Write On SC - SoundSage

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In consuming a ridiculous amount of romance fiction, I (Kasie) have come across my share of absurd body part descriptions. So I thought we haven’t ever really talked about how to talk about body parts on this show. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk:

Basic biology versus nuanced inference

When, where and how to flex that vocabulary

Body parts as vehicles for metaphor (i.e. broken heart)

What to leave to imagination and what to make explicit.

But first, if you haven’t yet registered for the upcoming Women in Publishing event what are you waiting for? This is your chance to bewith dozens of book publishing professionals, authors, writers, designers, publishers, editors, you name it and they’ll be there. Here’s a link to register.

From the website:

The Women in Publishing Summit exists to empower, support, and elevate women and nonbinary individuals across the entire publishing industry—from idea to bookshelf and beyond.

We provide education, resources, and a dynamic, inclusive community that fosters equity, access, and success for everyone involved in the creation, production, launch, and marketing of books.

Whether you’re a writer, editor, designer, marketer, publisher, or service provider, we’re here to help you thrive and make a greater impact through books—all while collaborating with one another.

Okay, so that’s said and I recommend attending. Alexa does a GREAT job with events.

Let’s talk body parts. I found some other writers who have written about body parts here are some links:

How to write better character physical descriptions from The Writing Cooperative
Masterlist of physical descriptions from MasterClass
Body Build Cheat Sheet for Writers from Kathy Steinemann

Because physical description is the first time we use body parts in our work. We want to give the reader a sense of who this person is. We can default to drivers license stats: eye color, hair color, height and weight.

And some people say start early – like as soon as the character is introduced, give the reader a sense of who they are by describing their appearance. But it shouldn’t be an info dump. A couple of well-selected details can give you a good sense of the space a person occupies.

Frankenstein’s monster: A massive figure filled my bedroom doorway. He had to angle his shoulders and stoop his head just to fit through… Black, uneven stitches zigzagged across mottled skin…

So should you use similes? Like this and as that? Should you include endearing details like a sprinkle of freckles across the nose and cheeks or a crooked sort of smile that looked mischievous?

Here’s 15 great character descriptions by famous authors.

The risk of not enough detail is that every character looks the same or the person is just kind of faceless or character-less. But the risk of too much detail is that your reader is trying hard to imagine just the person you had in mind instead of letting the character work out his specifics himself.

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The last time we had a show near Valentine’s Day, it was the day after and we did Episode 299 “Love for Love’s Sake” exploring the trappings of a love story. So we’ll start there.

Love stories are universal because they are so versatile. In our previous episode, we went through the types of love per This linkwhich explains it this way: “the comprehensive feeling for the entire cosmos.” From the same link, other types of love:

Eros – passionate or romantic love
Philia – goodwill or friendship
Storge – natural love or familial love, that which you feel for those in your proximity and history
Ludos – skittish or unreliable love, maybe a crush? Also playful, or those early stages of the fluttering in your belly, giddiness of love
Pragma – duty or reason-supported love, as in an arranged marriage, of course I love my sister’s dogs…
Philautia – self-love or love within oneself.
Mania (from this link) – obsession

If it’s a love story, it might also be a non-romantic love that takes center stage. For example:

Mother’s love for her child: 1) nurturing and unconditional, 2) fierce and protective, 3) sacrificial, 4) strained or resentful, 5) absent or abandoned – leaving our character wanting more.
Father’s love for his child: 1) supportive and nurturing, 2) wise and guiding, 3) demanding or disciplining, 4) abusive or neglectful, 5) stoic or unapproachable, 6) absent or wanting, and 7) replacement fathers like mentors, coaches, etc.
Sibling love: 1) loyalty and protection, 2) competition and rivalry, 3) complex or strained – from the shared experience but different perspectives, think the siblings in The Godfather, 4) supportive or teammate-ish
Friendship love: 1) deep companionship – shared experiences, mutually supportive, 2) ulterior motives – what can one gain from the other? 3) platonic affection – mutual respect, shared interests and values.

But a romance is not a love story and vice versa. So here’s some compare and contrast so we can differentiate between the two:

Both love stories and romance explore emotional intimacy and will likely also include physical intimacy. Both can elicit strong emotional reactions from readers. Love stories can be the primary plot, but are more often subplots.

In contrast, romance stories put the love story at the center. It is the plot. How the characters interact with one another, the obstacles they overcome, and how they meet the challenges to come together are the plot. Romance has genre conventions, expectations that writers must meet not only to satisfy readers, but also to be considered a romance at all. For example, romance novels have a Happily Ever After ending. Always. No exceptions.

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So last week Hollie joined us to talk about motifs which turned into a plot device conversation and we decided we could use of more that. So here it is, Part 2 if you will of Plot Devices to get us started this year. Turns out, we haven’t done plot devices before. We’ve done literary devices (Episode 125) but not plot devices.

What do we mean by “plot device”? A plot device is any tool used to advance the story. They can be objects, people, secrets, the weather. Anything that disrupts the story as-is and turns it toward where it needs to be.

Common examples include the “MacGuffin” (an object everyone wants), the “Red Herring” (a false clue), a “Deus Ex Machina” (a sudden, contrived resolution), or a “Time Bomb” (a ticking clock scenario). (link)

What are some “literary” plot devices?

Symbolism
Foreshadowing
Parallelism

Here’s a comprehensive list of 50+ plot devices. I figured we could just work the list.

