gives me a lot more of my time back to me.

And this matters just because I tend to be a person to stress [00:05:00] and worry about a lot of things. I also don't really allow myself to rest very much and I am prone to burnout. So to know that drafting is only going to be 30 minutes. It doesn't take me as long to fall into the groove of drafting. When I am blabbing to myself as a voice note into my phone, as it does, if, if I were to sit down and write, it takes longer for me to get into the flow and.

Like I said, I can crash through this a lot faster. The draft is rough. I'm not going to lie about that. But to me, the magic of writing actually comes through editing more than it does through drafting. And so I'm eager to take this to the next place just because it requires a different part of my brain.

It requires different energy. And I have been eager to get into that energy with this novella with Tiz. TIS has turned out to be a very special project. I am [00:06:00] eager to get it ready and to get it released. I'm also eager to start the next project, which could be another novella. It may actually end up being a novel called Mateo.

It is the next installment of tales from Laar. So be sure to tune in for more updates with that. So we all noticed, I'm sure that the title of today's episode is eat your frog. Mark Twain once said when he was talking about being productive, he said this, if it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs. It's best to eat the biggest one first. I am a fan of these fun little sayings when it comes to being productive in whatever else. This is mark Twain's way [00:07:00] of saying whatever is the hardest for you to do prioritize it and get it done first.

So for me, the priority right now, Is actually taking care of myself and allowing me to rest. And so just a, a review of some of the things that I do in my day, I have a full-time job and I have found out that unless I come home and rest for about an hour and a half, I am really going to be grumpy and hate the things that I work on for the remainder of the evening.

So. The first thing that I need to do that is a priority above all of the rest is to allow myself some R and R. However, the next thing that I need to prioritize. So it is my job in a way in the evenings, the frogs that I get to eat , which is a really unpleasant way of saying writing and getting my drafts done.[00:08:00]

But the thing that makes me the very happiest is making progress in my first drafts and making progress in my projects. And so that is the next thing that I have to do first.

The idea is get the horrible thing done in the morning so that it doesn't ruin the rest of your day. And if you need to eat two frogs eat the biggest one first. So to me, writing is important. Writing makes me happy and all of these other things that I also do, like the podcast. I love this podcast. I love writing more though.

So, because I've discovered this trick of dictating. and because I can get as much done in less time, it is less of a commitment for me to write. And so it is easier for me to simply get that done to simply get 30 minutes of writing done before I do all of the rest, I had to record a lot of things with the podcast today.

You can hear that I revamped the [00:09:00] intro and at the end of this, you're going to hear that I revamped the outro and yeah, that was the smaller frog. So I got the writing done and now I did the podcast editing and now I am recording a podcast and soon I am going to be recording a, a second podcast that I do for work.

So that is the little tip and trick for today. If your job is to eat a frog, it is best to get it done in the morning. And if your job is to eat two frogs, it is best to start with the biggest one first.

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my [00:10:00] writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

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Sentiments about Pride!

Also, Michael Allen shares with us the simple story of magic that came about in his life after he came out.

Michael's IG and Facebook page: @themichaelallen

What are the small things that are getting in the way of your creativity? How can you take charge of that?

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

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Know how your people are getting around, and what they layout of the land looks like in order to make things like travel more believable.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

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One of June's special episodes celebrating Pride.

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Elves. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] So let's just settle a debate right now. Tolkien's elves are better than all other elves, right? I'll let you decide. Today. We are moving into part two of our mini series of research, as it pertains to fiction on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:49] I am your host Devin Davis, and I live in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and I write stuff and tell you how to also write stuff. So the point of this podcast is to give you the steps and the insight and the advice needed so that you can produce a short story in as little as three months or a novel in as little as 18 months, and hopefully have the vision and foresight and wisdom necessary to adjust that timeline if you need to. Most projects are not done in that short amount of time. Last week, we kicked it off with research and fiction and how it is good if you are writing historical fiction and you are including nitty gritty details of a particular event in history that you are adding a fictitious point of view or fictitious related experience, or if you are changing that point in time completely or modifying it somehow.

[00:01:49] That it is good, it is common courtesy to include resources and references that you might've used to gather your information. With fiction you're not required to do a works cited page, but there's always the possibility of footnotes or even just author's notes at the end of your sections at the end of your chapters or whatever.

[00:02:09] And if your novel does some stylistic stuff, like at the beginning of each chapter includes quotes by an important person in history or current day, it's important to include who said that and possibly when and where. So today we are moving on just with how to research as it pertains to fiction.

[00:02:33] Like I said, if you're doing historical fiction, refer to the other episode, if you are doing something else, then go ahead and perk up the whole point of fiction is to create an experience that can be immersive and believable.

[00:02:48] And sometimes it requires polling knowledge and theory and practices and cultures out of our real world and implementing them in some way into your own writing. So for those of you who are new to the game, I am a part of many different Facebook groups and there has been some debate, it seems weekly, probably not weekly, but monthly on elves. And it seems that everybody thinks that all elves belong to J R R Tolkien and they are tall and they are beautiful and they are immortal. And we forget that before Tolkien did that with the Lord of the rings, elves we're little horrible creatures.

[00:03:30] And they were like little goblins and monsters and they fit into that category. So I bring this up just because sometimes we feel that there are cold, hard rules with how we are engaging our audience and how we are writing our stuff. And there are hard, like there are cold, hard rules. However, when it comes to elves and it comes to magic in general and it comes to any of these other particular things with elves,

[00:04:04] Elves come from basic lore of different cultures in this world. So do dwarves, so do fairies. So do like Druids and such. It can be really good to investigate and to become better educated on your own as to where these things came from and how you want to further run with that, or if you want, instead to just invent your own thing.

[00:04:34] I think about like Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan's implementation of Greek history or Greek mythology and Roman mythology and how he adds a modern spin on how those things come out. And sometimes I think that the books themselves are a little bit heavy.

[00:04:58] Some of the mythology and some of it could be weeded out, but I appreciate what he's done. And it's obvious that he has done research and is familiar with those things. and even though he did not come up with a lot of the things that he mentions in his books and a lot of the iconic characters of

[00:05:19] greek and Roman mythology, you can tell that he's still paying homage to those things. And he brings in some of his own stuff too. So when it comes to like elves and monsters and things, it's okay to know that not all elves are tall and beautiful. Not all elves have to be little monsters. Elves can be what you want, but if you choose to call those monsters, elves, you are representing a certain thing and it is really good for you to know what you are representing as good for.

[00:05:49] To know that those words mean something to someone. And if that is not the picture you are trying to create, it's okay to try for something else. So when you are going through and gathering your information like I said, with fiction, you're not required to do like a work cited page. And for me, I like to be educated in a very general way, just so I can Bring some of these different elements into my own world.

[00:06:19] And so when I say educated in a general way, what I mean is many of my stories in my world of late, or that I am building with these short stories and with some of the novels that I still have in progress, just because it seems as a writer, we get to have like 10 works in progress. They take place in a certain time period.

[00:06:39] That time period is similar to an American or European industrial revolution. And I choose to keep their calendars and their years and stuff. I choose to have that kept in a similar way, just so I can actually have years and dates that represent a specific time period that is reflective of our world too.

[00:07:02] And I wanted dress and appearance and culture to be represented of that. Just. Convey a specific time and place, or at least give a nod to a specific time and place. And so many of the stories that I'm writing in this world take place in what would be a late Victorian or early Edwardian equivalent of time.

[00:07:30] And so. This means I get to know what a frock is and I get to know what Crystalens are. And and just all of these things that pertain to dress the ins and outs of corsets. I mean, I never thought in a million years that I would be researching corsets and I, I do all of this just so I can bring that familiarity and Draw from those ideas and pull the reader into the world.

[00:07:59] It is okay to have some familiar elements in your writing if you choose to. And if you have those things already, it is easier for a reader to relate. So I encourage you to think about your work in progress and to come to a similar conscious decision on how you can pull from those familiar things. I think about the Bobiverse books, which is a science fiction series and how. The author, pulls so much scientific theory into his books.

[00:08:35] And his books are fast paced. They are light hearted. They are a riot, they are fun and they challenge, or at least they show a possibility of what things would look like with artificial intelligence, with sentience artificial intelligence, and it's fun to have a sentient being exist entirely in a virtual world and only express outwardly through machines is.

[00:09:01] A fun idea. And in order to do that accurately, he has had to show his own familiarity with some different scientific theory and with his understanding of chemistry and manufacturing of stuff and the physics of it all in a zero gravity environment. And so when you go through, make sure that, you know, if you are bringing in weapons or specific spells or references to LOR that comes from other cultures, make sure that you are doing that with sensitivity. Some people think that fairies and Fay and faithful and whatever else are all just fairies, that they are all like Sarah J mass fairies.

[00:09:52] And the thing is, that's not right, even though they are like small Woodland creatures and many of them have wings, a lot of these ways to spell fairy or Fe or whatever. Ha. Some cultural background and I personally feel it's important to know what that background is before we just kind of dive into it, like spelling magic with a C at the end or magic with a K at the end, just make sure you know what you're doing so that you're not.

[00:10:23] Blundering into some form of an insensitive situation. So that's it today. Be sure to tune in next week, as we further explore research, as it pertains to fiction, have a good day, guys. We'll see you then.

[00:10:38]

[00:10:38] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

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Let's take a look at research as it partains to fiction!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

View Details

You are in charge of your own marketing. For reals.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

View Details

Vanity Pubs really aren't all that bad.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week, we concluded our little mini section of this series of pitfalls of writing with talking about layout with giving some good guidelines on how you should be laying out your text if you are self-publishing. Today, we are moving away from cover art design and text layout, and we are moving on to bigger things.

[00:00:28] We are moving on to what happens after your book is done, or at least kind of. For this episode, we are going to be talking about vanity publishers today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. It is another Wednesday and I don't know about where you live, but here in Northern Utah, we've had another bout of cold weather. It snowed the other day. So we had to kick on our heaters again and here we are reliving like the eighth winter of this year.

[00:01:21] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny house. I am Devin Davis. I am the host of this show and I am the guy who writes things and tells you about it. And the whole point of this podcast is to give you the tools and the knowledge necessary to produce a short story in as little as three months, or to produce a novel in as little as 18 months, but to hopefully give you the wisdom and the foresight to adjust that timeline if you need. It is rare to produce a work that quickly, but it can be done. So today we are going to be talking about vanity publishers. I am a part of many different Facebook groups in this little world, and it seems almost every day or about every other day, somebody gets on the Facebook group and asks who should I pay to publish my book?

[00:02:10] And here is like just upfront, this is a big misunderstanding. In traditional publishing if you want to be traditionally published, you will not pay any money for them to publish your book. In fact, With a traditional publisher, what they will do is they will take your book and pay you an advance on that book, and then hopefully pay you royalties after you have earned out your advance. Most authors don't earn out their advance by the way. If you are in a relationship with a company who says that publishing is what they do, but they are asking for you to pay them money, they are not a traditional publishing company. Traditional publishing companies, like I said, they pay you.

[00:03:03] They pay you for your book. They pay you for the content that you are offering them so that everybody makes money through sales. A traditional publisher also will offer, well, we'll assign you to an editor and to a design team of some sort, and you may be involved with the design. You may be involved with the image production of your book. You may get to say yes or no to your book cover. You also may not. You may not even get to title your book. They may retitle your book, but all of that is the process of the traditional publisher. So we go through this, we have a book ready, we feel that it is time to take the next step towards releasing it out into the world for people to get it and to buy it and to read it.

[00:03:52] And we see these other companies who are offering publishing services, but you get to pay them. There is nothing wrong or evil about these companies. I do feel that they are misleading sometimes, but if a company is offering publishing services in exchange for you giving them money, they are what we call vanity publishers.

[00:04:19] And what a vanity publisher does is they offer you the services of doing the steps of self-publishing for you. When you publish under a vanity publisher, it will likely be under your name. You will have the rights to the book. And they may offer a few perks, like a newsletter or a magazine that circulates within their company.

[00:04:44] Or they may have some connections here or there. They can probably get your book into some brick and mortar stores. I mean, there's always some form of a catch or a perk that is attractive to people who don't necessarily know what they're looking for. And none of that is bad. Some of that can be good to the appropriate customer.

[00:05:06] If you are a person who has more money than they have time going through a vanity publisher, if you're not interested in querying and submitting to agents and going through the whole rigamarole of trying to traditionally publish sometimes approaching a vanity publisher as a way to do the self-publishing for you can be a very good thing just because self publishing takes even more time and it takes even more dedication and more brain real estate for your project.

[00:05:45] And if you are a busy person, like I said, who has more money than they have time sometimes hiring a company to do those steps for you will save you a lot of headache and allow you to free up some space toward other projects that you have going. The issue is that a lot of the vanity publishers are not transparent about what they are offering.

[00:06:09] Your book would still be considered self-published and That's just how that is. That's how vanity publishing works. Sometimes they will offer services to create a website for you. Sometimes they will offer a little bit of social media services, like. Offer you a spotlight on some of their platforms or offer you this we're that.

[00:06:30] And the thing is all of those services are valuable. It is absolutely okay to have some recognition and to have some spotlight stuff on social media. Great to be able to tap into that type of a resource. The thing is with these vanity publishers, they usually cost a lot of money for you to take your book from start to finish.

[00:06:52] Sometimes it can be upwards of $5,000. Sometimes it can be more than that. But the thing that they do offer is the connections to all of those different things. they know the artists, they know the people who can lay out your book. They have all of that ready because it is their business plan. They have the answers, they have solutions for that and you pay for it.

[00:07:15] that is what a vanity publisher does. That is what they are for. They are to do the steps of self-publishing for you so that you can finish your project or you can move on to something else or so that you don't have to kind of figure out all of the different steps with self-publishing in order to get your book ready.

[00:07:36] And that's okay. However, a vanity publisher is not a traditional publisher. I don't think that I can say that enough. And it all just boils down to an exchange of money. If they are giving you money, they are traditional publishers. If you are giving them money, they are not. This episode is definitely shorter than all of the other little episodes in this series of pitfalls of writing. But that's where we are. Vanity publishers are not bad. if you are giving somebody money in exchange for doing all of the steps for self publishing, your book is still going to be self-published.

[00:08:13] And so just be aware of where your money is going and what the end result is going to be. So there's nothing. That, but next week we are going to be talking about marketing. So once you have your book ready, the fight isn't over. So join in next week. As we talk about marketing on writing and the tiny house.

[00:08:34]

[00:08:34] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

Find out some very basic tips to get a good layout to text if you are self publishing. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

The pitfalls of book covers!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Over the past two weeks, we have talked about the pitfalls that come in writing. So the pitfalls or these two pitfalls that come with craft. Today, we are going to do episode one of two about the pitfalls of design, layout, and design today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello. Hello, and welcome to the show.

[00:00:49] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis and I live in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and writing is one of my very favorite things to do, and I write things and I have this podcast to tell you guys all about it. I have produced a number of different things in my day. I have also done a lot of research and whatever.

[00:01:13] I tend to do my best to be as current as I can be on the things that we talk about in this podcast. And I'm here to show you that a short story can be produced in three months and a novel can be produced in 18 months. And hopefully through this podcast and through whatever other resources you are using, you can get the wisdom to understand that sometimes that timeline needs to be modified.

[00:01:45] Back in October, I released the short story Brigitte and from draft to publish that short story was cranked out in two months. And it's a good short story, guys. I feel it's proof that a system can work if you are prepared for it. But as we can see, simply six months later, uh, my next short story, which is going to be Tiz, the second installment of tales from Vlaydor, is still in the drafting stage. And I have not looked at it for many Wiles for many weeks, and that is because life happens and sometimes you get to allow for that. So today we are talking about specifically your book cover if it's not going to be a book, the cover art that you are using for your stuff, the cover art that represents your work. So here's the deal, guys. I'm going to hurry and lay down some truth about your book cover, some kind of hard to swallow truth. Your book cover is your most powerful marketing tool.

[00:02:57] So here's the deal and it truly is your book cover represents a certain amount of value of what is inside the cover of what is the content of this thing. It represents that. If it is not designed correctly, your work may be misrepresented and people will not be interested in reading it or buying it.

[00:03:21] And so here's the deal, with a lot of this, especially with like self publishing. Sometimes we feel that we need to do all of the things. And the fact of the matter is even if you are traditionally published, you are going to be doing most of your promotion. Most of your advertising will be done yourself.

[00:03:40] And it's okay to know that. It's okay to be prepared for that. If you get traditionally published, I hope that your traditional publisher will give certain amounts of resources to you, especially they tend to do that for debut novelists, not necessarily for a second book. As much. And the thing is with publishers, they are here to make money, which means they funnel their marketing resources to the people and the books that are already bringing in money instead of risking all of it on all of these newbies or specifically on all these people who have written a second book.

[00:04:21] So debut novelists often make a bigger splash than the second book that they write. And if the second book is one of a trilogy, it will sell fewer copies than the first book does. And the third book will sell fewer copies than the second one, it's just how that tends to go. You will find plenty of exceptions to that rule, but you will find plenty more that fall in to what I just said.

[00:04:49] So with your book cover, a lot of us feel that we are doing all of the things by ourselves. And so in order to save money or in order to save time, we feel that we need to also design a book cover in addition to writing an amazing book. My experience is, and this is going to be hard to swallow, perhaps, but this is my experience.

[00:05:15] Not all writers make good graphic arts designer. Not all writers should design their own book cover. Me included. So if you look at Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: Brigitte, you will see that I designed that. So here I am saying don't do what I did. I designed that on my iPhone. And the thing is, Bridgette was largely an experiment in many different ways to test a system.

[00:05:45] And I had all of the resources in place for the content of the story. I had my editor in, I had my trusted team of beta readers to bounce ideas off of, and I did not have the resource of a graphic arts designer on board with that. So I did my own because we were doing a system. We were testing a system.

[00:06:06] If you look at the book cover for Brigitte, there are too many words on it. It's okay. It's not great. I'm not going to tell you that it's great. It's okay enough though. It's okay ish. In further, I guess, versions of Brigitte when I have a larger collection of these Tales from Vlaydor under my belt, I will have better artwork that is already on the plan.

[00:06:30] So here's the deal. When you look at your cover art and you go to design a book cover, or if you are hiring a graphic arts designer, there are things that you really need to pay attention to. Just like the content of your book, it needs to be recognizable as being assigned to a genre while at the same time eye-catching and interesting.

[00:06:56] And it's really hard to play that game of balance sometimes. Am I original enough to catch people's attention and to keep their focus, but Am I so different that people can't figure out where my book should be? Just because people like genres, people like to read specific genres and if your book doesn't seem to fit, they're not going to be as inclined to pick it up.

[00:07:23] And so there is a certain look to contemporary romance. There is a certain look to contemporary fiction. There's a certain look to many historical fiction, and there's a, certain look to many different sub-genres of fantasy. It's important to be familiar with what you're going for and what you feel your book could fit in with where your book could go and find that balance between

[00:07:52] interesting, but also understandable as to where it can go. So interesting. But categorizable, Your book needs to have certain symmetry. It also needs to have certain fonts, like a certain font effect. Don't use the font

[00:08:10] Papyrus. Don't use that. You don't get to have that unless your graphic arts designer is going to be modifying that in some way.

[00:08:17] Your book cover needs to be readable. And so if you are doing a big fancy something or another, with the words itself, turning the words themselves into a type of art, it needs to be readable and it needs to be readable from a distance. This was, a bit of a complication that we were having when we were going through the design process of my first novel as magic shifts.

[00:08:45] So with that book, the word magic is very artistic. It's not a font. It's. Lettered after like magical smoke. And at first the artist who did the art for the book wanted the entire title of the book to be in that style of smoke. So he wanted all three words as magic shifts to be. This smokiness and it was super fun, but it was really hard to read, especially if it's going to be the front cover of the book.

[00:09:22] So what we did was we kept magic. Magic was easy enough to read, but as and shifts, we made more legible with a font and it works. And then on the back cover where. The art history stuff is not as important because it's not noticed first. We had a smaller version of the entirely artistic title as magic shifts in that magical smoke on the back cover.

[00:09:53] And that was a fun touch. the artist also included a couple other images that he gave to me in the package deal, I guess, that we brought in to the chapter headings as icons. And so the chapter headings themselves have some original artwork, which was fun to incorporate, but that is going to be talked about on the next episode.

[00:10:16] So tune in for that next week. But like I said, Earlier your book cover is your most powerful marketing tool. When you save up your money and you hire a graphic arts designer and you hire an artist, the thing is guys be prepared to save up some money for that. There are some other options though. I have been on some.

[00:10:41] Specific Facebook groups of graphic arts designers that crank out book covers and the art is actually very good. And if you can find one that works for your story or needs some very simple modifications, you can get away with a decent book cover for 70 to $300, depending on where you look, I pay.

[00:11:06] For completely original artwork. I paid $800 for as magic shifts. For the witch's pupil, which in my opinion is even better artwork. And I can say that without hesitation, because the same artists did it for the witches pupil. I paid $650 for that because I went with the same artist, the artists who did those book covers is a man named Tyler at the time he worked for Marvel comics.

[00:11:33] I don't know if he still works there. I haven't kept in touch with him over the years. save your money when you get your book cover, Make sure that your artist or your graphic arts designer, sometimes you hire an artist for the artwork and then a graphic arts designer to design the cover and incorporate that artwork as a book cover.

[00:11:54] I'm likely going to do that when I do some bigger projects here, I don't think I'm going to do it exactly that way with my short stories, just because the short stories don't represent the same time commitment as a novel does. When all of that happens, make sure you have a portrait version of your book cover and to make sure that you have a square version of your book cover.

[00:12:17] you want those two, if not more different versions of your book cover for several different reasons. If you ever choose to do an audio book of your book. The cover art for audio books is square. Also, if you're posting your book cover, on social media, like Instagram, you post square pictures, those posts are square, and it's good to use those.

[00:12:44] If you have those two images. Ratio sizes then you can make on your own, the various different images that you are going to do to promote the release of your book, the sale of your book, and any type of other promotions that are going along so long as the book is available. And you can do that very easily through apps.

[00:13:08] that you can get on your phone, like Canva or a couple other apps like that. So the images that people are only going to see likely once. With big text about like releasing February 1st or whatever the text may be. You can do those on your own, but the book cover itself, I will never recommend a writer to sign their own book cover.

[00:13:35] Also, if you're a writer and you are reaching out to an artist and a book designer, don't require them to read your book, you get to be talented enough to write. a summary of your book anyway, or a hook or the stuff you're, you're going to be including on the back of your book called the back matter or whatever, or on the inside sleeve, that needs to be enough to make the book understandable.

[00:14:02] And that needs to be enough for, you know, a person to start a basic design and then get some feedback along the way. requiring an artist to read your book cover to cover in order to effectively design artwork is not feasible and nobody is probably going to jump to do that. So I have seen some artwork by writers that is usually pretty laughable.

[00:14:26] the artwork tends to be pretty low Rez. It tends to be a patch work of stock images, which is fine. But, a graphic arts designer will often use stock images, but they know how to knit it all together and make it. Professional looking. Sometimes it can include original photography, which becomes really weird and confusing.

[00:14:51] If you are doing a fantasy book and your homemade cover arts is like your neighbor dressed up in a homemade wizards, robe beside a Creek in your backyard. And they're like chanting and casting a spell and it looks like someone snapped a polar or. it can get really weird and confusing. So my challenge to you is to find a sub genre.

[00:15:19] If you are in fantasy or whatever, find a genre or a sub genre that your book belongs in and See what the other cover arts of many books that belong in that genre looks like, see how they do things. just see and pick out some things that you like, pick out some things that you want to represent.

[00:15:39] and then finds an artist That can mimic that or do that, or has the style that is similar to that so that your book cover will be original, but still fit. So that is my take on book covers. If you are a writer, don't design your book cover. just don't do that.

[00:16:01] You have already written a big thing and you have gone through the revision process and whatever else, but I can tell you, it is not the same work to design art as it is to design. A story. It's not the same work. It requires a different set of skills. So cut yourself some slack and simply save up some money to hire somebody hire professional or get professional work done somehow.

[00:16:26] So that is it for today on cover arts. Join me next week. As we talk about the layout of your book on writing and the tiny house.

[00:16:38]

[00:16:38] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

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TOO MUCH DESCRIPTION!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week we began another mini series because thus far, this year has been the year of mini-series. But we started another mini series on the pitfalls of writing, just some things to avoid. And we are carrying on with the pitfalls of writing today with the second episode of this little mini series on craft.

[00:00:25] So I explained last week that we're going to do craft, we're going to do a couple other things, but we're talking about the pitfalls of craft today on Writing and the Tiny House. Hello, hello. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who writes things in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and then tells you all about it.

[00:01:14] So the point of this podcast is to give you the tips and tricks to create a good finished piece in order to share it with whomever you want to share it with. If you want to make money, if you want to sell it and make a profit, which is making money, this is kind of how it can be done. So I'm here to show you that a short story can be written in three months.

[00:01:38] From drafting to publishing, and a novel can be written in 18 months. I'm also here to tell you that sometimes if you decide to do things that way, or if you rush through the process, you can kind of screw yourself over. And so we're giving you the wisdom to avoid all of those things as well. The writing process can be done pretty rapidly if you know what you're doing, and if you've done it before, if you have not done it before, it can take a little while longer.

[00:02:08] last week we talked about the pitfalls of L Y adverbs. It's just a way to doll up your work. A way to add words, a way to increase your word count. but a better way is to use verbs that don't need adverbs and to use stronger descriptions so you can get rid of your L Y adverbs. Today on Writing in the Tiny House

[00:02:34] so we are going to be talking about using too much description. So there is a lot to be said about this. I Recently started a short story. It was a thing on Amazon Vela. So it's a serial novel, I guess. Vela is a way for authors to release short story segments periodically, or I guess, chapters of a novel periodically so that you can kind of have this serial

[00:03:05] effect like, this is what, this is how things happened in like the Victorian days. A lot of the classic literature that we call classics now, like Lamees and some other ones were actually released serially. They were released in parts and it's just kind of a fun way to revisit that, to revisit the way that things were, but with a modern adaptation.

[00:03:28] So I was reading this piece from Vela and there was so much description in what I was reading, that it was hard to actually understand what I was reading. It was hard to pick up on the plot. It was hard to identify with the characters. It was hard to do all those things just because the writing was so heavy Laden with description. It was down to the sounds. It was down to the appearance of everything, the appearance of absolutely everything. I mean, the story opened up with this like undead army coming to life and like storming this farmhouse, which is a really exciting concept. But. There was so much of the farmhouse and so much of the method that these undead soldiers were marching and so much of the bunny Hutch and the various different things found in the farm that it was hard to pick out the story itself.

[00:04:33] So this is the thing when it comes to description, a lot of us think that the more we add, the more delicious the piece becomes. And that is not always the case. I mean, sometimes like if, if we are having a cake, if we want to move away from writing and talk about cake, because really who doesn't want to talk about cake, it is entirely possible to add too much crap onto a cake and it ruins the cake.

[00:05:02] It is entirely possible to have too much frosting, to have too much decoration, to have too much stuff. So that the cake itself is not really a part of the dessert anymore. And we miss the cake because of everything else. The same is true with writing. So if things are. So descriptive. If we describe every little bug movement, if we describe every little freckle on a person's face if we describe every thread in their clothing, everything, it pulls us out of the story and more into the description.

[00:05:39] Which isn't what we want. And it's funny that that is entirely true. What I just said, it pulls this out of the story and sinks us into the description instead. that's not, it, that's not what we want. So I have been reading still the book, a swim in a pond in the rain, by George Saunders. And one of the things that he talked about that relates to description, but can also be tied into many other things.

[00:06:06] In a work in progress in any other book that you can think of is it is the difference between having a conversation with somebody where it is give and take, and the conversation happens, and you're both expressing your original thoughts but still following the same train of thought, it is the difference between doing that and having.

[00:06:32] A conversation that is pre scripted. So. stay with me cause this totally it made sense to me. If you were meeting a person for the first time and you meet them and things are great and organic and you're having a great time and it's easy to exchange ideas it's easy to communicate what's on your mind and share beliefs and whatever else, things get super interesting.

[00:06:57] And you end up leaving feeling like you are full. However, if you are a nervous type and this, brings memories of the show monk that came out years and years ago, if you are the type where you are nervous by a conversation. And so you kind of write down some talking points and you go to sit down with somebody and you're talking and then like you pull out the next talking points and then you talk about that and then you pull out the next talking point.

[00:07:25] The other person is not as involved in the conversation as you are. You are dominating the topic of the conversation by leaving out that. It's kind of like a job interview. That's how job interviews tend to work much of the time. And so with writing, it is best to simply use enough that works and then stop.

[00:07:49] you, as the writer are conveying thoughts that are super important to you and you certainly want. Everything to work in a desired way. There is a formulation to what you are doing. There is a reason why things are being laid out as they are, because you get to get there.

[00:08:07] You get to take a person from the beginning to the end, and this is the way you do it. However, oftentimes we forget that the reader has a brain and the reader is a person and the reader has. Memories and backgrounds and similar interests and things to us that they can draw from if they are allowed to, to make whatever you are writing, just as enriching to.

[00:08:36] And so it is important to sit down and see kind of where you are going with the current chapter that you're in or the short story that you're in or whatever, see where you are going and see if all of the description is 100% necessary, just because it is super great to allow a reader to fill in some of the blanks.

[00:08:58] Sometimes I have had. Discussions with many of my closest friends about books. always seem to be about books and with something like a novel with something like fiction, it is interesting to talk about how they envision things, how they envision the house, especially if the layout of the house isn't super important.

[00:09:23] To describe or how they envisioned the person's outfit or the person's hairstyle or whatever. And from those conversations, I have come to see that my friend and I had different experiences overall of many of those stories. They were different experiences that led to kind of the same feelings and the same life lessons and the same, you know, stirring moments.

[00:09:54] But as far as envisioning who Mr. Darcy is, or whatever, the person that I envisioned was different from the person that they envisioned. And that was okay to allow me that wiggle room as a reader. To fill in the blanks as I could, in ways that made sense to me was beneficial to me it allowed me to be more involved with my reading experience and it allowed me to enrich the experience on my own to use my own brain and to understand things in my own.

[00:10:32] Realm of understanding so that I was more involved in my own reading experience sometimes we choose to fill in a lot of description because we don't trust that our reader knows what they are supposed to be envisioning. And sometimes that can serve the reader a disservice. So. I invite you to come over your work in progress and to think about the moments where it feels like the job interview with the descriptions where you are not allowing a moment for the reader to fill in the blanks on their own.

[00:11:09] Allowing the reader to draw from their own understanding of words and understanding of situations and enjoy the book in their own way. So next week we are going to carry on with some of these pitfalls that we are changing to another subject. We are changing over to design and cover art. So be sure to join in next week on a new episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Thank you so much, guys. We will see you then.

[00:11:42]

[00:11:42] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] So you're a new writer. You are about to get started on your very first work in progress, but you are a little timid to get started because you don't know some of the danger that lies ahead. We are going to be talking about the pitfalls of writing. Today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:21] Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:48] I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah who tells you about writing as I write. Or as I want to write right now, my works in progress are a little bit put on pause due to personal reasons, but I love to share the way that writing works and the way that publishing works and the way that self publishing works.

[00:01:16] I have decided to do this next little series, because I guess this year, we're all about the series of episodes. This upcoming series is all about the pitfalls of writing. Some of the things that we get ourselves tangled up in that can make writing hard or disappointing, and that is anything from craft to publishing.

[00:01:39] And so I'm going to do two episodes on craft, two episodes on design, and then wrap up this little mini series on publishing itself. So let's get into the first episode on the pitfalls of writing that many newbies find themselves doing, and that is the trap of L Y adverbs. If you have ever read the very first Harry Potter book and you have read it out loud,

[00:02:15] I encourage you to do that. Most of us have read Harry Potter and so take Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and sit down for a while and read it out loud. L Y adverbs, if you are new to the game of writing, L Y adverbs are one of those things that we do in order. There they are a crutch. They are words that we use to make things pretty, to make things prettier sounding, but they are a crutch to not using better words.

[00:02:52] L Y adverbs allow us to use weak verbs And then put a bandaid on them by using an L Y adverb. L Y adverbs are the difference between

[00:03:05] speaking loudly and yelling or

[00:03:09] walking quickly and running. L Y adverbs you will find, can usually just be stricken from your manuscript. And if you really like your L Y adverb and what it's doing for you, see if you can simply use a stronger verb so that you can get rid of the L Y adverb. So a writer who struggles with L Y adverbs, it is usually something that can be pinned down very early in the editing process.

[00:03:42] You send your work to a critique partner or whatever, usually a critique partner can pick up an L by adverb problem within the first 500 words of your manuscript. And if they know what they're doing, they will send it back to you with that type of feedback before having to read the rest of your manuscript. Or if you are early in the drafting process and you haven't finished your work yet, sending your work to do ,a quick, like first five pages or whatever, first chapter to a critique partner

[00:04:19] so that you can get feedback like L Y adverbs, like passive voice, some different things like this, so that you can correct it early in your craft, early in your work in progress, and then address that as you carry on. So, like I said, L Y adverbs are the bandaid on a weak verb. And the way to get around L by adverbs is to use stronger verbs.

[00:04:44] Now I'm not ever going to say that L Y adverbs are off limits, but I might as well, especially if you are new to the game. L Y adverbs are great. They serve a purpose and using them sparingly is great, but it is better to lean towards not using them at all. And so if you want to just open up your work in progress and do a quick find for L Y it will bring to your attention all of the times that you use L Y adverbs.

[00:05:19] And I'm going to throw in the word. Very is not an L by adverb, but it is an adverb that can just be removed from your manuscript. I believe it was mark Twain that said the way to deal with, or I'm paraphrasing. I'm not quoting this directly and it may not be from mark Twain. Don't. Quote me on any of this, but a great writer once said, and I'm paraphrasing that an easy way to to deal with the word very is to change all of the instances of very, to the word.

[00:05:55] Damn. And then your editor will remove all of the times you swore in your manuscript, and it's an easy way to get rid of all of it. So very and L Y advert. Oftentimes can simply be deleted if you read your work in progress and you come across all of these L Y adverbs, read it again with the LOI adverbs simply deleted.

[00:06:22] Sometimes the fix is easier than you think. Sometimes we don't have to futz around with $10 words. Or fancy words or consult our thesaurus so that we can still come up with a good verb. Sometimes the verb is okay and the LOI adverb can simply be removed.

[00:06:46] So this was one of the things that I struggled with with my first book as magic shifts, which was released, I think in 2008. As magic shifts took me, I think, 13 months to complete the first draft and my editor, Luanne Staley, who is no longer with us. She passed away a number of years ago. She did exactly what I just described to you.

[00:07:15] She took my manuscript. She didn't have to read it all in order to address some things that I could work on myself to clean up throughout my manuscript. Oftentimes, that can be a big waste of time for both of you. And she addressed my LOI adverbs and what she did was in my document. She actually highlighted them.

[00:07:36] She went through and made them all yellow. And so I had these glaring. From my document and it was obvious to me that I was using them too often. So I invite you to do the same, simply do a search for L Y and see how many instances you use L Y adverbs and work on greatly reducing them. LOI, adverbs, weaken your voice.

[00:08:03] They weaken the strength of your tech. They weaken your pros and they can really get in the way with pacing with the way that the words are flowing and the way that things are unfolding in your story, they can trip you up. And another way, aside from the search that I suggested a moment ago is to read your manuscript out loud.

[00:08:26] If you can tell that you are saying words that. And in the sound Lee too often, and you can tell that it's tripping up the cadence of your sentences and it's tripping up the flow of your words and it's tripping up all the other things that I mentioned. Then you need to remove your L Y adverbs. So replace them with a stronger verb.

[00:08:53] Or just delete them and see how your verb holds up on its own. So that is L Y adverbs for today. This is kind of a shorter episode. Next week, we are going to be focusing on another pitfall, which is too much description. So join me then on the next episode of writing in the tiny house, have a great day guys.

[00:09:18]

[00:09:18] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

The final part of our Writer's Block series. What to do when you encounter writer's block because of your mood and the circumstances of your life.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

So we've talked about writer's block for a couple weeks. Now this is week number three. We talked about the structure of the outline itself. We talked about the story arc, but what if it is simply you getting in your own way? We've all been there too, my friends. So let's talk about your inner environment and how that can lead to writer's block today on Writing in the Tiny House.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the [00:01:00] Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in the tiny house in Northern Utah. And I write things and I tell you about the process so that you can write things. The whole point of this podcast is to give you the tools and the knowledge necessary for you to do your own creative writing so that you can crank out a short story in three months or crank out a novel in 18 months and still have the wisdom and the foresight to adjust that timeline if you feel you need to.

Most things aren't done that fast, but it's good to know that they can be. So today we are on part three of our little mini series on writer's block. And today we are talking about the inner conflict that each of us has with our work in progress.

So regardless, especially if you are writing a long thing, if you are writing a thing that is not going to be over [00:02:00] and done with in like one day, you are bound to have days where you hate what you've written. And you hate your work in progress. You hate your computer. You hate the place where you write, you hate your desk.

You hate your chair. I don't have a chair. I hate my floor. I hate my standing desk. There are days where you will have a really bad attitude and there are days where t he energy of your work in progress doesn't match what you are going through. Sometimes this can be a really big thing. Most of the time it will be kind of a smaller thing that you can figure out and push through or figure out and resolve, and then get back to work on your work in progress.

And other times it might require something else. So with your work in progress, if you are a person who has been pushing and pushing to get your word count in, and you have developed this cool writing routine, you have developed [00:03:00] this wonderful routine of writing every day, you have a nice lofty word count, and you have been achieving that word count all the time, but sometimes you feel like you're still spinning your wheels just because the work in progress can be a pretty complicated and a pretty long thing.

It is completely normal to set out and think that your short story is going to be 9,000 words and it ends up being 20 or that your novel is going to be 95,000 words. And it ends up being like 125,000 words. That happened with my first book. I wasn't expecting it to be as long as it was. So anyway, word counts can surprise us.

And sometimes even though we're writing a ton of words and we are being these good disciplined writers, sometimes some times writer's block can happen just when you need an emotional break. [00:04:00] Sometimes you need a break. Sometimes the very best thing to do is to put some distance between you and your work in progress and let that work in progress cool off. And when we say that work in progress cool off what we actually mean is you get to cool off.

All of these attitudes, all of this despair, all of this, you know, grumpiness or whatever. All of the negativity associated with your work in progress. If you take a second, you save your work, you close it out and you let it sit there for an amount of time. If you have wrapped up a novel and you're at the end of your novel, it is good to let it sit there for at least two weeks and let it cool down.

If you are struggling through a work in progress, sometimes, give it a day, give it two days, give it a weekend. If you are going on vacation, maybe you can write up until the day before you go on vacation and then like go on vacation and make sure that your vacation is [00:05:00] a way from all the things. And perhaps it needs to include your work in progress.

And then when you get back, you can pick it up again and you'll be in a better place. Sometimes it can be just letting it go for the night. So that you can go outside, you can breathe some fresh air, you can get some exercise, you can play with your kids. You can play with your dog. You can go see a movie.

You can go do all of these other things that perhaps you have not done as much of, because you have been focusing more on being your version of this studious dedicated writer. And taking a break from your work in progress can be enough to simply let your brain calm down, let the negativity that has been building up, disperse, disappear, go away so that after your break and I don't mean forever.

I mean sometimes, I mean, forever in a second, I'm [00:06:00] going to mean forever, but let your break be a simple way to recharge your batteries in whichever way charges your batteries best so that you don't develop a negative relationship with your work in progress. Just because if you have. A story or a novel or whatever that you're working on and you absolutely hate it.

It will show in your writing. And if you are, writing as a way to beat yourself up, because you have something to prove or because if you don't write every day, then you're not a good writer, which is not right. Then developing a negative relationship with writing will eventually wear down your desire to write, and it will wear that away.

And so I personally don't ever want to get into the spot where I hate writing period, the end. I instead find ways to give myself space and find ways to take care of myself so that [00:07:00] I can pick it up at a later date. Even if I don't know when the later date is going to be.

So let's talk about a time where maybe you get to step away for forever and all ways. This shouldn't happen to you a lot. There are plenty of writers in this world who have written a lot more than they have shared. I am one of those people. So to just be cranking out creative content is certainly a possible thing too.

it's a thing that we can do. It's a thing that I've done, but sometimes a person's published list is not an accurate reflection of all of the writing they've actually done. Back in November, if you have been following this podcast you are aware that we have been on the air, so to speak for more than a year now.

We are in the sixties with our episodes, which is super cool. And like the downloading numbers for this podcast have been going [00:08:00] up slowly but surely this is pretty niche. I mean, creative writing is pretty niche when it comes to podcast content, but we're doing it. We're growing, we're getting more people involved and things are fun, and it's really fun to see it grow.

But if you were around, back in November, You may remember that I was drafting a short story called auto and auto was something that I was really passionate about at the time. However, the content of the story itself was going to be really heavy. It was going to kind of take on an amount of like the little match girl.

Type of story where there are definitely some glimmers of hope, but the overall story is pretty sad. I mean, with a little match girl, the poor girl dies at the end. It wasn't going to be exactly like that, but it was a thing where everything was just really sad and there's a little. [00:09:00] Of hope at the end, but it's all still really sad.

Now, if you remember back in January 1st, I came out as gay on Facebook and to my friends and family. And there were weeks and weeks of preparing for that. That was a really big courageous, emotional moment for me. And. Back in November is actually when I started doing the mental and emotional work for whatever possibilities would come about from doing that from coming out at age 37 on January 1st there was a lot to worry about.

There was a lot to work through and so dealing with real life back in November. And having such a dark and sad work in progress. I mean, had it been a different time in my life, I would have. Loved to finish drafting auto and I would've made it [00:10:00] the saddest thing in the entire world and it would have been great.

It would have been heavy. It would have been sad. It would have also been great, but because of personal things, there came a moment because of life, because of real life, there came a very big moment in my journey with Otto that I simply could not write more and I wanted to power through it and I wanted to stay.

I wanted to still write, I wanted to finish it. I'm a finisher of things. I start projects and I finish them and finishing things makes me feel like I've accomplished a thing. It's something that I find a lot of value with. Instead, I had another idea for another short story. Tos that I am still working on right now.

I have taken a brief hiatus from writing just because I've decided to start [00:11:00] dating a little bit and so free time. I mean, it's a. But with TIS with tos, it's a story of two dedicated lovers. It's a story that fills me with hope and brought a lot of my beliefs about relationships and about unconditional love and what unconditional love actually means and how it would manifest in the lifetime of, of two partners.

And I was excited to write that. And so. At the time I told myself that I was putting auto on the back burner and I started writing TIS instead. And tos fills me with joy. It fills me with hope. it is a message that I love that I want to run with. Whereas Otto was more of a message about bullying and I wasn't in a good mental space for that.

And so. Sometimes to deal with writer's block, we get to write something else. that [00:12:00] means creating space between yourself and your current work in progress in order to start a different work in progress. And you can always revisit what you are leaving behind, or sometimes you. Bid add you to the things that you are leaving behind, which is what I think is going to happen with auto.

I'm not sure that I'm ever going to pick that up again. Maybe sometime in the future. I mean, I guess never say never, but certainly not today. And probably not tomorrow. So this has been the final episode of our three-part series on writer's block. sometimes you get to pay attention to your internal world and take care of yourself.

As a way to combat writer's block. So thank you so much for joining me. Let me know your thoughts on the past three episodes of writing in the tiny house [00:13:00] and be sure to tune in next week with a new episode of writing in the tiny house. Thank you so much for your time. We will see you there.

Devin Davis:

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.[00:14:00]

View Details

When writer's block happens because the characters arcs don't make sense anymore.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] So we were talking about writer's block and let's talk about another thing or another type of writer's block. Sometimes it's not so much that we don't understand the events that happened; it's that we don't understand our characters. So as we carry on with our second part of this writer's block series, we are going to delve into story arcs.