This link has some good takes on plot devices as does this one. The second one actually gets into how to use them.

I like this list:

Big dumb object – used mostly in science fiction, something mysterious that must be explored and explained
Flashback – deliver exposition with a memory surfacing at exactly the right time
Love Triangle – what complicates desire? Unrequited love.
Ticking clock – create a sense of urgency with an expiration date that draws ever nearer.

Last week we gave you these hints for making the plot device work. So here they are again: (link and link):

Serve the Story, Not the Other Way Around: The device should enhance your story’s foundation (characters, world) and feel essential, not like a forced gimmick to fix problems.
Make it Organic & Logical:
- Set up Foreshadowing: Introduce elements early (e.g., a skill, an object) that pay off later.
- Create Logical Circumstances: Have characters meet or find things in believable situations.
Motivate Characters: Ensure characters act in ways that lead to the device due to their established personalities and goals.
Focus on Character Reaction: How characters respond to a device (a discovery, a setback) often matters more than the device itself, revealing their nature.
Build Suspense & Meaning: Use them to create intrigue (flashbacks, foreshadowing, plot twists) or add depth, making the audience ask “how?” and “why?”.
Avoid Contrivance: Don’t use pure coincidence to get characters out of trouble; use it to get them into trouble, with proper setup.

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This morning we’re joined by Hollie, a musician and contributor to the show, who had something to add to our conversation on motifs.

The idea came from an article explaining how composers use motifs to advance the plot in musical theater. That got me (Kasie) wondering about other plot-advancement devices in literature that function in similar ways. Thanks, as always, to Gemini AI for curating the internet’s vast resources on this topic.

A motif is a recurring element in a story—such as an image, object, sound, word, or situation—that holds symbolic significance and points toward a deeper, central theme. Unlike a one-time symbol, a motif must appear multiple times to create a pattern that unites different parts of the narrative. (link)

How motifs advance the plot (link and link):

Foreshadowing Events: Recurring motifs can hint at future developments, creating suspense and anticipation. For example, a recurring “accident” or “broken” object might prepare the reader for a character’s downfall.
Signaling Turning Points: A motif may appear during key moments, such as in scenes of intense conflict or during climactic events, acting as a visual cue for a shift in the story.
Driving Character Action: Because a motif often connects to a character’s inner desires or fears, it can motivate them to act.
Unifying Plot Threads: In complex narratives, a motif can connect separate, seemingly unrelated plotlines or scenes, giving the story continuity.
Escalating Tension: A motif can gain prominence as the story reaches its climax, increasing the pressure and urgency.

Other ways it helps in a story (link):

Connects to Themes: Motifs act as tangible clues, making abstract themes like love, loss, or freedom more concrete and understandable as they recur, linking disparate scenes and ideas.
Builds Mood & Atmosphere: Repetitive imagery, such as dark rooms or intense heat, creates a specific tone (Gothic, oppressive) that influences how the plot unfolds and how characters feel, as seen with the heat in Lord of the Flies.
Foreshadows & Symbolizes: A recurring symbol can hint at future events or deeper meanings; for instance, the green light in The Great Gatsby symbolizes Gatsby’s unattainable dream, foreshadowing his ultimate failure.
Develops Characters: A motif can highlight character development or internal struggles; Indiana Jones’s father calling him “Junior” reinforces the growing bond and resolution of their strained relationship.
Creates Cohesion: By appearing throughout the narrative, motifs act as narrative breadcrumbs, helping readers trace patterns and understand how different parts of the story relate to one another, unifying the work.

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The appeal of the apocalypse. Seems like everyone takes a stab at writing about the end times. What does it look like in your imagination?

Let’s remember that a lot, a LOT of what we have now was once imagined by writers. For example, Fahrenheit 451 predicted headphones, Frankenstein imagined transplants, Isaac Asimov predicted the rise of computers (link). Apple watches, self-driving cars, even video chatting were all predicted by writers who imagined a better way of doing everything.

They may not have had the science or engineering to make it happen, but writers certainly started the process by envisioning and then describing the technology that would come to be.

Okay, so then if writers are imagining dystopia, does that mean it’s inevitable? And why wouldn’t they spend more time focusing on utopia instead?

For the truly literary, there’s this list of Booker Prize dystopian fiction, many of which will have gone without your commercial-fiction sniff. It does crown Margaret Atwood the reigning monarch of dystopian fiction after The Handmaid’s Tale and its sequel, The Testaments, were made into a TV series.

This Wikipedia list probably better matches the ones that come to mind immediately:

Gulliver’s Travels

The Time Machine

Brave New World (Huxley)

Anthem (Rand)

1984 (Orwell)

Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)

Lord of the Flies

Minority Report

A Clockwork Orange

The Stand

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Giver

Cloud Atlas

The Road

The Hunger Games

The Maze Runner

Ready Player One

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Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions for your writing life? What’s the purpose of it and why should we do it?

There are ancient origins for new year’s resolutions including the Babylonians in 2000 b.c. making promises to the gods at the new year to return borrowed items and pay off debts. How many of those promises do you suppose were kept?

In medieval times, knights renewed their oaths of loyalty at the new year. They also promised to uphold virtues and values.

These days, new year’s resolutions are usually not religious, or related to your employer. They’re usually about secular stuff like health and fitness, wellness and mental clarity.

So what makes a good resolution? And is it different from a goal? Yes, new year’s resolutions are typically a change of behavior: drink less, eat less, workout more, read more. And the goal is a measurable plan for how to succeed in that behavior change.

So you might resolve to write more short stories in 2026. The goal would be to write at least 30 short stories. Then you might plan to write every day for at least 30 minutes to achieve the goal. Writing every day, as long as you’re focusing on the short stories, will certainly achieve the behavior change to meet your resolution.

So what kinds of resolutions do writers usually make? It’s almost always about productivity. We did this topic last year with a plan we built for ourselves. We used categories for those goals, like I do with my students every semester: family, professional, personal, financial. How did we do?

We also did it back in 2021, so let’s see how far we’ve come since then. That one used the AFI framework, a tool for business planning, to help writers think of their careers as businesses.

I also did this goal setting thing with Alexa Bigwarfe, my publisher, back in 2020. Boy did those goals go awry.

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Kasie and Hollie host an old school flashback episode. Inspired by 90s sitcoms that had end of season flashback episodes, Kasie and Hollie decided to use each segment as a flashback to a previous episode of Write on SC to give a new perspective.

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What is an anti-hero? This topic is so old, the show notes still introduce who we are to the audience. Wow. Episode 43 way back in 2019 was the only episode we have dedicated to the Anti-Hero. Notes there are not AI-generated, but these notes totally are:

An anti-hero is a central character who lacks conventional heroic qualities like altruism, morality, or idealism, often driven by selfish motives, flaws, or questionable methods, yet the audience still roots for them because their goals might be relatable or they’re simply more compelling than traditional heroes, examples include Walter White (Breaking Bad), Deadpool, Han Solo, and Fleabag. They operate in moral gray areas, using dark or brutal tactics for understandable, sometimes even good, ends, creating compelling tension. (link & link & link)

Some types of anti-heroes (link & link):

Classic Anti-Hero: Lacks traditional heroic traits like bravery or confidence, often due to self-doubt, fear, or social awkwardness, but still acts heroically.
- Examples: Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye), Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit).
Knight in Sour Armor: Cynical, sarcastic, and witty but possesses good intentions and a strong moral compass, often with a traumatic past.
- Examples: Haymitch Abernathy (The Hunger Games), Severus Snape (Harry Potter).
Unscrupulous/Pragmatic Anti-Hero: Willing to do questionable or violent things to achieve goals, often driven by personal gain or survival.
- Examples: Rambo, Jack Sparrow.
Hero in Name Only: Actions are very dark or villainous, blurring the line between hero and villain, but they remain the protagonist.
- Examples: Walter White (Breaking Bad), Dexter Morgan (Dexter).
Flawed Hero/Anti-Villain: Good intentions but with extremely questionable or dark methods, sometimes sharing the hero’s goals but being far more ruthless.
- Examples: John Constantine, some interpretations of Tony Stark (Iron Man).

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It’s been a while since we covered the dozen uses for the Fool (Episode 181) so there are some new notes and updated links for it but the concept remains.

Per Gemini AI:

the Fool is an archetype, often a jester or simpleton, who uses humor, feigned madness, or childlike simplicity to speak uncomfortable truths, challenge norms, offer wisdom, and provide commentary, acting as a mirror for society and powerful figures, as seen in Shakespeare’s King Lear, where the Fool guides Lear through his downfall by bluntly pointing out his foolishness. They serve as both comedic relief and profound commentators, revealing deeper meanings through their seemingly nonsensical words or actions, and can represent vulnerability, childlike innocence, or a “holy fool” figure who embodies spiritual wisdom. (Link and Link)

Key Characteristics:

Truth-teller: Given license by their supposed foolishness, they can criticize kings, nobles, and societal conventions without punishment, a role often denied to others.
Wise Fool: Appears simple but possesses profound insight, using wit, paradox, and riddles to convey wisdom (e.g., King Lear, Patchface in A Song of Ice and Fire).
Vulnerability & Presence: Embodies living in the moment, embracing risk, and showing authentic emotion, contrasting with the controlled, often misguided, actions of the “wise” characters.
Catalyst for Change: Their commentary forces others (and the audience) to confront uncomfortable realities, prompting growth or revealing tragic flaws. (Link)

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Heather has been with us before. She visited back on Episode 261: Edit Like a Pro. Here are some details about Heather: Heather Harris-Bergevin is an author whose business, Barrow Editing, is based in Columbia, South Carolina. She, her three children, two cats, and a happy pitbull spend most of their time fighting entropy. Her own poetry books are published with By Common Consent Press, and she has an upcoming children’s picture book with Lucky Rabbit Press, based in Columbia, SC.

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What is Retroactive Continuity?