[00:00:30] Today on writing in the tiny house. Hello? Hello. Hello, and welcome to today's episode. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah who writes things and then likes to share what the writing process looks like. The whole point is to give you the tools and the inspiration and the knowledge necessary for you to start and finish a short story in three months, or to start and finish a novel in 18 months and above all to give you the wisdom and the foresight to understand that sometimes that timeline will need to be adjusted.

[00:01:32] I would dare say almost every time. Sometimes not understanding the time commitment that something like this has, can deter us from even getting started. And so understanding that it is something that can clip along at a fast pace if we want it to, and if we are prepared to make that happen can be valuable for a lot of us to even get started.

[00:01:53] So last week we talked about our cold hard outline. We talked about the scenes and we talked about reorganizing scenes. Revisiting and revising our outlines as a way to combat writer's block. Especially if we are writing a plot heavy book. If we are writing something super plot driven as fantasy and science fiction tend to be, sometimes our outlines need to be a bit more dynamic.

[00:02:23] And sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to take a day off of our word count goals in order to revise the map of what our story is going to be and where things are headed. So today, and this is a situation that I ran into pretty recently. It is not so much that we don't understand the structure of the story itself.

[00:02:47] It's not so much that we don't understand the roadmap. It's that as we get into the story and as we start composing and drafting, and these characters come more to life, sometimes we don't understand our characters very well. And so we get to a point where we simply don't know where else to go just because what is on our outline no longer matches our characters.

[00:03:17] I mentioned last week that I am in a lot of different Facebook groups, all geared toward creative writing. And the idea of writer's block comes up a lot and I like to pay attention and see what people suggest and see what people are doing as ways as a way to combat writer's block.

[00:03:37] And one thing that some people suggested recently that I really liked was the idea of sitting down and feeling out your characters. So the lady in the Facebook group suggested interviewing your characters. That can be whatever you want it to be. If you want to actually sit down and talk to a person or whatever, or if you want to like, say things in your character's stead or perhaps write out a script, whatever things look like. The point is to sit down and feel out your characters.

[00:04:20] With a work in progress, it can be very valuable to actually keep a running outline of where you have been so that you can remember where things went and where things are going and where some of the character things where some of the huge developmental character things happened and how they happened and what they were for.

[00:04:41] It can be really valuable to tease all of that apart into the separate character arcs so that you can see that if your main character is a woman named , which is the case in one of my books and you see that Hoshi co makes it to the main island and does the things, and gets in touch with an art collector and whatever else.

[00:05:06] you can see where the big important events happened and you can see why, and you can ask yourself does all of that make sense and does all of that support where the character needs to be now and where the character needs to be here in half a second when I keep writing. And oftentimes the answer is not quite yes.

[00:05:33] So it's important to do this with all of your characters that you are following through your story. All of the main characters, sit down and see where they're going. See where they have come from the big stepping stones that they stepped on or stepped over in order to get where they are now.

[00:05:51] And now as a character who is well developed and more into this story, because the story is more real to you at this point. And. You can further flesh out and further develop things in a different way, from a better informed stand point than you did before you started. Just because, I mean, if we're getting writer's block, odds are we're a chunk in, we're a chunk into the story.

[00:06:19] And we understand the story better than we did before we started. And so it is better to start making decisions like that at this point. Sometimes the inspiration or the solution to the writer's block can be that a character needs a specific thing or a certain event that isn't in your outline right now, needs to happen in order to get your character into a more believable place or some of the things that you wrote already may not have built up your character or your scene to a place where it needs to be.

[00:06:59] I experienced that pretty recently, actually I was getting to the end of a scene. I felt pretty good about the way that I had written it up to that point. And yet here I was standing. So I have a standing desk in the tiny house, right now I don't have an office chair. I've been meaning to buy an office chair for like seven months and I still haven't done it, but I was standing here.

[00:07:24] Dumbfounded mouth agape sort of staring at my computer because I could not figure out what was going on next, what needed to happen next. And what I came to realize was the source of the writer's block wasn't so much what was coming next. The source of the writer's block came from the previous couple of pages that I had written didn't build up the characters and the scene to a place where it needed to be.

[00:07:53] It had been a slightly different direction. And so I needed to go through what I had already written and revise stuff and delete stuff. And add some stuff in order to correct the course that the story had already been going. And once I did that, the writer's block was gone. I was able to get back into the flow of writing again, and I was able to touch base with the characters and see where they needed to be and plug in the necessary things in order to have a good story.

[00:08:26] That is just a simple, but a very good thing. It ties back into outlining, but you can see that it's bigger than just outlining. I mean, writer's block is bigger than just simply not being able to write. There are a lot of facets that go into writer's block and I wanted to touch on some of these things that go into that. So last week we talked about just structure of the story this week. Sometimes it's the character arc. Sometimes the characters need a thing, and sometimes what you have written does not support where they need to go. And so some revamping or some adding or some deleting or whatever is the right call to make that change and to get the flow back into the story.

[00:09:13] And next week as we conclude this series on writer's block, we are going to talk about your inner environment. Sometimes it's not actually about writing sometimes it's about you. So be sure to tune in next week, as we wrap up this little mini series on writer's block, on writing in the tiny house. Thank you so much, guys.

[00:09:36] Bye.

[00:09:37]

[00:09:37] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

One way to get over writer’s block is to outline! Part 1 of 3!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] We've all been there before that moment where you're sitting in your dark room. And you have your outline ready. You have your character maps ready, and you have been plugging along your work in progress without any problems at all. And suddenly you get to a point in your manuscript where you simply cannot write more words, even though the story isn't finished. Today we are starting our three-part series on an in-depth look at writer's block. Today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:38] Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who likes to talk about creative writing.

[00:01:15] And I've done an amount of creative writing in my day. I've also done a lot of other types of writing. Anyway. The whole point of this podcast is to give you the information and the tools and the motivation for you to get started on a short story and have it finished in three months, or to get started on a novel and have that finished in 18 months.

[00:01:38] And to give you the wisdom to adjust that timeline, if you need to. I mean, if we look at last fall, I finished the short story, Bridgette from beginning to end, including edits, including beta readers, including first, second drafts, all the things clear to the copy edits in eight weeks. And it's a good short story.

[00:02:02] It's still available on amazon.com if you want to check it out today and it's a process that can be done again. However, most writing projects take longer than that. But it's good to know that it can be done quickly if it needs to be. And it's good to know if you are not an experienced writer, it's okay to have an idea about how long things can take, if you develop more experience.

[00:02:26] So today we are starting a three part series on the dreaded writer's block. I have touched on writer's block a very little bit in previous episodes. And up until very recently, I had the false notion that in order to get over writer's block, you need to simply outline better. I have since come to develop a new attitude toward writer's block.

[00:02:55] I am a member in many different Facebook groups that are all dedicated toward creative writing, and writers block comes up a lot. And I pay attention to some of the things that people suggest and some of the things that people say they do in order to overcome writer's block. And that's why I'm going to be doing this three part series, just because writer's block is more than simply, you need to outline better.

[00:03:21] It can be various different things. So with this episode today, we are going to be talking about outlining. We're going to be talking about the sequence of events in your novel and some different things to look for and some different ways to approach that. Next week we are going to be looking at some of the bigger picture of your novel, specifically the character arcs.

[00:03:44] We have focused a lot this year on character arcs, which is super cool. Character arcs are awesome. And sometimes it can be the way that the characters in the story are developing that can lead you to be in kind of a tight spot where there's no wiggle room. And sometimes things need to be reworked. And some elements of the outline need to be changed in order to get yourself out of that bind.

[00:04:10] And then the third part of this series is going to be a look at your internal environment. How are you feeling? What are you thinking? What is going on in your personal life? Just because so much of that can lead to writer's block. So much of that can also get you out of writer's block. Right now I have been taking a bit of a hiatus from writing. I'm still doing the podcast just because I have a good routine going. I have a lot to say. The podcast brings me a lot of joy, but when it comes to creative writing, I have also been being a lot more social recently and I have been dating a little bit. And that takes up a lot of free time, especially when you live in the middle of nowhere in Northern Utah, it is hard to casually date.

[00:05:04] And so a lot of my free evenings are spent being social right now. And then on the weekends I have my kids. So that is my reasoning for my hiatus presently, but we'll pick up the writing again when it is time and I feel that things are going to be calming down pretty soon. I just kind of feel it, just one of those spiritual, energetic things, I guess.

[00:05:29] And I have a lot of works in progress anyway, and I don't feel that I need to abandon them, but we're going to revisit just some of those things in the third episode of this series. Let's delve into this thing. One of the most common reasons that writer's block comes up is simply because,

[00:05:52] like I said at the very beginning, simply because we have not outlined. We have drafted and we have developed all of these fun scenes and now we're in a spot where we kind of don't know how to proceed. We don't know the very next step. We might know the step after that. Or we still might know the ending of our story, but we have not tied together how to get from right here right now to maybe the end of the next scene.

[00:06:24] So one person suggested in this situation, you just power through and you write, and I feel that there is wisdom in that. The thing is with your work in progress, writer's block comes during the first draft. Or if you are doing some like super big revising where you are rewriting entire swaths of your work in progress, then it could come at that time too.

[00:06:48] But to simply have the creative process stop, and then you're left a bit dumb founded is what happens during the first draft. And my friends, I am here to tell you that the magic of writing comes after the first draft. I mean, there there's magic to be experienced in the first draft too. Don't get me wrong.

[00:07:08] But as far as coaxing out the beauty and the imagery and the poetry of your writing, that is kind of not what the first draft is for. That's what the revisions are. That's what the revisions help you do is to get to the, the golden nuggets in your story, and to bring them out and to refine things and to bring shine and glitter to your writing, where it may not exist in the first draft, because in the first draft, you are simply getting it done.

[00:07:41] You're getting it out of your brain and into your computer or down onto paper, whatever your processes. So. There is wisdom in simply powering through and writing something that sucks so that you can get to the rest of the story where it all makes sense again. And then you can get back into the flow of writing.

[00:08:04] Another thing can be. if you are drafting a fantasy novel, or very often a scifi novel. These books tend to have a lot of plot. They tend to be very plot heavy and they tend to have a lot of subplots too. And so that means that sometimes the way that the plot and the subplots and all of those different parts weave together can get confusing and they can trip you up.

[00:08:36] And so sometimes. It is valuable to step back and to review what you have already written and where you need to go if you are writing a very plot, heavy book, it can be very hard to pants that book. It can be very hard to simply draft by the seat of your pants a lot of people call that discovery writing.

[00:09:00] I attend a lot of people tend to do a blend of both discovery writing and outlining. I think it's impossible to simply only do one and not the other, especially if you're writing a plot heavy book, a plot driven book, but it can be really valuable to simply step back. I mean, Especially when we're in drafting mode, we set aside time every day and we have like a word count and we have these goals that we want to achieve.

[00:09:28] Sometimes it is absolutely worth the hour or two to give yourself permission, to figure out your outline again, instead of achieving a word count, sometimes you need to simply step back and see what you've done and where you need to go. Especially, if you have a lot of plots that you need to weave together, it is important to have a board of some form or whatever system you choose to do.

[00:09:57] You can do something like melanoma. You can do a cork board on your wall, whatever, but with the subplots and with the plots, you have the big events and where they need to fall. And it's important to organize them in the way that they will. Be presented in your story, be presented in your text, just because it's important to write things in the order that they're going to be read.

[00:10:21] Sometimes if that's not possible, then you kind of gotta do what you got to do, but it's important to know that like if this big event happens here with this plot, Then this other big event in subplot B or whatever, can't happen on the very next page, that would be too much, or it needs to come sooner just to pick up the pace and give us something exciting to read or whatever it's important to feel out and orchestrate those big events and those things.

[00:10:52] So that first of all, it is easier to write and then it will be easier to revise and easier to read. So having an outline, if you are doing a plot, heavy book is super important. And if you are choosing instead to do the discovery approach with a plot heavy book, I mean, best of luck to you, but. Don't be afraid to, you know, jot down notes, especially if all of your subplots and stuff are becoming confusing.

[00:11:21] So Sometimes we get writer's block because it is unclear to us what happens next, or it is unclear to us how things need to happen next. And so one approach is to simply power through so that you can get to an area in the novel that is more clear to you right now. Another option is to skip and then write.

[00:11:44] The next part of the book that is clear to you now, but I don't recommend doing that. I like to write things in order. And the third thing is to give yourself permission to step back and to reorganize your outline. I have found that with my outlines, my outlines tend to be pretty spot. And the more that I write, the more I can fill in with my outline, just because things become better.

[00:12:07] I understand my characters more. I understand the plot more than I did before I started. And so now there is more, there's more to flesh out. There's more to develop. And so it's okay to have your outline be somewhat dynamic. And if you need to revisit that and revise and tweak and rearrange. That can be an excellent way to combat writer's block.

[00:12:35] And so thank you for joining me on this week's episode of writing and the tiny house. Next week, we will go on to part two of this series with writer's block. So please join me next week. We'll see you then.

[00:12:49]

[00:12:49] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

How to build a story arc, and then ruin it. It's a cautionary tale, my friends.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week, we talked about character arcs, especially transformation arcs, and how we need to keep the essence of the character still intact, even though they are making different decisions. And today we are going to talk about how to ruin all of that just by the reaction or how the other characters in the story behave.

[00:00:24] Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello. And welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who writes and talks about writing. The whole point of this podcast is to get you to write a novel in 18 months and to have the wisdom to adjust that timeline, if you need to. So today we are talking about character arcs again. Last week, we talked about how to make a good character arc, how you need to preserve the essence of that character.

[00:01:20] And reflect that while they are still making better decisions or worse decisions, depending on the direction the arc is going. And today we are going to talk about how to ruin all of that based on the reaction of the other characters in the story. So I told you last week that I have been reading the book of Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders.

[00:01:42] And this book is one of the best references on developmental edits. It is the deep developmental edit. It is meat as opposed to milk. He takes the very underlying, the really deep, the really thoughtful, amazing parts of a story and brings it out and shows you how it worked or how it didn't work.

[00:02:05] And it is astounding. It is incredible how he is so in touch with his craft and so in touch with the way that storytelling happens, that he can simply share with you how to do it better by breaking apart seven classical Russian short stories. In the one that we focused on most recently, it's the story of a man who sacrifices himself to save another man while they are trapped in a blizzard.

[00:02:36] And because of his sacrifice, this other man survives while he dies, he perishes in the blizzard. This is where we take this wonderful transformation of this selfish ornery man who is focused on himself, who loves money and whatever. And we take him through this cool arc of self-discovery sort of, and better choices in order to sacrifice himself to save this other character.

[00:03:04] And we love that. And it is cool to see that demonstrated in this short story. However, then we have this other character who is saved, who is written in more of a two dimensional way and who represents kind of this idealistic arc type of a surf, like just kind of the idea that the working man is the best man that a simple man is the good man that we all need to aspire to become.

[00:03:36] And it's interesting because in the rest of the story, this man does not reflect on that sacrifice. That sacrifice is not brought up again, it doesn't stir up things within him and it doesn't inspire him to live his life in a different way. The sacrifice happens, this guy survives and the savior like this other guy--the guy who saved him-- is largely forgotten in the rest of the story. It's a moment where you kind of get to sit back and wonder what happened. And so we can question the story arc of the one character of the savior and ask, why did we even do that? And we can question, why do we have this simpleton who just got saved and it didn't seem to matter to him. So why does it matter to me and why did it matter to the author or does it? And just in doing that, it cheapens the experience of the savior, of the guy who sacrificed himself to save this other guy from a blizzard. I once read a story, just to demonstrate this point, I read a story. It was kind of like portal fantasy, I guess. So the guy found himself in a new and a strange world with magic, and there were some differences in his body just because in the real world he had a specific sickness that made his body function poorly. He couldn't feel things. He had a hard time just living a normal life and suddenly he wakes up in this magical world and that condition doesn't exist here.

[00:05:19] So he has this strong body. He can make these really cool things happen. And he is feeling things again, unlike he has felt them in a long time. with that in mind, this is what happens. And in this story, this is pretty gross anyway, but it was more confusing with the way that it was handled.

[00:05:41] So toward the beginning of this story, this middle aged man befriend. Or something is discovered by this woman in her late teens, early twenties, I believe was her age and she's beautiful and she's attractive. And he now has this body with new found senses that he has not lived with in a very long time.

[00:06:03] So a new discovery of this vigor and this attraction to this woman anyway, there comes about a sexual assault and it happens by the main character, which I cannot handle reading anyway. But. The thing that happens later or immediately after, and then throughout the book. So in my mind, sexual assault is very important. It is always a very big pivotal moment in a story, and it needs to be treated with sensitivity and it needs to be given very sensitive. Proper attention in order to make sense that we are including such violence and such horror in our stories like sexual assault needs to be there for a reason.

[00:06:55] And it needs to be a damn good reason. With this story there was the sexual assault, it was done by the main character, which is already a hard thing to figure out why that happened. And then this young woman kind of disappears for the rest of the novel. And her mother immediately comes into the story and serves as the guide to this man to get him to his destination.

[00:07:25] Now if we're talking about choices and dealing with things and cheapening experiences and making things unbelievable. In my mind, if a person just had a violent sexual encounter with a woman and then is now forced to be in the company of that woman's mom for kind of a long time and to have to trust her and to have to like, trust his safety with her and trust that she's going to like lead him to where he needs to go and whatever else.

[00:07:59] There would be certain internal monologue going on. There would be a certain mannerisms. There would be paranoia. There would be something, there would be a reaction to that strange and awful situation. In this story that didn't happen at all. This mom came in and the sexual assault was never mentioned again.

[00:08:25] The mom came in and led this man to his destination. And she was actually with him throughout kind of a big chunk of the book. And then the book ends and we have no idea why the sexual assault was even in there to begin with why it needed to come about that way. Why a rediscovery of this body that could feel and lust and

[00:08:50] perform and whatever else needed to be explored and rediscovered in such a violent way. There were so many questions left unanswered, and because of all of that, instead of me hating the character, I mean, I wasn't terribly fond of the character anyway. What it instead made me do is question the author.

[00:09:17] Like why, why, why was this the way that we did it? So I read this book back in college and one of my best friends at the time also read the book. I recommended it to her. Not because it was good, but because it was bad. And we spent an entire evening in village in eating pie and ripping up hard. This book, I'm not going to mention it, what the title of this book is, So much of the believability of the story stemmed from that choice of inviting this horrendous, active violence into the story, and then responding in no way at all to that act throughout the rest of the story. And as a result of that, it cheapened the story and it made. I believe the main character less and it made us not too interested in the author from then on, that is how. We take these really big moments and it can be a big achievement. It can be a big act of violence. It can be good. It can be bad. It can be a great many things. That's how we take it. And we ruin it by letting it fall flat with the other characters in the story or with the main character itself.

[00:10:37] Let's remember the gravity of the choices that we put our characters through. Let's remember everybody's reaction to the things that they are exposed to and let all of that to build your story. When you include everything. If this horrendous act of violence had been fleshed out and there had been attention brought to this character's thought process or an encounter by the mother or anything, if anything at all had come about.

[00:11:06] the entire story would have been better Revisiting the short story that George Saunders analyzes in a swim in a pond in the rain. If the simpleton who was saved had allowed that sacrifice to change his life and make him a better person, the sacrifice itself would have been so much more meaningful and it would have been better, but because none of that happened, the sacrifice ended up feeling ch.

[00:11:35] Be sure to tune in next week with another episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Thank you so much for your time. Have a good day.

[00:11:45]

[00:11:45] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

How to make a character's transformation arc believable.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week, we talked about languages, sort of, I guess the title of last week's episode was a bit misleading because it said all of the languages. And I realized that I probably should have included a list of languages, which is what the title implied. Anyway today, we're going to be talking about character transformation and how to make it believable today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:28] Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis. And I am the guy living in a tiny house who writes things and tells you about how writing works and what to do and how to do it. The point of this podcast is to empower you to be able to write a novel in 18 months and to have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you feel you need to.

[00:01:17] So today, We are going to be talking about transformations. We are going to be talking about taking a character who's kind of awful or kind of persnickety or kind of negative or something and changing them in a believable way. So one of the most famous story arcs or at least most known story arcs that follow something like this is the story of Scrooge in a Christmas Carol.

[00:01:46] It is the story of a man who sees his life and then sees what all of that is going to lead to and decides to change. Right now arcs like that are really popular. An arc that I also love instead of a redemption arc is also a corruption arc where you take someone good and because of circumstances and because of personal weakness and because of things like that, choices and events and trauma, you turn them into a villain.

[00:02:18] One of my very favorite corruption arcs is actually not in literature. It's in TV. Well, it's on Netflix, it's in the series arcane. The corruption arc of the character Powder is fantastic. If you are not familiar with the series Arcane, I suggest that you watch that series today. But all of these things require a character to start out one way and to turn out another way.

[00:02:47] I've been reading the book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders and this has been a completely transformative thing for me. As far as learning how to developmental edit in a more grown up and in a more meaningful way, it has been the best resource I have read in a very long time. George Saunders is freaking amazing when it comes to simply knowing his craft and how to explain how he knows his craft.

[00:03:21] If you are unfamiliar with the book, with the way that it's structured is there are seven classic Russian short stories. I don't fully know why Saunders chose to stick with seven Russian short stories, but they are some of his favorites. I don't fully understand the choice of that, but whatever.

[00:03:42] And he goes through and he picks them apart and he shows you what the author is doing. He's showing you what they did well, and actually what they didn't do well. And he picks each of these short stories as a way to demonstrate craft, as a way to demonstrate something awesome. And talk about it. So what I recently read, it is a story about these two men who get stuck in a snow storm and one of them sacrifices himself in order to save the other.

[00:04:13] And it's one of those things where the snow storm, they can't get away from it. And the man uses himself as a shield against the weather to save the other man. And the thing that Saunders brings to light in this short story, that makes the transformation of that man so believable. So this man starts off as a very self-centered person and he is distrustful. He and the other main character or the person that he saves, don't have a super great relationship. And he's complaining about things like money and whatever else. He's not a warm, fuzzy kind of guy. As far as the universe goes, he is in the center of his own universe. And he is the hero of his own story.

[00:05:06] I mean, yes, we can say the same thing about each of us, but t hat's how this character is. And so the whole point behind this episode of Writing in the Tiny House is to touch on what a good arc or a good transformation arc does, what it looks like. Just the mechanism behind all of that. What I mean is it is important to understand how your character makes choices that energy behind their day to day. Their thought processes, the way that all of these things are formulated so that you can understand how they make choices. And the cool thing about a believable arc that leads to some form of transformation is

[00:05:58] all of the choices that lead to this better outcome are still done in the manner that this person lives their life. That means that if a person is paranoid and they tend to obsess and they tend to stew, it is more believable for them to simply take that energy of obsessing and stewing and still do all of that, but point that energy toward better choices.

[00:06:27] So with Ebeneezer Scrooge, he was a person who is short. He lacked understanding. He also was quick to decide And quick to make choices to bring about a resolution. And so that's how he ran his business. Everything was decided on the spot. His word was always final. And so even while he visits with the spirits of Christmas, past, present, and future and all of that stuff, and in the end, he is a better person with a better outlook on life and a better outlook on the meaning of life and the meaning of Christmas, which is the whole point of a Christmas Carol. He still is making decisions the same way he made decisions. He commands a boy to go buy a Turkey. He is still, you know, bossing people around.

[00:07:19] I mean, still in the spirit of Christmas that he is still himself. So if you have a person who tends to be loud and ornery and uses colorful language. Odds are, even though they are going to be making better decisions in the end, they still will use the same language. They will still be loud. They will still do all of those things.

[00:07:44] If you take a person who is a rebel and then turn them into a priest. I'm not saying that isn't believable because we've all read stories where it is. You need to pay attention to how that rebel made his decisions, even while he was in the throws of maybe breaking the law. Was he following his heart?

[00:08:06] Was he still standing up for what he thought was right? Was he still standing up for himself. Was he using aggressive language and a lot of self-confident stuff. Was he physically aggressive, things like that. And if you can tie all of that back into how he is as a priest so that we can still see that he is there.

[00:08:28] That's what makes it all more believable. So again, with this story That is mentioned in A Swim in the Pond, in the Rain, this guy who is self-centered, who is kind of the hero of his own story. he still makes those decisions. He decides for himself that it would be best to use himself as a shield against the weather for this other man, so that this other man can survive.

[00:08:56] It's still done in kind of that self centered way, but in one of those ways that we still see the change, but we still see the person. If that makes sense, it's important to include the essence of the person as we bring about this arc.. If we want to visit this corruption arc that I mentioned there is a girl in the story of Arcane.

[00:09:22] Her name is Powder. She is tinkery. She likes to make things. She is very submissive and moldable and she doesn't want to be a screw up and so bad things happen. And the bad guy is able to capitalize on those things and bring her to do bad things. And so we still see the same girl.

[00:09:49] She still makes decisions the same way that she always has just in this other framework of now she's a bad guy and now she's like this henchmen to the bigger, bad guy. And so we see this corruption arc, but we still see the character. So. This is kind of a shorter episode today, but the next episode. So I'm going to make this into a two part series.

[00:10:16] The next episode is actually going to be kind of the sad side of this, how to take all of these important redemptive qualities and how to make them fall flat. Bye reactions from other characters in your story. So we need to remember that the character is all tie into one another and sometimes because of.

[00:10:46] Overlooked something we can make this transformation, or we can make these choices or the impact of these choices fall flat, just because of how the other characters behave. And that is next week on Writing and the Tiny House.

[00:11:03]

[00:11:03] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

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Let's talk about made up langauges and SPELLS!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] last week, we talked about the beauty of including open empty space of not using too many words in your manuscript. And today we are going to be talking about languages about fantasy made up languages today on writing in the tiny house. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis.

I am the guy living in a tiny house who writes things and tells you all about them. The whole point of this podcast is to give the tips and tricks and a little bit of guidance so that you can produce a short story in three [00:01:00] months. And you can produce a novel in about 18 months or even shorter.

And you will have the wherewithal to adjust that timeline if you need to. If we remember back in October, I released Brigitte, which was Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, and it went from drafting to publishing in eight weeks. And if you read the short story, it's a great short story.

It is something that can be done. And a lot of people don't know how long different things take. And this is why a lot of people don't write, is just because they don't know how long it could take for them to get started and finished. And so. The whole point of this podcast is to shed light on that entire process.

Today, we are talking about fantasy languages. I have been giving some different insights from George Saunders. I have been reading his book very closely, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, and I have been sharing some of the things that I [00:02:00] have gleaned from that.

Today we're not going to do that. Next time we will, though. Today we're going to be talking about made up languages. With this, we think of things like Klingon and we think of things like the Elvin or Elvish. I don't remember languages from the Lord of the rings and a Tolkien making up an entire language That's really cool and super admirable that somebody did that. At the same time, though, when I approach my writing, it is hard for me to just make up things that people are going to say and pretend that those things are going to be meaningful. Also, when I include what would be a foreign language in my book,

I know that I talked about this in a previous episode, but I want to mention it again. I really like to include another language from this world to be representative of another [00:03:00] language of the world that I'm creaing. So that means that I fully understand that my people and the people in my world don't speak English and that English is already kind of representing whatever language they would be speaking otherwise.

Therefore, if they meet people who are out of town and those people are speaking something else, I think it is perfectly acceptable for that out of town language to be French. If you have red Bridgette, you totally understand that's what I did with the people who live in the city of Brianne.

They speak a different language that is represented by French. And I have another short story stewing in my brain that is going to be from another region of the world that I'm creating that will be represented by Spanish. And so I think it's kind of fun [00:04:00] if the reader already has some background in French or Spanish or whatever other language that they'll be able to kind of pick out what this foreign language is and kind of know things before the main characters know them. It's a real language and it's something that the reader might already know. And I like that. I like the idea of that.

If you want to make up your own entire language, you absolutely can. There is certainly nothing wrong with inventing a language, however, with including it in your manuscript, a lot of people tend to not focus very hard on things that they don't know how to say. And in an adult book to have a grown up reader, to expect them to slow down and sound out whatever you are trying to create as far as a new and a unique [00:05:00] language,

it is something that a lot of your readers may not do. And it affects the flow of the story. Most people read fiction for entertainment, and that means that when they sit down, they want the reading experience to be pretty straight forward. And so to pick apart and to sound out a bunch of words that they don't know, and a bunch of words that are likely not real anyway, it can come across as a pretty big ask.

so if you are working on an entirely new language, good for you. I recommend though limiting how much you're going to have in your manuscript, just because your reader is not really going to pay close attention to it anyway. Also what about spells? Because spells in many books, Their own language.

And a lot of [00:06:00] people like, well, spells are kind of their own unique thing. I guess a lot of people like to have spells be a form of poetry that rhymes, or a bunch of like really powerful statements of truth or commands that could be in English or whatever. and then a spell happens because that's how the magic is working, or it can be a bunch of chanting and nobody ever actually spells out the words that are chanting.

It is just like incoherent noise, like other worldly mysterious, strange syllables and sounds and different things that the magician is producing. A lot of other people like to spell out the command words, they like to spell out the spells. They like to have key phrases that actually represent something.

And so, I mean, if you pay attention to Harry Potter, there are a certain number of commands that come up all the time. And so [00:07:00] even though a lot of them are derived from a Latin word, they at least sort of They come up over and over again, and they are short it is a fun way to world build with something like that, because it's something that we can pay attention.

And it's something that we can learn. And it's something that adds consistency and a certain feeling of familiarity as future books come as additional things happen later on in the story or in the books, especially if you're writing a series. And that can be super fun. If you choose to spell out your spells, I recommend keeping them to maybe one word or as specific phrase and bringing those phrases up more than once or finding ways to include them. Throughout the book or throughout your story so that the reader can come to recognize them [00:08:00] and come.

understand them and really like that type of familiarity that comes with it. So that is very much in a nutshell, my 2 cents about languages today. Like I said, in my short story, Bridgette, which was installment, one of tales from Vlaydor the local yokels of Brianne, which is the city that it takes place in speak.

Or there is a very heavy French influence on their language, even though France doesn't exist in my world. And in a future short story that I will likely be composing later this year, it is going to be focusing on a different area of the world with a different culture a different language that I am likely going to represent with Spanish.

So do what you want. Let me know what you do and what works for you. And yeah. Thank you for joining me today with today's episode on languages. [00:09:00] Next week, we are going to dive back in to George Saunders, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain and dive into more ways to do development. It's on Writing in the Tiny House.

Devin Davis: And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.[00:10:00]

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Learn about the value of sometimes using fewer words!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00]

Last week we asked the question, did Delphine save the cat in the short story, Brigitte which was Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor that I released back in October, but today we are going to move in a slightly different direction as we talk about trusting your audience by limiting the amount of words that you use today on writing in the tiny house.

Hello, hello, hello. I am [00:01:00] Devin Davis. Welcome to this show. I am the guy who lives in a tiny house who writes stuff and talks about it on a podcast. And the reason behind this podcast is for us to improve our creative writing, to learn the parts of creative writing, to learn how it all works together to develop a practice.

And then to complete a manuscript that is ready to publish in a short amount of time. It is possible to write a short story in three months, and it is possible to write a novel in 18 months. Hopefully through this podcast, you will also have the knowledge and the wherewithal to adjust that timeline if you need to. Many of us hesitate to even get started on a project because we don't know how long it will take. But if we are prepared with the right tools and if we know how everything works, and if we approach it with better understanding of how it all [00:02:00] happens, we can get things done with really good quality and on a better timeline.

So this week we are going to discuss something that is a touchy subject. A lot of people say things like show don't tell. Or whatever other cliche words, cliche phrases that we hear in the writing community. And oftentimes we are led to believe that if we describe, describe, describe, we are helping our readers fully understand what is going on in the story and what is going on in the scene and what is happening with everything. There is a problem with describing stuff like that, with using a lot of words. And that is what we are hoping to tackle today. I have been reading the book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by george [00:03:00] Saunders,

and one of the things that hit home so much was the authority that the story itself plays in the story telling. And what that means is the story itself gets to dictate what is important and what is not important. And that's okay. Just to quickly demonstrate. So this is going to be a pretty short episode and that is just fine, but to quickly demonstrate there was a trick that I described in a previous episode where you describe the cat in the house, and in describing the cat, you also describe the house. That way you don't have to describe the house.

You don't need to take up the pages and the paragraphs to describe the house if we already understand the cat that lives there. It's this this fancy shortcut to making things precise [00:04:00] and still conveying something without using 5 million words to do so. And with something like a short story specifically, there is no room for fluff.

There is no room to simply, uh, blow smoke in our pros. And so one of those tricks is to describe the cat in order to describe the house. This one is kind of the opposite, but a similar thing. So if I were to tell you that our main character, Brian has a family photo that he keeps on his desk, what do we already understand or can safely assume about that photo?

If it is a photo that he keeps on his desk, odds are, it is framed. Odds are it sits on his desk in a frame and it sits in a way for him to see it all the time. Unless I take time to describe that differently, because that [00:05:00] is a normal thing that people do, we can let the reader assume that it's going to be a normal thing that our main character does too.

When we mentioned the picture on the desk, we don't need to say that it's in a frame unless the frame is important. We don't need to describe the frame because the frame is not important, but we kind of get that the frame is there. Why is the frame important or why is the frame not important? This is what we like to touch on when we say that the story itself has authority on what's important and what's not. It's not important because the story doesn't mention it. The story does not bring attention to the frame because it doesn't need to. And, allowing the reader to just assume a couple things to assume normal behavior and to figure some stuff out [00:06:00] on their own.

It allows the reader to imagine for themselves kind of a little bit what is going on here, especially if it's in a typical setting. I read a book recently that was laden with so much description that it slowed down the pacing of the story, and it made the story hard to pay attention to, and really challenging to read.

And sometimes you get to let the story dictate what is important by leaving things out. In the book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, there is a short story in that book called Darling that George Saunders analyzes for you. And, in that short story, it is a pattern short story.

And George Saunders goes crazy with what we can do with a pattern story. So it's one of those things where we just see the pattern of behavior. A woman meets a man and falls in love, and then the [00:07:00] man dies. And then she meets a man and falls in love. And then the man dies. It's more than that. But you understand what I'm trying to say. And some of the things that the story purposefully leaves out, George Saunders brings attention to as a way to highlight what negative space can do to improve storytelling. So after this woman's husband died, six months go by and she meets who will become the next love of her life.

But the story doesn't say the grieving process of those six months, the story leaves all of that out and just simply says, six months later. Because the story doesn't say those things, the pacing of the story is better. And focusing on the manner that this woman is grieving, isn't the point of the story.

And so we don't focus on it. The story says that that is not important. And so it's left [00:08:00] out and we are left to assume. And so that is something that we can do with our own work. Sometimes when we sit back and we go to revise our stuff and we go to revise our works in progress or whatever, sometimes there is too much. Sometimes more is not better. With things like prose especially in prose sometimes in dialogue, more isn't better.

We get to trust that our reader is intelligent and we get to trust that sometimes the negative space or the ability to fill in the blanks is actually a very good gift for the reader. And it improves the pacing and the flow of the way the story is going. And so with your work in progress, I challenge you to comb through and see if there are parts that you can clip or tighten up.

I have been listening to another book. It's [00:09:00] another fantasy book. Sometimes you just get to read a fun, YA fantasy book. I started paying attention to this more closely after I read this analysis by George Saunders. And so I was like, I wonder how often that happens because I was under the impression that in fantasy specifically, it happens a lot.

And so I have been listening more closely to exposition based dialogue. And I think to myself, how much of this was actually necessary to the story. And did it have to come out this way? Would it have been okay to simply remove this little bit of dialogue altogether so that this response could have been shorter? So a lot of the exposition that we get, especially exposition based dialogue is largely for world building. A lot of people understand that info dump in their prose isn't a good [00:10:00] thing. And so they info dump in their dialogue instead. And oftentimes it is to world build. It is to help the reader understand how the world works.

And if it's a fantasy novel, oftentimes it's to help understand that the magic system that the author is trying to establish. And so with that, with the book that I have been listening to recently that I finished just the other day, the magic system is a pretty hard magic system. It's largely not very mysterious.

It has a lot of rules. I mean, the author could have written a text book explaining the magic system that he created in this world. And the thing is, as the reader, I don't care. I don't care about the magic system as much as I care about the story. And so the story gets to hold the authority on what is important.

The story itself would have been much easier [00:11:00] and natural had the author chosen to simplify the magic system or chosen to let some of the things that happened with his magic remain mysterious instead of explaining away every little detail, because he wanted so badly for whatever reason to have this be a hard magic system, which is a magic system that is very well-defined instead of a soft magic system, which is one that is more mysterious and not as well understood.

I'm sure that there are good reasons for all of the rules and all of the ways that the magic works and governs itself in this world, in this book. At the same time, I know that a lot of it did not specifically apply to this story. And instead it was hard to read and it was kind of hard to slug through.

So again, Go through your work in progress [00:12:00] and see what you can remove and give your reader the gift of negative space so that sometimes they can use their own imagination to fill in the blanks. It's a fun thing to do. It requires an amount of trust, but you would be surprised or not.

By how much better? A couple perfect words are compared to several paragraphs of a lot of description.

Devin Davis:

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse [00:13:00] to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

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Let's go through an analysis of my short story Brigitte and compare it to the beat sheet Save the Cat.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week we learned about beats. Now we are going to save the cat today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house who writes stuff and talks about it on a podcast.

The goal of this podcast is to introduce the language of writing of creative writing, help you to develop a process so that you can have a manuscript that is ready to publish, whether you choose to self-publish or [00:01:00] whether you choose to approach an agent and do the traditional route, your manuscript will be ready.

And if you are doing a short story, perhaps you can crank it out in three months. If you are doing a novel, perhaps you can do it in 18 months. And I hope that with this podcast, you can also have the foresight to see if you need to adjust that timeline or not.

So we're going to be talking about my short story, Brigitte that I released back in October, and I wrote that and published it in eight weeks.

It is totally possible to do. Some people are super fast at it. Some people aren't. Hurray for timelines. At the same time, let's use our brains and our wisdom and make sure that we are publishing good things. We talked last week about beats. We talked about what a beat is, that a beat is something in the story.

It is the smallest thing in a story that advances the story, that makes the story [00:02:00] move forward. And it can be an action and inaction. It can be a response. It can also just be a setting, just something like that that makes the plot move forward. And I said, last week that this week we are going to go through what is called a beat sheet.

So it is a collection of beats and how they are organized as a way to just kind of touch base to see if your story is working. Doing this in this way, it makes writing pretty formulaic and there are good and bad qualities to having a formulaic way of writing. First of all, it kind of cranks out things that all resemble each other.

And some people don't like that. At the same time, though, it can be a good tool. I have found. Many of the different things that I do. I'm a person who has like a million different hobbies that the more that I understand the rules of something, the [00:03:00] easier it is for me to naturally incorporate them into what I'm doing.

And it is easier for me to bend or break them and do that with purpose to do that intentionally. And so, while something like Save the Cat is formulaic and mechanical in its approach to creative writing. A few weeks ago, we also talked about the hero's journey, which is very much along these same lines.

It is good to see where the things fall, just because all of these are common points and common events and common things in good stories that have all been successful. I'm not going to pretend that all successful things have each of these beats in them, but as we go through this and compare it to my short story, Bree sheets, we can see that it's all there.

Like it's there. There might be something. May not work. And we'll talk about that. [00:04:00] I did not consult the beat sheet of Save the Cat when I wrote Brigitte back in October. And so this is going to be kind of an experiment for all of us. So Save the Cat was made by a gentleman named Blake Snyder. He died a few years ago, but he was a filmmaker and a screenwriter and Save the Cat is actually the original of it is actually meant for screenplays, but it's all storytelling. And so it applies very strongly to novels. And this goes with a three act structure. And if you remember how I said things a few weeks ago with the three act structure, act one very generally speaking is about 25% of your book. Act two is 50 and then act three is the remaining 25. And so just bear that in mind, as we go through the different [00:05:00] beats of Save the Cat, as we see if Delphine the main character of Bridgette, which was Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor did she save the cat or not?

So yeah, like I said, I did not reference this while I wrote the book. However, we're going to find out together. If these things are all still there, if it's all kind of there. And with the short story, we get to understand that these things are likely all in there somewhere, but condensed. There's not a lot of room in a short story to fill a thing with 15 different beats.

With a novel, when you have a higher word count, it's easier to work in all of the beats. So let's go through and talk about this.

Let's, let's start with act one. Again, act one is the first fourth of the novel or the story.

[00:06:00] So the first beat of Save the Cat is the opening image and it is a snapshot of how the world is. So the first scene of this short story actually takes place at the end of the story. I did one of these really weird framework things where I give you a glimpse at the end of the story as a way to set a tone for the whole story itself. And so Delphine is at the train station.

You can tell that she is on edge. She is tired. She has a bag of money and she is being chased. She is being pursued or at least feels that she is, she's being pursued by a group of people, an unknown group of people. And she is taking her daughter to flee to another city to start a new life. And from there, it's a short scene, but it is a great snapshot of what the entire story is going to be like. It brings [00:07:00] in a lot of questions. It brings in a lot of intrigue and it sets the stage for the entire rest of the story by glimpsing at how the story ends. So that was just kind of a trick there as a way to fulfill this setting the scene.

Before the story starts or before, like the action of the story happens. So with Bridgette, we have Delphine who is about to deliver her daughter, Bridgette.

She is alone in a monastery and she has a midwife with her. We can kind of get a sense of time and place a little bit from the lack of technology and just this way of delivering a baby. Also she goes through and we talk about the flowers that were delivered to her room from the crone and. We understand that there is contention between Delphine and the crone based on Delphine's attitude toward those [00:08:00] flowers.

And so we get a sense of what her world is like, what her own personal world is like through the various flashbacks that she has while she is in transitional labor. And so, yeah, the opening image is established there. The next beat is the theme is stated a single scene beat in which a statement is made by someone other than the protagonist, that hints at what the protagonist will learn before the end of the story.

So this is more complicated. The thing is all of this is general and so we can make things work and see how it fits. So a statement by someone other than the main character to just kind of show how the main character is going to be or what their circumstances will be and what they want to avoid. In her flashbacks, Delphine reflects on an old friend named Jackleen who had an affair and was kicked out [00:09:00] of their city, who was removed from this priestess hood and lost her status and her place in the city. And so she knew from that experience, that things got to be handled differently with this new pregnancy of hers. The next beat is the setup and this can take place over several scenes, but

we get a sense of the protagonist life and what the world is like with all of its flaws and everything as it is. And so throughout her reflections and throughout her flashbacks, we see Delphine, we see her struggle with her faith. We see her struggle with her place as the high priestess of this church and the struggle that she has with the crone, who is kind of over the priestess program of the city of Brianne.

The next beat is the catalyst, and this is the life-changing event that happens to catapult the [00:10:00] protagonist into this new world or a new way of thinking. So the catalyst was Bridgette herself. So the thing that happens is Delphine has a baby and the delivery almost kills Delphine and it's this new daughter.

The daughter is also a legitimate And it creates a big change in Delphine's world because she wants to keep the history and the origin of her daughter a secret. And they don't understand. She doesn't understand her daughter's abilities. The next beat is a debate. So it's a Multisim beat where the protagonist debates what they will be doing next.

All of this happens in the first chapter, too. Just going through the flashbacks, Delphine finally arrives at the conclusion that she will be protecting her daughter [00:11:00] at all costs and that she will be keeping her daughter away from the crone, especially. Until she comes to understand what it is about her daughter that makes her daughter so dangerous so that things can be dealt with on her terms rather than on the Crone's terms.

The next beat in act one is break into two. It's the scene Where we are catapulted into act two. And the protagonist decides to accept whatever the next actions are going to be. And so there was the moment of insecurity and worry about what would happen to have an illegitimate child, and then to have an illegitimate child with such a dangerous ability.

Brought on more complications. And then the break into two beats is where phene decides to keep her [00:12:00] daughter more of a secret, the origins, a secret so that she can decide. What her daughter is actually all about what her daughter can do and to hide the fact that her daughter is a legitimate.