Retroactive continuity (often called retcon) is a storytelling device used in fiction when authors or creators deliberately change, add to, or contradict facts that were previously established in a story’s “official past.” In essence, the story’s “history” gets rewritten, sometimes subtly and sometimes quite dramatically. (Wikipedia)

According to one definition:

“Retroactive continuity is a literary device in which previously established information in a work of fiction is changed, ignored, or contradicted to suit the current story.” (TCK Publishing)

The motivations for retconning can vary:

To correct continuity errors or inconsistencies that arose in earlier installments. (Wikipedia)
To expand or deepen a story by adding new layers—backstories, motivations, relationships—that simply weren’t there before. (Language & Humanities)
To reboot or reimagine a story, more in line with new creative direction, audience expectations, or modern sensibilities. (Language & Humanities)
To revive characters (e.g., bring back a “dead” character) or reset aspects of the fictional universe to allow new plots. (Wikipedia)

In long-running franchises — comics, film series, TV shows — retcons are especially common because over time, multiple writers or creators may contribute, or earlier plot points simply don’t hold up to new storytelling ambitions. (FourWeekMBA)

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Crymsyn Hart is a multi-genre author from Horror, Urban Fantasy, and Romance. Her years of experience at Boston’s oldest psychic salon doing readings and her encounters with the supernatural have inspired many novels. She’s a lover of all things dark and goth. Vampires, grim reapers, and other paranormal creatures tend to end up in her books no matter how hard she tries to keep them away.

She currently resides in Charlotte, NC with her hubby and their dog. By day she is conquering the world of Commercial Insurance, but by night she listens to the voices in her head telling her which rabbit hole to go down to find the perfect plot bunny.

Visit her website at: http://www.crymsynhart.com

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A child of the 80's, SL Harby grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons and classic video games. An only child, he was bitten early by the reading bug, cutting his teeth on the masters of modern fantasy. His days were spent inside the worlds created by Howard and Lieber, Moorcock and Tolkien.

A perpetual Jersey boy, SL Harby lives in northwestern New Jersey with his wife and muse, Jessica and their bad ass rescue dog, Tellulah.

Visit www.ReadSLHarby.com for fiction, reviews, creator interviews and more!

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Nick Roberts is the award-winning author of Anathema, The Exorcist's House series, Mean Spirited, and several others. His works have been translated into multiple languages, becoming international bestsellers and garnering the attention of Hollywood. He’s a member of the Horror Writers Association, a doctoral graduate from Marshall University, and currently resides in South Carolina with his wife and three children. He talks with Rex about his career.

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The last time we did this topic was way back in 2021 here’s the link to Episode 130. We think maybe we’ve learned something since then. Born out of the “be mean to your characters” necessity, “what could be meaner than making your characters make decisions, do something, take responsibility, and live with consequences of their actions?”

According to this link by Meg LaTorre at Savvy Authors, “agency” means the character is more proactive than reactive in the story. The character does stuff instead of stuff just happening to him/her.
To give characters agency, ensure they drive the plot through active choices and pursuit of clear, motivated goals, rather than passively reacting to events. This involves providing meaningful choices, showing consequences for their actions, creating internal and external conflicts that require decisive action, and allowing for character growth based on their decisions. (thanks, AI and this link)

How do you do it? Check out this link (summary below):

Active, Not Passive: Your protagonist should be the driver of the plot, making decisions that shape the story, not just having things happen to them.
Clear Goals: Give characters specific, achievable goals rooted in their desires and motivations.
Strong Motivations: Explain why a character takes action, linking their choices to their values, beliefs, and internal struggles.
Meaningful Choices: Present dilemmas where characters must make difficult decisions that reflect their personality.
Consequences: Show the tangible positive and negative outcomes of their decisions, reinforcing their impact on the story.
Conflict as a Catalyst: Use obstacles and conflicts to force characters to act and make choices.
Show, Don't Tell: Reveal agency through actions and dialogue, not just narration of thoughts or feelings.
Character Arc: Allow characters to change and develop as a result of their experiences and choices.
Avoid Deus Ex Machina: Don't resolve conflicts randomly or through external forces beyond the character's control.

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Finding the right event, getting the vendor license, and packing all your stuff to go over there and sell is all part of the prep. The South Carolina Artisan license can be found at the SC Department of Revenue (link).

Some expected costs: Table ($50-200), vendor license (maybe), travel -- if you have an LLC, you can consider all of these business expenses.

Some preparation consideration: Table aesthetics - what will get people's attention? How can you display your logos and branding? What props will you use to lure people? Rex has foam boards of the book covers, Kasie has QR code displays. Rex has a foam baby eating a rat, it was a Halloween store buy. What giveaways will you have? We've used candy and we've used stickers. Match the stickers to the event. Book display stands are available at Amazon and the foam board displays will have theirs in the purchase price.

Some of the vendors we mentioned for giveaways: DiscountMugs.com, VistaPrint, 24HourWristBands.com

Tote bags - people walk around with the bags and advertise for you. This is a good onsite investment.

Book pricing can and should be related to the people at the event. Consider charging what you think the people will pay. All the authors charging the same thing may not sell anything. But when Rex charges what he thinks the people will pay, he undercuts the other authors. Volume is what matters here, he says, so the more books you can put out in the world the better.

How to present yourself at the table: look professional, a jacket and a nice shirt, something relevant for the event, put out a select number of books so that people can peruse them individually. Engage with people, talk to them, don't be nervous. Know something about the subject.

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Heather has been with us before. She visited back on Episode 261: Edit Like a Pro. Here are some details about Heather: Heather Harris-Bergevin is an author whose business, Barrow Editing, is based in Columbia, South Carolina. She, her three children, two cats, and a happy pitbull spend most of their time fighting entropy. Her own poetry books are published with By Common Consent Press, and she has an upcoming children’s picture book with Lucky Rabbit Press, based in Columbia, SC.

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We always talk about how to promote your book and this week I attended (as a speaker) the Business Boot Camp for the Women in Publishing Summit team where all we talked about was authorprenuership. But there’s more to this literary life than just self-promotion. There’s a give-back element that we call literary citizenship and if you can learn to enjoy it, you can really profit from it.

Five years ago, we talked about this as taking the easy way out by doing anything but writing. In 2021, we touched on the topic as it related to Paying Your Writerly Dues. And last week in our quest for inspiration, we suggested some of these activities to channel your creative vibes.

This time we’re taking a list from the Executive Director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, Jonathan Haupt, who presented on the topic at last week’s Joy of Writing conference for the SCWA. We’re going to expound upon each of these topics on the air. No segments today, just working the list:

Join a writers’ group
Go to a writers’ conference
Be a loyal customer to your local indy bookstore
Write reviews for your favorite indy bookstores
Attend author talks and book signings
Send than you letters, notes, and messages to authors
Like, comment, share, subscribe to authors’ digital content
Post reviews for books you enjoy
Go to book festivals
Be the “in conversation with” host
Be a library patron, better yet, a Friend of the Liberary
Support literary journals and magazines
Be a literacy volunteer at your local schools
Donate books to the Little Free Liberaries
Join the Authors Guild
Join a book club
Join Authors Against Book Bands
Advocate for the rights to read and write freely
Chronicle the times in which you live
Support the arts and your fellow creatives
Be a literary tourist
Read.

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We always talk about how to promote your book and this week I attended (as a speaker) the Business Boot Camp for the Women in Publishing Summit team where all we talked about was authorprenuership. But there’s more to this literary life than just self-promotion. There’s a give-back element that we call literary citizenship and if you can learn to enjoy it, you can really profit from it.

Five years ago, we talked about this as taking the easy way out by doing anything but writing. In 2021, we touched on the topic as it related to Paying Your Writerly Dues. And last week in our quest for inspiration, we suggested some of these activities to channel your creative vibes.

This time we’re taking a list from the Executive Director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, Jonathan Haupt, who presented on the topic at last week’s Joy of Writing conference for the SCWA. We’re going to expound upon each of these topics on the air. No segments today, just working the list:

Join a writers’ group
Go to a writers’ conference
Be a loyal customer to your local indy bookstore
Write reviews for your favorite indy bookstores
Attend author talks and book signings
Send than you letters, notes, and messages to authors
Like, comment, share, subscribe to authors’ digital content
Post reviews for books you enjoy
Go to book festivals
Be the “in conversation with” host
Be a library patron, better yet, a Friend of the Liberary
Support literary journals and magazines
Be a literacy volunteer at your local schools
Donate books to the Little Free Liberaries
Join the Authors Guild
Join a book club
Join Authors Against Book Bands
Advocate for the rights to read and write freely
Chronicle the times in which you live
Support the arts and your fellow creatives
Be a literary tourist
Read.

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We’re in the dog days of summer which can lead to a slow, reluctance to turn to the screen or the page and get new stories generated. Why do we feel this?

What can we do about it?

This writer offered a few tips and tricks:

Read, read and read again – other writers can gently or violently shake something free in us
Surround yourself with other writers – group, conferences, readings, book stores, go where the writers are
Be open to conversation – you might avoid too much socializing when you’re focused, but right now you need conversation, so seek it out
Spend time elsewhere – travel or retreat, get into a new space to shake yourself out of mundaneity

Our AI answers also suggest immersing yourself in the world. But being intentional about it is what matters. Don’t just move through the world, observe and record what you’re seeing and let those observations light the fuse to new stories.

Segment 2

Let’s talk about creativity as an inspiration. Do you watch other stories? Veer into nonfiction books? See concerts or artwork?

Some image or phrase might inspire you to write the backstory or the what-happened-next. Sometimes movies can have a side character that makes you want to write what that character might be doing otherwise.

Can you be spontaneously inspired? What are the results of such experiences? Novels? Short stories?

Segment 3

Planned writing exercises? Yes, please. Some prompts might start a new story or inspire a character or longer work.

I like a writing prompt exercise but sometimes others’ prompts are dumb. Where do you get writing prompts?

Google AI. For real. Just ask it for writing prompts for adult writers. Otherwise you’ll get a bunch of elementary school prompts like “how was your summer vacation?”

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It’s been a while since we did the grab bag thing. Here are some place to start but we’re sure to wander off and just riff a bit. I asked Gemini “What are Writers asking AI?”

How can AI assist with research and brainstorming? AI can help writers research topics, generate outlines, and brainstorm ideas for stories or articles.
Can AI help with editing and proofreading? Yes, AI writing assistants can offer real-time suggestions for grammar, style, and structure, improving the overall quality of writing.
How can AI be used to enhance creativity? AI can generate prompts, scenarios, and alternative perspectives to help writers overcome creative blocks or explore new ideas.
Can AI tools be used to tailor content for different audiences? AI can assist in analyzing audience demographics and preferences to customize the tone, style, and content to specific segments.

Some writers are worried about AI. They ask:

Will AI replace human writers and artists? This is a significant concern, especially in fields like scriptwriting and content creation, where AI could automate tasks traditionally performed by humans.
How will AI affect writers' income and compensation? Writers worry about the potential for downward pressure on wages due to the increased competition and automation offered by AI.
What are the ethical implications of using AI in content creation? This includes questions about copyright infringement, plagiarism, biases in AI models, and the transparency of AI-generated content.
How can intellectual property be protected in an AI-driven world? Concerns exist about AI systems being trained on copyrighted material without compensation or permission, leading to legal challenges and uncertainty about ownership of AI-generated content.
How can the uniqueness and value of human-written work be preserved? Writers and industry professionals are exploring ways to differentiate human creativity from AI's capabilities and ensure fair compensation for human artists.