So let's move on to act two. All of that was act one, act one has a lot of beets. It has a lot of foundational stuff to set the scene for the story act two, the beats are a little bit more broad. one Of the beats for act two is the B story. So it's the B plot with Bridgette and with Devin, we have the subplot of the crone wanting to make money.

We have her little background, we have what she is doing with the enchanted water source found in the basement of the monastery. We have that. The next beat is fun and games. It's where the reader gets to see the protagonist, either shine or flounder in this new world. So there wasn't a lot of [00:13:00] struggle between Delphine and this new world, but there was an amount of figuring out she was with her daughter, Bridgette and Bridgette was playing with toys.

Bridgette was cutting a tooth and any way throughout this process, Delphine pieced it together. What Bridgette little ability is that Bridgette actually SAPs energy from people around her in order to heal herself. And that was why during her traumatic birth, she almost killed her mom. So that's a cool thing.

That's what fun and games are all about. The next beat of act two is the midpoint. It's where the fun and games section either culminates into a false victory or a false defeat. So this is the scene where Delphine and the crone have a confrontation. And it is a short conversation about [00:14:00] how the crone wants to do a ritual on Bridgette in order to find out for herself and therefore publicize what Bridgette can do if she has a gift at all and declare her lineage.

If this were allowed to happen, Bridgette would be ratted out as legitimate and Delphine would be forced out of the city, which the crone wants anyway. In that confrontation, Delphine's stands up to the crone and puts her in her place at the same time though.

The crone gets that last word in it, just as that last stabbing remark that. If Delphine does not comply by a certain day, the crone is going to declare Bridgette to be a bastard, which would ruin Delphine and her family. So moving on to the next bits of act two the bad guys closed in.

So this is right after the false victory. This happens in the story when it Bridgette is [00:15:00] kidnapped and then all is lost. This is Delphine reacting to Bridgette going missing. Aunt, her daughter's reacting to that to Delphina already has a lot of daughters and they were in charge of watching Bridgette and breezy.

Disappeared. So those beets still happened and then all is lost.

All is lost is when the bad guys. Appear to be winning. And so you have the captors of Bridgette over-powering her, of her struggling of her getting away. And then the dark night of the soul is the 12th beats of this entire thing. A dark night of the soul is. Multisim beat in which the protagonist takes time to process everything that's happened so far.

And it is the darkest hour. In, in my short story, Bridgette, this happens pretty rapidly. This is when everything [00:16:00] falls apart. This is when Bridgette falls into the spring, bumps her head. And due to her injury and the nature of the spring combined causes everybody around her to die.

So there's a big commitment there and a huge escalation of stakes. That's what the dark night of the soul is all about. And it is at that point that we break into act three. It's where the protagonist realizes that they must do a thing to fix the story.

So this is when the protagonist deals with the aftermath of this climax of this dark night of the soul. This is when, in my story, it is when Del phene finds breezy. And she goes into the basement of the monastery where this magical spring is located. Bridgette is there, she's wet. She's okay. Due to her own strange and dangerous healing abilities and everyone around her is dead.[00:17:00]

And so Delphine takes a moment to process through all of this and then decides that they need to skip town. And that propels us into act three.

And act three, there are a couple different little parts of, one big beat. The beat is the finale. This is Delphina. Speaking to her daughters revealing the affair that she had. That brought Bridgette into this world. And then her daughter is working in concert to get Delphine and Bridgette out of the city to catch a train to flee away.

So the finale has a lot of different parts. The parts here are gathering the team. Delphine speaks to her daughters. And that is kind of a way of gathering the team, gathering resources, packing a bag, executing the plan. The higher tower surprise is the protagonist spaces, a twist or a surprise that forces them to prove their worth.[00:18:00]

The high tower surprise is not really a part of the finale of my story. There's not really that. The dig deep down is not having a backup plan. The protagonist has to dig deep inside themselves to find the most important weapon of all the strength and courage to overcome their fear or false belief. And then the execution of a new plan.

So all of these are little sub-parts Of this larger beat, that is the finale. And some of those don't 100% apply to my story. I said earlier that Bridgette was not written in reference to Save the Cat, but as we go through and we see the way that the different points play out, you can see that I touched on a lot of these points pretty.

Okay. The points are there and so it is good to know. Beat sheets. It's it is good to know where things happen and where they should happen, so that you can become familiar with that when you are formulating your own stories. And as you're writing also as you're revising. [00:19:00] So these are a good thing to reference while you are doing the revision of your own short stories.

And as we demonstrated, I did pretty okay with this. There are some details in the finale beat that don't 100% apply to my story, but that's okay. I mean, This is a list of 15 beats and they're all there in the story. So that's pretty okay. I did pretty okay with this guys. That is what. Save the cat is all about.

Now we need to visit the title itself, save the cat. Like why are we calling anything? Save the cat when saving a cat is not a beat in the story. And I bring this up at the end on purpose. The guy who came up with saved the cat, he said, in different versions of this beat sheets. You can find these beat sheets kind of everywhere.

If you look up, save the cat beat sheet, you can find some, and they all say similar things. I recommend. [00:20:00] Referencing the original resource material all the time, but you can find beat sheets all over the place. This gentlemen said that one of the things that is missing from most stories, especially nowadays most modern stories, modern films, screenplays novels, is this beats in particular.

And like I said, in the original save the cat, there was a beat called save the cat. And it was the moment where we find that the hero is worth rooting for that the hero is worth cheering for And so I ask you my dear listeners in your experience of reading Bridgette installment, one of tales from late, or did Del phene ever save the cat.

next week, we're going to talk about a few other things with developmental edits inspired by the works [00:21:00] of George Saunders. And so tune in next week for another episode of writing and the tiny house.

Devin Davis:

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

The episodes this year have mainly been about story structure. And today we are going to cover what beats are as we continue covering story structure today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello? Hello. Hello. Welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in the tiny house in Northern Utah who writes stuff.

And talks about it on a podcast. So in the intro of this show, I have said that mainly this this podcast is for adults who work a nine to five, who really just want [00:01:00] to get that work of fiction out of their brains and onto paper. And while I certainly still stand by that, I've decided to refine that whole target audience.

this is what this show is. And I really like this on this show. This show pertains to everybody who wants to write, whether you work a nine to five, whether you are a 15 year old in high school, who wants to write short stories or work on your first novel or whatever this show has stuff for all of you.

If you want to do your own memoir, if you want to do this or that a collection of short stories. We like all the things on this show, we learn the terminology. And we develop a process so that you can have a manuscript that is ready to publish. If you are writing a short story, you can get that manuscript ready in as little as three months. And if you [00:02:00] are writing a novel, you can get it ready. in as little as 18 months, and hopefully in this podcast, We also give you the big picture and the reality that you might need longer than that, which is great. And some of you might say, no, there are plenty of short stories in this world that took years and years to write. And I am not going to disagree with you. And there are novels in this world.

There are flash fiction novels that took under three months to write. And so. What is the value of putting a timeframe on completing a work in progress when it is going to be different for everybody, it is simply to convey a possibility. The Thing is sometimes we don't get started with projects just because we don't understand how big the project is going to be. But knowing that getting started and with some practice, you can crank out a good short story in a pretty short amount of time. I [00:03:00] can give you encouragement to get started in the first place.

And to know that when you are writing a novel, if you stick with it and you practice, eventually you can get your process down to 18 months or 12 months, just depending on how diligent you are with it. Granted, there are a lot of long novels in this world that took years to write. I don't want to try to fill your head with unrealistic expectations, but to me, those expectations are realistic. from start to finish, I wrote the short story Brigitte in eight weeks. And so if you have your process down, you can definitely whittle out some of the time that it takes to get a good story.

And that is what this show is for. It is to learn the terminology and develop a process in order to have a manuscript ready to publish in a short amount of time. That's the thing and it can be done. And for your first few works in progress, it will take longer [00:04:00] than that.

So just know the things also, your process will likely be different from mine, and it just might be slower or faster. And that is why we are all different people. And that makes the world interesting to live in. Just some quick housekeeping stuff with with creativity. I have felt my creativity battery gradually recharge over the month of January.

For those of you who paid attention to my podcast. At the beginning of this year, there was a lot of personal stuff to get through from November until January 1st and going through that really drained my creative battery. And so I had a short story that I was in the middle of in the beginning of November.

That died on the vine. I am shelving that short story. It was called auto. I may pick it up again in the future. I may not. It was going to beInstallment Two of Tales from Vlaydor. But [00:05:00] instead Instllment Two of Tales from Vlaydor is now called Tiz. The idea of this short story has been in my head for the past six months.

And I have been eager to get started on this short story, but I thought for the longest time that I simply had to finish auto first before I could carry on. Tos and the thing is with creativity, it doesn't have to be linear and it doesn't have to work that way. And so, because I am eager to get started on this short story, I decided I might as well just start on it and we can deal with auto later.

So Tiz takes place about 170 years before Bridgette does. And it is about a linguist whose discoveries bring about the magical industrial revolution of the entire land ofVlaydor, so it's going to be a treat. It's going to be a wild ride. And I am very excited to explore the relationship of Tiz with her fiance [00:06:00] and.

It's just going to be good times and I'm so excited about it, guys. It is so good to be excited also with Tiz I have described before that, as far as writing goes, I am largely a pantser. I don't like to outline in a lot of detail, but with this one, I decided to approach it differently. And I decided to shove aside the pantser part of my creative writing process.

And to focus on outlining so that I can be the plotter and it's okay to flex both sets of muscles. And so I have been outlining, I have been doing character maps. I have been doing a real map. I mean, a real map of a fake place, because this is all fiction. But it's been good. And just the preparation that comes from doing all of that first has been very valuable.

And so there's value in all of it friends and it's okay. If for one short story, you are largely a pantser and [00:07:00] that equates to a lot more revisions and it's okay. If the next short story you are more of a plotter. So that your first draft can be a little farther along the process because you have such a good outline.

So there's that. We are excited to be back in the writing process and it's been good to build that foundational creativity so that in the next few days I'm going to start drafting this sucker and it's going to be great. I have over the past few episodes, I've talked about the three act structure and I went into what each of those acts is.

I also covered the hero's journey, which is a big outline of different points. That are typically found in an adventure story. And last week I covered the arc types that are found in the hero's journey and the arc types are just the different types of people that show up and the roles that they play in order [00:08:00] to further the story along.

So the hero, the mentor and more, and the list goes on. Today we are going to step back and talk about something a little bit more basic. One of the goals of this podcast is to talk about the terminology. Just because if you are hoping to revise your work and you're going to be sending it to people you don't know, or you're going to be sending it to professionals in order to get it critiqued.

Edited and improved upon if you are hoping to get any sort of positive feedback or feedback that is meant to help you in your process, you need to know the terminology. And I'm not talking about just sentence, structure and grammar. I'm talking about the terminology as it pertains to storytelling and as it pertains to creative writing.

And so today we are going to cover beats [00:09:00] and what beats are. And then next week we are going to see how Bridgette. Holds up to one of the most common and widely used set of beats. And just see how it goes. So a beat is the smallest measurable thing of storytelling.

A beat is an event or a moment or whatever that furthers the plot along. So a beats can be a moment of action. It can be a moment of reaction. It can be a moment of inaction. It can also be a scene. It can be a various number of different things so long as the plot progresses and if you get smaller than a beat, you're no longer working with just story elements.

You're more working with the fundamentals of sentence structure. So you're kind of stepping out of story if you are getting smaller than a [00:10:00] beat. So in the book, a swim in a pond in the rain by George Saunders, I highly recommend reading that book. That book has been one of the biggest. Resources for me on developmental edits and developmental edits.

You cover beats. It's all about beats. A swim in a pond in the rain is a collection of seven classic Russian short stories that George Saunders, who is a very successful, very well-known various. Celebrated and loved short story author. He goes through and picks them apart and analyzes them in many different ways, as a way to show you how you can do it, how all of this can be done.

And so sometimes it is pretty technical, which includes like charts and graphs. Sometimes it is more broad and it is actually more of a lesson in life, which I like all of that. I love a [00:11:00] really big approach to something like this. And so I have been eating up this book. I started this book a long time ago.

I didn't finish it, but with the way that my week has now started to unfold, now that I've taken on some additional activities, I have some time. To sit down and actually read a book. That's not on tape. That's not a recorded audio book. So I listened to audio books in the car, but I wanted something like this, like a resource book to be a physical copy so that I can reference it more easily.

I don't reference audio books very easily. So that's why I chose to do it this way. But in that book, in the book, a swim in the pond, in the rain by George Saunders, he says, The way to build intensity and the way to escalate your plot is to never repeat your beats. [00:12:00] So. Beats are these little events. They are the little things that drive the plot forward.

And if you repeat your beats, if you have a beat that shows up more than once in an identical way, it causes. The steam in your story to just kind of deflate and the story loses energy and your reader will lose interest. So that's what beets are when you have your first draft completed, or if you are detailing out a really good outline

depending on how you approach your process. If you like to do the big outlines or if you like to do just kind of a first draft and then fill in whatever is missing in your first draft, it is really good to compare your story to a sheet of beats. So there are things in this world called beat sheets, and to be perfectly honest, the hero's journey is a beat sheet.

It [00:13:00] has. Just the little different events and what they are for and what they do. And if you are writing an adventure story, you can kind of go through and see where the things are. You can see what they are and the order that they typically would go in and you can assign that to your story. You're like, oh, well, yeah.

I mean, crossing. Threshold happens in my story when this kid who, who has an overbearing dad stands up to his dad and then leaves. And that happens, you know, really early in the story. And it totally fits with this beat sheet. One of the more common or very well-known. Beat sheets. It's also a book it's called save the cat.

And it is a collection of 15 beats and it is structured in a similar way to the hero's journey. So it is a three act structure and important things happen in each [00:14:00] act. And we are going to go through next week. I am going to take you through an analysis of my short story, Brie sheets and plug it in to save the cat.

So save the cat. Like I said, it is a book.

It is written by Blake Snyder and there are actually several different versions of save the cat now. save the cat is originally for storytelling and screenwriting, but it absolutely applies to novels and other forms of storytelling too. And so you'll, you'll find many different applications. Of save the cat, but yeah, all those books are available on Amazon and I highly recommend referencing those books.

It is okay to have the references so that you know, the terminology. tuned in for that next week where we go through an analysis of Bri sheets and if breezy. [00:15:00] Saved the cat or rather if Del phene the main character of Bridgette saved the cat next week on writing in the tiny house.

Devin Davis:

And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week, we went over the three act structure of the hero's journey. And this week we are going to cover the arc types or the different people we meet in the hero's journey today on writing in the tiny house. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome back to the show. Welcome to writing in the tiny house. I am the host of this show, Devin Davis, and I live in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and I write things.

[00:00:51] Mainly fiction, mainly fantasy fiction. And I'm here to show you the different ways to get started with writing so that whatever work of fiction you have in your brain, you can actually get to work starting it so that you can have that done. By the time you die or so you can have it done in a timely manner.

[00:01:14] Sometimes it takes a long time to write a book and that's just fine, but it's important to know the easy ways to get there. So last week we discovered the different events or the different beats that happen with the hero's journey. I explained last week that the hero's journey is kind of the step-by-step outline that many epic stories seem to follow, and it is meant to be generic because.

[00:01:45] Is meant to be applied and followed in its own unique way. But as we went through those different points and as they fell into act one and two and three, we saw where those points are in many popular works of fiction. I talked about the Lord of the rings. I talked about Harry Potter. I also brought up the broken earth trilogy by NK Jemisin.

[00:02:08] And today we're not going to be talking about plot structure, but we are going to be talking about archetypes. And an archetype is the type of person that you see represented in fiction or in mythology or whatever. And they serve different roles in progressing the plot and they need to be in the story to keep the story interesting.

[00:02:34] And to keep the story complete. If you have a story where everybody has the same personality type, that story will not have as much conflict as it could. And the characters won't be related to. The easiest way to build a character that is relatable is to see how they interact with other people. And that means that you get to have a lot of different types of people.

[00:03:00] So this is eldest of things that relates back to the hero's journey, which is a book that I referenced last week. The hero's journey written by Christopher Vogler. And so if you want to check that out, go ahead and do so. But these eight arch types are commonly found in all types of high adventure series, where a person leaves their home to go out on an adventure And does all of the things along the way until they come back, if they come back. So the first arc type or the first type of character that is mentioned in this collection of things is the hero. And according to this specific list, So the hero is not necessarily the main character, just because of this one personality type or this one quality that, that this hero has a hero must be willing to self sacrifice.

[00:04:07] So a hero needs to be willing to leave their house to go out on the adventure. If you are writing a novel. That the main character doesn't have that quality. Then your main character doesn't fit the role of the hero in this respect. However, another character might. And so if you're still writing an adventure novel, it is entirely possible that you have a hero, even though it's not your main character, which is interesting because sometimes that can be fun.

[00:04:38] Sometimes. Main character can be like really afraid and really look up to somebody else who is the hero, who is their hero. And so the role of the hero is still filled, which is cool. The next archetype is the mentor. Last week I talked about Dumbledore and I talked about Gandalf and I also talked about some different characters in the lion, the witch and the wardrobe by CS Lewis, just because many different characters can be mentors.

[00:05:12] However, It's easiest to see the ones that that's their entire role at all. So Gandalf comes into the story. He is there to teach. He is there to protect and he is there to provide gifts. So the reason why I brought up the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. Last week is because there are several characters who fulfill this role in order to teach.

[00:05:40] We have Mr. , who is talking about the world and about life as. Creature in servitude or in slavery or whatever, to the white, which we have the white, which herself, who teaches specific things to one of the children. And we have as LAN who teaches the biggest things to, or the biggest, most important things, the biggest life lessons to the children.

[00:06:07] And it's interesting. One of these qualities is to provide a gifts in the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. Who is the guy who gives the gifts. It's Santa Claus. I've kind of ranted about Santa Claus in the lion, the witch and the wardrobe before, because it's one of the biggest plot conveniences in fiction.

[00:06:30] Luckily this is a children's story, so we can allow the plot conveniences, Santa Claus doesn't belong in the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. But, but I bring it up here just because. As Christmas gifts because it was Santa Claus. He brings these children weapons that are used in the great battle at the end and are used to win that battle.

[00:06:56] And so in a way, Santa Claus, even though he has a very limited role and really shouldn't be in that story anyway, meets the criteria of being a mentor, just because he gives them weapons that. Proved to be vital to the success of the war. So that's an interesting thing. The next step or the next arc type is the threshold guardian.

[00:07:25] This is the character that has meant to be menacing, but can still be overcome. So sometimes that can be perhaps a parent. Like the dad or the mom who is not approving of the child's decision to do this or that, and is standing in the way what this arc type does is provide the hero a moment to be brave.

[00:07:54] Usually the first moment to be brave as a way to. To see to the reader and to the hero and to whatever else to prove that they can go out and do the harder things after. The next archetype is the Herald, who is the person who brings a new challenge. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any specific character who simply serves as a Herald.

[00:08:20] it's easier to think of examples of mentors and heroes, but these next four fall into. The categories of just kind of the sub character cast. And as we talk about them, you can see how they all need to be there in order to have a rich cast. So the first is the shape shifter, or it is the character who changes constantly in the hero's point of view.

[00:08:48] And sometimes from the reader's point of view, it's the person who sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're bad. It's the one who keeps you guessing. The next is the shadow that represents the power of the dark force of this adventure. So in like space operas, like star wars, it's really easy to identify the people who fall into the dark side of the force.

[00:09:15] Like we have the emperor and. They represent and embody the dark side or the evil side of whatever is at work in this book. The next is the ally and an ally is a person who travels with the hero. And supports and serves them The ultimate ally is Sam in the Lord of the rings. Especially how he's portrayed in the movies, just because, especially in the movies, Sam did a lot and Sam.

[00:09:51] Is a hero in his own. Right. But absolutely serves the role of the ally when it comes to these different archetypes of the hero's journey. And the final arc type is the trickster. This is the person who is into mischief and has a desire to change. So it is not necessarily pranks. It is not. Necessarily the guy who wants to just blow crap up all the time.

[00:10:19] Usually this is the person with a more radical moral code who has more radical thoughts and is more eager to act on those thoughts and make really fast, big decisions. Having that character. Really drives the plot forward and can create higher stakes and a bigger sense of urgency in the story itself.

[00:10:46] So those are the eight archetypes of the hero's journey.

[00:10:52]

[00:10:52] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

As promised, here are the steps to the Hero's Journey. 1. Ordinary World, 2. Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal of the Call, 4. Meeting the Mentor, 5. Crossing the first threshold.

Tests, allies, and enemies, 7. Approach to the inmost cave, 8. The ordeal, 9. The reward.
The road back, 11. The resurrection, 12. Return with the elixir.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week we covered the three act structure, or at least we finished covering the three act structure of how to structure a novel of how to structure a story. Just the different pattern. Generally speaking on how to do that. And this week, we are going to delve into something far more specific as we cover the hero's journey today on writing in the tiny.

[00:00:27] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in a tiny house who is here to show you all of the ways that you can get that work of fiction out of your mind and into a word processor or whatever, despite how busy you may think that you are.

[00:01:12] Up until this point, we have been speaking very generally this year about the three act structure of most stories. Just the introduction, the rising action and the conclusion and delving into what each of those parts is. As we've gone through this whole, this whole little lesson series, I guess. Today, we are going to go into the hero's journey, which is kind of a map on how to do that.

[00:01:40] At adventure novel. It lays out all of the important steps and the important beats. So the important events, the important things that happen in the story that is typical of most adventure stories. And it's interesting to see how all of it plays into the bigger picture, the hero's journey.

[00:02:03] Was first, I guess, distilled out of the studies of a person named Joseph Campbell who lived from 1904 to 1987. He was a big a student of mythology. And he found in all of these very classic, very, very old stories that each of them followed a pattern. And in his studies, he put together that pattern called the hero's journey and his version of it has.

[00:02:31] Teen steps that fall into three acts. It's a lot, 17 steps is a lot. Later much later, a person named Christopher Vogler Vogel. I don't know how to say his last name, but he worked as a screenwriter for Disney and likely for other people or other companies, he developed a different, or at least a more modern model of the hero's journey that he published back in 2007.

[00:03:00] I appreciate looking at this, but just because it is more modern. It applies even more perfectly to the more current works of fiction that we see coming out. And. It has 12 parts instead of 17. And so today on writing in the tiny house, we are going to cover those 12 parts.

[00:03:20] So these 12 parts are unique to Christopher Vogler, Vogler. But they have a lot in common with the original person who came up with the hero's journey, Joseph Campbell. So this Chris Vogler the screenwriter he wrote a book about the hero's journey.

[00:03:36] There's a full on book about it, and it covers each of these points in more detail than we're going to cover in a 15 minute episodes. Here on the podcast. And I need to give a full confession that I have not read this book. That doesn't mean that you don't have to, or that you shouldn't. There are a lot of references and a lot of really good material on how to structure and properly execute a work of fiction.

[00:04:02] And diving into the hero's journey is not something that I have done. Also my works of fiction. Don't 100% reflect the hero's journey. And so I have chosen to focus on some other things, but we're covering it today on writing in the tiny house, just because. You will see as we go through these different points that these points are everywhere in fiction, especially if the story revolves around calling a hero.

[00:04:34] From somewhere the anointing of a hero and having them leave their home to go on this adventure and then come back with a solution. There are a lot of stories that cover that there are a lot of stories that have that as the main premise and the overall, you know, arching theme of either the trilogy or just the book or the many books.

[00:04:59] And so we're going to go over that and you will find. As we go through these points that a lot of them will apply to your work in progress as well. Even if you are not writing an adventure novel these things fall into place, and many of them don't necessarily have to go in this order, but you will find that these little collections of points.

[00:05:25] Very much need to go into either act one or all of them into act two or all of them into act three, just because of the formula of this story the formula of this structure, this is all very general stuff. And the cool thing about general stuff is it can apply in many delicious ways to many different things.

[00:05:48] Diving right in this entire thing is based in three acts. And I covered what those three acts are already. So let's see how they all just kind of intermingle and what the 12 parts of this structure of writing fiction called the hero's journey is actually all about. act one. Is called the departure.

[00:06:14] This is where we see the ordinary world, or we see the world as it is. it can be the fact that this is an ordinary day to day world or with something like hunger games. We see the dystopia, we see the problem and how a problem has become. The ordinary world, we see Katniss and we see her going through the day-to-day things and we see that it's.

[00:06:41] Not okay. It's not good, but that is her reality. That is her day today. a picture of the ordinary world is the first step. Next, there is a call to adventure or a call to do something, a call to change. So this can be. Harry receiving a letter from Hogwarts. This can be Frodo getting the ring of power.

[00:07:07] It can be a vast, many different things. It can be a vision, it can be a dream. It can be simply the challenge of this is a problem and I want to fix it. So just the invitation to step up and make things different. The third thing is the refusal of the call. if you look at all of these stories, I've mentioned Harry Potter, I've mentioned the Lord of the rings.

[00:07:33] I've mentioned hunger games. There comes a moment very early in the story in almost all of them where the hero of the story doesn't want to be the hero. And that can actually be a running theme throughout the story and throughout the book itself. But. There comes a time just in this structure where the hero refuses, the call, where for whatever reason they're not going to do it, it can be for pride.

[00:07:59] It can be for self doubt. It can be because they feel there is someone more qualified. And then there is me. The mentor. So who are the most popular mentors in fiction? In fantasy, at least we have Gandalf and we have Dumbledore. However, there are other mentors, sometimes the characters can play the role of a mentor and another role.

[00:08:26] And so if we look at the lion, the witch and the wardrobe by CS Lewis Mr. Toughness is in a way a mentor. He is the guy who first introduces the world of Narnia to the reader and to the main characters. Also as LAN is a mentor. And there is the white witch, the ice queen of Narnia because one of the children falls under her protection. As a way to groom him. There is an amount of tutoring or amount of mentoring of introducing him to the world of introducing him to things and conditioning him to, to be a specific thing.

[00:09:12] So sometimes the mentor can come across as many different things, but generally the mentor is the person who. teaches the hero about the journey, teaches the hero about the world. If they are stepping out into a new world, teaches them about the magic and sometimes provides them gifts.

[00:09:34] So if you have read the broken earth trilogy by NK Jemisin, which is one of my favorites in the whole wide world. The character alabaster is the main, character's mentor. And he does just that he teaches her magic and he teaches her how to find her own type of magic. It's an, it's an amazing thing.

[00:09:54] The next step in act one is crossing the first threshold. So it is that decision to go out on your journey. It is. Stepping out of Hobbiton and going onto the road to go onto your adventure and to go off into this strange new world. So that is what wraps up. Act two, there are more points act two is called the initiation.

[00:10:21] So the first thing is you get your tests, your allies, and your enemies on all of these adventure novels. I have read and I have read a lot of them. There are a lot of characters to be met along the way that do not come in. Act one, you meet them in a Tavern, you meet them at a store or on the road or something, or you get jumped by bandits and then these people come swinging in from the trees and save you and to become your ally.

[00:10:54] Or your enemy or whatever. And these tests are all of these challenges that come along the way. That happens a lot in act two. That's kind of the big part of act two, which is a huge act anyway, but at the end of act two the point is number seven is to approach the inmost cave.

[00:11:16] So if you think back on like the classic. Mythology and stuff. It seems like a final test was always in like this cave or at the top of a mountain, just that final place to go and to reach out and to get there. And there were a lot of problems along the way, but here we are, and it is the end boss of a video game.

[00:11:41] And they're in the inmost cave. The main character faces an ordeal, which is often a crowning test or sometimes defeating the big end boss. So it can be defeating a bad guy. It can be defeating. A really big henchman of the bad guy as a way to prove worth. It can be a lot of different things like that.

[00:12:11] And then they are given a reward. So either it is a magical item, maybe sometimes It is a way to defeat the scourge that has plagued the land, or it is, you know, the magical spell that can cure whatever illness has befallen your sister, different things like that.

[00:12:32] And then enact three. It is the return. It is going back to their hometown. The first step is the road back or to the ultimate destination. This means that on the way back, sometimes they go to And even higher place or a more special place to learn and receive more counsel and this is called the resurrection.

[00:12:58] So resurrection is point number 11 on this list of 12. So this is where in classic mythology, the hero is killed and then reborn and is presented as new and pure So it's a form of rebirth or a coming back to life or in the event of Harry Potter, he actually did die and then did come back to life.

[00:13:23] That is the ultimate resurrection of that entire story. And then they go back to their city returning with the elixir. So the elixir is whatever key ingredient. That is required to get rid of the problem. So sometimes returning with the elixir is winning the prize money. Sometimes it's coming back with the spell or a way to eradicate whatever, you know, strange, magical diseases across the land or maybe it's just a potion to heal a loved one or whatever. There are a lot of different applications to that, but that in a nutshell is the hero's journey. And as you saw, it follows that three act structure. So I will include these 12 points in the show notes, and we will see you next time when we discuss some of the archetypes or some of the character types.

[00:14:25] If you want to use more common language that also come into the hero's journey next time on writing in the tiny house.

[00:14:33]

[00:14:33] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] last week, we talked about act two with writing structure. And today we are going to wrap it up with act three on writing in the tiny house. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. Welcome to writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin D. And I am the guy in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you the tips and tricks on how to get that work of fiction in your brain and put it on paper, which sounds really gross.

[00:00:57] But I think we all know what I'm talking about. So today we are discussing act three. We are discussing the three act structure of most plot lines the way that we structure our stories, most stories, especially nowadays follow a three act structure. And if you look back on the big mythology stories of ancient times, especially like Greek and Roman mythology and stuff, all of those allegories or stories or tales, or even fairytales.

[00:01:34] From all cultures, a lot of them follow a three act structure and next week we're actually going to delve into a thing another writing structure or a pattern or a guideline or whatever called the hero's journey that. So many of those classic old fictional things follow just the formula for all of those things.

[00:02:01] We'll delve into that next week. But right now we need to talk about act three. And a lot of us think that acts three is where the climax happens. And so a lot of us are right. A lot of us are also not right. The thing is with act two, act two is the rising action of the book. It is where the stakes and the tension and the stakes and the tension build on each other until there is a certain breaking point.

[00:02:31] And then you get the climax of the story that ends with the resolution. All of that is act three, but let's discuss what actually makes the climax just because sometimes the climax has specific parts and some of those parts fall in act two, and the rest of them are the beginning of act three.

[00:02:53] So act three starts at the highest energetic point of your book and then the energy tapers off from there. But let's talk about what. Plays into the climax. So with act two, it is where we start breaking our main characters legs. We provide them with obstacles. We provide them with, mind games, moments for them to grow and learn and discover things about themselves and about the world around them.

[00:03:25] And it is usually obstacle after obstacle after obstacle, but then at the end of act two, it usually goes obstacle disaster and then crisis. And at the crisis, there comes a point of no return the point of no return is what wraps up act two. And that is where we jump in to act three.

[00:03:54] So everything comes to this big head. And then all of that needs to resolve in a big way. So sometimes it's big violence. Sometimes it's a war. Sometimes it's fireworks. Sometimes it is a final competition. It can show up in a matter of different things, but all of this energy has built up and now all of that energy needs to dissipate.

[00:04:17] So. Act three begins with the other side of the climax, when the climax itself ends and then things start to resolve. So thinking of the resolution. Sometimes that resolution is super straight forward because you have a hero who is fighting a bad guy, and then the bad guy dies and the bad guy's plan is foiled.

[00:04:46] And then. The story ends and we all understand that maybe the bad guy had a plan to take over the tri-state area. And now because he's dead or arrested and thrown in jail, he can no longer take over the tri-state area. And everybody is safe. Once again, sometimes it can take a different approach, not always in a work of fiction. Not always, is it one person battling another person or a group of people against another group of people? Sometimes it can be a person in a way battling themselves, especially if they're dealing with an illness and sometimes the stakes can get so high and whatever.

[00:05:32] And at the end with the climax, they can either be cured or they can reach a pivotal moment where they are terminal. And we still experience a feeling of relief. that is a way that things can be resolved. Sometimes that is unexpected. Sometimes it's tragic. Sometimes it is celebrated some time. I mean, it can, it can be colored a number of different ways, but that resolution is what happens in act three.

[00:06:01] That's what act three is all about. depending on what you are doing, Resolution can actually look a number of ways. If you are writing a trilogy, or if you are writing a series act three of your book still needs to keep your reader interested in reading the next book. So you can either end with a cliffhanger.

[00:06:28] If you have read six of crows by Les BARR, Dugo by Lee bar. Dugo you know that the ending of six of crows ends on. The worst cliffhanger in the whole world. And the sequel to that crooked kingdom starts like a week later and just jumps right in. And that is the biggest hook to get somebody to move immediately into the next book.

[00:06:58] And to be perfectly honest, when I read those two books, I read them back to back For me, if I didn't have the second book already, if I didn't have it already loaded onto my device, I would have been super bent out of shape about it. Just because the cliffhanger in book one was so big, there was such a lack of resolution for me that I simply had to start the next book immediately.

[00:07:28] That's something that you get to pay attention to. If you end your book with a monster cliffhanger and absolutely no resolution in any way, because it is meant to spring the reader immediately into the next book. But you're not releasing the next book for another two years. It's something to think about It is worth it to think about the relationship you have with your readers. And if you're just going to be jerking them around, or if you're going to make them mad, or if you're going to make them excited, or maybe you can just pay attention to how all of that will play out and have booked two. More ready so that you can release book too, a little bit more closely to book one.

[00:08:15] Maybe you can release book one in the spring and then release book two in the fall. And then people won't be so mad. I mean, the thing is when a person is reading your book, they are quite literally spending hours. One-on-one with you. And that is a very special relationship. They are 100% in your head or at least in your world.

[00:08:42] And you are 100% in their head., that is a very special relationship that you get to consider when you are releasing things. And when you are formulating your act three, However, there are some other books where it was simply in the formulation of the story itself, where not everything would be resolved.

[00:09:04] There is no next book and that's the whole point. The biggest book that I can think of right now, that was a big example of that was the book little fires everywhere by Celeste Inga. with that, the whole story was a really big head scratcher. At least for me, it was a very introspective, it was simply meant to showcase different struggles that people have in life without being preachy about any of them and to showcase both sides of the matter.

[00:09:40] And to simply. Bring a very rounded and a very holistic approach to some really big social issues or some fundamental arguments related to some of these topics that eating presents in her book, little fires everywhere. that's what the whole book does. And in my mind it did a great however, at the end As far as every little thing being wrapped up and delivered with a bow and buttoned up completely that isn't what happened.

[00:10:18] That wasn't the style of the book. Anyway. So even though there was a sense of the book ending, there were so many things in the book that were left. Untied that were left unresolved. So there was a big thing that happened with a family between a family and a lady and her daughter who were renting from the family and is simply N.

[00:10:44] With the family, kind of losing everything, losing some of the relationships in the family and with this other lady and her daughter leaving. And so it was not necessarily a happy ending. It was not a cheesy ending. It was a very heartfelt, meaningful. Moment of teaching, which was perfect, but there was no promise of a second book and there was no promise of answers.

[00:11:15] So the thing about act three is it is the answers to all of the promises that you have made in act one and act two all throughout the book, you have set up your reader to expect certain things and. Act three is largely the time where you deliver on all of those things and you can deliver in an unexpected way, but you need to deliver, if you set up your reader to think or feel specific things all throughout the book, and then don't address them in act three.

[00:11:49] And then the book stops, you're going to have some dissatisfied readers. Even if your book ends with a cliffhanger, because another book is coming out there still gets to be a feeling of this chunk of the overall story is complete. It's ready. Like all the ingredients have been mixed in act two, those things have been baked and now that thing is ready for the next big part.

[00:12:18] Of the series. And so even if things are left unresolved, that chunk of the story still has a feeling of being complete. So even if there is a big cliffhanger at the end, a lot of times it is okay to review the stakes and review some of the obstacles. I mean, if you choose to, this is really big in suspense, thrillers, where you get to kind of sit back and the author through some device or another.

[00:12:52] Just goes through and shows you all of the little steps of the mystery and how they all happened and how like the detective reviewing the case made a mistakes or missed things. And the killer was like one step ahead. That can be really satisfying. That can make a thing more enjoyable, especially if your audience is not a very meticulous.

[00:13:19] Group of readers. So that can be a good thing. It can show a certain amount of responsibility that you have in your storytelling, and it can wrap up the things in a satisfactory way for your reader. So with all of that, there is one thing that absolutely matters, and that is the energy level.

[00:13:45] And I hope that it is okay if I use that terminology, the energy level with act one, the energy is very introductory. It starts out slow. There aren't any stakes yet. There isn't any conflict yet to probably, or very little. And we go through all this builds. Huge climax. Nice resolution, but we need to understand that when act three is over the energy levels still needs to be higher than it was when the book began.

[00:14:20] So if you have a conflict and then the energy level, absolutely tanks back to how things were in, act one, you didn't do it. Right. So. If everything is 100% back to normal, if everything is exactly as it was before any of the story happened, I mean, it's, it's that really big cop out where the main character wakes up and the whole story was a dream.

[00:14:48] So none of it happened. And now our energy levels suddenly just dropped and dive bombed back down to the energy level of. So, what I'm saying is you need to end the story on a higher note than you started it. And that is one of the good things of a successful act three.

[00:15:13]

[00:15:13] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is a transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] Last week we talked about act one And this week, we are going to have a lot to say about act two, as we continue talking about writing structure today on writing in the tiny house. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome back to writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in a tiny house.

[00:00:46] Living in Northern Utah, who is here to share with you the different ways that you can get that work of fiction out of your brain and onto paper, no matter how busy you believe that you are, as far as housekeeping stuff goes, you should notice that the graphic to writing and the tiny house should be back to normal.

[00:01:08] If it is not for you, please let me know so that I can manage some different things. On my end. I changed the graphic for last week. We are back to what it should be, and I will have last week's graphic back up when we go through our episodes in June, when we celebrate pride month. So today.

[00:01:30] We are going to be talking about act two. We are covering structure with writing fiction. And last week we talked about act one. And so what happens after act one? I said, act one is filled with a lot of introduction. The character needs to be introduced the setting the world.

[00:01:51] And then there needs to be that decision that carries the reader and the story into act two it can be a decision to act. It can be a decision to decide a plan. It can be a lot of different things, but there is a certain turning point to get to act two with act two. A lot of fun things can happen. Act two is about the same length as the other two acts combined.

[00:02:23] Very roughly speaking it is. Half the length of your entire novel, or at least it should be, this is where the adventure happens. This is where your main character goes out into the world and makes mistakes and learns things either about the world itself or about the sinister plot that gradually unfolds or about different ways to overcome an obstacle.

[00:02:50] All of this self discovery stuff is what happens in act two. And it can be super fun. It can also be a disaster. So I think that I said previously with act one that all of this stuff is scalable, which means that in a book you can have act one, act two, an act three, and you also have the same structure in a trilogy.

[00:03:15] Which means the first book counts as act one, the second book act two, and the third book act three. And with all of these, it is really easy to lose track of what happens in act two. With a trilogy, it is usually the second book that gets kind of. Just because the second book usually doesn't have the climax of the entire trilogy.

[00:03:43] Narrowing the scope back down to just one book and the three acts within a book act two, doesn't have the climax act two is all of the rising action to the climax. So that means all of the fun things happen. And basically this is where you get to step in and start breaking your character's legs.

[00:04:07] There is a huge problem with act two called saggy middle syndrome. That is, when the middle of the book is boring. It is sluggish. It doesn't develop anything. It can be filled with plot holes. It can be filled with plot conveniences. It can also be filled with like segues With the different directions that the story is pulled into, that don't really progress a story arc. It can be the side quests. It can be the piddly little sub characters that don't really play into the overall story, but the author decided to take us there. And you get to ask yourself why?

[00:04:56] So a lot of times with act two and with the saggy middle syndrome, we start breaking our characters legs, but we need to have the big picture in mind so that each of the steps and each of the obstacles and each of the self discovery moment. Come up to the very end of act two, which is another turning point.

[00:05:22] And then in act three, we get the climax and the resolution. So with act two, you fill it with a bunch of things that are exciting to. That are fun to read that, develop your characters and make them more believable. And that enhance the story arc that you are creating. It enhances the overall point of what you're doing with your story.

[00:05:50] So there are a couple little devices that you can put in there. Some of them are called the anticlimax. It's when tension builds and the plot goes in a very easy to understand direction. And then. Twist happens now. Twists are fun. If you have twists all over the place in act two your reader is going to have whiplash from that.

[00:06:15] And so I recommend like one or two super good twists and they all need to tie into the resolution at the end. It's really fun to have a twist that unless you get to the. You think the twist was just kind of a tacky thing to do. And then the author brings up that twist and why it was a thing just because in the resolution, sometimes we revisit all of those things.

[00:06:42] We revisit the reasons for the twists, and then you see that it ties together in a really intelligent way and in like a really clever, cool. And so that is what act two is all about. It is the hell ride of your story. And so if you are writing fantasy fiction, it gets to be super exciting. If you are writing contemporary fiction, it can be just as exciting, but you need to make sure that the story arc is building that the stakes are also building.

[00:07:15] You need to make sure that there is something at risk and you need to make sure that there is a damn good reason. For the climax enact three. And you need to make sure that the stakes are very high in order to get there, make sure that the characters are struggling, make sure that they are learning and growing.

[00:07:39] If you take it easy on your characters and you avoid all those things, first of all, Your story will be very easy to write because it's not going to require a lot of brainwork from you at the same time. It will be a drag to read for the very same reason. So go ahead and think about what act two is for your work in progress in act one.

[00:08:09] Think about that turning point, that decision, that choice. Move on with the story. That's where act two starts. And then think of the ways that you in your work in progress are building the story arc along are building the characters themselves and making sure that the stakes are super high. And then when we get to act three, which we will talk about next week, make sure that you deliver on all of that in your climax and in your resolution.

[00:08:48] So with act two saggy, middle syndrome, like I mentioned earlier is a very real thing. It is also completely avoidable. If you are a pantser. Like me, I'm going to tell you that it's okay to outline, but if you don't know where things are headed in act two, it's okay to brainstorm with a friend.

[00:09:12] Even if you don't write things down, it's okay to have that clarity so that all of these major points can be hit on or can be touched on. During act two so that you don't get saggy middle syndrome with your book.

[00:09:29] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

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RELAX! It's still a creative writing podcast.

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is a transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is a transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

A special thanks to Crystal Brown, for doing this guided meditation with us!

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

View Details

“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @authordevindavis

Twitter: @authordevind

The following is a transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] We are taking things a little bit differently today, guys, today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to this kind of different episode of Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:39] So this episode. We're going to slow down a little bit. Friends. This month has already been a huge roller coaster for me, especially with the recent time change that has messed me up. And I'm sure that I'm not the only person here or the only person in the room with you who feels that way. And. In light of NaNoWriMo, in light of some of the more recent changes in my personal life and at work, there has been a lot, there has been a lot to reflect on. There has been a lot to consider. And guys, I want to take a moment today. I was going to talk a lot about NaNoWriMo and I still might, but not in this episode. My goals with NaNoWriMo have been modified just because they need to be. With some of the different things that happened with work. So let's, let's describe what happened with work. This is not excuses, but this is something that I am very excited about. That work, I got asked to host a private podcast, and so I am now the host of two podcasts and getting that underway and getting that up and running and figuring it all out just because I am the only person in my work setting who knows how to podcast, who has ever done that before.

[00:02:15] Who knows how to record. Spoken word and do interviews. And so it's not like someone was there to give feedback and guidance as to what this private show that I am doing for my work needs to be like, and it's been fun to see it grow, and it's been fun to see it take shape. And it was really fun to present that to my coworkers and watch it go live. It's been a fun thing. It's been a fun project, but that has taken time more than anything that has taken mental energy that I was planning once upon a time to pour into NaNoWriMo. And so if you are following me on NaNoWriMo, you will see that my word count is low. As of the publishing date of this episode.

[00:03:04] And I would stand here and say that I'm sorry, but I'm not a NaNoWriMo is a really big project. And if you make it to 50,000 words, that is wonderful. And that is a huge feat and that is something to celebrate. If you don't make it to 50,000 words, if you write anything at all, it is absolutely worth celebrating.

[00:03:28] So that's where I am. I understand that this episode is airing November 17th. And I am going to tell you that it is not very likely that I am going to be accomplishing that 50,000 word count for NaNoWriMo, but it is because of very good reasons that have happened otherwise in my life.

[00:03:52] The thing that I wanted to talk about most, and this is a little bit of a different episode like I mentioned earlier. This is November friends. This is where we give things. I talked about giving things last week, I talked about the importance of voicing what you are grateful for as a way to manage stress and as a way to bring, focus into what you're doing.

[00:04:18] And I still believe that is true. And that is something that I will always. Practice my gratitude and bringing attention and focused to the things that I'm grateful for as a way to lift spirits and as a way to bring motivation. All of that is real to me. All of that works. Today I want to talk about why I love books so much.

[00:04:47] I've talked about why I love writing. I've talked about the importance of writing all throughout all of these episodes of Writing in the Tiny House. And some of that stuff I might repeat, but there is something that I want to focus on today. I have found that I can know a person more. I can know a person better.

[00:05:09] If I know what they read. I have friends at work specifically one friend and another friend that starting to perk up and join in the fun a little bit, that many times a week, we stand around and we talk about fantasy fiction. We talk about magic. We talk about stories. We talk about narrators just because this other friend is also a big audio book person, just like me.

[00:05:39] And we talk about stories. We talk about things that trigger our imaginations and we talk about how fun it is to be completely. Surrounded and engrossed into these fun fantastical worlds. The, the book that has been brought up recently is the book Sabri L by Garth nix. It's About a little necromancer of all things.

[00:06:09] The world is wonderful. The magic is creative and this book is narrated by Tim Curry. It's not a new book. It came out a long time ago. I remember reading Sabri L when I was in high school and this friend. Recently picked it up either for the first time or picked it up again. And so we've had a lot of things to talk about.

[00:06:34] And the thing is I love reading books that other people have read because it brings me closer to those people. It makes me know my friend better when I know what she reads. And it helps me know how her mind works and it lets me know where she's been or at least the thoughts and the wonder and the fun moments of these stories.

[00:07:04] She has been in those moments. And it's fun for me to be in those moments too. I have a friend that I met very recently who. Recommended the book, the life of PI, and he also recommended the book, eat, pray love, and I have never read the life of PI before, and I am so excited to dive into this wonderful work of literary fiction.

[00:07:33] A movie was made with this book and I've heard nothing but good things about the movie, but to read a book and to experience these things in the same way or experience similar feelings and reactions and emotions, and to see some of the similar pictures. Possibly. To read this beautiful prose and come to know these characters as this friend has done, makes me come to know my friend better.

[00:08:06] And so this episode is releasing November 17th and that is one week and before Thanksgiving, I don't know. My dear listeners, how many people in your lives are readers, but I encourage you over this holiday season to talk about what people have read and to add that to your, to be read. And I invite you to read these different works of fiction, or maybe nonfiction through that specific lens that your loved one, your friend, your mom, your dad, your family member has kind of been on this path already and pay attention to how it affects your relationship with.

[00:09:02] Pay attention to how it can bring you to understand that person better. I don't know if this is a practice that you do already, but it is something that I practice with all of the people that I hold dearly. If I were to line up all of my reader, friends and all of my reader, family, and present them to you and in a line,

[00:09:28] odds are very high, that I will have read something that they recommended and odds are very high that because I did that, I understand and appreciate and love them more deeply than I would had. I not read those books first. So even if you're not a writer, there is a lot to say about who you are based on the things that you read.

[00:09:56] And so I invite you over the next six weeks to do that. One thing that I usually do in November, and that I have chosen over the past two years to kind of forget to do this. There is a practice in November of doing new year's resolutions. It's not really an American practice or something that I was ever raised.

[00:10:20] doing. But the spirit of November and October is the spirit of the harvest, which just the energy of ripping the plants from the soil and preparing the ground so that the ground is ready to plant in the spring is a common practice for farmers and whatever. You don't always have to wait until the spring to prepare the ground.

[00:10:47] And so there is just a cultural thing of doing new year's resolutions in November. And the friend who recommended the life of PI has a resolution to read 12 books this next year. And I have not sat down to see how many books I intend to read next year. I'm a pretty big reader. At least I'm a pretty big audio book listener, but what are you going to do?

[00:11:18] How are you going to expand your mind? Maybe in these next six weeks, maybe in the next year for 2022. So that you can explore a different book, explore a different point of view and see things as a writer saw those things, experience a story that a writer brings to you. But, and I've said this before, and I will say it one last time.

[00:11:45] I invite you to read a recommendation. From one of your closest friends or family members, and I invite you to see how that affects your relationship with them. So again, this is a different type of episode. I don't do episodes like this all the time. But otherwise this episode is very, it's very much from the heart. It is very under produced. I mean, we're pretty raw and honest right now. And we're going to kind of keep it like this. So I hope that you are celebrating your holidays with loved ones. I pray for nothing but good things to come your way.

[00:12:31] And I hope that you are reflecting on the things that you are grateful for this month. So thank you for your support. Thank you for spending some time with me today, and we will see you next time on Writing and the Tiny House.

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“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available as an audiobook and an ebook! Just follow these links:

Ebook:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JBGSLDF?searchxofy=true&binding=kindle_edition&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt_tkin&qid=1636325653&sr=8-1

Audio book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09L283KLX?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_taud_tkin&storeType=ebooks&qid=1636325653&sr=8-1

To become a patron, visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse, and I provide an Advance Reader Copy of my short stories as a thank-you for my patrons.

Contact Copy Editor Krissy Barton at www.littlesyllables.com

The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the podcast website.

[00:00:00] Guys, I just got news at four o'clock this morning that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is also available as an audio book now on Audible and I think in two or three other locations. So as of this morning, not only am I an author, but I am also a narrator. But that's actually not what the episode's about.

[00:00:31] We're actually going to talk about NaNoWriMo today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you the ways to write that work of fiction that you have always wanted to write and show you that you can do it no matter how busy you are.

[00:01:15] It is entirely possible to squeeze in some of those writing projects so that you can get the work done. But today with some of this news, a brief reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is for sale as an ebook on Amazon.com. But like I said in the introduction, it is also available as an audio book on Audible and I think in two other locations, I will figure that out. If you want to listen to "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, you can download the audio book narrated by yours truly. So it's good. I would personally follow the link in the show notes so that you can purchase it through a web browser instead of through the Audible app, just because if you purchase it through the Audible app, you're going to spend a credit. And this is only one hour of audio. So, I mean, if you want to spend a credit, do that, if you want to get it for cheaper, purchase it through a web browser. This is a particularly interesting month because there is a nationwide and for some people internationally wide competition or a big push for people to draft.

[00:02:40] That is what NaNoWriMo is all about, to draft 50,000 words in one month from start to finish. And I'd like to say that up to this point, we are on track. At least I am on track. You can follow me on the NaNoWriMo website. My username is author_devin_davis. So author Devin Davis separated with two underscores in there and you can track my progress.

[00:03:14] It is so interesting that this competition takes place in November, just because of Thanksgiving. Now, I don't know about you, but I am the guy who loves to do like the 25 days of giving thanks countdown. I love to do it. I've done it every year for the last long while, of just taking a moment to reflect on what I am grateful for and sharing that on my social media, just because it is really awesome to bring lights and to bring a big focus onto what you are grateful for. Sometimes I get caught up a lot in complaining and in being unsatisfied and whatever else. It's easy to focus on the things that I don't have.

[00:04:03] And so sometimes in November, it is such a good moment in the year. It is such a good time in the year to reflect on the things that I do have, on the things that are going well and to sit in those feelings for a while and to express them. And to be honest with such a big project, like NaNoWriMo, that takes such a big chunk out of every single day and requires a lot of motivation and requires a lot of self-determination.

[00:04:36] It is such a good driving force for me to remember the things that I'm grateful for. So I don't know about you. I have already spoken about different ways to take care of yourself and take care of your body during this push for NaNoWriMo and really for any big project that you're doing. If you're in the middle of a big project at work, if you're in the middle of a

[00:05:01] a big thing, whatever hobbies you do, it is always good to schedule your time to take breaks, to have healthy snacks and healthy eating habits and to get plenty of rest and different things like that. It is good to take care of your physical self. At the same time. With writing and with any really big projects, but the whole thing can also be very mentally taxing.

[00:05:30] It can be hard to simply push through. And considering that writing is likely not a collaborative thing for you. I mean, I know a lot of people who co write things, or I know of people who do that, I don't actually know people who do that. But writing really, isn't a team sport. And for almost all people, it's not really a team hobby either.

[00:05:57] Especially the drafting part, the first draft and most books die on the first draft anyway. There is a lot of your energy. There is a lot that you put into this. Not only are you scheduling time out of your day. For me, it has been two hours every day.

[00:06:19] And my writing goal is on target right now and it's been okay. But two hours every day is a lot, including the weekends when I have my kids and other obligations. And so it it's worked out, but with this creative process, the story comes from you. For me, not only am I spending two hours a day drafting, but sometimes I need to bounce ideas off of people, or I need to take a break and kind of think about what I'm going to be writing about so that whatever I go through makes sense.

[00:06:56] It's just a lot. I'm grateful that I'm doing it though. I really like the feeling that comes with rallying together. Granted, all of this rallying for me has largely been online forums and on the website for NaNoWriMo, but it's really inspirational to me to be doing a similar thing with a group of people who have such a big goal. 50,000 words, if you're kind of unfamiliar with what word counts kind of resemble, 50,000 words is, is about 200 pages of texts.

[00:07:31] 200 pages of a standard manuscript. And that's a lot, that's a lot to do in a month. That's a lot for anybody to do in a month. I mean, there are people who write far faster than that, or crank out more words than that in a month, but I know far more people who don't. So just in the light of November and in the light of giving

[00:07:54] thanks, if you are finding yourself, Kind of in the depths of despair, if you are losing motivation, if you are mentally burned out. If you are not very excited to continue drafting your book, usually that means that you need to revisit your outline. If you're a pantser and you are coming up on writer's block, then you might want to take some notes from an outliner and just kind of outline the next part of your book, just because that is the perfect way to deal with writer's block.

[00:08:30] Anyway. In face of all of these really big, heavy feelings, it helps me to reflect on what I'm thankful for. I personally don't fully know what NaNoWriMo is going to look like over the Thanksgiving holiday, just because I'm going to be with family. I'm not going to be in the tiny house during that time.

[00:08:54] But everybody knows that I'm taking this goal seriously. And so hopefully I'll be able to sneak away and maintain my goals. So that is my invitation to you. Go ahead and spend time every day. I know that you are not writing 24 hours a day, and reflect on what you are thankful for before you gear up and start drafting.

[00:09:22] And let me know how it goes. Go ahead and send me your stories. My email address is authordevindavis@gmail.com, and I would love to hear inspirational stories from you, or you can send them to me on Instagram. My handle is@authordevindavis.. I'm excited to hear your news. I'm excited to see your progress and go ahead and log on to NaNoWriMo and follow me as one of your buddies.

[00:09:51] So all of that information is in the description of the show notes. This episode is a little bit shorter than what we are used to, but that is okay. Take time for you. Take care of. Take care of your body and take care of your mind. And especially this month, remember the things that you are thankful for, not just because it's a cheesy thing to do, but it can actually help with dealing with stress and dealing with motivation.

[00:10:24] So that is my tidbit for today.. Let's go ahead and hear all about a little syllables editing.

[00:10:33] Run by copy editor, Krissy Barton, Little Syllables editing is a reliable resource for anyone looking to improve their manuscript. Chrissy does line edits, copy edits, and the final proofread for experienced writers and newbies alike. Krissy offers incredible customer service by always being in contact with the customer.

[00:10:54] And she gives a fast turnaround time. She is always willing to give your work a sample edit for free. So you both can find out if you'll make a good team without any obligation upfront, go to little syllables.com and reach out to Chrissy today. A link is in the show notes.

[00:11:16] so that's it for today. Again, a brief reminder that Bridgette installment, one of tales from blade, or is available to purchase on amazon.com as an ebook. And as of this morning, it has been uploaded to audible and a couple other locations as an audio book. So go ahead and get your copy today. If you are a patron of writing in the tiny house, I provide an advanced reader copy of all of these short stories.

[00:11:44] As a way to say thank you for your pledge. So if you wish to become a patron of writing in the tiny house, go to patrion.com/writing in the tiny house today. a link for that is also in the show notes. Be sure to follow me on social media.

[00:11:59] My Instagram is at author Devin Davis and my Twitter is at author Devin, D I'm excited to hear about your news with NaNoWriMo and we will see you next time. Have fun writing.

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Purchase your copy of “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor today! Just follow this link:

https://www.amazon.com/Brigitte-Tales-Vlaydor-Devin-Davis-ebook/dp/B09JBLF6XD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=tales+from+vlaydor&qid=1635567415&sr=8-1

Also, become a patron today and receive a free ebook of the Tales from Vlaydor installments as they are releases. Go to:

www.Patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Reach out to Krissy Barton for all your editing needs. www.littlesyllables.com

The following is a transcription of this episode. For the full transcription, please visit the show’s webpage.

Devin Davis: [00:00:00] Are you hoping to grow your readership or your following on social media or on any platform really? Then maybe you need to learn about Targeted Daily Engagement today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis.

And today we are actually going to cover a little bit about marketing. Usually I'm the guy in the tiny house living in Northern Utah who takes time out of his day sometimes to tell you all about writing and about how you absolutely have all the time that you [00:01:00] need to write that work of fiction that you have wanted to do for so long.

Especially if you have a nine to five, like me.

Today we are going to talk about something a little bit different. We are going to be covering kind of a marketing strategy. We write our books, we publish our books and then we need to get people to buy our books.

So here's the deal, guys.

First of all before we get into the Targeted Daily Engagement, let's go ahead and remember that NaNoWriMo started November 1st and I hope that all of you have started this fun and exciting race or competition. I don't really know what type of competition we're supposed to consider this to be. I guess it's a race against yourself.

Just to, because if you manage to crank out 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, which is this entire month of November, then you get the [00:02:00] prize of a certificate saying that you completed NaNoWriMo. It's really a fun way to come together with groups all across the nation. Some people in the world are also doing NaNoWriMo, who don't live in the U S.

And it's just a great way to make big progress on whatever works you have in progress. And so I am doing NaNoWriMo as of the date that this is airing. If you are not a patron, this is released to the public on November 3rd. And so I have been doing NaNoWriMo for two days already. And if you are interested in kind of following me or pairing up with me, I do have a writing group called Writing in the Tiny House.

And my profile name on NaNoWriMo is author_devin_davis. So author Devin Davis separated by underscores. I try to keep things pretty straight forward and easy to remember. But we [00:03:00] added underscores into this username this time. And so go ahead and follow me and, you know, become my buddy on NaNoWriMo.

And that way we can continue to make progress on our works in progress together. And that's awesome just because we all need more motivation in this world, and in times like these. So yeah, if you haven't started NaNoWriMo yet, we are only a couple of days into the competition. So get going. I hope that you have plenty of ideas.

The trick is simply to get started. That's how it is with mostly anything in life. The trick is to start. And so for me, in order to successfully do this, I have to write about two hours a day, which I think is going to be doable. And that's two hours, not every day. I will have my weekends off and I still need to make time to do this podcast and a couple other things like [00:04:00] that.

So, yay. I am working onTales from Vlaydor, Installment Two, which is entitled Otto.

I'm excited to get it done. I think that I'm going to get about two or three, maybe even four short stories done this month.

So if you're stressed out, that's great. Go ahead and be stressed. That means you're making progress and you're challenging yourself. Make sure that you're pacing yourself. We don't want you to fry or burnout or lose motivation or whatever. So with this first episode of Writing in the Tiny House, I'm going to be covering a marketing strategy. And to be perfectly honest, Targeted Daily Engagement, engaging on NaNoWriMo on the websites and in the competition is a way to do Targeted Daily Engagement.

I'll cover more on that in just a second. But while I was in Hawaii a few weeks ago, I was staying with my good [00:05:00] friend, Crystal Brown. She is a yoga instructor in Hawaii, and I got her to record a guided meditation. And so a little bit later with this NaNoWriMo competition when stakes are high and we are stressed out and we want nothing more than to just finish and cross that finish line. The final episode in November of Writing in the Tiny House is going to be a guided meditation so that we can all be a little more grounded and cross that finish line a little bit more gracefully. But until then, let's talk about Targeted Daily Engagement.

When we go to advertise the things that we've done, when we go to post on social media and we do all of these different things. We are self promoting. I hope that if you are a serious author that you already have a website started and going, I do. My website is authordevindavis.com. And [00:06:00] if you go there and you visit that website, you will see that it is pretty basic. Author websites don't need to be elaborate. They don't have to function in a really big elaborate way. What you absolutely need on an author website is who you are, what you've written and where those works can be found, if you are hoping to sell those works.

And for me, because I'm also getting into narrating audio books, I am going to be posting some of the stuff associated with that as well. So it doesn't have to be big. You do not need to reinvent amazon.com. You don't have to have a shop. You don't need to have like a store on your website where people can find your books and purchase them directly from your website.

Unless you want to figure out a way to do that. If you have your stuff on amazon.com or in Barnes and noble and on all of the different places, it is perfectly okay to provide links on your web page to [00:07:00] get there. So we have a link forBrigitte, which was released at the end of October, and a way to get to Amazon.com in order to purchase an e-copy of Brigitte.

And I have a link to Writing in the Tiny House. I have my picture. I have a brief bio. I have a link to a page with some of my audio book stuff. It's not uploaded yet. It's not posted yet, but I have a page made for it already so that people who are interested in hiring me to do their audio books can see my audition reels.

So you need to have a website. Secondly, if you are doing Targeted Daily Engagement, you need to be active on social media. And this is how you do that. The thing is, on social media, we get inundated every day with people who are self-promoting. We get inundated with ads. We get inundated with [00:08:00] people who say some dumb thing and then a link to go buy that dumb thing.

And to be honest, people are put out by it now. Targeted daily engagement is a very organic, but a very positive way to draw attention to what you are doing, to your website, to your works in progress, to everything that you're doing as an author or as a business owner. What you do is you get onto your social media platform and you modify your profile to reflect every thing about the one thing that you are willing to promote. So for me, the easiest thing to promote is this podcast. And so under my profile information, I have my author website, which has the podcast. I have all of the Writing and the Tiny House Pictures.

I have the same author photo as my profile picture, as my profile image, as I do [00:09:00] for my author section of my website. And it's the same picture that I include in the, about the author section of my book. If you purchased a copy of Brigitte, at the very end, there is an about the author section and it is that picture that I have on everything.

It is everything that you are hoping to promote. So all of the personal stuff, you get to kind of put that aside, or you get to make a separate profile for you to promote your business or your writing or whatever it is. You are hoping to sell your services. You're writing.

Whatever it is. Then you go to what some people call the watering holes. You go to the forums, you go to the groups. If you are focusing mostly on Instagram, you go to the hashtags, you go to the people who are actively involved in what you are doing. People who are interested in what you [00:10:00] are selling or in the activity that you are promoting.

Service that you want people to know that you do and you go there and you find the questions and you find the topics of conversation and you post every single day relevant, meaningful stuff that is not self promoting. That is not directing people or saying, go visit my website and spend money. Content good content.

And. It will help people find your website. It will help people find your product and it will bring people to whatever you are doing. So with me, with targeted daily engagement, I am promoting a podcast about writing. I'm also. Promoting my writing. And so I get onto the Facebook groups specifically for me, it is Facebook that I mostly focus on just because I [00:11:00] have been getting more attention there, but really I encourage you to find.

Anywhere to try a lot of different things because so many of them can work. I focus on Facebook. I focus on Reddit. I have tried to focus on Instagram that it has been harder to do on Instagram. And so, I mean, I still post to Instagram pretty often. Because it's easy to post on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

But the point is to find the discussions, the point is to find people searching for help and become the life of the party, bring value to those discussions. And then when people see that you are somewhat of an authority figure on this or that subject, they can find. Your profile and see what you actually represent, and that will direct them to your website or to whatever it is that you have [00:12:00] built into your profile.

And they did that without you doing the obnoxious self-promoting. And with that. Pushing people to click on this or that. And it is without spending money on Facebook ads or on amazon.com ads. If you want to do those things any way you can, but that is not a part of this targeted daily engagement thing that I'm talking about.

There are a lot of different facets to anybody's marketing strategy and targeted daily engagement can be a big part of anyone's marketing strategy. It is a very good one. To build a presence to build a following. If you're doing a podcast to build a listenership, if you are doing reading and writing and things like I'm doing to build a readership, it is a really good way to bring people into the circle and to get them to stay just because their introduction to you and to what you represent.

Started [00:13:00] off so positive to begin with and you weren't being a salesman in order for them to get there. There's nothing wrong with being a salesman. But like I said social media is inundated with self-promoters and some people have turned sour from that. So this is a way to do that without the self-promoting specifically.

So that means that when you're on. The Facebook groups or Instagram or whatever, most people are going to be asking for help or insight to a problem that they have. And so that means that you can go on and share facts. It also means that sometimes you go on and share opinions and. There is always the chance that somebody is not going to like what you have to say.

So I've run into this already a couple of different times where I get on and say something completely truthful, [00:14:00] but it would be kind of beyond the scope of somebody's experience in the group or whatever. And so they they choose to. Proved me wrong, which is fine. I mean, you can say whatever you want on social media apparently.

And we have found out that. Sometimes it's not about being right. It's about being loud. And so with all of that, you get to decide on if you get to engage in arguing, or if you get to be the people who are building an obnoxious thread filled with research on this and that in order to prove that you are right.

Or you can step back and you can take a breath and you can let that thread eventually kind of Peter out in die. The thing about social media is everybody can get on and everybody is very, very brave when they are allowed to be anonymous. There is also a lack of context and a lack of tone when all you are reading is text and sometimes memes.

And [00:15:00] so there is plenty of room to be. Misunderstood. There's plenty of room to be offended. And there is plenty of room to pick fights or to have fights picked with you. So what I recommend in cases like this, just because it is bound to happen. Especially if you are sharing opinion. And you are sharing opinions about something where there are a million different right ways to do it.

I recommend stepping back, calling a friend and kind of belly aching to that friend and letting the thread on the post die. I don't feel like there is any reason to die on a hill about this or that in regards to social media, especially if you are trying to build a following based on good impressions and based on establishing yourself as a professional and as a reliable.

Source in whatever field you are going to [00:16:00] be talking about. So I don't necessarily find value in dying on Hills, even though I have been so tempted to do so. I mean, yes, being a writer is great at the same time. I am a business person and Going into the business side of things is something that a lot of aspiring writers have not researched yet.

Sometimes there are differences and it's fine. We had some things happen just this morning and it's. So that's, that is what targeted daily engagement is. And if you do it every single day for 15 to 30 minutes, I am not going to stand here and predict for you what type of good things that it will do for your following and for your growth.

But there are plenty of podcasters who do this, who have seen a 25% increase in listeners per month. Through doing targeted daily engagement [00:17:00] and targeted daily engagement is free. It costs your spare time, but it is lights on the wallet. So that is what targeted daily engagement is all about.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Again, Brigitte the first installment of tales from Vlaydor is available to purchase on amazon.com unless you are a patron to Writing in the Tiny House, and then you will. a free copy of Brigitte very soon. If you are interested in becoming a patron and supporting this podcast, I will give you a copy of each installment of Tales from Vlaydor as they happen.

Devin Davis: Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and make an account and a pledge. Follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is at @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. And thank you so much for joining me today [00:18:00] and hopefully I will see you on NaNoWriMo.

Have fun writing guys.

View Details

Use this link to purchase your own copy of “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor:

https://www.amazon.com/Brigitte-Tales-Vlaydor-Devin-Davis-ebook/dp/B09JBLF6XD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=devin+davis+brigitte&qid=1634970266&sr=8-1

Become a patron today and get a copy of each of these short stories as they are released. Go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today.

Also, Krissy Barton offers free consultations and sample edits. www.littlesyllables.com

The following is a transcript of this episode. The full transcript can be found on the show’s website.

[00:00:00] Are you in the market for some light reading, then you need to read "Brigitte," Tales from Vlaydor Installment One. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello! Hello! Hello. This is Devin Davis and you are Writing in the Tiny House. I am the guy in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you the different ways to write the things, to write the fiction that you have in your brain, that you are convinced you are too busy to do.

[00:00:51] It's interesting sometimes recording podcasts, just because we record on a different day than we release things. And so today is not October 27th in my world, but this podcast is going to be released to the public on October 27th. If you are a patron, you're going to get this a few days before that.

[00:01:12] But all of this means that today in this magical world, October 27th, we are one day after the release of "Brigitte," Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One. And that is good news, my friends. This is the episode where I get to gush all about my writing and about this fun, little journey of this novelette and what it has taught me and what I have learned and grown from and where, and most importantly, I guess, where you can buy it.

[00:01:48] So let's actually deal with that first. "Brigitte" Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One is available on amazon.com as an ebook download. It costs $2 and 99 cents. So go there, follow the link in the show notes and go to there and get it today. There were a lot of people who reserved their thing. I did a pre-release for this book and I'm so glad that I did.

[00:02:12] I can delve into reasons why in another episode, I don't want to talk about the things that went wrong. So instead follow the link in the show notes and go to amazon.com and you can search for Devin Davis. And you can search for Brigitte which is the French spelling spelled B R I G I T T E, Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One.

[00:02:38] Anyway, it is available. It is affordable and it is really good. It's a good short story, guys. I have had really good feedback from this from very trusted sources, and I am proud as proud to release this to you and to have it available for people to go to and find it and buy it. And so yeah, this is an example of, I guess, following your own advice. The things with with this podcast that I share, I do those things, and I had the goals starting in September to get this short story underway. And I gave myself an extra week, but I wanted a short story or a novelette cranked out in eight weeks. And because this was the first one in a long time and I needed to re-establish all of my systems for it and reach out to friends and family and people who would be interested in helping me out.

[00:03:38] Just because so many works of fiction, especially if you are writing to market, if you are writing to sell your stuff, you need to involve other people. You need to consistently get other people's points of view, just because they will see things that you might miss. And if you are hoping to make money on your writing, you need to get additional points of view and other opinions.

[00:04:04] So I knew from the beginning with this first installment of Tales from Vlaydor with Brigitte that I would need some extra grace time to get all of those systems in place again, just because it has been a minute since I have written something that would go along the different steps of editing so rapidly.

[00:04:25] And so, yeah, reaching out and contacting and phone calls and emails. All the social media contacts, all the things. So I gave myself some wiggle room and I was able to do it in eight weeks. I was actually able to do it sooner than that. And that's cool. That means that I can do this again.

[00:04:47] And so starting November 1st with NaNoWriMo, I will be working on installment two of Tales from Vlaydor entitled Otto. So it's a different story in a different city of the land, and it's going to be another fun ride, friends, another fun novelette or short story. I haven't started drafting it yet, so I don't know exactly how long it will be, but I think it'll be comparable to Brigitte, which tows the line between short story and novelette and falls in novelette. That is the next project. And I am stoked for it. I'm stoked for NaNoWriMo. I'm stoked and scared to have another thing to write, another thing to draft, but a good friend and I have already been brainstorming what the story of Otto can actually look like.

[00:05:43] And so it's something that I already have an amount of clarity on. And so getting started isn't going to be hard. It's not going to, I mean, it will definitely be work, but it's not going to be impossible to do. And it's something that I'm eager to do. So during this whole process there were people that I asked to read Bridgette, there were people who gave good feedback.

[00:06:07] There were people who showed me that they are willing to support my work, which is cool. All the people, when I announced on this podcast and on my social media, that Brigitte was available for pre-order, there were a lot of people who immediately pre-ordered and I am just going to publicly say, thank you.

[00:06:27] That is really a cool thing for me. And that is really reassuring to me. I absolutely love that. And so thank you for all of the pre-orders. However, I am not living under a rock. I'm living in a tiny house and I know that most people do not pre-order. And so thanks in advance to everybody who orders a digital copy of Brigitte and I'm excited to see what happens with this, guys.

[00:06:55] I'm really excited about this. I'm excited to do another thing that should be released around Christmas, and it's just going to be good times. So things that I have learned. I have found that I can crank out a pretty good story in one week. That's how long it took me to draft Brigitte.

[00:07:15] It took me about nine or 10 hours of drafting And I think about nine. And I have found that I have wonderful people in my circle who are more than willing to bounce ideas back and forth off of me. And they are excited to see what comes of it all. There are so many people who love fiction, who simply don't write it.

[00:07:37] And so to have them involved with this and to allow them the chance to give feedback and give ideas and do the back and forth, was a really cool thing. I could tell that they were edified by that as much as I was. To have that exchange and to have that back and forth was so good. That's a good thing.

[00:07:59] I think I said earlier in this episode that I actually completed Brigitte sooner than in the eight weeks that I was expecting. I actually completed it in about six maybe even five. There were some things that did not take nearly as long as I was expecting them to do. And the main thing was my editor, Krissy Barton from Little Syllables Editing is fast.

[00:08:27] She is always in contact with the people that she is working with. And she did a great job with the line and copy editing and the proofread of this book, of this novelette. And so. Little syllables editing. She is, I mean, that business is kind of the editor on board with this entire Tales from Vlaydor project.

[00:08:49] And so of course, I'm going to give her a shout out because she did a great job. So that was the thing that I was able to save some time on. There were a couple other steps too that simply didn't take as long as I was expecting, I had. Eight weeks in a spreadsheet. And I had planned out in two-hour blocks, what I would be doing just because I usually have about two hours to work on stuff.

[00:09:16] With this next installment with Otto, it's entirely possible that I will be thrown to the wolves with this next installment with Otto. And that here I am spouting all of these wonderful things about how efficient the process was. And maybe with Otto it's going to be kind of a car wreck or a garbage fire.

[00:09:37] One thing that I was able to try. And that I was able to do and that we are still deliberating back and forth on is I sat down and I have always had the desire to narrate my own books. And so I took my audio equipment and I managed to make the tiny house as quiet as I could make it just because there are certain technical requirements for audio books.

[00:10:04] If you wish to publish them to audible, which I do. And I sat down and I recorded Bridgette twice. And the thing is, guys, the audio for it. This is the first, you know, audio narration that I have ever done, but it was so fun to record all of this. I am still in the middle of editing. I think that once we nail this down and we decide that it's a good thing to do, I'll be able to release this to audible at about the same, I mean, closely after the ebook is released on Amazon. I was able to sit down. I was able to narrate, I was able to just do all of that, which is what I've wanted to do for such a long time. I have found out though, why audio books often take a while after the printed book is released. It is more expensive to produce an audio book. So with this, there were parts in the audio that had to be recorded several times. There were parts in the book that it was not just about making the text pretty, just because there is no text in the audio.

[00:11:22] It was about sound. It was about pronunciation. It was about tripping over my tongue. It was, it was about reading. It was about staying close enough or far enough away from the microphone. It was about all of those things. Also, it has been a really rainy October in Utah. And so I wasn't able to record on some of the days just because of rain and I didn't want to have to deal with rain in the background. And so turning the tiny house into a recording studio is not necessarily the most ideal thing, but I think it worked. I'm goingto see though, I'm going to have to see if it's okay.

[00:12:05] Like I said, there are technical requirements to audio files if you hope to publish to audible. And I think that I will be squeaking in pretty easily. If not, I can send it to an audio engineer to kind of clean up the noise floor of the files a little bit, a very little bit. I was surprised at how well the things turned out recording in the tiny house.

[00:12:30] So yay for all of that. Brigitte released October 26th. It is now available to purchase because today is October 27th. And look for the audio version of Tales from Vlaydor Installment One, Brigitte in audible coming up soon, I will keep you abreast with this podcast as far as how that is going.

[00:12:58] But guys, here is one of the big take homes that I want to include with this podcast. Now is a great time to become a patron of this show. I'm grateful for the patrons that I already have for their donations, just because they wanted to support the podcast.

[00:13:17] And they believed that the podcast is such a good resource and something that was worth supporting financially. And I have been so grateful for, I mean, I treat them, I see them as gifts. Those monthly installments are gifts to me, but now if you have been on the fence of becoming a patron to Writing in the Tiny House, now is a good time to join. If you go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up, you will see that, with these installments that I'm writing, I am going to be providing electronic versions of these short stories to my patrons as they are published. And so if you want to be one of the first people to get a copy, or perhaps even a few days in advance, a copy of these installments of Tales from Vlaydor as they are released, I will likely also release the audio to my patrons.

[00:14:20] If you're interested in an audio book, I'll see how all of that works. Audio books are kind of are kind of ratty. I mean, it's a lot of different files that a program ties together. And so we'll see how that goes. I think I can make it work though. But absolutely yes, the eBooks of these small installments of Tales from Vlaydor I release those to my patrons.

[00:14:45] And then they are available to purchase on amazon.com. So if you sign up as a patron today, you will be receiving as a thank you, a copy of Brigitte. And in December, when I publish the next installment, Otto, you will receive an ebook of that too. So go onto patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and become a patron today.

[00:15:14] So that's it for today. Follow the link in the show notes and navigate to amazon.com today and purchase your copy of "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor. And be sure to follow me on my social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind.

[00:15:37] And that is it for today. Thank you for joining me and have fun writing.

View Details

Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: “Brigitte” is available to pre-order on Amazon.com. Just follow this link and purchase your copy today!

https://www.amazon.com/Brigitte-Tales-Vlaydor-Devin-Davis-ebook/dp/B09JBLF6XD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=devin+davis+brigitte&qid=1634360829&sr=8-1

If you wish to become a patron and receive an electronic copy of these shorter works when they are released, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today to sign up.

Also, visit www.littlesyllables.com to get ahold of Krissy Barton to get your current work in progress edited!

The following is a transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the podcast’s website.

[00:00:00] Today, it's all about DIY books. And just like cooking, dIY can be the very best way to go, but sometimes you really need to know how to do it right, today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to Writing in the Tiny house. Welcome back to the show. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house, giving you all the tips and tricks as to how it is to write a book and to show you that whatever you have bubbling around in your brain, that work of fiction, is completely possible to do no matter how busy you believe that you are. So today we are going to break down a little bit about DIY books, sometimes referred to as self-published just as a way to pay attention to some very technical things that will get your book judged unfairly right out of the gate.

[00:01:24] So just some quick announcements, you know, that my collection of short stories Tales from Vlaydor, the first installment has been completed. The first installment is called Brigitte, and it is currently available for pre-order. So, if you follow the link in the show notes, it will take you to the Amazon page where you can pre-order your own digital copy of Brigitte, which is installment one of Tales from Vlaydor.

[00:01:56] And that is super exciting because it has been a while since I released anything. And I know that you guys are interested in seeing how I write. With this podcast, it is easy for me to share all of the advice and give all of the tips and tricks, like I said, but sometimes it is really valuable to see a person practice what they preach.

[00:02:21] And so it's important to me to share this. So that is what we're doing. That is what Brigitte and this Tales from Vlaydor collection of short stories and novelettes is all about. It is about me showing you the things that I can do so that you can see that these steps and these different things that I suggest actually work.

[00:02:44] And that matters. So as you remember, this entire Tales from Vlaydor project is a big undertaking. It's something that I'm going to be releasing every two months, a new installment every two months. And I've actually been brainstorming with one of my dear friends to get the next installment underway already.

[00:03:06] And it's so fun. However, I cannot do any of this without an editor. The editor for my Tales from Vlaydor collection is Krissy Barton from Little Syllables editing and she's wonderful, friends. She is fast. She is always in communication with the authors of the things that she is editing.

[00:03:25] And she's great. She did the line edits and the copy edits, and then the final proofread of Brigitte, and she was so fast to get it back to me. So if you have a work in progress and you need to find your own editor, go ahead and reach out to Krissy Barton at Little Syllables editing. And I have her websites in the show notes as well.

[00:03:54] She does free consultations. She does a free sample edit. And then you can see if you guys will make a good fit. So let's dive right in to picking apart a DIY book. Just some technical things to pay attention to that are easy to see, easy to fix, some things that are easy to monitor if you choose to go the self-published route. It is 100% possible nowadays to crank out self published content that is as good as if not better than some traditionally published stuff.

[00:04:34] However, The thing about the traditionally published works is they have a publishing house backing them up. And a publishing house has been doing this for a very long time. It is how they have been making money. It's how they've been providing jobs. And so they know how to do it. They know how to do the marketing, they know how to follow trends and they know what is currently selling.

[00:04:58] That is why traditional publishing is still a big thing. And that's why it is going to stick around for such a long time. However, for those of us who want to self-publish, there are still some things that we can do so that we can have quality that is equivalent to that. Equivalent, if not better. All of the resources are available to us.

[00:05:23] We just need to know what they are and how to employ them. So with a self published book. And if you are hoping to write to make money, which means if you are writing things, hoping to sell those things in exchange for money. There are some guidelines and there are some expectations that you need to be aware of before you even get started.

[00:05:51] If you are a hobbyist writer writing just for yourself and you never expect anybody else to read what you're writing, or at least maybe not more than a group of friends or your close family, and you're not expecting to sell bunches and bunches of copies of some of the things that you're doing. Then what I'm about to say, doesn't really apply.

[00:06:14] However, if you are hoping to sell your stuff, you are writing to market, which means you always get to be towing the line between being creative and new. And fitting in with what is already working, and that is in every single aspect of your book. You need to find a way to be creative and new while at the same time, be understood for what you are.

[00:06:46] The first example that I have to illustrate this is your book cover. If your book cover. Looks really homemade. Let's say that you did a fantasy novel and the book cover is just a fun gradient with white text on it. That kind of looks like a technical book. That kind of looks like a manual for a computer. That kind of looks like those different types of books.

[00:07:15] And so if someone were to see your book, your fantasy book with this white text against a solid color background, they will not fit it in with what they perceive fantasy books to be. I ran into this problem. I already had a consultation with one of the books that I've been writing with The Paper Witch. I had a consultation with a designer already, and I had some really fun ideas.

[00:07:47] So the whole thing takes place in a Victorian era equivalent. I mean, it's a different world, but, it's that feeling. So it's bustled dresses. It's three-piece suits. It's those different things that we tie into what the Victorian era is. And I was thinking that maybe the cover could be one of those prints that you see in an old magazine, like one color, maybe one or two colors, one of those prints that would have been stamped or etched onto the paper during printing. Just because that would fit in perfectly with the time period. And my designer had a very good point that regardless of what we're doing, a potential reader needs to be able to see the cover and first be interested by the cover, but then associate it with the genre it belongs in. And so the ideas that I had didn't really work for that. They were fun, ideas, fun, original ideas.

[00:08:57] They're probably just going to be my ideas and they're not going to be what we're going to do for those books. And we're going to go a different direction once I have those books finished. That is the whole thing about all of this. If you are writing to sell, it means that you are going to be exchanging your work to someone for money.

[00:09:22] And that means that you get to be aware that they have certain ideas and expectations of what your work is, so that they will be satisfied with that exchange. With the content of your book. So we're not going to touch on content in this episode of Writing in the Tiny House, content will be another day.

[00:09:44] I've I have talked about content a lot already. We're just going to talk about technical things. So with the cover of your book, it needs to catch their attention. At the same time it needs to identify with the genre that it belongs in. All of that is subjective. And if you need additional opinions on if your book cover works, be sure to gather those opinions. Be sure to pay the money, to have a consultation with a designer so that they can give you good professional feedback on what is working and what is not working.

[00:10:25] Another thing is it needs to be readable. So if it's a thing where it's a part of a larger series and there's going to be a lot of text on that book cover, the text needs to make sense. And so if you have titles and subtitles and the title of the series that it belongs to and whatever else and your name and perhaps your character's names.

[00:10:52] And I don't know. I saw the cover of a self published book that had about four or five different titles on it. Or at least five different lines of texts that represented different things on the cover. And so it was the author's name. It was the author like who the author, I guess is, it was the title of the book.

[00:11:20] It was the title of the series. And then it was the grouping of the series or something. It was way too much text. Make sure that what you have there is readable. With my first book, As Magic Shifts, the artist who did the art, also wanted to do the book cover, and he did at first the entire title of the book As Magic Shifts in this super unique original art work. He changed the text into like magical smoke and it was beautiful to see, it was bright in colors. It was a fun idea. It had really good energy, but it was hard to read As Magic Shifts wasn't really readable as a title. And so while I was consulting with my book producer with that, we had him instead just keep the word magic as this stylized artwork.

[00:12:29] And then with a more traditional font did as and shifts. So it read a lot better. So pay attention to that with your book cover. Moving onto the body of your text. I will say it every single episode. You need to have an editor, but here's the thing. When we're writing a story, we start with really big ideas and refining those ideas is called the developmental edits. And then getting down to the more fine tooth comb stuff, we get down to line edits, which is the flow of the sentence. We get down to copy edits, which is word usage and such. And then when we are done with everything and the book is laid out, we do the final proofread, which is misspellings, commas, formatting errors, different stuff like that. So as an author, we start really big picture and we get down to the really small technical stuff at the end. With reading a book like this, oftentimes it starts with the really small, simple things that get in the way of the bigger things.

[00:13:41] It's like the smaller technical things unfold to reveal the bigger picture. And if the smaller technical things are not in place to begin with that unfolding doesn't happen as well. So that means, when we're reading. If we see a misspelled word, we can often forgive that. If we see a couple of misspelled words, we can probably get past it.

[00:14:06] If we see, you know, comma mistakes, or if there is a paragraph of a quotation and the quotation marks at the end are missing. Or some little things like that. And they only happen once. Most of the time we can get by. If there are repeated words, just the, just the little things or they forgot to italicize the title of a book.

[00:14:31] Or whatever. Your reader can forgive some of those things, if they happen only once that does not mean that you get to be lazy and think that, you know, oh, I saw the one misspelling. So this is okay. If you saw one misspelling odds are, there's like five more. With the little things, if there are so many mistakes, the reader cannot appreciate the words that you use. The reader cannot appreciate the flow of your sentences. Odds are the flow of your sentences will be hindered by those mistakes. And if the reader cannot appreciate the flow of your sentences, they can't appreciate the flow of the structure of the book itself.

[00:15:15] And then they can't come to appreciate the larger idea. And so the content will be missed if these smaller things don't happen. So as far as misspelled words go, there are plenty of resources in this world to deal with misspelled words. One of them that I used and I used with Brigitte and I will use again with the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is Pro Writing Aid.

[00:15:42] It's a tool that does word correction. It does misspellings. It also does some grammar and some style stuff. It does not replace an editor. And at the end of it all, you need to have an editor. I have read some self published books that went through pro writing aid and nothing else. And it shows.

[00:16:02] Also you need a professional layout, which means that your book gets to resemble the quality of a professional book. You get to have indented paragraphs, you are not writing a blog. You get to have the chapter headings and the chapters and the different things be laid out to make sense if they aren't, your reader will pick up on it and they'll be bugged by it, even if they don't fully understand what makes them bugged.

[00:16:35] And with the self-published things sometimes to websites like amazon.com, it's possible to upload a book that is not an EPUB book. Sometimes you can upload a PDF. And the reason why I bring this up is because many of us read on e-readers now or on programs on our phones or on our computers that allow us to access EPUB books.

[00:17:05] And if you upload a PDF version of your book, these programs will be able to display your book. But they won't be as easy to read. The thing is an EPUB book fits better into an E reader into an E reader program than a PDF does. It allows you to adjust the text size and the font. If you upload a PDF, you can't do that.

[00:17:38] And so your e-reader or your e-reader program, won't be fun to use, and it might be a bother to read the manuscript. So just pay attention to those things. As far as a formatting program goes, it is possible to get a good ePUB format thing from various different programs, probably even from word. I recommend something that you know, how to do, and I always recommend flipping through what you just compiled into an EPUB to make sure that it all makes sense and to make sure that it worked just because sometimes the formatting isn't very intuitive and the program isn't very friendly.