On X:

One writer asked, what are you writing that no one seems to want? – i.e. the MSWL for agents and publishers may not include your WIP.

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This blog gives a quick summary of all seven sins and some examples of how to use them. So reading it might mean you don’t need our seven episodes but how about come along for the ride anyway?

The Seven Deadly Sins (this link) in Roman Catholic theology, are the seven vices that spur other sins and further immoral behavior. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the 6th century and elaborated in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The sins are:

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

We’ve done these before (episodes 151-157), but it’s been a while and this time we’re going to sharpen the focus on the sins as potential stakes-raising behaviors.

This week’s focus is Lust. When we did this in Episode 155, I was writing novels with a good bit of sex in them. Weirdly, that hasn’t changed. In fact, the motivation of Lust is even more relevant to my vampires who are equally motivated by thirst.

Last time we started here:

What is lust? According to Wikipedia:

Lust is a psychological force producing intense desire for an object, or circumstance while already having a significant other or amount of the desired object.[1] Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality (see libido), money, or power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food (see gluttony) as distinct from the need for food. It is similar to but distinguished from passion, in that passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not.

Going straight to the source, Christianity.com gives us this:

Lust is essentially to crave something, usually associated with worldly desires of sexual intent or material possessions. Lust has as its focus gratifying oneself, which often leads to toxic actions to fulfill one’s desires without consideration of the consequences. Lust springs forth from selfishness and greed.

Lust is considered a sin because it puts physical, human impulses above Godly or spiritual pursuits. Not unlike greed, lust is insatiable and similar to pride, is focused on the individual, not the betterment of family or community.

Are there any benefits to lust?

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The Seven Deadly Sins (this link) in Roman Catholic theology, are the seven vices that spur other sins and further immoral behavior. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the 6th century and elaborated in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The sins are:

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

We’ve done these before (episodes 151–157), but it’s been a while and this time we’re going to sharpen the focus on the sins as potential stakes-raising behaviors.

DeadlySins.com gives us this definition: “Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.” It happens when one is convinced others are smarter, luckier, more attractive, or better than themselves. The punishment is to be put in freezing water in the afterlife.

Also according to DeadlySins.com, “medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of Envy: “Envy according to the aspect of its object is contrary to charity, whence the soul derives its spiritual life… Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good, while envy grieves over it.” (2, 36, ad 3)”

What kinds of characters are envious?

What kinds of envy are there?

What famous characters have acted on envy to upend a protagonist’s efforts?

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The Seven Deadly Sins (this link) in Roman Catholictheology, are the seven vices that spur other sins and further immoral behavior. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the 6th century and elaborated in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The sins are:

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

We’ve done these before (episodes 151–157), but it’s been a while and this time we’re going to sharpen the focus on the sins as potential stakes-raising behaviors.

According to DeadlySins.com Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities. It interferes with the acceptance of God’s grace and is the sin from which all others are born. It’s also called vanity. So let’s unpack that.

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It’s been the summer of the Seven Deadly Sins series. This blog gives a quick summary of all seven sins and some examples of how to use them.

The Seven Deadly Sins (this link) in Roman Catholictheology, are the seven vices that spur other sins and further immoral behavior. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the 6th century and elaborated in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The sins are:

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

What is sloth? This link is “What is sloth and why is it worse than laziness?” and here’s what the author says: “The sin of sloth is a bit deeper than laziness, and that subtlety is found in the thing that keeps us bound up: fear.”

How does fear affect sloth? The dark side here is the lack of motivation or a person’s choice to accept the easy way, the lowest risk, by doing nothing. The Bible calls out idleness or failure to think toward the future and plan for it. Slothf

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We took last week off for the holiday weekend but we’re back this week to finish the Seven Deadly Sins series. Remember we did this one before, but it’s been a couple of years. This blog gives a quick summary of all seven sins and some examples of how to use them.

The Seven Deadly Sins (this link) in Roman Catholic theology, are the seven vices that spur other sins and further immoral behavior. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the 6th century and elaborated in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The sins are:

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

Like I said, we’ve done these before (episodes 151-157), but it’s been a while and this time we’re going to sharpen the focus on the sins as potential stakes-raising behaviors.

This week’s focus is Gluttony. What do we know about gluttony? Let’s ask AI.

Gluttony is often associated with overeating, but it can also refer to overconsumption, such as drinking too much or bingeing on Netflix. A gluttonous character may prioritize their own pleasure and satisfaction over their health or responsibilities, and may struggle with self-control and moderation. A primary goal for the gluttonous is comfort, and they may seek an overabundance of any item that's pleasurable to achieve constant pampering.

Some examples of gluttony in literature include:

Beauty and the Beast: Gaston eats five dozen eggs every morning
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The mayor, Bruce Campbell, keeps getting fatter as he gets more corrupt
Jabba the Hut from Star Wars
Falstaff from Henry V

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It’s been the summer of the Seven Deadly Sins series. This blog gives a quick summary of all seven sins and some examples of how to use them.

The Seven Deadly Sins (this link) in Roman Catholic theology, are the seven vices that spur other sins and further immoral behavior. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the 6th century and elaborated in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The sins are:

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

What is wrath? Anger? Hate? Straight to the source, Christianity.com says this about wrath:

Wrath can be summarized as strong vengeful hatred or resentment. The warnings of wrath in Christianity arise from the consequences of vengeance in human relations. We can become consumed by rage and revenge to the point of acting irrationally and immorally. This is the wickedness of wrath and why it is included as a deadly sin.

Some books where wrath plays a critical role (link):

Lord of the Rings - Sauron - “evil scourge of Middle Earth” says enough
The Wonderful World of Oz - the Wicked Witch of the West sends all the things to kill Dorothy
The War of the Roses - a couple’s failed marriage turns into spite and wrath
The Godfather - Michael’s almost entirely motivated by wrath of the vengeance variety
Harry Potter - certainly Voldemort (Tom Riddle) but also Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius Black, and Severus Snape all act out of wrath
Bond books - specifically supervillain SPECTRE leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld (featured in three Bond novels and six films) is one wrathful guy—and arguably the most diabolical of all of Bond’s nemeses
Moby Dick - personifying wrath as vengeful God (i.e. nature) and Ahab’s tireless quest
Othello - we know the revenge, the manipulation but Iago’s actions come from a place of deep hatred for Othello, he weaponizes his hate
Stephen King gives us It and Carrie, both wrath-driven title characters

Wrath is a “sneaky” sin because it can simmer for years before a character takes action. It can also fuel microaggressions and show itself only in a slow drip, not a tornado invasion.

ProWriting Aid’s series on character traits is useful (we’ve used it the last two episodes). They list these as possible causes of anger or wrath (link):

Chronic stress or anxiety
Genetics or family history of anger issues
Feelings of injustice or unfair treatment
Inability to manage emotions effectively
Learned behavior from family or peers
Personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder
Frustration with life circumstances or feeling powerless
Traumatic experiences such as abuse or neglect
Substance abuse or addiction

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This blog gives a quick summary of all seven sins and some examples of how to use them. So reading it might mean you don’t need our seven episodes but how about come along for the ride anyway?

The Seven Deadly Sins (this link) in Roman Catholic theology, are the seven vices that spur other sins and further immoral behavior. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) in the 6th century and elaborated in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The sins are:

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

We’ve done these before (episodes 151–157), but it’s been a while and this time we’re going to sharpen the focus on the sins as potential stakes-raising behaviors.

This week’s focus is Greed. According to deadlysins.com “Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.”

In the Summa Theologiae, Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said Greed: “it is a sin directly against one’s neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them… it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man contemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.” (2, 118, ad 1)

According to SimplyCatholic.com:

Greed: the desire for and love of possessions. “Sin … is a failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods” (No. 1849).

The literary trope is the miser and some of the most well-known misers are (link) Silas Marner, Ebenezar Scrooge, and Shylock.

BUT, greed isn’t always about miserliness. Sometimes it’s about the accumulation of wealth or power (link).

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We once did an episode on the character’s core wound and what’s occurred to me lately in my reading is that the core wound makes a really good secret. Something the character isn’t willing to admit to himself.

Charlie started watching Ted Lasso and in a recent episode he told his wife she didn’t need to keep trying to be happy with him. He let her go. I think the secret he was keeping – and something that made him a really compelling character – is that he knew he couldn’t optimism his way out of that situation. He couldn’t believe his way through it. His core value – the power of positive thinking – doesn’t always work.

So, today’s topic: What secrets are your characters keeping? Which ones are really dangerous? Which ones aren’t?

Let’s start with why your character should be hiding something. This article suggests secrets can add tension to the story, can give your characters a chance to grow, and add depth and complexity to the story.

Where does the depth and complexity come from? The secret should be connected to the character’s goal. The depth comes in secondary and third-layer reasons for what they’re trying to do. Does the secret make it harder to achieve the goal? It can also add complexity to the mission if the secret affects the character in a certain way – does thinking of it make them sick? Make them sad?

When will the character come clean? Choosing the time to reveal the secret is critical. It should be a choice the character has to make – revealing the secret will move the plot in a specific direction.

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We’ve seen non-linear storytelling sometimes without knowing it. This article does a great job explaining what linear stories are:

In a linear narrative structure, the viewer finds it facile to comprehend the way the narrative is moving. This is mostly because the viewer is naturally fed with all the information required to process whatever is happening on screen.

And then explaining what non-linear stories do:

However in a non-linear narrative structure, the viewer has to use his head in order to connect the dots. Non linear narrative structures are usually adopted to build suspense, to create tension or generally to create a sense of mystery within the spectator. The most crucial aspect of a non-linear narrative structure is that the narrative does not adhere to the norms of a generalized method of storytelling. In other words, in a non-linear narrative structure, there is no hard and fast rule to strictly follow a chronology.