[00:18:24] And it's possible to just make mistakes. And so it's best to go through and flip through what you've done. If you are laying out a novel, I recommend something more like Vellum, Which is better at laying out the larger projects. If you are writing short stories in Scrivener, and you want to use Scrivener to compile them into an E pub, then Scrivener can certainly handle it and can do a very good job. I wouldn't however, compile an entire novel of a hundred thousand words from Scrivener.

[00:19:05] I would import it into Velum first, or I would hire someone to do it for me. Just because readers see the mistakes. And if there are enough mistakes, even if the reader doesn't fully understand what they are getting hung up on, they're not going to purchase from you again. If what you have provided for them in exchange for money is hard to read,

[00:19:31] they won't understand the point of your writing. They won't fall in love with, with your imagination and with the vision that you have behind your fiction. And they likely won't read your future works again. However, if all of these tiles are in place, then the stuff you publish now will sell the stuff you publish tomorrow.

[00:20:00] That means that if somebody reads your stuff now and has a great experience, they will very likely read your next work and have a good experience there too. It also means that a reader down the road, for instance, if a reader stumbles upon my name next year, and I have six of these short stories released to amazon.com and they stumble upon the final installment of the short stories and they read it and they love it,

[00:20:31] it means that the new stuff will also sell the old stuff so long as you have all of those tiles in place technically. We're going to talk about content later. You don't just get to publish garbage.

[00:20:45] So that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining me. Just a brief reminder, the first installment of my Tales from Vlaydor collection, which is entitled Brigitte is now available for pre-order. Please follow the link in the show notes because it can be hard to find on Amazon if you don't follow the link that I will provide in the show notes. A big thank you to my patrons, without your generous donations this show may not be possible. And if you wish to become a patron, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and at no additional cost to your generous donations, you will receive a free electronic copy of the short stories that I am providing in these upcoming months, including Installment one, Brigitte.

[00:21:38] So thank you so much for all of this. Be sure to tune in to my social media accounts, my instagram handle is@authordevindavis. And my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Thank you so much for your time, guys. Be sure to tune in next week and have fun writing.

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The following is a transcript of this episode. For a complete transcript, please visit the show’s website.

[00:00:00] In all of your time writing the works that you're doing, did you ever think to try to crank out 50,000 words in a single month then perhaps you are gearing up for the national novel writing month that happens every year in November, also known as NaNoWriMo. And we are talking about preparing for that today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:34] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I give you the tips and tricks to writing that work of fiction that you have in your brain that you think you are too busy to write, but I'm here to show you that it's completely possible.

[00:01:14] And here I am in Northern Utah living in my tiny house. We had a hiatus and we went to Hawaii not too long ago. And I have said in a few episodes that we are going to be hitting NaNoWriMo pretty strongly this year. I missed out on NaNoWriMo last year. I missed November and NaNoWriMo is a great time of the year. It is where we celebrate making progress in that work of fiction that you're doing or whatever it is you're writing.

[00:01:46] Today in order to make sure that NaNoWriMo is successful, we have what is called Preptober where we go through, we organize our notes. We figure out our schedule and we do all of the things as a way to make sure that NaNoWriMo is going to be successful. That is what we are going to be covering today. But first I need to say a couple things about my current work in progress. Many of you know that I have been working on a novelette the, it is Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: Brigitte. And it has gone to the editor and the editor has kicked back the edits.

[00:02:30] And so I am doing the final cleanup before laying it out, sending it back to my editor for a final proofread and then releasing it on Amazon. Some of my writing is going to be available for all of you to read and destroy. If you want to, it can be really nerve wracking, releasing something like this.

[00:02:54] But I just need to give a shout out to Krissy Barton, my resident editor for this project with Tales from Vlaydor. She runs a business called Little Syllables editing, and she is great. She is fast. She is in constant communication with the author of whatever she. Editing and she has incredible customer service. She does line edits and copy edits, and then the final proofread.

[00:03:28] So if you want prices, she is affordable. Go ahead and go to little syllables.com and I will have the website in the show notes of this episode. Krissy Barton is amazing. Please send her all of your business.

[00:03:44] Let's talk about Preptober. Let's talk about making NaNoWriMo count. So the whole goal of NaNoWriMo is to do a 50,000 word manuscript in one month. It is to make 50,000 words of progress in whatever work you are doing in the month of November. And I have interviewed people on this podcast or at least one person specifically AJ Mac who did that.

[00:04:10] And he cranked out his first novel because of NaNoWriMo. He had the idea already, but he didn't have the push to get it finished. And so he did his Preptober correctly so that he could do his NaNoWriMo most effectively. So NaNoWriMo is technically a competition, but it is a self paced competition.

[00:04:33] Meaning you are not actually racing against anybody unless you join a Facebook group that is racing against something. And it is all about just accomplishing things. And so if you manage to write 50,000 words and NaNoWriMo, nobody is going to question your work, but they give you a thing to print out, to display like a certificate, and it can be a super fun way to bring like-minded people together who enjoy the craft of writing and storytelling.

[00:05:03] So let's talk about what Preptober gets to be in order to understand what NaNoWriMo can be, which will be in a future episode. First of all, to write 50,000 words in a month means that you need to crank out about, let me hurry and figure this out. Let's see, 50,000 words divided by 30. That means you need to crank out an average of 1,667 words every day. Now I'm going to be upfront with you. I'm going to be very serious about NaNoWriMo, but I don't think that I am going to make a 50,000 word progress on anything just because I am on this release schedule with these short stories and novelettes for Tales from Vlaydor.

[00:05:53] Which means there are automatically going to be some days that need to be dedicated in my case, that needs to be dedicated toward revision and toward editing. And so that is already built into the month. I don't have a way to really change that. And it's important to me to stay on this schedule because I want to release at least two of these short stories by the end of the year. if you have not written 1,667 words in a day before, but you want to do NaNoWriMo, I highly recommend that you find some time in Preptober to try it. Set some time aside, have some notes ready, have an outline ready for whatever it is t hat you're going to be writing. I recommend doing it in 25 minute bursts, and then you recover for five minutes and then you do 25 minute bursts again. Those are called writing sprints. It's something that a lot of people do in order to make good progress and to stay on task and to not be overwhelmed by your writing. But you need to measure that baseline for how fast you write and how much of it at a time you can tolerate. So for me, I personally prefer setting aside at least one hour, if not, two hours to write.

[00:07:14] And I know that in two hours time, I can crank out 2,500 words. If I set myself to a clock and do these writing sprints, and I don't get caught up in editing too much. If you have never written things before, or if you have not written things in a long while, or if the things that you have written have not been on a computer and they have been long hand in a journal, or in some other medium like that, you may want to set some time aside to see what your rate is and how much of it you can tolerate.

[00:07:51] So once you have that figured out, you can then look at your month of November and see what your schedule is for the entire month of November. Just because if 1,667 words is all that you can handle, which is perfectly fine. I know plenty of published authors who write half of that every day or in the times that they choose to write and they do just fine with what they're doing.

[00:08:23] They usually don't do a big push for NaNoWriMo also, but if 1,667 words is the limit, then that means that you need to do it every single day. If you're hoping to reach 50,000 words in November. And so that means that you get to look at your schedule and you get to set that time aside.

[00:08:42] If you live alone and you are completely reclusive and you don't have any obligations outside of your bubble, then it should be easier to set time aside to do this. If you want to. However, if you are like me and you are juggling a family and you are juggling a full-time job and other things, I still have this podcast to do during November and realistically, I don't think that I'm going to be recording four episodes ahead of time.

[00:09:11] So that I don't have to record anything in November. I just don't foresee that happening. Then it means that you need to set aside a time to do that. And. You can do more than 1,667 words every day. Then you can figure out when you need to take your days off, or if there are other obligations that come up that need to be considered so that you can reach that 50,000 word mark.

[00:09:38] By the end of the month, I told you with my podcast and with writing these short stories and being on the release schedule that I'm on, I'm not going to be able to honor a 50,000 word. By the end of November. However, I think that I can get close to half of that and considering all of these other things that I'm doing during that month, I think that's pretty.

[00:10:02] Okay. So we'll see, I will fill you in as it goes and it's going to be an awesome thing, guys. I'm excited to do NaNoWriMo. Excited to have you guys I'll do it with me. So know your schedule, know your limits, sit down and plan out what you're going to be doing with your schedule and your limits. And then guys, November is a time to bust out words.

[00:10:29] If busting out words aggressively. At a very reckless, rough pace that is going to require hella revisions at the end of November is not your style. Then don't participate in NaNoWriMo. However, if you want to go all out and make a ton of progress in your novels. The thing is I find most of my magic in revising what I've written anyway.

[00:10:58] And so it's okay if my first drafts are really rough, I like to crank out larger volumes at a time. And so this totally works for me, but in order to be prepared for that, I know that I need to have at least something outlined. I'm not much of an outliner. I don't like to have an outline. Like the outline that I prepared for my novels was like three pages long.

[00:11:23] And this was back when the two novels that I'm writing were in one manuscript. And so this was going to be at that time, a 200,000 word document, and I had like a three page outline. I prefer to revise, revise, revise. It all just depends on what you prefer. And there is no right or wrong answer. I love revising, but I also know that unless I understand what I am about to sit down and write, I will struggle with the writing sprints.

[00:11:59] So it is really, really valuable to me. To at least have some notes to have at least a skeleton outline of what I'm going to be doing so that I don't encounter writer's block or I don't encounter writer's block as much. There is always a chance that in the middle of all of this frantic fever, Writing a pounding on your keyboard and staring at your word processor.

[00:12:28] There is always a chance that you're going to need to take a second to step back and outline a little more. I do it regularly with my books. My outlines tend to be pretty dynamic and. It is important to understand that the more you have outlined the less you are going to encounter the possibility of writer's block.

[00:12:49] And that means that you can push through every single day until you reach that 50,000 word count at the end of NaNoWriMo. So with that, I intend to finish the rough draft of at least one short story and have well. I intend to finish the first and second drafts of at least one short story and have the rough draft of a second short story finished.

[00:13:18] I'm also going to be staying up to date with this podcast. I'm not going to be skipping episodes in November, and if I choose to get my crap together, I might, pre-record a few things so that in November, I have more time to focus. Writing and less on talking about writing. So we'll see what I managed to actually do. I am envisioning and I am purposefully creating time in November to revisit the novels that I was writing earlier this winter, this previous winter and spring, just because it has been a minute. And I feel that I am ready to make some more progress with that. And I'm excited to revisit some of that and to add some parts that have been bubbling around in my brain and.

[00:14:07] I'm eager to make more progress with that. So it's going to be a first and second draft of one of these short stories, a rough draft of another, and some more headway in the novels that I have not finished. And like I said, I will touch base with you every single Wednesday. If you are a patron, it will be on Saturdays.

[00:14:31] Just to share with you the progress. This episode is going to be released to the public October 15th. And so that gives us two solid weeks to fit in a good prep Tober so that we can be prepared. And have all of our notes together so that we don't encounter writer's block during NaNoWriMo. And that means that even if we are furiously writing and composing and drafting and all the other words that mean writing in November, it means that what we write will be more focused and it will be more clean and it will have a better plot.

[00:15:12] It will have a better structure, without doing all of that work beforehand, you risk having a plot that doesn't make sense. You risk having some very fundamental problems. So do your prep. Tobar guys. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I love every single one of you, people who subscribe to this show, even if I don't entirely know who you are, if you wish to become a Patron and support this show. It is because of the generous donations of my patrons that this show is possible. Please go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up to become a patron today. Also follow me on my social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Again, thank you so much for tuning in today and have fun writing.

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Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse

Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com

The following is a transcript of this episode. I complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.

[00:00:00] That's right guys. We are back in the tiny house with tiny house acoustics and you are listening to the podcast Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house who is here to show you did that work of fiction that you have bubbling around in your brain is completely possible to write, no matter how busy you feel that you are with your nine to five. I am safely back in Utah. Thank goodness. The journey home was pretty long. I traveling is so weird now. To fly back from Hawaii, it seems that the only way to do it is through a red eye flight.

[00:01:13] And I couldn't sleep on the red eye at all. And when I arrived in Phoenix, because flights, I had a 10 hour layover in Phoenix, it ended up being a 10 and a half hour layover in Phoenix because the red eye flight got in early. So anyway, I have spent more than enough time for the next long while in airports and airplanes and face masks, and all that stuff. During the 20 hours that I was either on a plane or in an airport, I was also in a face mask and I was tired of wearing one when I got home. So anyway, we are back, we are here. I have some fun things to share with you guys in later episodes likely for November that I got to do in Hawaii.

[00:02:07] And we're going to be sharing some of that during the episodes that we released for NaNoWriMo. So be sure to like, and subscribe, I don't know about liking, be sure to give us a five-star rating and subscribe to this podcast. So you don't miss out on the NaNoWriMo push that we do in November.

[00:02:28] Before we get into the topic of today's episode, let me go ahead and give a shout out to Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing, she is a wonderful editor. She is fast. She is comprehensive and she keeps in good communication with the author of the work that she is editing, which is rare. And so anyway, she is the resident editor for the Tales from Vlaydor collection of short stories and novelettes that I am putting together and working on now. And if you have anything that you wish to have a professional look over get ahold of her. I will include her website in the show notes of this episode. And she's great. It is worth it every single time to get an editor on board to whatever your work in progress is.

[00:03:18] So guys, Little Syllables editing with Krissy Barton is definitely the way to go. So today we know that I have been working on novelettes and short stories. It has been the main theme of the past few episodes. And today I have another thing to share in regards to that, in regards to the tips and tricks to get your novelette or short story off the ground, this is a way for developmental editing.

[00:03:47] And when I read it, I thought, nah, I don't think I would ever do this, but here's what the deal is. Here's what the tip is. The recommendation, the advice comes from the book, a swim in a pond in the rain. I have referenced this book before on previous episodes when I shared the thing about the cat. The metaphorical cat is what I called it. Describing one thing in a room so that your reader can accept the room without you having to go into too many detail about it, because in a short story or a novelette or frankly, a novel, there is not enough room.

[00:04:34] Every single paragraph, every single page, everything has to be. On point and there is no room for fluffer in these shorter works. And so, unless it is super important to describe the entire room, which I don't see many instances in which that would apply a trick is to describe one thing in the room.

[00:04:58] And then we can accept the rest of the room. The rest of the room can be filled in with our brains and we can carry on with whatever the story is. This trick that I'm about to share is it's more of an exercise, but it's very important when we do these shorter works, there is less content there. That does not mean that there is less meaning there.

[00:05:22] And it doesn't mean that it's less important. It just simply means there's not as much room. There's not as much text. And so delving into things like story arcs and subplots and whatever else, likely in a short story, there is not going to be a subplot. And if there is, there will only be one, if there's a subplot at all.

[00:05:46] And so. Sometimes with developmental editing, there is kind of less of a story to see and less of doing the sluthing to pick out what the plots and the subplots are in order to make sure that they all make sense. So this is another process that you can do. You can either do it with your short story.

[00:06:08] You can do it with your shorter works in progress, or you can do this with every chapter of your book. So every now and again, we have a thing and we print it. I personally don't own a printer, but it is possible to print a thing. And then. Mix up the pages so that when you read it, you can consider each page on its own.

[00:06:35] Go through and read each page completely out of context, read it and see if there are points in it. That makes sense. If there are important things that stand out. And if the idea by itself as a page is something that you want to continue on with. So we say that the reasons why people will continue to read any work of progress is due to suspense or it's due to fun imagery or it's due to humor.

[00:07:09] All of that can be true, but what it boils down to is people continue reading simply because they want to read the next line. However you have chosen to build that. So if we take each page out of context and we see what is there, unrelated to the page that comes before it and the page after it. And we're able to write in the margins or in a notebook or somewhere, what good points are in that page.

[00:07:43] It can be an easy way and a very good way to first find the pages that are awesome to find the pages that rock, to find the good points and the really exciting moments and the funny parts and whatever, and absolutely nail that down and know where it is. But, and equally as important, we can nail down the fluffer parts.

[00:08:13] Sometimes when we read a section or a page or even a short story, there are moments where the story drags by. And sometimes because we are so close to the story and we're so close to the flow of things, it can be hard for us to pin down where it started dragging and where it stopped dragging. Sometimes that can be hard to pay attention to, and just find. If we read pages out of context, we can think to ourselves, oh my goodness, this entire page is so boring.

[00:08:52] Or we can see that the first half has good stuff, but the second half sucks. Or whatever, or we can see that this one paragraph at the top is fluffer, but the rest of it's pretty good. It's an easy way for us to break down the story itself. And find the things that work and the things that don't work. So for something like the novelette Brigitte, it's 50 pages, this process would take a while to do, but you can understand the importance of it.

[00:09:28] So you take your random page. I mean, if you choose to keep it in your word processor, if you choose to print it out and do what I suggested, you know, a second ago, that's up to you and. You read the page, just what's on the page. Even if it doesn't start with a complete sentence, read it anyway, and then summarize the points that are there.

[00:09:54] It's a way to see if not only if it's good or bad stuff, but sometimes in a short story. It can be hard to actually put together a story. And so picking out the important parts and summarizing up to the very end, what is there can also be a way for you to pin down where the story is. There can be parts in the story.

[00:10:20] Not only that are fluffer, but that don't relate to the story at all that are simply there because it was fun to write them. And perhaps as the development of the story happened, you needed to write them in order to get the next parts out of your brain. But that doesn't mean that you should keep them. And so sometimes when we're so close to a story, we can't see the nonsense and we can't see. Some of this stuff that we've worked so hard and spent so much time on. Sometimes doesn't need to be there while I was in Mililani Hawaii. I cut out eight pages. Of my 50 page. Novelette I mean, that's like 20% of the words I wrote.

[00:11:05] No, I think it was seven pages and it was good. It felt great because I realized that those things didn't belong there in that way anymore. And the way that I was choosing to approach the conflict and choosing to reveal some of these fun secrets along the way, I was able to get a better understanding and a better vision of what this thing needed to be.

[00:11:29] It is absolutely okay to slash out big parts of your text so long as you know that you are doing it responsibly. And so long as you know, that it is part of the refining process for you to get to the end. If you are simply slashing your book apart because you are bored with it, or because you have fallen off.

[00:11:53] Hard self-esteem times and you don't feel good or confident about yourself or about this project. I encourage you to stop slashing your book, but if you have new found clarity and you understand. A better way for your characters to get along the storyline and to get there in a more meaningful way then?

[00:12:17] Yes. If there is fat to be trimmed out of your novel, then trim it. So sitting down and reading each page out of context. And summarizing the good or bad or whatever points of each page is a perfect way to see, first of all, what the story is. And secondly, what the story is not, and the story is not the filler.

[00:12:46] The story is not always a subplot. The story is not a fun little moment that isn't related to the rising action of your story. And this is an easy way to identify that on your own. Another good way is to find a friend. So that's it for today.

[00:13:05] Big shout out to my patrons without your contributions. This podcast could not be possible. If you wish to become a patron and donate to the writing and the tiny house podcast, please visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up today. And every little bits and every contribution is definitely appreciated.

[00:13:29] Go ahead and find me on social media and follow me there. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time guys. Bye.

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The Gift of Alpha Readers

If you wish to become a patron of Writing in the Tiny House podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today!

The following is a transcript of this episode. For the complete transcript, please visit the show’s website.

[00:00:00] So you did it guys. You have written the next best thing and you are so eager to get this out into the world that you have revised it, you have combed through it, and you have all of these things ready, but nobody has read it yet. So what do you do next? Well, let's find out today on Writing and the Tiny House.

[00:00:26] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy in the tiny house who is here to show you, you busy adults working a nine to five like me, that it is completely possible for you to write that work of fiction that you have always wanted to do.

[00:01:06] And you should. I just recorded 20 minutes of audio and didn't actually record any of it. So we're starting over and it's fine. Because now I get to say the things that I didn't save very well the first time, and it's okay to start over. We're still learning some of this new recording equipment and that's okay too.

[00:01:26] But many of you know, because I announced in last week's episode that I have been working on some smaller things as a way to get my writing more available, to get my writing into the hands of people who are eager to read it and to do it faster than I could do if I were to just write a book just because the time to produce a book is much longer and there are a million different ways to share your writing with other people.

[00:01:57] So I have been working on some smaller things and I am working on them in conjunction with Krissy Barton from Little Syllables Editing. She is going to be the editor on call or whatever, the editor in this whole project of writing a collection of short stories or novelettes. And so with this, I am writing these smaller works, and I'm going to be releasing them on a schedule, provided all of this works out okay. Right now we are on track with this first thing. And so I expect everything to be okay. And I think that this is something that we can reproduce right now. All of this is tentative stuff though. Like this is not gospel truth yet, but in doing these shorter things, I still need to go through the different steps of writing and revising and cleaning up these smaller works of fiction as I would have to do with a book.

[00:03:07] But because the thing is shorter, all of those steps don't take as long to do, which is kind of cool. It's fun to blaze through some of these different steps a little faster, and to get that progress done faster, to arrive there more quickly. And with this, I also hope to have myself on a regular releasing schedule, which means that there is kind of a stopwatch going for each of these projects.

[00:03:35] And for this first one, I am hoping more than anything. And I am taking a leap announcing this on the podcast that this will be ready for sale by the end of October. I'm going to post it on amazon.com and it will be available to purchase there. It'll be affordable. Don't worry about that. But I wanted so badly to share my writing and I think that I'm going to do it.

[00:04:00] So what I'm doing is this collection of short stories ties into the larger books that I am also in the middle of that I have set aside for the moment. So the world that all those things take place in these smaller short stories will tie into that same world. And this collection is called Tales from Vlaydor, and this is Installment One, which is entitled Brigitte.

[00:04:29] And so, yeah, so we did it. We've written a manuscript. We've gotten, you know, a few revisions under our belts, but if you are like me, perhaps you don't outline things very well. I surely don't, I don't like to outline. I like to write and then make huge revisions to what I've written because I don't like to outline, but for this first installment, I did not get any feedback to begin with on the story itself. I wanted to sit down, I wanted to write the story, revise a couple of things just because I wanted to present it in a good way to a small group of people. So I sat down. I wrote the thing. I revised it a couple times. I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, which by the way, Pro Writing Aid is amazing.

[00:05:19] Especially if you are using Scrivener as your word processor, because it integrates into Scrivener. It was the easiest thing to do. I recommend sending anything you are working on through Pro Writing aid before you let anybody read it, just because the edits were easy to do. And because Pro Writing Aid made it easier to read.

[00:05:42] Everybody seemed to have a better time. Pro Writing Aid does not replace a professional editor, but it is a very good tool to use along the way. So I wrote the thing, I sent it through Pro Writing Aid, and then I gathered in a way, a group of people that I would want to get feedback on this first draft, I guess we can call it a first draft. On this first revision, I guess.

[00:06:09] And this is what we do, this is how we approach this. So I needed to get feedback because first of all, I needed to know if this was a story that anybody wanted to read. I wanted to know also if this was a story that people would be willing to buy, and I needed to know if after reading this, they would be interested in reading more.

[00:06:35] And if the results were such that, no, this story idea is not a good idea. You need to switch to something else. I didn't want to spend so much time and energy on something that nobody would want. And so I would sooner scrap the whole idea and start a fresh with a new story idea rather than try to simply make something work.

[00:07:04] And so, because I'm writing to market because I want this to be sold. And so I want there to be a certain audience appeal. I wanted to make sure that I was on track and on base with the very foundation of this story. So that's what I did first. And I recommend you doing the same thing with your shorter works of fiction also, or with your novels.

[00:07:29] So here's the deal. I'm sure that you have heard the term beta readers a million different times if you are engaged in the writer, community. Beta readers are basically the people who are doing product testing for your book. They get your book and you need to know that the book is working for them as books need to work for readers. Does it keep their attention? Is it easy to read? Is it entertaining? Can they keep track of characters? Can they keep track of places? Do they have a good experience? Are they surprised during the surprising parts? Are they scared during the scary parts, all those things.

[00:08:10] That is what beta reading is for, but there's a big step before that. Some people call it alpha readers. Some people call it, I don't know other stuff, but. I had this concept and I needed to make sure that the concept was okay. So I selected a few of my close friends and another person that I'll get into in order to share ideas.

[00:08:36] So I wrote this novelette called Brigitte. It is about 9,000 words long, and I included just some questions at the end as a prompt, as a way to help people give feedback. And I recommend that you do the same. In a novel I recommend actually that you include things like that in sections of the book, rather than just a big, long list at the end of the book, just as a way to get the gears moving so that people can be inspired or understand how to give feedback, just because, especially in this most recent round of feedback, I have found that so many people read just to be entertained and they don't read critically. And that is fine. And so the little bit of help for that is really good for them. And it's good. It's good to hear all sorts of feedback. I've also found that for many people. So with this story, the vast majority of the feedback was positive.

[00:09:45] People liked the story. It was pretty middle of the road, which is okay. But people liked the story. They thought that it was easy to read. It was easy to get to the end. They weren't confused by people or names or places. And so I took that as a good affirmation or confirmation that I was on the right track with this, and I should move forward.

[00:10:14] And that is great. With many of the people though, the feedback was simply, Hey, this is great. I like it. I would want to read more of things like this. And that feedback is valuable for a specific reason. If that is all they're saying, this is great. I want to read more. While that feedback is not going to help you iron out the kinks and dings and dents in your manuscript. And it's not necessarily going to help you with your craft. It can show you that producing work like this. There are people who want to support your craft. And that is very valuable. So even though the tools aren't there, even though the feedback isn't there to help you get better as a writer, it is really cool to know that people are there to support you as a writer.

[00:11:12] And like I said, that is valuable too. However, with a lot of people, they responded to the questions. And I liked that and I took notes and I paid attention. With those questions though, I found that with many of them, I didn't require seven people to answer each of those questions just because the same answers for many of those questions ended up showing up like seven different times.

[00:11:41] That's okay. We live and we learn. However, there were a couple peers a couple people that read it, took notes, re-read it. And then had a really long conversation with me about how it went about, what was working and what wasn't working. And I'll come back to that in just a second, just because people who are willing to put that type of attention and energy into my work, those are people that I hold near and dear. I mean, everybody who is supporting my work is held near and dear, but those are the people that I will go to with the first ideas, with the baby ideas that I need to grow from, the really underdeveloped things that need to grow that are still vulnerable and still scary and still underdeveloped. And working together we're able to come up with some cooler things for the next revision of this story.

[00:12:47] With this, and I recommend this thing until the day I die. It is important to send your work, especially if you are writing to market, it is important to send your work to someone you don't know, or to many people that you don't know.

[00:13:02] When you are ready for that, you will know. I sent this first revision. I will likely try to find another person that I don't know to read this after this next round of revisions, but here's the reason why. The feedback that a stranger gives you is really hard to take, but it is super honest and it's usually really direct and it's really easy to understand, and that matters my friends.

[00:13:30] These people are not preserving a friendship. And so there is no holding back when it comes to what isn't working, what is confusing, what seems silly, but seems banale or stupid. I mean, what other words did this nice person include? But the points that this person brought to my attention were good points. It was clear that I had not conveyed so much of this story clearly.

[00:14:01] And like I said, because we weren't already friends, there was no reason to pretend like we were friends and try to sugarcoat anything. Most of the stuff that this person told me was really good and really valuable feedback. And so what I was able to do is take the key points from her feed back and talk about them with these other friends who were interested in helping me develop the story.

[00:14:29] So they didn't have to worry about stepping on eggshells. They didn't have to worry about offending. I got to say, oh, this other lady said this and this and this. And they're like, oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. And then we were able to discuss together ways to make it better. So with these conversations, some people tend to kind of freak out about it because they don't know how to have a critique conversation. So with these conversations, it is you and somebody else. And maybe a third person who are trying to improve a specific work. They're trying to make things better. If you or someone is coming to the table just in the attitude of saying this sucks. You need to leave it alone. You need to throw it away.

[00:15:16] Then you're not going to have this conversation with that person, but everybody has the common goal and the common understanding that this work is not finished and we are joining forces to make it better. The way that this conversation unfolds is much of the time the person will have notes. The person will have some ideas, but they don't really know how to get started about it just because Cohesion and hoping that everything links together and thoughts and different things like that.

[00:15:50] But this conversation is not going to be a dissertation. This conversation is not going to be like baring of souls. This conversation is largely brainstorming, which means a lot of the ideas and a lot of the topics don't have to mesh in the most beautiful way throughout the conversation. It's okay to jump from topic to topic.

[00:16:15] It's okay to say, oh, are we done with this? Because on the next page, this completely different problem is there. Let's talk about that now. And through those, I had two friends who were very interested in helping me improve this work of fiction. And that is exactly how the conversation went. They put aside an hour, we had a phone call and we talked about all the things that didn't work.

[00:16:42] And we talked about the things that this stranger critique partner brought to my attention, and we were able to iron out things and bring up some different ideas and some different approaches that I should try to incorporate into the next revision of this work. And that happened to me twice and it was beautiful and I felt enriched at the end and they were excited that they were included with this.

[00:17:11] And it was a really good thing. So I guess the takeaway here is when you are searching for feedback, it is important to help by supplying a list of questions. If it's a person who's already experienced with giving feedback, they likely won't pay much attention to those questions, but a lot of people don't read fiction critically.

[00:17:35] And so they they may need a little help with that. And that's great. Also, if you find those friends who are so engaged and so interested in helping you develop your craft, make sure to keep them near and dear. Take care of those friends. And lastly, If you have the people who say this is good, I want to read more, and then don't say much more than that. That means that you're on the right track and that what you have written is good. And while it may not improve your craft, it shows that there are people in the world who want to support your craft. So that's the quick take home for today.

[00:18:24] Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this episode. If you wish to become a patron of this writing in the tiny house podcast, go topatreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. And I will have links to that in the show notes of this episode. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter my handle is@authordevind. And have fun writing. We will see you next time guys. Bye.

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The following is a transcript for this episode. For the complete transcript, please navigate to the show’s website.

[00:00:00] So I have a very important question for you, my dear friends, and this is how we're starting off this episode. Are you passionate enough about the things you like to do? And because this is this podcast, are you passionate enough about writing to be able to release something bad at first, knowing that you will get better later that going through those trials and going through the process of releasing something is part of the experience of getting better. Then you need to take a second and listen to today's guest, Nicholas J. Evans, who went from writing a collection of short stories in high school that he was convinced nobody would want to read to landing a three book deal today on Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:58] Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that you can write that work of fiction regardless of how busy you think you are. And the perfect example of that is today's guest Nicholas J. Evans. He is 30 years old. He works full time. And in his spare time, when he's not playing with his kids, he writes. And he has a beautiful message to share. And we will get to that message here in half a second.

[00:01:58] As far as announcements go with this podcast, I have teamed up with Editor Krissy Barton, from Little Syllables Editing. She was on the show back in March, and we had a wonderful show. I fully recommend that you go back and listen to the final show that happened in March. She was here with me in the tiny house, talking about the process of editing. Anyway, I have teamed up with her to roll out kind of a new program. And I say that as a way to kind of tease.

[00:02:35] I apologize right now, but I want to let you know that fun things are rolling out, provided things work out according to a specific schedule. Sometimes I get some hairball ideas and sometimes the execution is kind of hard to do, kind of impossible to do at other times. And so we are discovering different ways that I can share my writing with you, my listeners, and also with people who don't listen to this show.

[00:03:10] So basically I have started writing some smaller things. I have blabbed on and on and on about my book about my works in progress, and I still have those. And those have certainly not been like thrown in the garbage or something stupid like that. They have been put on the back burner for a second, just because I am eager to share my writing. On this podcast I blab all day long about the tips and tricks to do it. And so I actually want to show examples. Release something for people to read sooner than a book, sooner than a full blown novel, which can take up to two years or longer to write or produce or whatever, especially if you're not already published through a major publisher.

[00:04:03] And so I have started doing some shorter things. They all tie into the books that I'm writing. They are short stories set in the same world as the books that I am working on too. And these, I am going to put on a schedule. I will tell you more about what that whole schedule will look like in a later episode of Writing in the Tiny House, but be excited.

[00:04:30] This whole process is so fun. Writing something according to a schedule is hard and awesome. And it really gets me excited about writing and it gets me more eager to share it with you, my listeners, what I can do, what I have done, some of the ideas that are in my mind. And so it's not just about advice or guidelines anymore.

[00:04:59] Now we are going to actually have the real written word to share with you on a regular basis. So I will touch base on a later episode to give better explanation and better description as to what all of this is actually going to be. But I wanted to share with you today that things are in the works. And so that's super exciting.

[00:05:26] So without further ado, let's go ahead and meet our guest. Nicholas J. Evans.

[00:05:35] I'm originally from New York and I've moved a lot over the course of becoming an author, and I'm writing novels and writing short fiction, so I lived in Delaware for a brief period of time. And I currently live in Maine with my wife and our three very young children. We have three daughters, all under the age of five and I work full time.

[00:05:56] I travel for work which means I, am not home as much as I would like to, be, but I try and use that time to my advantage. And that's where I work on a majority of my stories. So I work on them when I'm in hotels. I work on them when the kids are asleep at nap times, pretty much whenever I get the opportunity. Even going as far back as to when I started writing short stories, I would work on them on my phone, just so I would have the time during brief periods of the day.

[00:06:22] As you can see, Nick is a busy man and the idea of fitting in writing where you can fit it in is not new to most writers. Most writers do not support themselves with their craft. And so to be working a job and to be cranking out novels in his spare time is something that a lot of us are doing, which is so cool and so admirable.

[00:06:44] And so I wanted to find out a little bit more about his published works and what he's working on now.

[00:06:52] I began writing Order of Dust, which was my debut novel all the way back in 2017. I actually was working on a different novel at the time and I had hit writer's block. It was a completely different genre too. And I was like, I need something to work on. What am I going to be working on, while I'm just sitting here staring at a screen not knowing what to put down?

[00:07:11] So I began writing something that I originally thought I was going to release as a graphic novel. Actually, I began writing it in a script format with the hopes of sending it out that way. and I found that might've not been the right medium. So I turned around and started drafting it into a novel. And then around 2018, I was finished up with the second draft of it. And then I had started sending it out to publishers directly because it was my first work. I didn't want to get anything agented. I didn't think I was there yet. And I was lucky enough to get picked up by the Parliament House for a trilogy for my series. So I was very excited about that and I mean, that led to where we are now with the novel release in 2020, which was a weird time for books to release. It was a little bit of a different experience because everything had to be pushed digitally. We couldn't do signings. We couldn't do cons. We couldn't do anything. so a lot of it had to be just reaching out to different digital agencies to take care of things for us and hope that things were going to go well. Luckily enough, they did go well, which led to me working on throughout 2020 after we were already edited and everything was finished up for Order of Dust. I ended up working on the second novel of the series. And I had just finished a different novel, that I'll go into in a little bit that is actually releasing this September for a different publisher. COVID was very, very unfortunate and working from home was very difficult, but at the same time I was able to try and use as much downtime as possible to really hammer this out and give what I feel like is even a better product than the first novel.

[00:08:48] So the name of the trilogy is For Humans, For Demons, which will make sense in the grand scheme of things? So it's For Humans For Demons. The second, book comes out January of 20 22, no release date on the third, but I am halfway through the first draft of it and very excited. And then, Like I said, I do have another novel coming out with a different publisher in September of this year.

[00:09:11] The For Humans For Demon series is essentially about what if modern religion collapsed Similar to what we've seen in history where different religions end up taking the forefront. And this is about what if it's turned on its head and what if in a modern society what everybody believed to be true ends up not being? And everybody finds out about that truth and the chaos that ensues.

[00:09:36] So bringing that as the larger universe, it focuses on the story of one character Jackson Crow who dies at the hands of the Unascended, which essentially to bring it to better terms a soul in this universe is called a Dust and sometimes they do not ascend for different reasons. So they end up remaining and taking on a host basically. They take over a body of a living person and they hide among people. Jackson was unfortunate for him and his fiance, were assassinated by one of the Unascended, which leaves him with a little bit of a grudge, and he gets the chance from the true higher beings to come back and basically work for them to take care of the issue, which is these Unascended who are hiding as normal people are committing heinous crimes that they are not actually being targeted for.

[00:10:28] So it's all about his story, about getting revenge. And then it slowly opens up to this bigger issue at hand, which is the world around him that is essentially collapsed because people do not have a belief structure anymore. And that goes for all of the different religions and how it affects the different groups of people, which really ends up coming out in the second and the third books

[00:10:52] So I have read Order of Dust and it is a wild ride. It is fast paced. It is exciting. It is filled with action and all of the things you could hope from a book like that. And so I wanted to figure out what was his inspiration to write a book like this.

[00:11:10] I wanted to write something That was, based on religion. I wanted to go that route. But originally when I was doing this, the only idea I had was what if somebody had to hunt people? What if somebody had this job where they had to hunt people cause they were different? And it just kept breaking down until I was like, well, what if he's also different? A lot of the influences for that book came right from graphic novels from monga, from old scifi, noire stories. So things like Philip K Dick or even things like Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman. A lot of inspiration from Yasuhiro Nightow who is best known for writing Trigun in the nineties and Gunn Grave. So a lot of that I want it to kind of mush together and I was like, this would just be something fun. And, and that's what I did.

[00:12:00] Book number two was Wing Clipper, that one releases in January of 2022. And that one is going to break into the larger world. The first book was very focused on Jackson, focused on introducing characters and introducing some antagonist, but the second book really opens up. It is longer. So it won't be as fast of a read. But that was the goal. I wanted to introduce people in a way, almost like what Stephen King did with Gunslinger, the dark tower series. The first book gunslinger is very short. It's a very quick read and then slowly gets longer.

[00:12:31] That was my goal here is I want to get people drawn in and then really open it up in the second and say like look how everybody else has been affected by this. And then the third book right now is called The Arm of the Savior. In the third book, we'll close everything out in a very large scale. I've been building up to something with these hoping that it ends in a larger way than it started, where it starts very narrow, very singular, and it ends more global. And that one does not have a release date as of yet just because the second book's not even out, but I would say that's probably going to be somewhere around, early to mid 2023.

[00:13:07] Now while his trilogy for humans for demons is with one publisher. Nick has done what many successful writers have done. And he is publishing another book under a different publisher. Another publishing house picked him up for this book for this idea. And so. Just depending on contracts and agreements, it is entirely possible for a person to put out work under various different publishing houses.

[00:13:39] And Nick has done that too with his upcoming novel that releases this month, even though in the dialogue here in the audio, it says it releases in September. We get to remember that it is now September and this interview wasn't recorded this month. So please don't get confused.

[00:13:57] The book releasing in September is with a different publisher, Black Rose. What ended up happening was I was working on another while I was doing the editing process for Order of Dust. I wanted to work on something else, but I didn't want to dive into the second book without first working with the different content editors, the line editors to kind of get their idea and feedback on that first book. But I wanted to work on something.

[00:14:19] I had been writing a lot of shortstories, and I wanted to break it up from the normal. And at the time I had just come up to Maine for work. So I was very far away. My wife and kids were down in Delaware. On the weekends I was driving down there 10 to 12 hours to see them and then driving back So it was a lot of alone time for Monday through Friday. And I just felt like I needed to do something with this time, so I wrote the book.

[00:14:43] It's called The Ones Who Could Do Anything. And it's an urban fantasy, but it's mainly just about dealing with struggles. I don't want to give too much away, but surviving after something terrible happens. And it follows just a group of young people who find each other because of their misfortunes and discover that they have some innate abilities that lend themselves to each other. So it's, again, it's something that at first, and this is, this is what I loved when I had brought up to the publisher at first, they were like, this sounds like, like the premise of it, like something that we've read a hundred times.

[00:15:21] And I was like, I know, you know, I'm not trying to give you something that everybody already knows just by looking at the cover of the book. But luckily they were like, you know, We read the first three chapters of it. Can you send us the rest of the manuscript? And when they did, they really like, they're like, this is different.

[00:15:37] As many writers bring out a certain work or certain ideas or bring these different things to life. Oftentimes there are specific goals that they have with these things. And I wanted to find out what was the reason behind four humans were demons and this new book, because they are so different, different publishing houses.

[00:16:06] Different ideas, different concepts. And so I wanted to figure out more about that.

[00:16:11] One thing I would love for everybody to know is everything that I write and put out. I want to be very different. And I think the people who enjoy For Humans For Demons and enjoy that series, maybe would read The Ones Who Could Do Anything and feel like, this is different. It's a little bit darker and more base of reality rather than something that's completely scifi.

[00:16:33] But I want everybody to be open minded to that. I think some of my favorite authors branching from every different medium, have always tried to dabble in that a lot of their books are not linear. Obviously there are authors out there who do release very similar books and they do very well. But when I think of my favorite Neil Gaymon I don't feel like his books are the same. I feel like I pick up any of his books and they're different and that's my overall goal. And I wanted to let people know that right from the start, because I want people to pick up different books and be like, this is different from that one. And I love them for what they are.

[00:17:06] And so came the big question. How did any of this get started? How far back does this go for him? When was the first time he put pen to paper in a creative way? And how did all that go?

[00:17:24] I appreciate this coming up because I don't get to share this a lot because I don't want them to intertwine, but I've been in bands my entire life. I was a musician for most of my life. I'm 30 now. I was in bands all through high school and everything.

[00:17:36] And then in 2011, I was in a band called Nora Stone, and we were a post hardcore group. I say we were, but they're still together. A hardcore group. And we ended up releasing a short EP and it got us on a label. We did a lot of traveling. We did a lot of touring. So were on the road, a good amount. We did Metal Mayhem Festival.

[00:17:56] We did Crowd Surf America with CHODOs and Blessed the Fall. This is all a bunch of Warp Tour bands. But we did a lot of that for a very long time. And after the birth of my first daughter, I realized I had to start dwindling it down. I had already started the career I'm in now.

[00:18:11] And I was like, what can I do? And back in high school, and when we're on the road, I would just write short stories. A lot of it, I'm going to be honest with you. If anybody remembers my yearbook shout outs to to New York, if anybody remembers my yearbook, it asks something about what do you want to do?

[00:18:26] And at the time I want it to be a graphic novel writer. And that is in my yearbook. So I would just create characters, write backstories for them. And that's what I would do on my phone to pass the time is what I thought was fun. So when I moved to Delaware and parted ways with the band, I needed something to occupy my time and I did not want to dive back into music.

[00:18:45] I had done it for too long. I didn't want to start over. I ended up just writing short stories again on my phone for fun. And my wife had actually read one of them and she was like, how come you never release anything? Like, how come you just sit here and write in the notes section of your phone and then delete it.

[00:18:59] And I was like, I don't know. I don't think I have anything people want to read. I worked on something and she read the first draft of it and was like, I really like this. Like, you should just try and get this published. And I was like, I don't think people are going to like it, but okay. And then it got published.

[00:19:13] And then all of a sudden I have my mother, my friends, my family, who were like, you know, I like this. I don't understand why you didn't do this sooner. And I'm like, I, I don't know. You probably wouldn't like what I wrote in high school.

[00:19:23] And so this is actually the take home, this upcoming little statement that Nick makes for me during this interview. And this is why I opened this episode with that question of, are you willing to release something bad or at least release something that requires some refinement and requires some work in order for you to get better?

[00:19:45] My biggest piece of advice, would first, I guess we'll start with one. Right. Even if it's bad, even if you just have a story in mind and you're like, I'm not going to put these words together properly, and people are not going to like this Cause that's where I was at. Write. And then just send it in. Have faith in yourself, send it in and trust me, trust me When I say the publishers are going to tell you when it's bad I've had a lot of publishers. I've had my own publishers tell me it's bad. And that's just part of the process is how you get better. And I've said this in the beginning, but I feel like every time I write something new, it gets better.

[00:20:24] And for new writers, that's going to be the case. The first thing you put out there might not even get published. And then you have to really look at the feedback you got and say.

[00:20:31] Okay. They didn't like it for these reasons. Is it the story? Is it me? Is it something I need to change? But at the same time, you want to maintain your own voice and you're not going to please everybody.

[00:20:42] And eventually you'll get good enough. And eventually the right publisher will come along, have faith in your project and really carry you through the way. And second piece of advice, listen to your publishers. If you're going that route, if you're going self published Listen to your beta readers and listen to the editors that you bring on.

[00:20:58] But if you're going a traditional or an indie publisher route, listen to them. Because most of the time, 99% of the time from my experience so far, they want what's best for your book without removing the parts of the book that make it yours. So definitely just write whatever you can send it in. They're going to tell you it sucks and then listen to them when they tell you it sucks.

[00:21:22] And that is the biggest lesson with developing any form of talent, just like learning to play the piano or learning to play a musical instrument or learning how to paint or draw or whatever. It may be different skills that you have at work. So wing. I don't know. All of these things are talents and talents require practice and paying attention to feedback.

[00:21:49] And so that means that sometimes you get to be brave and you get to write something that may not be great. And you get to give it to a few trusted people in order for them to find the holes in it that you don't see. And in order for them to pick apart some of the clunky things and to offer some guidance and some advice.

[00:22:10] So that, that bit of work can be even better than it was when it, when you began it. And so that is the take home from me to you. If you are looking to seriously get into writing, and it's not something that you do all the time, just start, write anything and then give it to somebody to critique.

[00:22:34] The feedback is the most important lessons. With writing so that you can get better hearing how your work can improve is a very vulnerable space to be in. But it, like I said, it is the biggest lesson on how to do it better and on how to make that specific piece better. So that is it for today. If you are interested in reading Order of Dust or The Ones Who Can Do Anything, go ahead and follow the link in the show notes and you will be able to check those out.

[00:23:09] Otherwise, thank you so much to my patrons who donate to this show every month without your generous donations, the show could not be possible. Go ahead and follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Thank you so much for listening and have fun writing.

[00:23:33]

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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the podcast’s website.

[00:00:00] If your character were a puddle of water, could you splash around in that puddle and not even get your feet wet? If you think that your character is pretty shallow, then let's talk about this second installment of Character Development 101. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show.

[00:00:46] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that you can write that work of fiction regardless of how busy you claim to be. Last week, if you remember very well, last week we talked about the importance of names. We talked about the importance of if you're writing a work of fiction that takes place in current times, or if it takes place in other times, but in this world, it's important to do some research, to make sure that the name makes sense, to make sure that the name fits. I said points like if your character is 37 and make sure that you choose a name that came from the eighties, likely.

[00:01:38] Also, I invited you to explore the possibilities of what your character's parents might be like. You may not have to do a big character profile thing for them, for this character's parents. But knowing who the characters parents are and knowing a little bit about how they might make decisions can lead you in the right direction toward finding a good name for your character.

[00:02:13] If you're, if the character is parents are conservative, they would likely choose a common and popular name. If the parents are progressive, it might be a different name. If the parents are super religious, it could be a biblical name, different things like this.

[00:02:30] So this allows us to better understand the character because to have a believable name is important. I also said that if your character's name is completely original to you and completely original to your world, please make sure it's not impossible to pronounce. Just because if it's hard to pronounce, a lot of us are not even going to try and that can affect our relationship with your character.

[00:02:59] So it can clue us into the character themselves. It can clue us into family dynamics. It can also clue us into the culture that they were raised in and the world that they live in, if you put thought into what their names are and how you formulate names. And if you think about the names of the other people they live with or see on a daily basis, all of that is important.

[00:03:28] Today we are going to go beyond the name and we are going to talk about personality of your character. So what makes them interesting. What makes them deeper than a puddle of water, that if you step in it, you don't even get your feet wet? Because it is important to have a good, well thought out character who believe, who acts in a well thought out manner and does things in a consistent and believable way. Sometimes we can be surprised. Sometimes it's fun to be surprised by the way a character is behaving. It can sometimes be a part of the plot. If the character kind of goes AWOL and does things out of character, it can be interesting for us to read that and figure out why.

[00:04:28] However . we have established that the character is reserved and shy and suddenly she is taking off her shirt and dancing on the bar top for no reason at all, we can see inconsistencies there, and that can pull us out of the story and it can affect the relationship that we have with that character.

[00:04:51] So one of the things that comes to mind with figuring out who your character is. When we start to write a story, oftentimes we will have a sort of a profile or a document that will give us the important information on who this character is. It's called a character profile. It can include their name, it can include their hometown. It can include their vocation.

[00:05:25] It can include their interests and maybe their manner of behavior. It can include anything that the author claims is important. And usually the author will reference this sheet or at least come to memorize this sheet, especially if the character is in the book a lot. But another approach that we can do is we can take this.

[00:05:50] Person that we have created, and this is actually a very good idea, especially if you have a character that just came into your world, came into your book and you still need to figure out who they are. It is fun to take this character's personality, and to pretend to be them sort of, and take a personality test for them.

[00:06:18] That way you can learn about who they are by answering the various different personality questions on their behalf. You can think about the way that they would react to this or that situation. You can think about their preferences. You can think about what makes them excited. You can think about what makes them scared.

[00:06:40] You can think about all those things. And as you answer those questions, regardless if at the end of the personality test they end up being an INFJ, or whatever personality test you choose to do. I mean, even if it's like, what spirit animal are you, or if you were a color, what color would you be?

[00:07:02] Or one of those aura tests or whatever funny thing. What candy bar would you be? Just responding to those personality questions as if you were that character will make you understand that character better. And it's a fun exercise to do, especially if this character is new to you and you need to get to know them in a hurry, just sit back and take a personality exam for them.

[00:07:31] Having a good deep character is, if we were to look at this kind of many years ago, good character development was usually typical of specific genres and not very typical of other genres. There has since been really a lot of crossover and a lot of, you know, prove them wrong type stuff throughout all genres.

[00:08:00] But there are still some ways that this holds true. There are still some genres that focus more on character development. And there are still some genres that focus more on the plot. If you think about romance, most romance stories have a plot that's pretty basic.

[00:08:21] They have a plot that is not the point of the story. The point of the story is to build the relationship. And the point of the story is to discover who these two people are and how they work together. Usually the plot is simply an engine to get to that type of self discovery and the events themselves kind of don't matter a lot.

[00:08:47] Sometimes it's a war story. Sometimes it's enemies to lovers. Sometimes it's a lot of different things. There are plenty of romantic tropes that we could get into where they're focusing on people more than they're focusing on events, because that's the point of the genre. Another one that can kind of fit into this category of focusing more on characters rather than plot can be a coming of age story.

[00:09:17] You have a person who doesn't know who they are. You have a character who is uncomfortable in their own skin, perhaps they're quirky. Perhaps they have interests that they don't understand, or that makes them not fit in with their peers. And we go through this type of self-discovery process in order for them to come out a normal or an exciting, or an admirable human being at the end, in order for them to be comfortable with who they are.

[00:09:46] Self-accepting, self-love, all that stuff. The plot itself is just the engine to get to that feeling of self love or self-acceptance or finding that chosen family or whatever it might be. If you look at the other side of this coin, there are still genres that are far more focused on the world and on the plot. These tend to be adventure novels, and they fit very well into science fiction and fantasy.

[00:10:22] These also tend to be really biggish books. I mean, you can look at any genre and find huge books. I'm not saying that is different or weird or unique only to these genres, but if we are going through and placing such importance on the world and on events, oftentimes it can lead to the description or the creation of entire cultures or entire people, or the stories of several different people in several different families, because the plot is more complicated and has so much more nuance and so much more facets to it than these other examples that I shared before with romance and sometimes coming of age. So with this, the reader is usually looking for this out of this world experience. They are looking for something. I mean, all books should be immersive. I can completely get that, but the reader is not usually looking for some type of moral lesson or some type of like self-discovery oftentimes with science fiction the hero is already chosen and serves the plot. The hero ends up being the engine for this amazing, beautiful creative plot line to take place, the hero and their friends or the hero and the villain and their friends. And so with science fiction and fantasy, which is what comes to mind, it does not have to only be science fiction and fantasy.

[00:12:17] We focus more on the plot and sometimes the characters and the importance of the characters fall by the wayside. And so I invite you and I definitely do this throughout the drafting process. If you are writing science fiction or fantasy, and you are writing an adventure novel and your main character has one emotion, and that is stoic, which isn't an emotion, but you get what I mean.

[00:12:51] the big muscly guy who beats the crap out of everybody. And doesn't get excited. Doesn't feel sad. Doesn't show emotions because I don't know. That character shows up a lot. And I'm going to invite you to find ways to show that character or to show another side to that character.

[00:13:17] If you are writing a fantasy novel of the farm boy who was orphaned and discovers that he is the chosen one, I invite you to find creative ways to show multiple sides of that character. Sometimes it's like the character gets locked into the storyline and then the story happens to them. And they're just kind of on this roller coaster car with this seat belt that won't come undone and they go and the storyline starts and it goes, and it picks up and then it's over. And. They were kind of just along for the ride. So I invite you to all of the main characters in your book, go through and think about the big things that they are going to do, or that they are going to be involved in and ask yourself why.

[00:14:15] And if you did subject that character to a personality quiz, go ahead and try to integrate that into the way you are outlining your story. And you can do that with any genre. So, if you are focusing more on romance or coming of age, or these other things where character development is kind of the idea, or like literary fiction where you are teaching this really big life lesson or life theory through story, then you really need to nail the character development. That's the whole point of books like that. I just recently read a book that talks about the difference between surviving and living, the difference between simply staying alive and actually doing the living and enjoying life.

[00:15:13] And it was this huge elaborate, beautiful description of these older siblings who have grown up. And it concludes with this very moral related question that you ask yourself, am I simply surviving or am I living?

[00:15:33] If you are shooting for things like that, and you are hoping to demonstrate life lessons, you need to have believable characters do that if you want your readers to continue to read your stuff. However, with fantasy and with science fiction where things are more plot driven, and I'm not going to say that my books are not plot driven, cause that would be a big fat lie.

[00:15:56] I can tell you one thing though, if your plot ends up being weak or if your plot ends up being kind of predictable or if there ends up being some holes in your plot, oftentimes those things can be overlooked a little bit, or at least forgiven, and you can keep the reader interested in your book if the characters are awesome.

[00:16:26] If you have 100% believable characters, sometimes the weaker points of your book can be overlooked or at least forgiven so that you can secure a better readership or a more loyal readership. Right now I'm reading a book called the lies of Locke Lamorah. It's a heist story, which is so fun. It's pretty long-winded, but it has been so fun to be a part of the story.

[00:16:56] The story itself is interesting. But the thing that I love the very most about the book is actually not the exciting story. I mean, the heist is fun and to see the development of a thief and a thief's friends is also really fun and the community has been exciting to kind of be in. But the thing that I love the very most is the beautiful friendship that the main character has with his best friend. These are super morally bankrupt or morally gray people. They're all thieves. And like I said, the entire story is a heist, it's swindling people out of their money, but the beautiful friendship between the main character Locke and his best friend Jean is so lovely. It is delicious. And it is unique and it is special.

[00:17:52] And so even though parts of the story are kind of filled with hot air to an extent, and they're a bit long winded. I like to stick with it because the friendship there is so wonderful.

[00:18:09] So friends go out and with your current work in progress, find the main characters, find the people and the personalities that you are bringing to life in your prose and put them through a personality test and then find ways to subject them to many different emotions, many different emotional triggers and many different ways for us to see more than one side of them. It's okay for a character to trip themselves up. It's okay for a character to not choose the right choice. It's okay for the character to be a jerk sometimes. And to be short-sighted. It's also okay for a character to be wise. All these different things. And so I encourage you to take that and to apply it to your work in progress today.

[00:19:06] So that's it for today, a big thank you to my patrons without your generous donations, this podcast would not be possible. And if you. Would like to become a patron to writing in the tiny house, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up today. Also be sure to follow me on social media. My tag on Instagram is @authordevindavis and my tag on Twitter is@authordevind. Thank you so much for your time. Be sure to tune in next week and have fun writing.

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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the show’s website.

[00:00:00] Devin Davis: All I'm saying, guys is that if your one character is Glorfindel and your other character is Ratagast, there had better be a damn good reason why the woman's name is Brenda. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that the fictional book that you have in your mind is a thing worth doing. And it's completely possible to do no matter how busy you claim to be.

[00:01:02] So if you compare-- just some side stuff, cause we get to do announcements first. If you compare the sound quality of this episode versus the previous episodes, you might notice that it is different. The reason why is because I have new.

[00:01:19] Sound equipment that I am still getting used to. So while I am figuring out how all of this works, we get to kind of work together and to be patient and kind and all the rest until I have all of this figured out. I'm excited for it. It also means there are a lot more chords on my counter, but it's okay. We're doing it. Over the past few episodes that have been just me, I have realized that there gets to be kind of a workshop or at least a lecture series. I mean, I don't want you to think that we are in school, and that we are here to study, because I am not. However, sometimes with specific ideas, I know that a lot of the people who listen to my podcast are fantasy fanatics, but a lot of the other people who listen to my podcast simply write general fiction. And I believe that some of the things that I'm going to be sharing in these like 101 episodes that I'm going to be putting together over the next few weeks, over the episodes where it's just me, I'm going to be putting together some guidelines and just some thoughts and feelings and just some general directions on where to go with specific things while you are developing the bones and the base of your novel.

[00:02:51] And one of, as one of, one of the points to talk about, which we will be talking about today is names. When we go to write our book sometimes, especially if we are pantsing, if we have not outlined very in depth, sometimes characters seem to just pop up as a way to solve a problem or to create a problem if we need that.

[00:03:17] But sometimes characters just pop up and we don't know who they are. We don't know their names. This happened to me a couple months ago when I got to rip my work in progress in half. And now I have two half finished books. I got to include a new main character as a way to make this new storyline or what used to be a subplot and is now a main plot, in order to make it work, I had to introduce a new main character or at least a new supporting character. And I didn't know who he was. I didn't know his name. I didn't know things about him. And so over the course of several days, I got to kind of imagine and think about him, about the culture that he might've come from. And granted, I'm writing fantasy.

[00:04:12] And so the culture gets to be whatever I want it to be. However, it still gets to be something believable. I'm going to be doing a 101 episode on world building. And part of that is culture in the world that we are inventing. And we'll dive into how the culture ties into characters and how it ties into the overall feeling of towns and villages and family dynamics and different things like that.

[00:04:41] But for the sake of this episode, let's get into the importance of names. And we're going to stick to contemporary fiction or urban fantasy first, and then go into high fantasy where we get Lord of the Rings names and we get dragon names like Ingeloacastimizillion if you are an RA Salvatore fan, and stuff like that. With names, this is my opinion, but I feel that it is a very good opinion. With names, they get to be something that is at least easy to figure out. Mind you, most of your readers are likely going to be American and they are going to be native English speakers. And so it is always helpful if you stick to American English pronunciation guidelines. And the tongue twisters and things can sometimes distract us from developing a relationship with the character.

[00:05:45] I have found that in many of the fantasy stories that I have read, if the names are completely new and foreign and strange to me, I usually just forget them. Especially with audio books, if it doesn't strike a chord with me, I'm not going to keep it around in my mind. If I am reading a printed book or an ebook, if I can't figure out the pronunciation, I am the type of person who hates to pronounce a name wrong.

[00:06:18] I hate that more than anything else. More than a lot of things. And so quite frankly, when I was in high school and Harry Potter was becoming more and more famous and picking up steam, I did not know how to pronounce Hermione's name. And it seemed that nobody in my hometown actually did. And so I would go around asking people for guidance with this. Like, what do you think it's supposed to be? So many people thought that her name was actually "Hermy-un". Her her, her Meehan Hermie own various different, weird things like that. And so I think that is why J K Rowling chose to include in the body of her story some pronunciation parts with Hermione's name, just because I think she realized that many of her readers had no idea how to pronounce her name.

[00:07:19] If you remember, there were some exchanges between Hermione and another student from a different school. I forget which book this is in, but this guy was not a native English speaker and he wasn't pronouncing her name right. And so she got to help him out by pronouncing her own name and spelling out the words as sounds in the text of the story.

[00:07:43] By having her do that, JK Rowling gave us a tool to realize how the flip we're supposed to be pronouncingHermione and how it is not in fact Hermiun. So it's useful to include basic spelling rules, basic pronunciation rules, and tailor them to your target audience. Be mindful that it is likely American English speakers who will be reading your book and it's okay to help them out.

[00:08:13] It's okay to throw them a bone when it comes to developing names. For instance, a good example of this, I was going to include some names in my book and I was going to spell them. So I, I don't like to make up too many names. My names tend to be traditional names. If they belong to one family, then I'm going to go like traditional Roman, or if they belong to another family, then I'll usually pick kind of a different origin for those types of names and try to keep things cohesive and sounding like they belong. But I don't like to make up too many names just because my setting is Victorian. And so I like to have more familiar sounding names. Victorian and we go into Edwardian. And so I like things to be more predictable like that and more familiar.

[00:09:09] But I personally have a love for the traditional spelling of some of the Celtic names like Shivonne and Alva, and some other things like that. There is a character in my book named Alva, but I chose to spell her name A L V A just because American readers are the people who are going to be reading my book. If I were to spell it A I L B H E nobody would know what that is. They would think it would be Ail-buh-huh or Ailby or some unpronounceable problem. I also love the name. Siobhan. Siobhan is traditionally spelled, if you go with the Gaelic spelling, it is traditionally spelled S I O B H A N. I have an old friend named Siobhan who lives in Southern France.

[00:10:11] And it was the first time I had seen her name and I wasn't familiar with Gaelic pronunciation when I first met her. Just the rules for it are different, but I don't expect people to know the rules for Gaelic pronunciations. I don't expect people to know that S I in Gaelic spellings is pronounced Shh, or B H is pronounced with a V sound. I don't expect people to know that. And so if I choose to include the name, I do my best to Americanize it just so people don't have to worry too much about what it's going to be. Or they don't have to worry too much about pronouncing the name wrong. If it's pretty easy to figure out, even if it is a little bit different, I've found it's easier to connect to a character if I can say their name. If you think differently, please go ahead and send me a message on Instagram and we can have a discussion, but that is certainly a guideline that I would choose. Also, if you are writing urban fantasy, or if you are writing contemporary fiction, we can move away from fantasy for a little second.

[00:11:38] A good idea-- and I picked this tidbit from the author Alexa Donne. She is a YA thriller author. And she has some brilliant advice on her Booktube channel on YouTube. She brought a thing to my attention that I wouldn't have thought of before, or I wouldn't have put together the logic of it before.

[00:12:03] If your character is 21 years old, living in a modern time, living in, you know, New York or wherever they are, it means that their name was likely popular when they were born. If you choose to consult like a baby name book, and you choose to look through a baby name book for today, for 2021, those names are for today. Those names are for 2021. If your character is 21 years old, it means that they were born in the year 2000. And the baby book names would likely be sorted differently and chosen differently. If your character is 37, they would have been born in the mid eighties and it is entirely possible that they could have a different name than if they were born in the year 2000 or if they were born in the year 2021. In modern days, I have noticed that there is a resurgence right now of some names that were popular and common when my grandmother was a little girl, which is awesome. But that's how the trends are right now. And so it's important to pay attention to that.

[00:13:32] Also with the names, with the things, sometimes it is also very valuable to think about who this character's parents might've been. It's okay if the parents aren't in the book and it's okay if you don't focus a ton on developing like a character profile for the parents and like giving the dad a job and an address and those different things. But if you picture this kid being straight laced and a rule follower, and always telling the truth, it's possible that character's parents might've been strict or conservative or whatever. And the reason why is because if the parents were more traditional, they would likely name them a more traditional name.

[00:14:26] If the kid was born in the eighties and their parents were more traditional, this kid might have the name of Brittany. If the kid was born in the seventies and the parents were hippies, it might be like Rainbow Star or something. Knowing how the parents would have approached that can be valuable as to how you would name them.

[00:14:47] If the parents are conservative and you want to name the kid like Spike or Blade or something, there should be a very good reason for that. It's just because conservative parents, aren't very likely going to name their kid Blade or Spike or things like that.

[00:15:09] Moving over to high fantasy, I personally like to mimic regions of our world to include in my book, just because of the familiarity of it. I like names to resemble each other. I like family names to resemble each other or a certain culture to kind of have all of the common sounds of names. So the one island village that I have, to me, the culture itself represents to an extent some Japanese village fishermen culture. And so I chose to have all of the names be traditional Japanese. For a family that lives on the mainland on the main continent way further north, for the main family of my series, I have chosen those to be more traditional Roman or traditional Greek. And so we have names like Demetrius and Brontes and different things like that.

[00:16:14] When we're doing that, it is okay to have your names be as off the wall as you want. I mean, heaven knows Lord of the Rings, J R R Tolkien invented like new languages and stuff for the world that he was creating. And the names certainly add to the immersion of that world. Having names, having them all sound the same, having them all be like the Elvish names are absolutely beautiful to me.

[00:16:44] They're very sing song. They're just lovely. They roll off the tongue if you know how to pronounce them. And that's fine. Tolkien is a little bit different. Odds are you are not Tolkien not because of your capacity to write, but because you were not born at the same time that Tolkien was born. You are writing to a modern audience, and a modern audience has different expectations than the audience that Tolkien was writing for back in the day.

[00:17:19] And so things get to be a little bit different just because different people are going to be reading your book. And so if you wish to, it is okay to have some different things resemble things in this real world, just so it can be a bit more approachable and more digestible to your reader, just because remember your reader does not live in your world. It's okay to help them out. And it's okay to have an amount of familiarity with whatever sometimes. If absolutely everything in your manuscript is brand new and requires a ton of explanation because there's nothing in it that is just inherently knowable or inherently understood because it's not common in this real world, then odds are your manuscript will be filled with a lot of info dump. It would be filled with a lot of exposition and it will be really heavy to get through and really hard to kind of wade through. It'd be like wading through like heavy sticky mud.

[00:18:36] So that's it for today. That is this character development 101 episode on characters and names. A quick shout out to my patrons. Thank you so much for your generosity. This show could not be like this without my patrons giving like they do. If you wish to become a patron, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse, and you can get early access to these episodes. You can get an additional episode every month and you can spend quality time with me on our private chat rooms on Discord.

[00:19:10] Again, follow me on social media. My Instagram tag is @authordevindavis, my Twitter is @authordevind. Thank you so much for your time, guys. We will see you next week and have fun writing.

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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript is available on the show’s website.

[00:00:00] Devin Davis: Are you ever worried about writing a large amount of text in a short amount of time? Then you need to listen to AJ Mac, author of the book The Gem State Seige. He wrote the entire thing during NaNoWriMo of 2020, and he is our guest today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to the show.

[00:00:47] Welcome back to the show. I am Devin Davis, your host, and I am the guy living in a tiny house to show you all of the different ways, regardless of how busy you are, that you can write that book. We focus mainly on fiction, at least the majority of these episodes. Today we have a person that I have been so excited to get to know. His name isAJ Mac.

[00:01:11] His first name is actually Aaron. And it's not in the interview. So I get to share a little tidbit before we play the interview. I actually met Aaron on a Facebook group looking for a critique partner. I had no idea what he had done. I had no idea his story or the process that he had taken to write this thing, but we exchanged first chapters many, many months ago and he critiqued my first chapter.

[00:01:40] I critiqued his first chapter. It was a great experience. And then like, a couple months later, I realized that his book was being released and was in print. So today we have AJ Mac, author of the book The Gem State Seige to share his entire story with us.

[00:02:02] AJ Mac: I started off writing a completely different novel that I said I was going to release first, but then I thought about the options of like Permafree books and like start in content. Cause I just wanted to kind of roll into something that was a little bit bigger of a project than the one that I released first. And it took me about 10 years to actually write that novel, like rewriting and constantly revising and all of that. The final draft of that book, it took me about nine months to do a hundred thousand words, I think. And I was just like, okay I need to write it a little bit faster if I have this goal of doing all of these books and all of this story, this this whole sci-fi universe that I've created in my head, I might want to write a little bit faster.

[00:02:52] So NaNoWriMo came along. I found it on Facebook, found a lot of groups on Facebook, talking about writing 50,000 words in a month. And I was like, Okay. That's a challenge. I'm going to take it. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm going to try.

[00:03:07] So October 31st. I was just like, kind of like at my computer at 1159, like a runner at a Olympic track meet. 12 o'clock hit and I just started going. It took me about 20 days, 21 days, I think to get the 50,000 words, but I did it and I proved to myself that I actually could write faster.

[00:03:29] Devin Davis: NaNoWriMo, though it calls itself a competition, is more like a big push to get people to start writing. No one is looking over your shoulder. You don't submit your progress to anyone, but it's just a month long marathon in the spirit of writing. And it is celebrated by everyone. When Aaron got in the thick of it, he had some big realizations about his own writing process.

[00:03:58] AJ Mac: I like being a pantser for the most part. Doing Prep-Tober is what they call it when you're preparing for NaNoWriMo I took some time out and wrote like a whole outline. I started setting up my writing space, and I bought Scrivener, and I wrote out and it took me about a day or so to write this entire like, outline of what I was going to do.

[00:04:21] And about Chapter Two, I was like screw outline. Yeah. I just yeah.

[00:04:26] Devin Davis: He wrote for hours every day. Like he said, it took him 21 days to get his first draft completed. Three weeks. And as you might imagine, it took a toll on his social life.

[00:04:41] AJ Mac: I don't think I talked to my girlfriend much during that time. I was working night shift at my full-time job. And what I would do is I would work 5:00 PM to about 4:00 AM, was my schedule. And I would spend as much time as I possibly could while I was working-- which wasn't much-- writing. And when I was at home I would wake up early. I still wake up earlier about 11 o'clock and I will write until I go to work. so I I was pretty much, at my computer the entire time.

[00:05:14] Devin Davis: Because he wasn't an experienced writer, at first he didn't know how to go about self edits and critique partners at all. This is how he handled it.

[00:05:25] AJ Mac: And I sat on the manuscript for about a month and a half maybe. And like, there were a lot of people saying that if you write something in NaNoWriMo, then it should at least be a year out before you actually start, like, thinking about publishing, but I was determined. I was determined to get some feedback on it. And I, I went to Facebook groups and like a bunch of critique groups. And I start querying for some people to give me some feedback on the book. And that was my start. And to editing that rough draft and submitting that rough draft and seeing if there was a actual concept for me to even publish a book.

[00:06:05] Devin Davis: And a few short months later, he had The Gem State Siege in print.

[00:06:13] AJ Mac: It's about Tawnie Simms, a world-renowned conspiracy theorist who finds herself in the middle of a cataclysmic event in her hometown, Idaho falls. When what seems like a natural disaster, a mysterious organization that uses the tragedy is fueled to start a mass extermination disguised as a pandemic. Tawnie has to find her way to stop the monstrous billionaire responsible while keeping her and her five-year-old son safe.

[00:06:41] Devin Davis: So this book required some research, not only about concepts, but about geography. The story takes place in Idaho falls and Aaron doesn't even live there.

[00:06:54] AJ Mac: The pantser in me decided to find it somewhere where geysers would make sense for for the relic that I used in the book. So Yellowstone National Park was, was nearby. I have a fascination with-- and this is going to sound horrible-- but I have a fascination with like end of the world kind of cataclysmic movies like that, like movies, like 2012 and Water Worlds, things like that. Just kind of like interests me. So the apocalyptic trope I feel like that's my thing. That's what interests me. It's a lot of build up to what I'm doing in the scifi universe that I'm creating and the world that I'm putting together. And that just happened to be one of the starting points of the world.

[00:07:36] Devin Davis: So I asked him what got him interested in books and science fiction in the first place.

[00:07:44] AJ Mac: A lot of fanfiction. I used to do a lot of sketches growing up and drawing my own comic books specifically when I was younger. It was a show called Dragon Ball Z that for whatever reason in America did not want to continue past a certain saga.

[00:08:00] So I started drawing my own and that trend never left. Like I fell in love with writing and coming up with my own ideas. And I felt comfortable. Like growing up as an introvert, I felt comfortable just writing my own reality as opposed to living in the real reality, I guess. And it just kind of worked for me.

[00:08:19] Devin Davis: All of us as writers, face roadblocks and other struggles. And sometimes we have self doubt.

[00:08:25] AJ Mac: I struggled with the belief that I could even write that fast, considering that I've just been sitting on a bunch of ideas for 10 years before I actually decided to publish a novel. For any aspiring author that wants to write, join a community like NaNoWriMo where people are having the same challenges.

[00:08:47] Devin Davis: Not only is Erin cranking out books, but he and his friends also do a podcast.

[00:08:54] AJ Mac: My podcast is called The Dirty Trunk podcast. And we like to say that that's where the elephant is always welcome. And we talk about the uncomfortable conversations about growth and building your mindset as an entrepreneur. They come out every Tuesday, and the last episode we discussed your environment and how it shapes your future as an adult.

[00:09:17] Devin Davis: By the time this episode airs, the Dirty Trunk podcast will have reached more than 100 episodes.

[00:09:26] AJ Mac: For anybody who's listening to this episode here, if you have the goal or the dream to be a published author, do it. You can listen to this podcast and everybody who joins Mr. Devin on this this journey being a guest on this awesome podcast that he has here in this platform, you can listen to every single one of them talk about their dreams, their goals of how to start and how they started, but it will not be possible for you unless you actually put pen to paper and do it. Do not let fear get in the way of your goals and your dream.

[00:10:01] Devin Davis: A special things to Aaron, author name AJ Mac, for joining me today on Writing in the Tiny House. He is working hard on the next several books of his series. And I am excited to see when those are going to come out. If you are interested in ordering or reading the Gem State Siege by AJ Mac, follow the link in the show notes and it'll get you there.

[00:10:26] And that is it for today. Thank you so much for my patrons. Without them this show can not be possible. If you wish to become a patron, patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. You can get early access to these episodes. You can get an additional episode, and you can get quality time with me over our exclusive chat rooms on Discord. Follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter, my handle is @authordevind. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next week and have fun writing.

The Gem State Siege: World's End Series: Book 1 (The Arcanin Calamity Series)

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A special thanks to Karen Christoffersen!

www.bookwisepublishing.com

chrisbizzz@comcast.net

She does free 30 minute consultations!

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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be found on the show’s website.

Devin Davis: If you are looking to do a book on your own, then you need to get to know Karen Christoffersen owner of Book-wise Publishing. She assisted me in doing my first two books and she is actually our guest today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:00:49] I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in the tiny house who is here to show you ways to get that novel written. Even if you are the busiest person in the whole world. And today we have a special guest. And before I do a really big introduction, let's go ahead and meet her. This is Karen Christoffersen. She is a producer and the owner of Book-wise Publishing.

[00:01:18] Karen Christoffersen: Hi Devin. I'm so excited to be able to do this with the Writing in the Tiny House. I thought that the title of your podcast was delightful. And so the fact that you've invited me to be on it is, is an honor.

[00:01:35]Devin Davis: I have known Karen for, forever, it seems. Her son and I are very good friends. And back in my early twenties, when I wrote my first book As Magic Shifts, it was Karen who did all of the heavy lifting to get it published and to produce it and to clean it up and to move all of the moving parts to form this cohesive picture we call a book. And the first book I wrote As Magic Shifts was published under CMS publishing, which at the time was owned by Karen Christoffersen, and then later she moved to Book-wise Publishing. And my second book, The Witch's Pupil was published under Book-wise.

[00:02:25] Karen Christoffersen: Book-wise publishing was started back in 2006 when there was a company called Book-wise and Company owned by Richard Paul Evans, number one New York times bestselling author, and several partners who decided they wanted to create a publishing arm. And they called it Book-wise Publishing and came to me and asked me, because I'm a producer, if I would produce a hundred books for a hundred new authors. As a producer, all we do is start a project and finish it. I was doing television commercials, radio commercials, motion pictures. I was doing all kinds of production as a producer, but I'd done two non-fiction books for Richard. It's a piece of cake, you know, you start, you finish. And so I said, sure, I can do that. And of course, my dad taught me never to say no. He said, just go out and find out how to do it. And so I ended up surrounding myself with a lot of really talented people: editors and illustrators and designers and all kinds of people actively involved in the publishing industry locally and nationally.

[00:03:39] And they made me look very good. And I coordinated everything. And so I've been doing that since 2007, 'cause we started that the second year and after a year and a half, Richard decided that, and by the way, Richard was only doing endorsements. He wasn't doing anything. I was operating the business alone. And after a year and a half, he decided he really didn't want the liability anymore. I'm pretty sure that's why. And besides he had his irons in so many fires at the time, he was just going gangbusters, doing all kinds of things. And he sold it to me for a dollar. The branding alone for Book-wise Publishing was worth $20,000. Plus, you know, there were other parts to the company that had value. And so I said, sure, I'll do that. It did take me because there were a hundred authors and then they added another 50 when they added a program called Write-Wise. So I had 150 authors that I was responsible for producing their books.

[00:04:43]And out of the $5,000 they paid, I only got 1300 to work on their books. So it took me a couple of years to get the company in the black, but obviously not all of those hundred and 50 authors came back and finished your books. So I eventually just continued doing more and more and more until today.

[00:05:07]Devin Davis: Karen has been doing this for more than 14 years, and she has produced more than 500 books, anything from paper back ,to hard back, to board books, to tub books, to eBooks and audio books.She ha s a team of talent that can do it all and can do all of the things. And so she has become a very valuable resource for anybody who wishes to self publish.

[00:05:38] Karen Christoffersen: My goal is to make my authors as happy as I possibly can. So when I put that book in their hands, it's like putting that baby in her mother's arms. It's a moment of just pure joy, and that's what I look for.

[00:05:53]

[00:05:53] Devin Davis: So Karen estimates that the expense of producing a book is about $3,000. My personal estimation is closer to $5,000. And many authors get a book finished, they write it, they edit it and they go through the entire huge process of getting a manuscript ready. And now it's printed, or it is available to order in the ebook form or whatever, they have this finished product, but many of them just don't know what to do next.

[00:06:26]Karen Christoffersen: If we can just get authors atuned to the fact that this is a small business. The startup business is tough and you have to build and you have to stick with it. Well, a book is like that as well. You have to be on there every day. You know, write a blog, do a newsletter. You must have a website. Websites are very inexpensive to do now. The hard part is selling it.

[00:06:54] So if people start off from the beginning, I remember Richard Evans told me, he said if I had started collecting email addresses when The Christmas Box first came out, he said, I've had millions of names, but he didn't start collecting addresses for like 10 years. And so that's one thing that I can't convince enough authors to do is to go out there and start building that list.

[00:07:21] Tell your friends to share. Tell your friends to send this to their friends and ask your friends if you can have their email address.

[00:07:29]Devin Davis: So where to get started. The process of writing a book has so many steps and so many different professionals to bring in on board to the project that it is so easy to lose track of what you need to do. It is easy to lose your steam and it is easy to lose focus. So, what Karen has put together is called the Book-wise Publishing Boiler Plate and she passed this document onto me.

[00:07:59] It is updated regularly. The one that I have was current as of July 7th, 2021. And it goes through and outlines step by step, the different things that you need to do in the writing process to produce a book, to get to that finish line of having a book. And then we move on a little bit to marketing after that.

[00:08:27] So if you are interested in the Book-wise Publishing Boiler Plate document, go ahead and email me. My email is authordevindavis@gmail.com. And I will be able to send that to you so that you can see what Book-wise Publishing has put together. As far as that is concerned.

[00:08:49] Karen Christoffersen: One thing I think is really important is that if you are a serious writer, if you're serious about completing a book, you need two books, you need your book, but you also need a journal. And write in your journal every day what you do, whether you write 10 pages, whether you call so-and-so who knows an editor or an agent or whatever is happening in your book life, keep a journal of it because you're going to want to refer back to that sometime. And you will have valuable information that you don't even know was valuable at the time you received it. So two books.

[00:09:29]Devin Davis: Sometimes as business owners and as people who are creative, we failed to see the importance of record keeping. So with different things like this with having your manuscript that you are working on and then keeping track of the things that you did to progress that manuscript that can serve you in many different ways. It can show you, first of all, exactly how you did it so that you can do it again when you move on to your second manuscript. It can also serve as kind of a force to lift you up. If you are feeling down, if you are feeling unmotivated, you can look back to the specific days where you pushed through and did a lot and accomplished a lot, and had a really successful day, as far as production goes, and you can replicate what you did to get past that and to do it again. And so record keeping is very, very important in a small business, not only just the financial side, but also what you have done for production.

[00:10:42] With me, I have my book, well, my two books. I now have two books, two manuscripts that I'm working on. I also have this podcast that I need to keep track of. With the podcast, I don't keep track of all of the notes that I have taken for each episode, but I definitely have a planner because this is a regular release schedule. And so I need to be organized and I need to think ahead.

[00:11:08] And if I ever want to have days off, it means that I need to get things done beforehand to earn those days off or to prepare for them. So with books, I have done the book writing before I know how to do that. And I know the people that I need to get ahold of for the next steps, because I've done that too. And I never did keep a second journal, but I also recommend doing that just as Karen pointed out.

[00:11:36]But also something, another thing that Karen does, and this was surprising to me, Karen has an entire career built around producing and around marketing. And so Karen has spent her entire adult life writing the short stuff, saying impactful things in a very short amount of time, because in marketing, you don't have pages and pages to build or to develop.

[00:12:06] You get to hit them hard and you get to say the important things in a good, meaningful way right away. And so Karen writes the short stuff. With my books, she wrote the blurbs on the back of the covers because she's good at that. And she knows how to do the small things well. And so when she moves on to share with me something else that you will hear here in a second, I was completely surprised and delighted by this little gift that she shares.

[00:12:44] Karen Christoffersen: I was going to read to you just a little thing. 'Cause I don't write books.

[00:12:48] I do a lot of writing, but I don't write books because I have too much work to do just editing. I decided to write as what I call a fictionalized narrative based on true events. And I bring other people in like, you know, the boy in my neighborhood who was my friend and his quote from his point of view, what he sees happening in my life.

[00:13:13] But I thought it might be fun just to read a tiny little excerpt. So I would like your response to these four short paragraphs. You're ready for this?

[00:13:25] Okay. Now I grew up in a trailer in a tiny home and and I had a sister who played Elvis Presley all the time.

[00:13:34] And my big brother, 12 years older than me. He looked like Elvis Presley. I thought Elvis was my brother. And I liked big words. This is when I was five years old. But even when I was five years old, I liked big words. So this is four paragraphs for inspiration for you guys.

[00:13:52]Butch was my friend. He was about 10 or 11, and I was five. Butch had a dog named Gunner. He was a big German shepherd, mostly black, but he had a lot of golden fur in his face and he was beautiful. He was bigger than me, probably twice my size, a happy dog, always looked like he was grinning, kind of like me. Dad called me a grinning idiot.

[00:14:15]Butch had to keep him on a long rope because we didn't have fences. So Gunner had to be leashed when we were at school. And I lived right on Route 66 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So it was a nasty road. I remember riding the school bus home one day. And as we got to our stop right in front of our trailer park, there was a dark something in the middle of the road, a ways in front of the bus.

[00:14:37]I didn't think anything about it at the time, but when we walked to our trailers, I noticed Butch was looking around and couldn't find Gunner. He called him, and Gunner would always come when he heard Butch call but not this time. And then I knew what that black thing in the middle of the road was.

[00:14:55] And I was sick at heart, sick to my stomach, and didn't know what to do. Butch and his dad dug a hole near the back of their trailer space I remember it was in the spring because the wild flowers were in bloom and I picked a bunch to put on his grave. Butch was pretty stoic. I liked that word.

[00:15:12] It meant strong and quiet-like I loved big words, even as a child. I knew he was hurting, but he didn't have to show it. I liked that. He could hurt inside, but he didn't have to show everybody and make a fuss. At my house, someone was always making a fuss. That kind of quiet strength really impressed me. I wanted to be like that, but I was a girl and girls, well, we're usually not the epitome of quiet strength.

[00:15:40] The role model I had at the time was just the opposite. I remember standing there as Butch's dad shoveled dirt into the hole, singing quietly to myself, "You ain't nothing but a hound dog crying all the time, nothing but a hound dog." It was my requiem for Gunner. He was a good dog, a loyal and loving one. Died on Route 66, just east of Albuquerque.

[00:16:06] And that is my tiny excerpt from my narrative. And I wanted to write it in such a way that my kids would actually read it. And so I bring this up because anybody out there who is thinking about writing the book and thinks they can't write a book. Well, I thought I couldn't write a book, but I I'm starting to think I might be able to, because I read a few of these pieces to my children and they liked them and ask for more.

[00:16:38]Devin Davis: So there you have it. Anyone can write a story. And a lot of us want to write some form of memoir, either for ourselves, for our lives or for a loved one. Like Caroline Nadine Helsing did in one of those previous episodes. And you should. And it is fun to bring focus to the idea of a fictional narrative based on real events and how that can be just fine and a beautiful way to do your own narrative or your own memoir or the memoir of a loved one.

[00:17:14] It can be fun. It can be entertaining. It can be more memorable that way. If you choose to incorporate those elements as well, just as Karen is choosing to do with her own personal memoirs. I know that I will, when I do my own stuff later on in life, I'm not interested in writing a memoir today. But if you are interested in reaching out to Book-wise Publishing, do their website at www.bookwisepublishing.com. And if you want to reach out to Karen Kristofferson herself, her email is chrisbizzz@comcast.net. It has three Z's in a row. Uh, I will include that email address and a link to the website in the notes of the show.

[00:18:03] Also, again, referring back to the boiler plate document. If you want to get a hold of that, feel free to reach out to me. My email address is authordevindavis@gmail.com. And I would be able to send that over to you.

[00:18:18]That's it for today. A big shout out to my patrons who help make this show what it is. If you wish to become a patron, you will get early access to this content, you could get an additional episode every month and you could spend quality time with me over some private chat features in Discord.

[00:18:35] Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to sign up to become a patron today. Also, be sure to follow me on social media. On Instagram I am @authordevindavis, on Twitter I am @authordevind. And thank you so much for listening. Be sure to be on the lookout for next week's episode, where we will be hearing from author AJ Mac, who wrote The Gem State Siege during NaNoWriMo last year. So that is coming up next week. Thank you so much, guys. Have fun writing.

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Be sure to check out the podcast Writing Roots, found wherever you listen to your podcasts!

The following is a transcription to this episode. The complete transcription is on the show’s website.

Devin Davis: Do you have the most awesome character in all of fiction and you have wonderful plans for this character, but you just don't dare to put those plans into action? Well, I am here to tell you to dare to dream. Well, in ways. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show. Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and we are here together for another wonderful episode of writing in the tiny house. I am the guy living in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you how to fit in writing a book, even in the most busy of schedules. So that's what we're doing.

[00:01:09] That's what we do here. Sometimes we have interviews of professionals in the field. Sometimes we have me talking about different writing advice. Last week, we talked about plotting from the inside out, from finding an event that would happen in your plot and in your book and finding ways to entangle that with all of the different subplots and then working backward so that you can find out how everybody got there.

[00:01:41] This week, we are going to be talking about characters and the awesome things we want them to do. So this is still plotting. This is still doing the plot structure stuff. But I warn you: what I'm about to talk about can be dangerous. But first I want to do a quick shout out. You know, that in these episodes I sometimes have announcements.

[00:02:06] One of the podcasts that I just stumbled upon is called Writing Roots by Aspen House Publishing. They release episodes twice a week and they are great. And I highly recommend that you guys search them out and have a good time with that. It's been fun exploring some of these other writing podcasts and just building a community like that.

[00:02:27] So that's it for announcements. Let's just get in to the nitty gritty of this. Let me first share with you the warning. Let me first set the stage. This stage is: you have this wonderful character, and because I am a fantasy genre author, we're going to keep things kind of fantasy.

[00:02:50] If you do any other type of fiction though, this totally applies. So with fantasy, anything can happen. There's magic. I appreciate a really good magic system. I appreciate believable characters. I appreciate human characters that I can relate too. So we have this character who is becoming more and more powerful in magic, and we imagine this wonderful big finale or this wonderful big spell or this wonderful big situation that this character really should be put into.

[00:03:31] If the character were in that situation, the entire plot would be more exciting. And that particular scene that you are imagining would be fun to write. It would be fun to envision. It is fun to daydream about. If it were a movie, you know all of the camera angles, you know all of the pictures, you know all of the special effects that it would have.

[00:03:54] And so we get to ask ourselves, "How did we get our character to do that? How do we get our character to get there?" We need to include these exciting moments because it's fun. And that's what makes some of this literature really fun is really big magic, really big high stakes things.

[00:04:18] We like the fights. We like the battles, at least in fantasy we usually do. And so it's important to include those things. However, when it comes to this specific character, doing this specific thing or developing in this specific way or having this or that specific backstory, it is important to step back and ask yourself why.

[00:04:49]And this is the reason why I say things like this. If you do not step back and ask yourself why it can lead to problems with your writing. It can lead to problems with your story. When you have a character who needs, in your opinion-- and it truly is in your opinion, none of this is real. And so you are in charge of everything in this writing process. But if you have this woman who needs to learn a specific spell or needs to do a specific fight, then you need to find a believable way to get her there. It is important to write down the different things that you want this character to have, and that you want this character to do.

[00:05:42] It's important to write all those things down for all of the main characters. But, you need to cross reference all of that with the previous stuff that I said in the previous episode. You need to make sure that you're getting your character from this stage to this other stage in a believable way. It needs to be something that is organic.

[00:06:10] It needs to be something that is real. It needs to be something that we can believe. And so what the pitfall is, is plot devices. Sometimes plot armor. If you're familiar with that term, that is when the character doesn't die or doesn't really get hurt just because they are the main character.

[00:06:32] Not because they are otherwise special in any other way. But just because they're the main character we protect them, or we have our main character or our main crew of characters, and we need to get them from here to there, but we have written them into this corner. And so how do we get them out of this corner?

[00:06:53] Well, the problem is the unbelievable solution or the convenient thing that comes by. I spoke about plot conveniences earlier when I spoke about Santa Claus showing up in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia and Santa Claus brought deadly weapons, which the children would be needing at the end of the book, and that is all very convenient. And this way of plotting can lead to these plot conveniences. However, I'm going to tell you that if your character absolutely needs to do a specific thing, what I invite you to do is write down what that specific thing is, and then sit on it for a while.

[00:07:42]Have it in the back of your mind. If everything in the story already makes sense and leads up to that, and this would be just a natural progression along the way, then absolutely stick it into your story. If not, pay attention to your gut feeling. If it ends up being extra or stupid, or unbelievable, or just too much, or it ends up affecting the pacing-- like things get really slow and boring now that we have this thing in there-- then I invite you to step back and to perhaps revisit it or to throw it away entirely. There have been many wonderful ideas that I have thought of in my own stories that simply did not survive just because there was no organic way to include them in the story.

[00:08:40] So in instances like this, sometimes sometimes, and I absolutely give you every excuse to do this if you feel you need to. Sometimes you simply must sit down and write it anyway, knowing that it is going to be modified later. And you could write thousands of words just because you need to write that. You need this particular scene or event to exist for you, for you as the storyteller. In writing that scene, it brings you a little bit closer to your character. It lets you get to know the character and the dynamics of the environment that they're in, the stakes that they have and many more things. But it is okay to then turn around and rip it out of your manuscript.

[00:09:36]If you are the type of person who has heart failure over deleting things in their manuscript, it's okay to cut them from the manuscript that you are working on and paste them into another file that you can title your graveyard and to have those ideas continue on in the graveyard for either further inspiration or just reminiscing about what might've been. When I wrote my first book As Magic Shifts, the prologue was the longest chapter in the entire book by far, and it was the prologue. And if you do any type of Googling or just a quick search in YouTube, you can discover that prologues are kind of on the hot plate right now.

[00:10:34] They're kind of a debatable subject. Do you need a prologue? Do you not need a prologue? And there are a million different things to say about that subject. But in my book As Magic Shifts, when I wrote that 13 years ago, I simply needed to write this battle scene. And in the prologue, I wrote the battle scene from start to finish.

[00:11:00] It was the entire battle. And it had characters in it that had not been introduced in any other aspect. It had events in it that were confusing. It had multiple points of view. It was a mess. It was also 45 pages long. Which is too long for a prologue. You want your prologue to be shorter than the average length of your chapters.

[00:11:26] And so it was a problem and I sat back and I recognize that. And so what I did instead was after I wrote the entire prologue, I took just a single scene from it, the most important scene, and I made that become the prologue. And had I not done it that way, at least that's how it became for the second draft.

[00:11:52] Had I not done it that way-- had I not sat down and written out this entire battle-- I wouldn't have arrived at that scene that worked for the second draft. And that's okay. What I did later was I had a way to understand the characters backstory, and as a way to understand just some of the magic and some of the effects that were happening in a really negative way. I had flashbacks of sorts to that war, to that battle that happened years and years ago, as a way to explain to the reader and to actually some of the other characters, what was actually going on and why it was happening in this way. And so I never forgot that battle.

[00:12:45]Again, this is the thing. If you have main characters that you really, really, really want them to do specific things or act in a specific way, make sure you reference your overall story and pay attention to your gut. It has also been my experience that if I let things marinate for long enough, I will be able to come to a very logical conclusion about those things, whether or not to put them in the book. Or I can find the absolute perfect way to include them. And sometimes that takes time. Sometimes that just takes that patience, that ability to sit back and allow the forces at work to just kind of figure out this aspect of the story that you didn't understand before.

[00:13:45] For me, I daydream about my books all day, every day. And so sometimes I get fixated on the really exciting things on the good things that I find in the storyline. And because I'm the storyteller and because I'm the author, they all make perfect sense to me. And then sometimes when I draft, I don't see that they don't make sense yet, or that they need more or that it's too much, whatever.

[00:14:15]But in the times that I do see that this doesn't work right now, or that this character doesn't get to act in this way right now, or this event doesn't get to happen right now, but I still allow myself to daydream and I still allow myself to think about it, I have found that for the really important events in my entire overall story, even though some of the context might change, I have found there is always a creative and beautiful way to approach those events every time. And that moment is so exciting when, when I come to realize, oh, it gets to happen this way. So the event is still there! And I still get to be excited about what is about to happen and the magic and the action, and you know, what the characters are going to learn and grow from or whatever, if that's even in the scene.

[00:15:17] And even though the context may be different and sometimes the secondary characters might be different or the setting might be a little different. I have found that there are creative ways to find the perfect place for those exciting moments. And for those important moments, sometimes it requires a bit of ju from your manuscript, but it can happen.

[00:15:42] Sometimes you get to be prepared to put them on the back burner so that you can give it more time to marinate and let your creative brain find the most perfect way to include that important scene.

[00:15:58] So that is it for today. Thank you so much for joining me. And a special thanks to my patrons: without my patrons, this podcast would not be possible. If you are interested in joining the patron gang, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. You would be getting early access to these episodes. You would be getting an additional episode every month and an opportunity to spend private time with me.

[00:16:24] So again, that is patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. Also be sure to follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter my handle is @authordevind. Again, thank you so much for joining me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.

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S1E24 Plot, but Inside Out

Go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to become a patron today!

This is a transcript of this episode. The full transcript is found on the show’s website.

Devin Davis: You know, there has been wind, there has been rain. There has been everything you can imagine. And so I'm hoping that my microphone doesn't pick it up because we have a deadline today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to tell you how to write that novel specifically. But we don't just pay attention only to novels. We pay attention to all books. It has been my experience that so many adults who work a nine to five and have a family also have a book idea in the back of their mind that they simply have not started writing.

[00:01:12] And I'm here to tell you that it is possible. And I am here to show you how it's done. So as far as announcements go, we are here and we are on our 24th episode. Isn't that so fun? I have been doing my darndest to kind of get ahead of things and it's a lot of work, friends. The podcast itself is a lot of work. I absolutely love it. And it brings me a lot of joy. But to get ahead of my publishing schedule and to give myself some room to breathe and stuff has taken a lot of effort.

[00:01:45] I don't really have a day where I can sit down and record like six episodes. That's not how it works. And so instead I've been doing a lot of interviews and I have been doing about two podcasts a week and becauseI have a patron community, I get to do an additional episode every month and that episode gets to be really good.

[00:02:07] So there's just a lot of recording and I simply do what I can in the time that I have. I don't have my boys every night. I am alone on most nights. And my goal has been to record two episodes a week and publish one. So with some time we're going to get that nice big cushion.

[00:02:28] In case, well, which is what I want that way if I need to take time off, the publishing schedule won't be interrupted. Or if something happens or if there's an emergency, then you, my friends, don't need to worry about some good additional content and neither do I. And that's good. It is good to have that.

[00:02:47] Additionally. So August is very soon, actually, August is this month. You CA it's this month, we are presently in August, as you can tell. And that means that we have three months to prepare for NaNoWriMo. So NaNoWriMo is basically when we get our writing idea and we map it out and we outline as much as we feel we need to. And we make a goal that in November we write 50,000 words of that project. Now in my life, 50,000 words does not make a novel. Even if you read the NaNoWriMo guidelines, they pretend that 50,000 is a novel. In most publishing standards, 50,000 is a novella, but 50,000 words in a month would be a huge step in the progress of anybody's book.

[00:03:59] So for the traditional debut novel, which should be at about a hundred thousand words, you would get halfway there. If you are already at like 40 to 50,000 words, you would finish the thing by the end of NaNoWriMo. And so that is what I am preparing to do. I want to have all of November's podcasts recorded in advance.

[00:04:24] November is going to be a little bit different just because that entire month is going to be a big push to 50,000 words. I currently have two works in progress that are half done. And so to get 50,000 more words is a big freaking deal. Even if between now and then I managed to finish one of them.

[00:04:44] There's always more to be written. And I have short story ideas that need to happen too. All the things. There are a million different ways to get to 50,000 words, even if it's not just in one manuscript. And so NaNoWriMo November is going to look a bit differently instead of just the informative episode content that I have done in many of these episodes, like the tips and tricks and whatever, in November, we're going to take a different approach just because I am inviting you, my listening community, to do NaNoWriMo with me, especially my patrons.

[00:05:24]So think of a project where you can do a big push to the end and let's nail it down in the month of November. But in November, we are going to have episodes on how to deal with stress. I know that one of them is going to be a guided meditation, just different things like that, ways to clear your head, ways to keep you going.

[00:05:46] And so it may not be related specifically to writing. It might be more related just to achieving goals and pushing through things that will stand in your way and different things like that. Starting a routine of whatever it might be. So that in November we can tackle our goals and push through to the end.

[00:06:11] In 30 days and that is amazing. So there's going to be a lot of that and preparing for it in October, we're going to have episodes on how to prepare for that type of a marathon. So that's what the content will look like in the fall. And we have three months leading up to that. So stay tuned. It is going to be awesome in November.

[00:06:37] It's going to be a little bit different and I will be posting updates on my personal progress on the Discord community and also on Instagram. So if you follow me on Instagram, you can see that. If you are not a part of the Discord community, you need to become a patron to do so. So go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse, and, there will be a giveaway, there will be a lot of back and forth on how to stay on track, on how to push through, on how to move forward. And so NaNoWriMo is a big goal this year. So let's do that right before the holiday season. It's going to be great.

[00:07:17] So anyway, onto the main body of this episode. I want to talk about how to structure plot. And do it from the inside out sort of. So the plot of a story can happen in many different ways. It is, especially if you're doing fiction and you are not modeling something with your fiction. A lot of people take an event. And through the inspiration of that event, they write a story. And so that story is inspired by events that actually happened.

[00:07:54] And so putting in the rising action and whatever else is a bit easier, just because everything that they're writing happened in some way already. If you are writing a book with a larger cast and a more complicated plot with several subplots, things get to happen a little bit differently.

[00:08:16] And so for something like a big epic, something where people go up against impossible odds and there's that really, really big finish at the end. And the stakes are like life or death or the death of a village or like life of death, of their loved ones or whatever else. That's what I mean by an epic.

[00:08:42] Sometimes what you can do is imagine, and I've done this with a lot of the key points in my books and with a lot of the subplots too. And you get to go through and think about how this applies to your characters later. But what I do is I envision what the outcome will look like. So I start at the end or I start at the middle.

[00:09:11] I start at what the outcome of whatever conflict, whichever conflict I choose to look at and I see how it ends. And I see who's in that conflict and who's in the picture and I go through and I map out. So I've told you that I'm kind of a pantser when it comes to writing, I don't really like to use an outline and that is true to an extent I outline a lot.

[00:09:44] I just don't write it all down and I don't write down every last detail of the scenes that play through my mind. I like a lot of the details of the scene and the interactions of the people in the scene to unfold as I write them. But there definitely has to be a direction and there has to be, you know, an ending, there has to be a way to get there and there still has to be a goal.

[00:10:12] And so in that respect, I definitely outline, and I recommend outlining. Otherwise you won't know what to do and you will have writer's block like you won't believe. So anyway, If you start at the end and you see who's all there and you see how it happened and you see all those different things, then you take the people who are there and you trace backwards.

[00:10:41] How did they end up there? What other big thing in the entire story? So an event that affects all of the subplots or most of them had to happen so that after that they would have this big finish at the end.

[00:10:57]And you call that event like Event D. From Event D you see, who is there and you imagine which other big event in the story would have brought everybody to that point, and you label this other event Event C and you move on back to B and then back to A. This is one way of an infinite number of ways to come up with a good plot. And it's a way to make sure that there is continuity and that there are ways that your subplots tie together. I appreciate all of the subplots. I do not have the brain power or the attention span to pay attention to subplots that happen in the first book and then are dropped until book five and then picked up again.

[00:12:00] I don't pay attention to all of those things. And so I like to have a good book where all of the subplots tie together in some way in the span of one book, and this is a way to ensure that. It's a way to keep all of the subplots there. It's also a good way to keep them tangled and it is so fun and so freaking hard, but so fun to have all of these subplots and to have many people involved in all of the subplots. It makes the book ridiculous to write, but it makes it intriguing to read and it adds so much suspense and it adds so much pull and so much grip. It really grips me when everybody is in everybody else's business. And then a big thing happens and there's a reason why everyone was there.

[00:12:58] And then the subplots, and the main plot kind of separate for another few chapters. And then they meet together again. And then at the end, for a big finish. I love that. Now, when you're doing it and we'll get to this in subsequent episodes, you need to make sure that your characters are doing it right.

[00:13:19] And you need to make sure that the pacing is correct among other things. But we're going to touch on those things in some of the next episodes of Writing in the Tiny House.

[00:13:30] So that is it for today. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you wish to become a patron and get early access to the episodes or a bonus episode every month, or be involved in our community and spend time with me every month.

[00:13:46]Then be sure to go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. Also follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter. And my handle is @authordevind. Take just a minute and leave a review on whatever app you are listening to this podcast through

[00:14:13] a special thanks to my patrons. Without you, this podcast. Would not be as fun or as possible. So thank you so much, guys. Be sure to join in next week and have fun writing.

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S1E23 Unapologetic, with Caroline Nadine Helsing

To become a patron go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse today!

Caroline Nadine Helsing is today’s guest.

www.carolinenadinehelsing.com

Instagram: @caroline_nadine_helsing_author

Find her on Facebook and Youtube to see supplemental material to the book.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarolineNadineHelsingAuthor

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaaUCsUd28AhZSVoOXq9p_A

Follow this link to get her book Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher.

https://amzn.to/3BkQDSB

The following is a transcript of this episode. The full transcript is available on the show’s website.

Devin Davis: If you ever choose to write a memoir about a loved one in your life, I recommend doing it the way Caroline Nadine Helsing did it when she wrote her book, Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher. Caroline is our guest Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis. I am your host and I am the guy living in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you that the novel idea that you have floating around in your brain, it is 100% possible for you to buckle down and write it. And today's guest is a perfect example of how that is done and why that is done. These don't have to always be big works of fiction. Sometimes they can be works of fiction inspired by actual events. So let's take a second. And let's meet our guest. She is a woman living in California who grew up in Hawaii. And let's see all of the different things that she did before she actually started writing a book. She has done all the things you could ever imagine, my friends.

[00:01:47] Caroline Helsing: My name is Caroline Nadine Helsing. I can say I'm originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, and moved to California two days before my 23rd birthday.

[00:01:57] I feel like I've had multiple lifetimes. I almost feel like I reinvent myself every two years. So what brought me to the mainland was I was doing a bit of acting in Hawaii and the natural progression is to move to Los Angeles. So that's what I did. I came over with my little Lhasa Apso Bentley, and he used to jump on the bed and sleep with me. And I had gotten a new bed, a new mattress that was higher than my old one, and he couldn't jump up anymore. And so I made this dog step for him to get up onto the bed. And that essentially is what got me out of the acting business. It turned into a company, a manufacturing company for pet products. So we made dog steps and clothing. Our first slogan was "Bitches love me." I had that company for about 10 and a half years, and that's what brought me down to Orange County. And when I sold it-- gosh, I think I sold it in 2013-- I went back to one of my first loves, which is photography. And I started volunteering through the Rotary Program and started traveling with these mobile medical clinics. And we would go to Mexico, we went to the Amazon and the rainforests, the Peru, India. And I would document these trips and also volunteer where I could like in India was amazing.

[00:03:21] We were one of the last groups. Administer polio vaccinations via the droplets before they moved to injection. So it just was a very rewarding experience for me. And in documenting through my photography, I would also write and then I started writing and submitting stories to the local papers.

[00:03:41]And that evolved into just me realizing that I really loved writing. And in the back of my mind, I always had this seed of an idea to tell my mother's stories because she was unlike any mother I had ever grown up with. She was kind of like a cross between a Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's to like Moira from Schitt's Creek. She was, she was very unapologetically herself and she taught me the value of being authentic to yourself. She was one that just always followed her bliss.

[00:04:16]Devin Davis: So you can see that Caroline has done everything in her life. She's been a business owner, she has done photography. She has done writing. But I had to ask her, why now and why this book?

[00:04:34]Caroline Helsing: But I always loved creative writing in school. That was like my, I loved English. I love. I love that aspect. I was always journaling, so I was always writing. And I think in the back of my mind, you know, I I'd always said, I, I knew, I didn't know how, I didn't know what I was going to write about, but I knew I was going to write a book and I didn't know that it was going to wind up being a book about my mother. But it was the perfect avenue for me. It was almost like she was channeling through me because I got it done in a little over a year and maybe I have COVID, you know, the pandemic to thank. I was just, you know, home and I, I literally treated it like a full-time job.

[00:05:13] Devin Davis: But it was with her mother's passing that Caroline got started with her book.

[00:05:19]Caroline Helsing: Well like I said, I'd always had this seed of an idea to tell her stories. And I think after she had passed, my mother had passed in 2019 in January. Actually it was New Year's Day, which again, if you, know about my mother, I mean, it was the perfect day because she had to go with a big bang.

[00:05:35]In 2019 it was towards the middle end of the year, I started thinking maybe I'm going to kind of like start to jot down her stories. And I actually I took a memoir class just to kind of get my feet wet and the very first chapter I wrote was one of the ones that I put in the book.

[00:05:55]It was towards the end. It was basically my journey with her and her ashes. Before she passed, I had promised her that I would take her back to all of her favorite places in New York city. Cause she was from New York city and she was very much in New York and she loved New York, even though she wound up migrating west. When she met my father, they wound up settling in Hawaii and lived on an island for 36 years. But I promised her I would just take her back. She had said in passing, oh, when I die, I want my ashes spread across Bergdorf Goodman, which is this high-end, you know, department store in Manhattan. So that kind of gives you an idea of like her, her personality or character. And so, you know, when she died, we all were like, oh wait, she did.

[00:06:38] What did she want, like, what, you know, what do you think she would have wanted? And I said, well, she did say this. And I, you know, of course, I don't know what she kidding. I don't know, but in just sitting with it , it was the perfect thing for her to kind of like come full circle and, and bring her back to the city that she just adored.

[00:06:56] Seeing the city and going literally to all the places that I'd ever remembered her talking about to me truly enabled me to see that city through her eyes. It's like a gift that you give to your loved ones whom you leave behind. So that I think is what inspired me to write her story, once and for all to really do it. And so I I started November, December of 2019 is when I really started.

[00:07:26]Devin Davis: Sometimes when we start these big projects, it is really easy to feel isolated and alone, like many of us have experienced over the past 18 months. But it is also very beneficial when we are on these big endeavors where it's only us writing and nobody else helping us. It is very, very beneficial to form a writing group.

[00:07:53] To get a group of men or women or whomever else wants to listen to you, who is in the same boat as you and who will give good, honest feedback for the things that you are creating. And for Caroline, this kept her motivated and this brought her to the end to finish her book.

[00:08:19] Caroline Helsing: A few of the students and I decided to form a writer's group. I had to drive up there and I was fine to do it because it was just so nice to be able to bounce ideas off of another writer. And I consider them all so talented. We all had our backgrounds we added to the table, but that I feel is what got me through, kind of kept me accountable having this reference group for me personally. We met weekly, and for me, just in the back of my mind, knowing there was a group of people every Saturday morning waiting to read something from me, I had to at least write something.

[00:08:57]Devin Davis: Like with so many different projects that I have spoken about, including my own, but also others that I have heard about in recent years, Caroline's story evolved from how she envisioned it when she started to what it ended up being in the end.

[00:09:19] Caroline Helsing: When I originally started, it was just all about my mother. All I wanted to do was write about my mother. I didn't want to be in the book. It's about my mother, right? And they were the ones that kept saying No, Caroline, we want to know more about you. It helps us to understand her through your eyes and you know, whatever it was, they were saying. So I would like sprinkle a little bit of me here. So weird and odd, you know, like I didn't want to, and then just getting that feedback really helped. I wanted to create scenes with dialogue. And of course I wasn't there obviously prior to my being born and my mother's life, and I write a lot about my mother's youth, and they had said, you know, you can write as if. You obviously know her essence, so write as if. I had enough anecdotes, enough things, stories from different people from herself that I was able to take that information and create a scene as if it happened. I mean, I don't know the complete details the things that happened to her in her youth, but I feel like the point and the purpose was to give you an idea of what it could have looked like in the context of what actually happened. She was too much of a fun character to write. I couldn't not have fun with her.

[00:10:32]Devin Davis: But because so much of her mother's life happened before Caroline was even around, Caroline had to set out on an adventure of sorts to gather some of these other stories that she had only heard of before; these other stories of when her mother was young.

[00:10:50] Caroline Helsing: Other than the stories that I remember firsthand from my mother or firsthand from my own experience I talked to relatives, friends. I mean I write about the fact that I actually was getting to know the man behind my father, because he was someone that I called on Mother's Day because there was no one else to call, you know, and then we started talking about her and I was so impressed. My father is 94 years old and his memory is incredible. He remembered the fact that she was wearing a pink knit dress the day they met, and what song was playing in the background when he realized he was in love with her.

[00:11:33] So it connected me and my father. It connected me and her best friend, Marilyn. And it just kind of brought me closer to not only my own family, but the friends that were dear to her. And what was really cool is that it felt like my mother still is around me. This was such a therapeutic experience for me to not only digest and relive things, but make sense of who she was. When the book was done, I was worried that I would feel like I was losing her. Like I would lose her again because what would happen when I stopped writing about her? She was the thing that I thought about every single day. When I was done, what was that going to be like? And it, I have to say, I am probably more busy now than I was when I was writing, because I'm promoting it; I'm still talking about her. And this is probably exactly how she would've wanted it because she loved when people were interested in finding out about her. So she probably has had a hand in this too.

[00:12:36]

[00:12:36]Devin Davis: As she started writing her book, there were moments that were easy and there were moments that were challenging. And these are things that I can completely relate to as I write fantasy works of complete fiction. And as I have spoken to other authors who have been through the similar process of starting and completing a book, there are moments that are so easy to write, and there are other moments that are a struggle to get through.

[00:13:06] Caroline Helsing: I loved writing about the Catskills days. I loved writing about my experience with her towards the end, where I was traveling with her with the ashes. I mean, half the time I'm sobbing as I write it. So it's not like it was easy in that extent, but it flowed through me. I would say what was harder was the first chapter, for example, where it's just like, okay, I just have to set this foundation. She was born here I had to get to some extent that out of the way, the foundation of her mother and father. What was the most fun and enjoyable parts for me to write was the dialogue. And that's where I had my creative license. I was worried about writing about my father because my father is still alive and I didn't want to write anything to have made him take pause or sad in any way. He is a very private person so that was my biggest thing. Especially when I had the story finished I was just worried about what he would think about, you know, anything I might have written, you know, he really helped me and set my fears at ease when he said," Listen, this is your memories of your mother. Yes, I'm private, but I'll just have to take that into consideration when I read it. You've worked so hard on this book." It was almost like he gave me the permission to release her story. Cause there was a part of his that I don't know, maybe I just wrote it for me, you know, I want him to be okay with it.

[00:14:38]Devin Davis: One of the things that touched me, the very, very most in reading this book was Caroline's sensitivity toward her brothers schizophrenia. I have read many books with schizophrenia in them, either as part of the story or as part of the memoir. And I actually have close friends who deal with things that are similar to that.

[00:15:07] And the way that I had previously been exposed to schizophrenia in literature was that it was something to be feared, even though my personal own experience of it was not that way. It didn't always match that. And I loved that Caroline chose to make her brother's schizophrenia completely real. At the same time, it was just a part of him.

[00:15:34] It was just him. It was simply a way of explaining some of his quirkiness and the way that he viewed the world. And she said that when they arrived at a diagnosis, things became so much easier and it was such a blessing to be able to work with him, finally, understanding how he operated.

[00:15:58] Caroline Helsing: Nothing like the movies, you know, it's not like he hears voices, but he is a little different. Other people don't have to deal with the struggles that he's had to. And I write about the earlier days before we had this diagnosis. He would do things that we just kind of made you scratch your head, you know? And they were funny. They were funny. One of the scenes I write about was when he had stayed with my father's ex-wife. So he's staying with her and our half-brother for the summer. And anyway, he wanted to do something nice for them to say thank you. So he decides, "I'm going to paint the house and not just with one color, but with three." And it's just a simple white house, but he buys a can of yellow paint, a can of blue paint, you know, and he goes to town, just painting the trims.

[00:16:49] And I mean, so yes, he was quirky and funny. But he wanted to do something nice. He wanted the house to look really nice for my father when he came there to pick him up. But I think I wrote it with humor and love, and that was my intention. That was definitely my intention throughout. I wanted to tell the truth, but with love.

[00:17:06] Devin Davis: Not only did it help Caroline better understand her brother, but it also helped her mother too. And she shared that the relationship between her brother and her mother improved quite a bit after arriving at this diagnosis.

[00:17:22] Caroline Helsing: It really did kind of open up and connect deeper with my mother and they started traveling together. So it was nice that he was able to live a happy life.

[00:17:33]Devin Davis: So Caroline wrote the book, she published the book, but she had the entire work be only the story. There were no pictures. There were no maps. There were no visual representations of anything about the life of her mother or herself. And she did that on purpose. And I really liked the reason why she did it.

[00:17:56]Caroline Helsing: Sometimes your imagination is a lot stronger. And it doesn't really matter exactly what she looked like. But sometimes like you just imagining something, it's more powerful. So I made the decision not to have pictures in the book.

[00:18:09]Devin Davis: When I first got this book, I absolutely devoured it. I was dubious at first about reading a memoir or reading a biography of sorts, but this was such a wonderful way to do it. She describes that she included dialogue and she made scenes and it was as if she took her mother's personality and reenacted some of these important things that her mother did when her mother was younger. And I loved the spirit that it brought to my impression of who her mother was and still is. And it brought me a more important impression on the love that she has for her mother and the wonderful family dynamic that they all share.

[00:18:59] Choosing to take a fictitious spin on some of the things in this book was wonderful and it brought personality and it brought light and it brought interest and just a wonderful experience too, with a story of Caroline's mother. And it is something that I will consider doing when I write my own story about my life.

[00:19:21]I'm such a storyteller anyway. And so to take those experiences and to turn them into scenes with dialogue and action and create an actual story based on real memories and based on actual events is something that I love and is something that really, really speaks to me. This book was such a wonderful reading experience.

[00:19:45] Again, it is called Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher, and it is available on Amazon. I got my copy on the Kindle. And if you wish to connect with Caroline, she has a website that I will include in the notes of this episode called www.CarolineNadineH elsing.com. And she is on social media with her full name on all of the places.

[00:20:16] Again, I will include links to that in the show notes of this episode. And otherwise that is it for today. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to Caroline's story. A big thanks to all of my patrons. With our Patreon program, you can gain early access, an additional episode or exclusive time with me and other top tier patrons. Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse if you wish to support me on this podcast. The social media that I have for my writing and for this podcast is at@authordevindavis if you're going for Instagram and @authordevind for Twitter. And please take a second to leave a review on whatever you are listening to this podcast through. Thank you so much, guys, have fun writing. We will see you next time.

Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher - One daughter's journey of retelling her mother's life through the clues left behind

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S1E22 Villains and Plot

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The following is a transcript of this episode. The complete transcript can be viewed from the podcast website.

[00:00:00] Devin Davis: Have you ever read a novel where the main character should lose like a lot, but because the story needed them to win and survive at the end, they just never did lose? Well, on the other hand, have you ever read a story where the villain was so awesome that he probably should have won, but didn't? Well, then let's talk about villains and plot today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! Welcome back to Writing in the Tiny House. Welcome to the show. I am Devin Davis. I am your host and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to show you that writing that work of fiction that you have in your brain is completely possible, and you should do it. Today we are discussing villains and plot.

[00:01:13] Last week, I told you that we would be discussing villains in action. This is kind of that. I was thinking about what action actually meant and all of the points that I had written down fed more into plot rather than just action, because villains can do just about anything you want them to do. But in the overall scheme of things, they play a very important role in the plot.

[00:01:38] Don't you think? So today I don't actually have a lot of announcements because things have been going pretty smoothly and there is nothing new to speak about. So let's dive right in to villains and plot. I have a list of four pitfalls to avoid when structuring your villain and your plot when you go to do the rough draft of your book or the outline of your book. The first thing to avoid is the hierarchy structure of the villain and his henchman. The reason why this is kind of hard to avoid is because we like it. We like the idea that once a bad guy is defeated that there is another bad guy who is stronger, who is more talented, who has more magical powers. And then once that guy is defeated, perhaps there's a third bad guy who is the villain's right-hand man, until we finally get to the bad guy himself. The reason why this is so popular is because it's easy to see, and it's easy to structure a series around. You have book one of the little bad guy and then it just gets a little bit bigger until book three or book five or book seven or however many books are in your series. You finally get to nail the main villain who is behind this entire problem the whole time. It is also a popular way to structure video games. You have the bad guys and you have the henchman and the little fodder guys that are easy to pick off and are not a very big threat.

[00:03:29] And in doing those things, the main character, which is you, gains experience points and gets a little stronger and learns some new things. And onward, the story progresses. However, this is becoming cliche. This is certainly a trope that has been done time and time again. And it is more common to see villains more like people.

[00:03:58] It is more common to see heroes more like people. Like I mentioned in the previous episode, it is more common to see a flawed, main character and to see a main character make some dark decisions. At the same time, it is becoming more common to see a villain with redeemable qualities, or to see a villain who is completely justified in what they are doing.

[00:04:23] And so this structure, this hierarchy structure that you have to beat down the fodder before getting to level two before getting to level three on up to the main big boss at the end, isn't new. It's not fresh. And so find another way to structure the bad guys in your story, especially in your trilogy or in the number of books that you're going to be writing that are related to each other. There are a lot of ways to do it. And at the end of this episode, I'm going to share with you one of the most delightful ways that I found in all of the fantasy fiction that I've read in presenting to you actually a group of five books.

[00:05:10] It is a quintet. So stay tuned until the very end to get that little tidbit. So the second pitfall to avoid ,and granted, you should be avoiding this anyway, it's a thing called plot devices. A plot device, and the reason why I bring this up, this is actually kind of bigger, fundamental writing, but a plot device is a thing that happens only because the writer needs it to happen because something else needs to happen later.

[00:05:48] A plot device is usually pretty contrived. It sometimes can come out of nowhere and all that it serves is for the plot to move forward or to save the main character or whatever. It's these little unbelievable things that happen in order for bigger things to happen later, but that is all the good that they serve.

[00:06:16]One of the most popular plot devices that I can think of is actually in the Chronicles of Narnia in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The children are there in this barren wasteland of frozen ice, and suddenly Santa Claus appears and Santa comes bearing gifts of lethal weapons.

[00:06:39] If you think about it, Santa does not belong in Narnia. There are not other people like Santa Claus that populate Narnia. There are granted a lot of other fantastical creatures and a lot of fun other characters, but Santa Claus himself does not belong there. And the fact that he appears at the very best time and comes bringing gifts that all of these children are going to need to save the day at the end is the biggest plot convenience I have read in a long time.

[00:07:14] Granted it's in a children's story and. We can have more plot conveniences in children's stories if we want to. That's fine. But in the more grownup stuff you get to pay attention to your plot conveniences. Some people call this plot armor. It's when the main character simply has to live because otherwise the book will end too soon.

[00:07:36] And so against all odds, they always win. Or against all odds, they and their central group of friends will win or will come out unscathed and you simply know that just because you know the story. And so it makes things predictable and it makes things unbelievable to a certain degree.

[00:07:59] The reason why I bring this up on a villain's episode is because not only do you get to think of your main character when you are mapping out your plot, but you also get to think about your villain. When your plot is filled with these conveniences and these devices that make the main character always win, you get to see on the other side of that coin or the other edge of that sword, what it does to your villain, or how it paints your villain with these plot devices. Sometimes it can make your villain come across as pretty dumb or come across as way too complicated, way too overthinking things and not realistic in that way. Or it can cheapen such a better deeper experience with that villain if those plot conveniences were not included.

[00:09:03] One of these favorites that I like to call out in fantasy fiction specifically, I like to refer to as the wild card. It's when the forces of evil are upon us. And it looks like the forces of evil are going to win. And we are all in dire straights, but something out of nowhere happens. And it's big and it was not foreshadowed to begin with and it's unexpected and it's a surprise. And to an inexperienced reader, it's probably super awesome. But to the rest of us, it earns kind of,, an eye roll. I read a book once, I don't necessarily want to call it out on the podcast, but there was a situation similar to what I described. The forces of evil were about to conquer this special, magical place. And from out of nowhere, there came a spell that transformed one of the types of magical creatures living in this place into these big warriors. And so these little rinky-dink fairies were transformed into this army of warriors. And the spell happened, and it lasted just long enough for the forces of evil to be abated and for the day to be saved. And then the fairies shrank back down to their normal little fairy selves. The reason why I bring up these things is because you have thought all of these wonderful things through with the villain, you have thought about the awesome ways that the villain is going to come in and threaten the safety of this or that magical place.

[00:10:52] And to throw in a wild card ending really cheapens all of the effort and all of the believability and all of the energy that you have spent trying to build up a believable villain. And instead the reader sits back and realizes that regardless, the villain will not win and it can take them out of the story and it can convince them not to carry on with the series or even to finish the book.

[00:11:24]The fourth pit fall that you get to pay attention to is the villain's backstory. Backstories are wonderful. I love a good backstory. However, it has been used a million times that every bad guy was once an abused little boy or girl. Every bad guy, every bad girl, every bad woman was abused when they were little. And while psychologically all of that makes sense, it is also something that is commonly found in all of literature. And what it can do is make excuses for the villain. If you want the villain to simply be bad and to simply be awful, there are other ways to develop backstory to that. There can be something amiss when they were little and they were involved in things that simply fostered that thing that was amiss. There can be interests that they were exposed to when they were little that carried with them as they learned magic or as they learned business, if it's modern contemporary fiction, or it can be a lot of different things like that.

[00:12:35] If you want them to be abused when they're little, that is fine. It is something that happens all the time in fiction, though, when we do get a good backstory to a villain. And I have read enough and read a wide enough variety of fiction to tell you that not every vicious villain and awful person and person who is threatening to destroy worlds or whatever, not all of them were abused by their dads. There are other ways to do it and to find those ways is fascinating and it makes the writing so much better and so much easier to follow along. And it really catches your interest and holds it there when it is new and it is fresh.

[00:13:24] So let me take a moment with this book review. I'm going to be reviewing the Cleric Quintet by R.A. Salvatore. R.A. Salvatore was one of my very favorite authors when I was in high school. I have since, now that I've gained some more experience in reading and in writing, I've come to find that sometimes his magic systems are a little bit convenient, but I'm going to talk about this particular series of five books. They're five short-ish books, I believe, or five average sized books. It's not a monstrous series, but the Cleric Quintet is about this young man named Cadderly who studies at a library and comes to learn the big mysteries of magic. And over the course of five books, you see it happen and you really come to understand just how powerful this young man becomes.

[00:14:25] And it was a really cool progression to see it over five books and to see actual power happen and to see the learning of spells or the manipulation of matter, or whatever, was really delightful to me. At the same time though, and this is the type of villain that I love to see the very, very most, this villain starts out with Cadderly studying at the same library. This structure didn't have a school. It didn't have classes, it didn't have teachers. It didn't have that type of structure. It just had this library of knowledge. And everybody from everywhere came to this library to learn and to gain more knowledge that way.

[00:15:10]There was another young man studying alongside Cadderly, they weren't friends. And this young man is kind of an awful person. He wasn't talented. He was clumsy. Granted Cadderly was also clumsy. But over the progression of these five books, you watch this untalented jealous, horrible man, young man gradually become the darkest, most threatening monster that comes about in book five. And it is delightful to see, and it was so fun to read. And that is the type of villain that I appreciate the very most, where you see perhaps an amount of foreshadowing, you see character traits and you see people in the very beginning of the story and you think maybe this guy is going to end up being something bad or doing something awful.

[00:16:10] And over the course of it all, you see all of the you see the background, you see the story unfold, you see the reason why this person chooses to be where they are. And you understand their attitudes toward this or that. It makes the villain so much more believable and so much more awesome.

[00:16:33] It is this type of villain that I am choosing to write in my current work in progress, or at least as part of it. Right now I have two half finished books. In one of them, that's totally how the villain is going to be unfolded. And the other one it's going to be different.

[00:16:49] But that is how it is in this book. So if you are interested in checking out the Cleric Quintet, please follow the affiliate links in the description of this podcast episode. And yeah, I give this, I give this entire work of five books. R.A. Salvatore has written a lot of books. And like I said, he was one of my favorites in high school.

[00:17:13]He was one of the Forgotten Realms authors. Did wonderful stuff. One of his characters Drizzt Do'Urden, who was a dark elf, is considered to be one of the most liked in all of fantasy fiction. And this is written by him. So go ahead and follow those links.

[00:17:30] I give these five books, easily, four out of five stars. They were so much fun. But I reflect on some of the things in there and there was an amount of convenience to them, but it was a great read. It was fast paced and the magic and the fighting in RA Salvatore's writing is so much fun. It is so easy to get caught up in all of those wonderful moments.

[00:17:53] And that is it for today. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode .Thank you so much for my patrons, for the generous donations that they give every month. If you are interested in becoming a patron to this podcast, there are perks such as early access to these episodes an additional episode every month or exclusive time with me and other top tier patrons that you can have access to. Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up for one of the tiers today.

[00:18:23]Follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis. My Twitter handle is @authordevind. And please take just a moment to leave a review on whatever software you are listening to podcasts through. Thank you so much for your time, and we will see you next time.

The Cleric Quintet Collector's Edition [Forgotten Realms]

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Today’s episode is all about the baddies and what they say!

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The following is the transcript for this episode. If you are viewing this through a podcast app, only the first part is available to you. But the full transcript can be read on the show’s website.

Transcript:

Devin Davis: Does your modern fantasy novel take place in 2021, but your modern villain sounds like he came from 1921. Then, my friend, we need to talk about villains and dialogue today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and today we are going to be talking about villains and how they should be talking. Again, I am a father of boys living in a tiny house in Northern Utah. And I am here to show you that the novel idea that you have bubbling around in the back of your head, it is 100% possible to write that no matter how busy you think you are.

[00:01:17] I know that a lot of my listeners are family people. I know that a lot of my listeners have full-time jobs. They have a lot of hobbies when they get home, they have kids, they have all the things. And so there are a million reasons not to write a book, but I am here to show you with this podcast that is entirely possible to write at least that one book.

[00:01:40]With today's episode, I actually don't have a lot of announcements. I have been doing a lot of prep for the upcoming weeks with this podcast. Like I said in the previous episode, I've been interviewing my head off and it hasn't changed. And I'm excited about that. Interviews are awesome.

[00:01:58] Interviews are very well supported on this podcast and they bring such wonderful value to everyone, to the listeners, to myself. It's fun to build those relationships. Additionally, it helps the podcast grow and it helps the guests grow, whatever it is that they're growing, whether or not they just finished writing a book, whether or not they are an editor, whether or not all the things, it's a way that we help each other achieve our goals.

[00:02:29] And I'm all about that. I think that's really good. There is an African proverb that says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together." And I just like that. It just the idea of linking elbows and everybody going across the finish line together and achieving our goals by helping each other out.

[00:02:53] I think it's a wonderful idea. Today, however, we do not have a guest. We have me and I am here to bring you the second episode of this series on villains. Like I said in the previous episode, villains are actually near and dear to my heart. I love a good villain. I love a convincing villain. There is so much value that a good villain brings to a story.

[00:03:20] And I am all about that. It's important to have a good, main character. It's important to have a good hero, but I would dare say it is equally important if you are writing the type of story that has a prominent villain to have that villain be amazing. So with today's episode, we're going to be talking about dialogue and I'm going to bring up four pitfalls to avoid if you want to write a convincing villain.

[00:03:54] This is not a comprehensive list. This is just what I think is important. For me, dialogue is a big part of any type of a story. I love dialogue. I love seeing the exchange between two or more people especially when they have different ideas and they help each other come to conclusions and help each other out that way.

[00:04:15] I love seeing an author conveying these different personalities, meshing together through dialogue. It's one of my favorite parts of any story. And my own work tends to be pretty dialogue heavy, just because I love that. I love establishing relationships through words like that, so the first item on writing a convincing villain.

[00:04:39] So let's take a step back and let's think about your work in progress, or think about a really good book that you read recently, or even a good movie. What type of story was being shared? Was there a villain at all? And if there was a villain, was he or she prominent throughout the entire story and what type of cool things did they do?

[00:05:04] What type of cool things did they say? If I bring up those subjects and they make you giggle, usually means those things weren't done effectively. And I'm sorry, but a bad villain is something to laugh at. Seeing bad dialogue and seeing a horrible cliche villain is actually one of my favorite things to laugh at. I'm kind of weird like that. I love a bad villain, almost as much as I love a good villain, just because they are a perfect example of what not to do.

[00:05:33] The first pitfall that I have on my list is witty banter. If you are writing scenes where the villain comes into contact with the main character a lot it depends on the atmosphere that you are building in your story. If your story is witty, if it's funny, if it's making fun of a cliche, then witty banter is fine. However, an exchange between a villain and a main character, you need to really pay attention to what their relationship actually is. If they knew each other beforehand, it's possible that they would say more to each other during these encounters while the main character is trying to foil the villain. For instance, if the villain is the dad or if the villain is the neighbor or a teacher or something like that, it's entirely possible with that pre-established relationship that they would talk to each other or that they would have more to say, or the tone of the conversation would be more desperate, more pleading rather than more demanding, or there would be more of an attempt to find common ground. That means that if this prior relationship exists already, it needs to be established in a really good way before these other encounters, when this character has stepped into the role of the villain. Otherwise, the witty banter, the back and forth smart crack of the whip things, if that is the tone of your story, then go for it. Otherwise I say, don't do it. For me, it makes a lot more sense to have a villain say nothing if the villain and the main character encounter each other, but don't know each other. It makes a lot more sense to me if under the pressure of whatever this big master plan is going on, that there would be a lack of words and there would be a lot more emotion without the words. And that's something that I personally would avoid. Again, pay attention to the overall tone of your story though.

[00:07:56] The second pitfall is wordy or unnatural insults. That kind of goes hand in hand with witty banter, but it seems like the old school cartoon villain always had something stupid to say to the main character, to our hero. Sometimes it rhymed. Sometimes it made fun of their outfit. Sometimes it made fun of their special ability.

[00:08:24]I don't know. I remember a lot of recent superhero movies though, where the insults were pretty on the nose and pretty bad. And I personally don't like that. To have that type of really bad crappy insult really puts me out of the story. And I personally wouldn't do it. I like things to be more believable than that.

[00:08:50] And that is usually the tone of my book anyway. I tried to make it as realistic as I can, even if it is a fantasy story filled with magic. I like the relationships to be authentic. And so insulting someone? Well, first of all, if your superhero is wearing underwear over their tights, and then they're in a cape, I think that can be done away with, and I think that you already realize what type of a problem that would be. But make sure that the insults are believable and make sure they're not wordy. Wordiness isn't okay, guys. When we try to create emotion around a person or around a situation or around an event that's happening, sometimes we think the best way to build that emotion is to say a lot of words and to say like five words when we could say only one instead. I was recently critiquing for one of my critique partners.

[00:09:46] And she was so excited about this chapter that she sent to me. And it was kind of a wild chapter. It was a dream sequence, a nightmare sequence where like every other page was a different scene in this dream sequence. And the main character was super confused. And then a few paragraphs later, she would be in a different place and she felt really unsafe and didn't understand what was happening.

[00:10:15] And then at the end there was the really big villain. And the big villain was saying stuff that a real person wouldn't say unless they had a prior relationship. And I was sure to note that in my critiques for this critique partner. I said, make sure that your villain is a person before they are a villain.

[00:10:38]We are not writing Power Ranger episodes, and we're not writing 1950s superhero comics anymore. Unless you are. If you are, that's fine, then you can disregard this entire episode. But make sure that they are a person before they are a villain. And the same can be said with your hero. Make sure your hero is a person before they are a hero.

[00:11:01] And so with some of the dialogue in this critique that I did for this critique partner, I went through and just made little notes out in the margin saying if you can follow what your villain is saying with that evil maniacal laugh, I mean, I, I don't really want to do it into the microphone, but if you can follow what they said with that evil maniacal laugh, then you need to change what they said, because that evil, maniacal laugh has no place in your book. Or at least it shouldn't, it doesn't have a place in my book. So avoiding wordy and complicated and unnatural insults and other just language as well, also weak language.

[00:11:50] So this is the third pitfall that I have on my list. Weak language. A lot of us think that all language needs to be flowery and that all villains need to speak properly. Especially if it is a villain who is doing the master plan type of thing. If he's a big, strong brute, sometimes we naturally tend to give him different dialogue and to say things differently. But if he's the secret elaborate plan maker, if he's the guy who is taking over the world because he is smart and he has this intricate plan to do so, we tend to sometimes think that that guy would speak with proper English. And with kind of older English, I have been reading a book recently that is fantasy. It takes place in kind of that typical medieval Europe fantasy world, where a lot of fantasy novels take place. And the dialogue between the hero and the king and the King's evil advisor, those stock characters, is not natural because they're making it old. And the thing is they don't need to make it old.

[00:13:18] They can have it be more natural than that. I'm not saying that they need to modernize their dialogue much, but the thing is, the world is made up already. And this place, even though it resembles medieval Europe, it is not medieval Europe. And so the dialogue can be whatever you want it to be.

[00:13:40] And so it doesn't need to necessarily have the references to pop culture and it doesn't need to have the slang and whatever else, but when they start referring to things in a really old fashioned way, when we start talking about well, when we start whipping out the insults that my grandmother would use, I don't think that is as convincing as just better natural language conversation, to be perfectly honest. And this is another thing. One of the things that we come up against as a writer is we find that our writing tends to be really revealing of ourselves.

[00:14:20] I read a meme the other day, that writing is supposed to be embarrassing in the way that it makes us feel naked. And that suggests that as a writer, we get to be brave. And for many of us, sometimes that gets to involve our relationship with language, and sometimes our relationship with swear words.

[00:14:45] If you don't want to use foul language in your book, you certainly don't have to. It is 100% possible to write a convincing villain and a good hero and a wonderful world without having foul language if you don't want it there. If you want to appeal to a younger audience and have it be cleaner than that, that is 100% up to you.

[00:15:04] However, I'm going to paint a picture on purpose to demonstrate a point. If you have a villain, and she grew up on the wrong side of town, and she has a drug problem and she beats her kids. And at the end of the book, it finishes with her killing her husband. And yet the F-word tends to make her clutch her pearls, I don't buy it. I'm not saying that you need to incorporate the F-word into your book, but that was a big obstacle for me to face. And I have a villain kind of similar to the situation I just described. And I don't know, growing up on the wrong side of town and a drug problem and whatever, whatever else, just painting that picture of a rough bad guy. And then thinking of the language that they would use, I got to kind of get over my apprehension of using strong language, just because I don't use strong language like that. I don't use strong language towards my kids, but it made sense that he would. And so it was one of those things where I could either have clean language or I could have the proper effect. And I couldn't choose both. I didn't want to choose both. And so I got to kind of swallow my apprehension with the foul language and I got to include it in my manuscript. I'm not saying that I'm going to keep everything that's there just because I'm on my first draft, but you may encounter a similar problem.

[00:16:49] If you are a more proper person who uses more proper language, or if you would never dabble in some of the things that you want to include in your book. Like if you have always been straight laced and you've never done drugs, or if you never had premarital sex or whatever, if those things are not a part of your life, you may not want to include them in your book.

[00:17:16] But like I said, Sometimes you get to either choose between the content you leave out or the effect that you want to have, or that you want to convey to your reader. And it's just something to consider. I'm not saying that every scene needs to have the F word or that every scene needs to have sex or that every scene needs to be some grownup harsh thing.

[00:17:41] I would never say that; it's your story. You get to write it the way that you want. However, if we sit back and we consider these things to be more like tools that convey a specific emotion and reaction to our reader, then suddenly they're not so scary. And language is one of those tools. I understand that strong language offends many of my readers, or at least it's not something that many of my readers would use all the time or whatever, especially towards their kids or towards their loved ones. And so I very consciously get to pick and choose the type of language that the bad guys or bad women, whatever, in my manuscript get to use, because I know that that type of language conveys and inspires a very specific reaction to many readers.

[00:18:34] So kind of a long rant there. The final thing on my list is the closing monologue. And this is a cliche that has been made fun of a lot in many superhero movies, specifically the Incredibles from Pixar. The first movie, we know that at the end Syndrome has the family kind of arrested and detained and he starts monologuing and it buys the family some time to do something. And then Syndrome catches himself in the monologue. The thing is, the pull towards the final monologue is actually very appealing if you have not structured your story to not need the closing monologue. The reason why we want a closing monologue is because we want to show the reader just how clever we have written this villain.

[00:19:31] We want to reveal his backstory perhaps, or we want to reveal every step of this elaborate plan that just got foiled or is on the cusp of being revealed to us on the cusp of being accomplished. We as the writer, we want to convey to the reader just how genius this guy actually was. And a closing monologue seems like the good way to do it.

[00:19:58] However, my friends, there are ways to avoid the closing monologue. You can have clues along the way. You can have an investigator or another person reveal this or that. You can have the bad guy's right hand man abandon that side of the conflict and join the other side and then share secrets.

[00:20:18] There are a million different ways to do it, but the closing monologue is something that we have read enough of and it has been made fun of enough that you don't get to include the closing monologue in your fantasy novel with your villain unless you want to. If you do choose to include it, prepare to have snobs like myself call you out on it.

[00:20:44]And that brings us to today's book review, just very quickly wrapping this up. The book that I want to bring some attention to is The Cabinet of Curiosities by Preston and Child. This book is a mystery whodunnit thriller. And so the nature of books like these is the actual villain of the story is in the shadows and not revealed until the very end.

[00:21:16] So why would I mention this book in this episode specifically? The reason why is because there are so many subplots in this book that tend to bring conflict and to clash up against one another. And as those subplots figure themselves out and get resolved and move the story forward, there are so many conversations between people who are antagonizing each other.

[00:21:51] So there's the investigator. And then there is the institution getting in the way of the investigation, or the people trying to shut down the museum, or the person working at the museum trying to keep their job. There are a lot of different examples like this. And so, in a way it's like there's a handful of mini villains running around throughout this book.

[00:22:13] This has very good examples of dialogue between people who are causing trouble for each other. People who have separate agendas and want to achieve those agendas and are trying to stop each other and are trying to get ahead and get away and whatever else. And so it, it has wonderful, believable, fun dialogue throughout the book that's not just insults and awkward accusations. There are a lot of wonderful things in this book, but this has a very good example of dialogue between people who hate each other and are getting in the way of each other. And it's good. This book is wonderful.

[00:22:59] This is a part of a collection of books. Preston and Child are two authors who wrote many books with this common FBI investigator as this common thread throughout the books. There are a lot of them and this one is possibly the most successful of them all. It's hard to say. But the collection is called the Pendergast novels.

[00:23:29] Pendergast is the gentleman who is the common investigator throughout all of these books. And like I said, they, they are all whodunnit mystery thrillers. So that is what I recommend. I definitely give this book five out of five stars. It is wonderful. And check it out today.

[00:23:48] That is it for today. Thank you so much for joining me with this episode of Writing in the Tiny House where we discussed villains and dialogue. The next episode is going to be on villains and action. We're going to talk about the entire secret elaborate plan and how that gets to look, or at least the things to avoid when developing your own secret elaborate plan for your villain.

[00:24:11] So thank you for joining me again. If you want to support this podcast, feel free to sign up with our Patreon. Go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up for one of the tiers today that comes with its own perks. Again, thank you for the patrons that I already have. And for the generous donations that you are sending to this podcast every month. Be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis. My Twitter handle is @authordevind, and we will see you next time. Thank you so much, guys. Have fun writing.

The Cabinet of Curiosities (Agent Pendergast Series, 3)

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Devin Davis: Because we all know that in so many stories, the good guys wouldn't be as awesome if they didn't have an equally awesome bad guy. We are talking about villains today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis. I am your host and I am the guy living in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you that despite how busy you think you are, that one book idea that you have bubbling in the back of your brain is completely possible to do.

[00:00:59]Over the next few episodes where it is just you and me, I am going to put together a series on villains. We're going to talk about why villains are awesome.

[00:01:11] We're going to talk about believable villain dialogue. Backstory actions, all the good things, because villains are awesome. But first let's do some announcements with the podcast. We actually have a brand new patron who signed up to support this podcast. His name is Sam. Sam, welcome aboard. Thank you so much for your generous donation.

[00:01:36]Sam and I actually go way back. I know Sam, we have been friends for a long time and I was just so excited when he said that he was going to be signing up to become a patron through Patreon with Writing in the Tiny House's program with Patreon. So welcome aboard. Thank you so much for your donation.

[00:01:58]Also a quick shout out to another podcast. I just want to mention the podcast called Finding the Magic, with Trisha Copeland. This is a podcast dedicated entirely to interviewing authors and talking about their books.

[00:02:14] It can be found on, I think this one is exclusively on Anchor. But go ahead and see if it's found everywhere else too. And it's a good one, guys. It is definitely one worth checking out.

[00:02:27] So this episode will be coming out the Wednesday after Independence Day. I hope that you guys had a good federal holiday. I certainly did. It has been spent putting together a lot of content for this podcast. I've been doing my darndest to get all the interviews lined up and done and interviews are really good.

[00:02:50] Interviews are special. I love the interview episodes. They bring so much value to this podcast and they are actually the episodes that are the most supported. I have been interviewing my head off over these past two weeks to get more of that content here, just because it's something that I enjoy and it is something that has proven to be valuable for all of you as well.

[00:03:17] In the meantime, though, there are still plenty of episodes where it's just going to be you and me and over the next few, it's going to be me and you. And we're going to be talking about villains. So let's go ahead and get into the main body of this episode.

[00:03:32] So let me tell you my story when it comes to villains, what made the villain such a unique part of my enjoyment of fiction? This actually goes back to high school. Yes. I am going to tell you about the magical time that I was in high school. And the Broadway musical Wicked just came out. And of course I bought the soundtrack.

[00:04:01] I knew all the words I went and saw Wicked here in Utah, the instant that it was here playing. And the reason why I bring up Wicked is because of the unique take that that story has on who the villain is. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with the musical Wicked or unfamiliar with the book that the musical is based on, the book is called The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

[00:04:32] The book was hard for me to read, but the musical was wonderful and I would take anybody to see the musical, including all of my kids. The reason why this carved a wonderful, beautiful little space in my heart for villains is because the main character Elphaba is treated like a villain. She is actually the main character.

[00:04:53] She's the person that we are cheering for, but she is misunderstood. She is a victim of circumstance and the entire city notices that she is different and because she is different and because she is powerful, she is treated poorly. She is treated with violence. She is treated with bias and with fear and with all of the horrible things that you could treat a person.

[00:05:22] And so towards the end of the story, or at least I guess the second act, she says "Fine! If this is what you think I am, then this is what I shall be!" And I love that. I love a good villain and my love for villains grew from my experience that I had with this story of Elphaba. And it was from there that I came to really appreciate everything that a good villain brings to the table in a good work of fiction.

[00:05:56] Now, granted, there are plenty of works of fiction that don't have a villain just because the story may revolve around some other form of conflict. It could be disease, it could be a competition. It could be other forms of trials in a person's life. Or it could be that unseen villain, like going up against an institution or something like that.

[00:06:22] So not every work of fiction has a villain, but when it has a villain, I feel that it gets to be a good villain. And that matters.

[00:06:32]With more and more people coming out with fiction with fantasy fiction, with these more epic battles, there gets to be good villains and the classic space opera-- I'm talking to you, Star Wars-- this space opera is where there is an obvious good side and an obvious bad side. And the heroes are pure good heroes and the bad guys are pure bad guys. And there is never confusion about that. With the more recent movies of Star Wars that have come out, they're starting to become more nuanced than that. With the original many episodes and original many movies, it was that classic space opera of the good guys are the good guys. And they're always the good guys.

[00:07:25] And then the bad guys are the bad guys. And now that so many people are writing these epic genre-specific stories, we are beginning to get more nuanced characters and especially more nuanced main characters and better villains. It's becoming more common to see a main character that has a dark side, or that sometimes chooses darkness or chooses a bad thing or chooses to hurt someone. But they're still the good guy. And they're still the person that you're following in the story and kind of rooting for. At the same time you get to see them make these dark decisions. Also it is becoming more common and I'm so grateful for this because of the color that it adds to the storyline. It is becoming more common to see villains that have redeemable qualities, even though their role in the story is not redeemable. Or a villain in their secret identity, they're a family man and they're a good dad and a good spouse, but behind the scenes, they're like ruining the world or you can see a villain who is doing what they're doing, but they have a completely legitimate reason for it. And that adds such wonderful flavor and wonderful complexity to the storyline itself. When you have this guy who is not so obviously evil, it becomes so fun to kind of feel out what do I really want to get out of this story? Or where do I find myself in this conflict? Am I really siding with this main character who's kind of a jerk sometimes? And he was written that way on purpose. Or am I siding with this villain who has a completely legitimate reason to do the things that she is doing? And I get it. Under the same circumstances I would hope that I would be courageous enough to do this too. And so it can be this big, moral dilemma that can kind of rip you apart.

[00:09:42] And I love that and I love the excitement and the confusion, and just the wild ride of being taken on this emotional roller coaster. I love the dichotomy and I love having to choose or to do some soul searching, to see if this was a real circumstance, where would I be? Which team would I be batting for?

[00:10:08]So for today's book review, I am going to talk about a book that is near and dear to me that was released very recently called The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by VE Schwab. This was released just a few months ago and it was one of the first books that I read in 2021. And I knew after I finished it, that it would be one of the best books that I would be reading in 2021. The writing style of this novel is incredible. VE Schwab has definitely built for herself a name in fiction, and she has built it from the ground up. She has done an amazing job and this book, I'm not going to pretend that this book is perfect or complete in all aspects, because it is not. But there is profound beauty found within this book. And the most beautiful parts, I believe, are the exchanges between the main character Addie LaRue and the bad guy, Luc. So I'm not going to give away all of the premise of this book, just because it is something that I want you to go out and read. But the entire premise of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is it is a deal with the devil trope. The devil comes in every other chapter and has a thought-provoking and meaningful conversation with Addie LaRue, where they discuss life and they discuss morality. And it is the most wonderful thought-out villain that I have read in such a long time.

[00:12:03] So add The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue to your To Be Read list today. And I hope that when you read it or if you've already read it, you can share with me your thoughts of the bad guy, Luc, just because I want to hear what you think. It was one of the most impressive things about the story for me, but I want to know what you think, and I want to know what you thought about him as a villain. So be sure to join the Facebook group of Writing in the Tiny House and share with me your thoughts. I give that book and easy five stars. Like I said, the book is not flawless in all respects, but it is definitely a five-star book.

[00:12:49] So go ahead and check that out today. And that is it for today. Thank you so much for joining me with this episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Again, I am Devin Davis and thank you for listening. A big thank you to my new patron, Sam. Welcome aboard.

[00:13:05]If you want to join the Patreon program, go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. Go ahead and sign up for that today. Also that special shout out to the podcast, Finding the Magic, with Trisha Copeland. You can catch me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis. And the social media things, the links are all in the description of this episode. So thank you for joining and we will see you next time. Have a good one guys.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Special Edition

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Aime Sund, Editor, Red Leaf Word Services

www.redleafwords.com www.instagram.com/redleafwordserv

“The Sun, a Book, and a Dog” blog

https://sunbook.home.blog

Today Aime spoke about her love for A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness. Follow this affiliate link to discover the book:

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We’ll see you next week!

Devin Davis: [00:00:00] Knowing that something is going to be challenging and dangerous is the very definition of courage. It is also the definition of stupidity. And this is why life is hard, today on Writing in the Tiny House

Hello? Hello. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast or Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis. And I am the guy who does the show once a month. I'm sorry, once a week. Can you believe that it is already the end of June, my friends? So I am the guy living in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you that writing a novel is entirely possible.

And on today's episode, I have a treat for you. We have, we actually have a guest and she is a person who has gone from one extreme—As far as this world goes—to the other extreme into editing. You will totally understand what I mean. When we get into the interview, it's probably going to be a short interview, but it's going to be a good one, I promise. But first let's take care of some housekeeping. I announced an episode or two ago that if you wish to support me in this thing, in this podcast, I, right now I am doing all of the things on my own. I am paying for some overhead things that come up that I am gladly footing the bill for, but if you wish to get involved in the way of donating some money, I do have a Patreon account that I have not bothered to explain in very much detail in previous episodes. So right now the Patreon is set up kind of like any other Patreon account, if that is something that you've heard of before. So this means that if you wish to donate to the podcast every month, you can pledge $5. You can pledge $10 or you can pledge $20 and those things get you additional perks the more that you give.

So at the lowest tier, which is the $5 tier that gives you early access to all of the episodes that I'm going to be doing for the rest of time, that gives you access to the episodes on Friday. No, excuse me. On Saturday. One of those days. And then I will post that episode later to the public, the following Wednesday.

And so you will get episodes about five days in advance. If you choose to do the $10 tier, that will get you an additional episode every month, likely put on by me. And it'll be a lot of fun and it will be for you. It'll be for the patrons. It won't be for anybody else. It's not something that I'm going to put these on this channel for everybody else to see. And then the $20 tier, which is really where it's at folks, with the $20 tier, you get exclusive rights to private chat rooms with myself. And once a month, I will get online with the people who are in my $20 tier with my Super VIP Patrons. And we get to talk about you about your writing, about your projects or about me, or about the show.

You get to be intimately involved with how the show is going and with what you want to get out of the show. It is my super VIP patrons that I'm going to be paying the closest attention to when it comes to content. And when it comes to what all of these things need to be along the way.

So. Go to Patreon.com/Writing in the Tiny House if you wish to give. And I am delighted to receive if that is how you choose to support this. And if you find value in this podcast, there gets to be a way for you to give. So again, Patreon.com/Writing in the Tiny House. I will have links to that in the show notes of this episode.

So not a very big deal for announcements today.

So without further ado let's go ahead and meet our guest.

Aime Sund: [00:05:04] Hi, I'm Amy Sund and I am the editor behind Redleaf word services.

Devin Davis: [00:05:11] Amy is an editor living in Massachusetts. And when she first got started she wasn't doing anything that had to do with editing she was actually actively involved in Horticulture

Aime Sund: [00:05:28] I began as a horticulturist, so I still need my plants around me all the time. I was a horticulturist for over 20 years. And it's still, it's still my first love plants are still what I gravitate towards As much as I love the plants. It's, it's a different ball game when you're doing it for other people too.

Devin Davis: [00:05:46] While Amy loved the horticulture aspect. She found that it was challenging to do much with it in her state of Massachusetts, because the thing isn't regulated there, the practice doesn't require licensing and it doesn't require education. And so it was hard to get ahead.

Aime Sund: [00:06:05] Here where I am in Massachusetts is also not a regulated industry, so anybody can jump in and do it. And that really waters. The playing field down. And I did go to school for horticulture, which was really, really cool.

And I loved it. So it was time for a change and editing, was it because I love to read. And that was what I really got excited about when I thought about what I wanted to do next was to do something with words. I think of editing as an Al chemical process. there's ingredients that need to be put in, and I put some ingredients in and you as the author put ingredients in, and then what comes out is a manuscript that's at a better state than it was. It's a partnership process. You have to have all the ingredients for it to work. Right. And that was certainly true with alchemy.

Devin Davis: [00:07:00] So she started her own freelance editing firm called red leaf word services, which specializes in historical fiction fantasy. And of course horticulture because awesome. I absolutely love that. I think that is so fun. While Amy and I were discussing all of the details about her business, she introduced me to a new sub genre that I never thought was a sub genre before. She talked about garden fiction. And I loved everything about that.

Aime Sund: [00:07:41] I'm not really sure whether it is a sub genre, but I did do a search on good reads. And I came up with a bunch of books and of course I put them right on my TBR, which is a mile long. But there's always things that are happening in the garden. And poisonous plants are always something that comes up especially in historical fiction.

You find them a lot in historical fiction and historical mysteries. So it was just another avenue of that, which I just enjoy everything about that genre. The historical fiction that is, and gardens and they figure in a lot of them, and it's just a place that people at all times have gravitated towards.

And, just the knowledge that you need to have to write it. It can be daunting to do all that research for all these different plants that can do different things and that meant different things to different people at different times within history. That's, that's a lot of research. But coming from that background, I just really comfortable with it. So that's, it's kind of a niche, I think.

Devin Davis: [00:08:49] Now I am not a horticulturist by any means, but I do have a bit of a background when it comes to some plant related stuff. And I mean way background things. My dad actually has a degree in botany and he definitely has quite the green thumb. We had a greenhouse growing up and we had all these plants and we had all of the different things and finding an appreciation for horticulture was definitely a part of my upbringing.

However, as an adult, I have more than a passing interest in herbal medicine. And so I definitely share a bit of an appreciation that Amy would certainly share when it comes to stumbling upon a piece of fiction, especially a fantasy fiction or historical fiction where the medicine or the herbal preparations resemble something that is real or the herbs that they use resemble an herb in real life that would function in a similar way to what they need now, instead of just a completely made up plant that is there to fill the spot of this magical herb that they need now in their story. And so it was just this fun and unexpected common ground that I had with Amy with, with this interview, that was just a delight to talk about.

And she agreed that some of these things are so fun to stumble on and to bring out the history of all of that is so rich and brings out such a wonderful flavor to the writing itself.

Aime Sund: [00:10:36] And there's so much to draw on through that too. Plants have a, they go so far back into history and, and their uses. And I mean, talking about Lotus seeds that can last for hundreds of years and still germinate when they're found in, in Egyptian tombs and things. I mean, that's amazing. That's amazing.

Devin Davis: [00:10:57] And as we continued speaking, I was not aware of this, but Amy Sund is working on her own piece of fiction. She is working on her own bit of fantasy writing, and I was completely unprepared for that going into this interview.

Aime Sund: [00:11:19] Okay, well I think it would be described as portal fantasy because it does take place mostly on an alternate world, but it is an alternate world that has connections here to earth at different places on the earth. So it takes advantage of some of the science behind lay lines, if you're familiar at all with those. I have a numerology and astrology element that works in there and it is also heavily plant-based as well. And I'm, I'm doing the old adage write what you know. I suppose you could say so. Yeah, but it is definitely in progress. I'm working out a lot of the backstory and just trying to get that out there by some short stories and a blog series that's set in the world.

Because I have so much in my head that there's no way it would make it into a book. I'm just trying to introduce the world slowly. And maybe then by the time the book's out, there'll be people who want to read it.

Devin Davis: [00:12:25] The blog that Amy talks about is called the sun a book and a dog. And of course I will include links to that in the show notes of this episode. And then to wrap up the interview, she described to me her most influential and favorite work of fiction.

Aime Sund: [00:12:47] . I would have to say the biggest influence for me for a work of fiction would have to have been a discovery of witches by Deborah Harkness. I can honestly say this is the first book that gave me a book hangover, even though I only read it about three years ago. So. I got to the end and I didn't want it to end.

And I had a hard time closing the cover and I was just in a funk for the rest of the day. I, I loved it so much and I went as soon as the library opened Monday morning, I went and got the next one. It was, yeah, it was a wonderful, wonderful book. And it really put me into historical fiction as well, because there is a lot of history in her books. And the time periods that I'm really familiar with and that I love, which is Europe in the 15, 16 hundreds, mostly. So that was right up my alley and I didn't want it to end and I just kept going. I whipped through the next two books. and that's what made me want to write. If I could give somebody else that feeling someday, maybe then I've done my job. That's how I approach it. That's how I would really like, to be remembered, I suppose. I think if you had asked me for a non-fiction book, I don't think I could have given you one, I automatically would have gone to fiction just for that reason. Just because. It draws so much out and it, it lets the imagination play and , it certainly gives me a place to escape to and a place to run into. Having something that I can go to immediately set some time aside to, I know I'm going to read now, that's what I look for.

Devin Davis: [00:14:30] A big, thank you to Amy Sund at red leaf word services for being on the show today, it was such a delightful time to speak with her and to see what is going on in her life and to get to know her better. I met her kind of as an aside in some of my Instagram endeavors, and it's been so fun to build relationships like this.

So be sure to check out her website and her blog for her work in progress for her fiction. All of those links are in the show notes. And remember too, Check out the Patreon page, go to Patreon.com/Writing in the Tiny House. If you wish to donate and support financially this podcast. Again, I am Devin Davis.

Thank you so much for joining this show and we will see you next time. Have a good time writing guys. We will see you later. Bye.

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Series)

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Welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. A complete transcript of this episode will be provided after these few links.

Becomes a patron today!

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Check out the podcast The Writer's Way, hosted by Laurie Wright.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-writers-way-how-to-market-your-childrens-book/id1438673311

Here is the affiliate link to today's book review of The Ivies, by Alexa Donne.

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And here it complete transcript of this episode.

S1E18 Getting Started

[00:00:00] Devin Davis: And for the next few minutes, we're going to go way back before any of this was text, before any of it was paper. Before any of it was a book. And all of it was simply an idea baby. Today on Writing in the Tiny House.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am a single father of boys living in a tiny house in Northern Utah. And I am here to talk about your idea for writing a book. [00:01:00] And I am here to show you that it is completely possible. In this episode we are going to go over the process of simply developing the idea before we even need to worry about getting into a normal writing schedule or before we know anything about writing structure or any of that, today on Writing in the Tiny House.

But first, let me tell you about a podcast I recently discovered. I discovered The Writer's Way, which was hosted by a woman named Laurie Wright. She is a best-selling author, and this entire podcast is dedicated around children's lit. So if you want to write a children's book this would be a very good resource for you. Be sure to pop over to the Writer's Way. I will have a link to that in the description of the show notes. [00:02:00] And i'm sure that will be an additional resource that all of us would enjoy.

So I want you to take just a minute and think about all of the different book ideas that you have likely had throughout your adult life, or maybe even earlier than that. Perhaps you had ideas for stories or for instruction projects or something in high school or junior high, or even earlier. I don't know, but I am sure that almost all of us has had the idea for a book at some point in time, whether it is fiction or whether it is non-fiction, whether it is a children's story, whether it is an adult story, whether it is kind of a certain activity for dummies. Who knows, but think back to that special idea that you had once upon a time. And we are going to talk about that.

We are going to talk about what it takes to develop an idea [00:03:00] and everything that you should at least have started. Before you sit down and put pen to paper or start drafting something in your word processing document. So let's first talk about nonfiction. What likely happened was you thought to yourself, I really wish that there was a book on this subject. And you looked around for it and that book didn't seem to exist. And if it did exist, perhaps it approached the problem in a way that you didn't like very much, or in a way that didn't work well for you, or it was an approach that was kind of off base.

And was just different. And you thought to yourself, you know, I bet that I could do a better job with this book, and then you thought about it and then you didn't do anything more about it with writing nonfiction. It's fine if it starts out [00:04:00] this way, in fact, with fiction, it starts out in a similar way.

If it is fiction, you likely saw a book missing. At least this is how it was for me. There wasn't a book that I wanted to read. And so I decided, or at least I read a meme online on Facebook somewhere that said, write what you want to read.

And so for me, I sat there and I thought this through and I was like, what do I want to read? I was sick of adventure novels. It seems at the time, it, especially in fantasy, there are a million adventure novels, and I wasn't interested in reading another one. I also didn't want to do first person point of view. I didn't want to read another first person point of view story. And I wanted something with a more [00:05:00] complex storyline with heroes that mattered and with bad guys that were relatable. All of these different things. I wanted that. And so this is what got me started with writing the book that I started back in December.

I just wanted that book to be available. I wanted that book to be on the shelves. I wanted to read that book. And so I decided to write that book. So once you have your idea, there are a million different ways to develop that idea. And for me, it involves talking to others. For other people, sometimes it involves research and for me, it also involves research.

So there are a lot of different parts. It can be research, it can be talking it out. It can be outlining, it can be journaling. It can be doing a [00:06:00] blog or a poll on Facebook or on your social media or whatever it is. Now that that seed is in your brain, it's time to flesh it out and see if it is worth pursuing or to see if you know how to pursue it.

So with nonfiction, It can be talking to your friends and family, talking to your mom. Most importantly, though, talking to somebody who needs it. So if you are a person writing something on baby care or on raising small children, it would be valuable to speak to mothers who need that type of information or to newlywed couples or to divorced moms or divorced dads or whatever. It wouldn't seem to be the very best to speak to grandmas or people who are no [00:07:00] longer raising children. Or teenagers. Hopefully they're not raising children either. So it's important to find at least a selection of people who would be in your target audience.

Or at least your target customer for that book. And to see if this would be something valuable and discuss it with them. There are reservations about sharing ideas with other people. Like what if somebody rips me off or if somebody tries to steal my idea? Here is the reality of that, friends. When it comes to the premise of a book. Now with the instructional books, it's different, especially since we live in a world that is constantly growing and changing and people need to have specific instruction for some of these new things. But when it comes to other genres like self-help, or just fiction in general, there are.

A million different [00:08:00] formats. There are a million different themes and all of them have been written before. You can find a million different books that have a love triangle. You can find a million different books that are adventure novels. You can find a million books of enemies to lovers or whatever.

These different themes in literature, we call them tropes. You won't be able to find one that has not been done before. And so even if you are talking about your idea in a very high concept way, odds are, you're not saying anything original quite yet. And even if you get down into the nitty gritty of what the plot would actually be.

See originality comes in the execution of that idea. The originality comes when you write it and you yourself tell the story or explain the thought or develop the [00:09:00] concept.

It is not very probable that somebody is going to steal your ideas just because writing is such a hard job to do. It's such a big deal that I personally wouldn't worry about somebody stealing my ideas, just because then they would have to draft your book and then they would have to edit your book and then they would have to do the beta readers for your book.

And the list goes on and on. So we don't really worry too much about people stealing our ideas, especially when it is such a new idea. So you make sure that the ideas appear to be thought out enough for you to get started. It is absolutely. Okay. . If the concept of approaching your book gives you hives that having the entire book planned out is not a good idea.

That is how I am with my books. I don't plan out everything. I simply know where I need to get in each section of my book. I do not plan out the dialogue. I [00:10:00] don't plan out the other things. This is some people call it "pantsing." Flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to writing. Other people call it discovery writing.

And I actually prefer that term, though I think that both terms are kind of dumb, but this is when you simply know where you need to go. And so you sit down and let that organically happen. You let that spill out of your brain onto your word processor. And you get there, you know the bare minimum of where your story is headed and you discover everything along the way.

You don't need to have the entire novel mapped out from start to finish. And I would imagine for most big projects you don't have to, that is why it's possible to revise stuff. I would imagine that even with non-fiction work, if you sit down and start, it is possible that other things will come up; additional research or another point of view or another application to whatever you are trying to do. [00:11:00] Different things will come up and you'll want to include that in your manuscript.

And that would require you to go back and add it in. And so revision is an integral part of every big project like this. So it's okay to just kind of get started. It's okay to be at a place where you think that you have enough pieces to put together those first few pages. And I'm not going to go over the actual writing in this episode, but I will say the first few pages of your manuscript are going to be the ones that you revise the very most, and they are the ones that you will want to revise once you are started. Once you don't have any more than six pages written, you're going to want to go back and revise and revise and revise until those six pages are perfect.

I'm going to tell you that it is not time for that. [00:12:00] Let the future you worry about revising that first chapter or that prologue or whatever you're doing for your book, just because the future you, after you have finished this first draft, knows your story better or knows the content of your non-fiction book better than you do now.

And they will be in a better way to write that really important introductory first chapter or prologue or whatever it is for you. So it's kind of a shorter episode today, but this is what I did for my book. I shared with you guys last week, that for the book I'm currently writing, I wrote the prologue probably two or three years ago.

I had the idea bubbling around in my brain. I alluded to the fact that I wanted this type of a book to be on the bookshelves and I couldn't see where that book was yet. So it was up to me to [00:13:00] write it. But I had these six pages written. I had the premise kind of figured out, how the narrator fit into the story.

It was structured differently and it was fun and it was entertaining. And the people that I brought in and read that first prologue to really liked what I had written. And they really liked the premise of my ideas, how it was all starting and where it was all going. It seemed to be a promising thing.

But it wasn't until last December that I finally decided to tackle it. And the way that I did it, the way that I chose to develop my storyline enough so that I could get started with writing, I went over to my friend's house. And. I brought over scraps of paper and we wrote down names and we wrote down events and we just started to piece together the way that this complicated timeline would work out.

And then other nights I [00:14:00] came over and I brought over my watercolor set and my friend went on Pinterest and started a Pinterest board so that we could get the visuals of what things looked like of what the colors were like, of what the textures were like. And so she was putting together a Pinterest board while I was watercoloring what a green house would look like and what this woman wearing a gray dress could look like and whatever else.

And I had those things, I've kept those things. And then I felt that I had prepared enough to get started. Like I said, I am not the person who will sit down and plan out every little bit of my book from beginning to end and then start drafting. I am the person who will prepare just enough so that I have something to write right now.

And there is a certain [00:15:00] amount of joy and excitement that comes with discovering the book along the way. So that is how I have approached my first drafts. That is how I have approached my story ideas. And that is how I would do it if I were writing a non-fiction book. So let me know what your ideas are.

Be sure to message me. You can direct message me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis.

And very quickly just to wrap things up, I do want to do a very short book review. The book that I want to mention on today's episode is The Ivies, by Alexa Donne. This book is a young adult boarding school thriller of people trying to get into college into the Ivy league colleges. And it is fun. It is a wild [00:16:00] ride. It has wonderful memorable characters. Everything in it was completely believable. It had a nice, fast pace. And for a YA boarding school thriller I definitely give it four out of five stars. Go ahead and check it out, guys. Thank you for tuning in to this episode.

Again, don't forget to check out the podcast The Writer's Way, hosted by Lori Wright. It is a podcast dedicated towards uh, children's authors so if you are hoping to write a children's book this should be a good resource for you. If you wish to support this podcast and help me out with producing it in that way, by offering money, go to. patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and become a patron.

Otherwise be sure to join the Facebook group [00:17:00] of Writing in the Tiny House . It's a pretty small group right now, but it will get bigger the more people join. So thanks again. Guys, and we will see you next week on Writing in the Tiny House.

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Welcome to the show notes of this episode of Writing in the Tiny House. In this episode Devin takes things a bit deeper with his relationship with creative writing. He shares the experience of his first story, the silly things he wrote in college, the awesomeness of releasing his second book just six weeks after getting married, then how creative writing has served him throughout the difficult time of his divorce.

If you find this podcast to be valuable, consider becoming a patron so it can keep growing.

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Here is an overview of today's episode.

00:00--Intro

00:18--It's Pride Month! This week's question is "What are your thoughts about writing diversity?"

05:42--How I get across the finish line.

06:32--We're having a special at the end of the month with my friend Whitney, and it's going to be about the benefit of Bookstagram in promoting books!

06:57--8 Practices. These are not recommendations, simply what I do.

08:01--Set goals and deadlines so progress can be measured.

09:05--Develop a routine and prioritize that routine.

09:51--Stretches, because keyboarding is hard on the body.

10:35--Progressively improve my word count. Before I was only capable of about 500 words; now I'm up to 2k and counting.

12:20--Eating healthy food made at home and getting enough sleep.

13:45--Read. A way to improve writing is to see how others are doing it.

14:37--Know when to throw your goals out the window, and create a bare minimum goal. For me, it's two shitty pages. That is achievable every day.

18:26--Try new ways to get things done, and let it be okay if those things don't work. This gives you more possible ways to accomplish your goals.

20:55--Book reviews. The first book is Beartown. Here is the link.

Amazon US

The second book is Us Against You. Both of these are by Fredrik Backman.

Amazon US

Be sure to leave a review, and follow me on Instagram @authordevindavis.

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Here is an overview of today's episode.

00:00--Intro

00:14--New logo! Please let me know if the old one is what you see so I may fix it.

01:12--Importance of self-care and seeing old friends, especially after this past year of isolation.

01:52--Last week's question was "How do you deal with an increased workload?" And these were the responses to that.

03:32--This week's Question of the Week is, "What are you doing today to measure your success?" Please send a response on today's Instagram post @authordevindavis.

04:44--Goals have changed because my entire book has changed.

05:34--Art is a pull to self-express. When pour so many hours of our lives into it, it can feel like this project is our baby. But when we hope to sell our art it becomes a juggling act of our self-expression mixed with what people actually want. "Kill Your Darlings" means being willing to change or abandon a project to meet market requirements.

11:17--Revision is another form of practice, and practice is how we get better at anything.

12:37--Tranditionally published author Alexa Donne showed that a break-out novel is usually 100,000 words. People write longer than this, but not with their breakout novel.

15:35--For a debut novel, publishers push for 100,000-word manuscripts because they are more affordable to print than longer books.

16:22--The realization that my book was far too long. But I'm willing to pivot and to be flexible.

18:00--Restructuring my novel so one of the subplots is now its own books. Scrivener made this restructuring easy.

19:40--New things to figure out. Pacing to fix. Ideas to further develop. And a new character that I'm not acquainted with yet.

23:08--Outro. Leave a review on your podcast app. And follow me on Instagram @authordevindavis

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Krissy Barton, owner of Little Syllables

www.littlesyllables.com

Instagram: @littlesyllables

In today's episode:

00:00--Intro

00:12--Announcements. May was a shout-out to Editors, and we conclude that with this special.

01:02--My IG handle has changed back to @authordevindavis and will stay that way. Question of the week: How do you responde to increased work load? DM me on IG and we'll discuss this next week.

04:08--Word count goals. The setbacks have been realistic, and it's cool to know that.

06:18--This show will have new artwork starting next week, or maybe the week after that! So look for the new asthetic.

07:11--Interview Intro

07:52--Krissy introduces herself and gives her background.

09:08--Publishing is complicated. So many people have a book inside them. Don't skimp on the editor.

10:30--Krissy describes three of the four types of editing. Developmental Editing is big picture, like plot and character arcs. Line or Stylistic Editing is flow and pacing. Copy Editing is mechanics.

17:21--How to guage a client. Krissy speaks about the project with the client, and requests a sample edit.

19:55--Common easy things that can be picked up on a sample edit include dialogue issues, repetative phrases, "ly" adverbs, and more.

23:05--Proof Reading is the fourth type of edit. They are the final eyes on the project before the project is printed. It's all about format and typos. In this section we talk about formatting, including the program Vellum.

28:19--The expense of a good full edit is 1 to 3 cents per word. Beware of flat-rate editing packages. A good edit for a 100,000-word manuscript should cost between $1,000 to $3,000.

34:15--Budget! Self-pub is doing it all on your own, so start a setting aside money for your editor NOW! And if you're querying an agent, your manuscript should go to copy editing before querying.

38:37--Working with Authors. Editors work FOR and WITH you. Almost all changes are tracked inside the manuscript to be approved. Expect your editor to be positive, honest, and encouraging.

45:06--Editors are coaching the author to improve their writing. They will put together a style sheet, and you need to hang on to that for your proofreader!

52:30--Outro! Please leave a review for Writing in the Tiny House on your favorite podcasting app!

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Here is a breakdown of today's episode.

00:00--Intro

00:11.5--Introducing our guest, Whitney. She is a bookstagrammer, and she will be doing a special with me next month on the value of bookstagram in promoting a book. @read.ridinghood is her handle.

01:12--Outline of today's episode.

02:08--A one-minute spot from writer and editor Elizabeth Suggs. Here is her information.

Elizabeth Suggs, Owner of Editing Mee, www.editingmee.com, ctpfiction.com

03:00--The value of horror. When it's not just blood and guts and cheaps boos, but a look at the serious darker parts of life. Mentions the Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor.

07:12--BAD ADVICE, with Whitney! We share with you the WORST WAY to write a horror novel by sharing some cliches and some tired tropes of the genre.

10:03--The book review of World War Z, by Max Brooks. Please use one of these affiliate link to check out this book and help this podcast at the same time!

Or use this link:https://amzn.to/3hBvBHL

13:12--Outro. Please help the podcast out by leaving a review. 5 stars is great!

13:51--Bloopers!

Follow me on instagram @writinginthetinyhousepodcast

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

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This is why any thinking person should read short stories.

Here is the Amazon affiliate link to today's book review.

Here is the information to today's editor, Kirsten McNeill:

km@kirstenmcneill.com

www.kirstenmcneill.com

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This episode is all about why good dystopian fiction is so awesome!

Also, May is the month we celebrate editors! This episdoe includes a spot from Suzanne Kimball Rekow. Here is her contact information:

Suzanne Rekow

www.suzannekimballrekow.weebly.com

suzkimball@gmail.com

801.427.6438

Be sure to contact her for all your editing needs.

Also, follow this link to access the book collection in today's review:

Follow me on Instagram @writinginthetinyhousepodcast!

And leave a rating on the app through which you listened to this episode!

See you next time!

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The good that comes from reading quality romance.

Today's book review:

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Why you should read Mysteries!

The book review for this episode is A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Check it out by following this link:

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Dalton does another MG book review in this bonus episode! Remember from here on out our full length episodes will release on Wednesdays. So stay tuned.

Check out today's book with this link:

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What goes in to making a good thriller. And a new segment called BAD ADVICE!

Check out the book If We Were Villains by following this link:

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#devindavis #angelusmethod #amwriting #writer #bookstagram #bookish #goodreads #ilovebooks

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A look at historical fiction and a lesson on world building.

Follow the link to check out the book in today's episode.

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This is why we need to read contemporary fiction.

The book of this episode:

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Why you should read fiction. Everyone can use a good dose of this stuff sometimes.

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Things to consider seriously if you really want to do a thumbs-down review tastefully. All press is good press, right guys? Make sure you're shining the right kind of light on bad literature.

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This episode gives guidelines on how to give feedback to an aspiring author, and how to help improve a work in progress.

Today's book:

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Find out how to write a book review and make it count.

Check out the book How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps, by Andrew Rowe.

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It's the first show! Join Devin Davis as he talks about the writing process, what to do to improve it, and how to be involved in the literary community. For readers, writers, and people in general.

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Writing in the Tiny House: Recent Episodes

Devin Davis