Some types of non-linear narratives:

Analepsis or a flashback – used to establish critical backstory, probably only used once or twice.
Zigzag – alternating between two different timelines, often for the compare/contrast (like The Godfather II) and sometimes to provide answers in one narrative with the exposition of another (like in Memento)
Prolepsis – or a flash forward, showing things that will happen in the future
Syllepsis – or grouping multiple characters or stories to tell parallel stories that eventually interconnect (think Love Actually) or have some adjacent ideas or characters
Retrograde – chronological storytelling in reverse chronological order – Mulholland Drive is an example, as is one story of The Last Five Years
Achrony – disconnected, disjointed, disorganized (like Inception) with no real connection between the order in which events occur and the order in which they’re told
Chronicle – events occur simultaneously but are told in no specific order (like Pulp Fiction) popular in disaster movies

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Since last episode we worked on non-linear, this week we’re on the linear conversation.

Linear Storytelling (from this link)

Linear storytelling, the conventional and time-tested approach, follows a chronological sequence. It presents events in a straightforward manner, adhering to a clear cause-and-effect progression. This structure provides a sense of order, enabling audiences to follow the narrative with ease. A classic example of linear storytelling is the hero’s journey, where the protagonist embarks on a transformative adventure that unfolds in a linear fashion, from initiation to resolution.

Advantages of Linear Storytelling (from this link)

Clarity: Linear storytelling offers a straightforward and easy-to-follow narrative structure. It provides clarity to the audience, allowing them to comprehend the story’s progression without confusion.
Emotional Buildup: The chronological sequence allows for a natural buildup of tension, emotion, and suspense. This gradual development creates a powerful emotional impact on the audience, drawing them deeper into the story.
Traditional Appeal: Linear storytelling aligns with the traditional storytelling format, making it a familiar and comforting experience for many audiences. It caters to a sense of expectation and satisfaction derived from a well-structured narrative.

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Have we ever done a show on May the 4th? Yes. Way back in 2019 we were 41 episodes into this journey and working through the hero’s journey (perfect timing) so we did a little May the Fourth be With You in that episode (link here).

So today we’re going to focus on Star Wars, not just sidebar it, and talk about worldbuilding (like this episode) and apprentice-mentor relationships (like this one) and writing in existing lore (like this episode).

So what is Star Wars? Here’s an entire YouTube channel dedicated to explaining Star Wars to you. With 4,028 videos. Yep.

The basics are - there’s a sith lord that wants to take over the galaxy and does and builds a strict and evil empire. What’s a sith? Someone extra powerful with the darkside of the force. What’s the Force? It’s an energy that lives in and all living things in the galaxy and it’s wielded like magic by the Jedi. Who are the Jedi? They’re knights meant to protect the galactic senate (the rule making body of a democratic republic) - a body of equal representation for every star system that is thrown over by the sith lord.

The story began for all of us in 1977 with Episode IV: A New Hope. In this movie, we meet Luke Skywalker, son of a deceased Jedi knight thrust into a hero’s journey.

We have a special guest in the studio this week, Hollie Whitener. They don’t give PhDs in Star Wars but if they did, this kid would be halfway there.

We’ll see where the conversation takes us. Everything is fair game.

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It’s the end of the term for me (Kasie) and so that time of year when I’m ruing the way I set up my class and how labor intensive all the grading is. I’m also fielding emails from students looking for a few more points and begging for higher grades. Sigh.

As such, I’ve had very little time for anything else although I did manage to take six more pages in the vampire rewrite to our writers’ group meeting on Wednesday. Slow progress there.

Didn’t have a topic for today. So I took to the internet to see if any writers were asking something magical we could unpack for a full hour. There’s a few here but mostly it’s one shot and done. So it’s a GRAB BAG week.

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So Rex has been hired to help someone build a new Dungeons & Dragons game. As Gamemaster, he has some specific responsibilities. Maybe he can tell us about them? The game’s owner needs to organize himself and his resources and this is an experience we’re all familiar with.

So today we’re talking about some major projects and the general (and specific) tools and techniques for organizing them.

Examples of major projects that we’ve worked on:

A novel
A short story collection
A podcast
An anthology
A website
A book launch

Some common themes and questions to ask:

What is the purpose of the project?
Who is the target audience?
How will I reach that audience?
What resources do I need to accomplish this?
What resources do I already have?

Some common barriers:

What do I not know about the work I’ll have to do?
How much time do I have available to allocate to this project?
What are my deadlines?
What do I need to get from others and how long will they have to complete their parts?

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After we fully explained beginnings last week and kept coming up with the benign suggestions of “make it interesting” and “show don’t tell” we figured we ought to dive deeper into the bricks of the “show” universe. Those bricks are adjectives and they’re used to describe nouns and pronouns.

Adjectives are modifiers. They modify a noun to make it more specific. House becomes tiny house. Cat becomes lazy cat. Grandfather becomes grumpy old man. Full explanation here.

So when should a writer use them? Like all things, there’s a blog about that. Find it here. But in general, here’s the suggested guidelines:

Brevity - don’t over do it. In drafts sometimes we’ll have two adjectives and then revise it to one or none. If the noun can get the job done, it doesn’t need the adjective.
Specificity – be specific about what you’re describing. The adjective should do the work of narrowing the reader’s WIDE imagination into the very specific image you want to impart.

Types of adjectives:

Telly – informing or surmising such as “She was angry.” in which case, we see the summation of her emotion as ‘angry’ instead of the symptoms of that emotion like a glare, narrowed eyes, or some other indicator of rage.
Showy – dramatize or activate the noun such as “The drink was fizzy and cheerful.” You might just say “The drink fizzed cheerfully.” to replace the weak “to be” verb, but either way “fizzy” is a pretty descriptive word.
Overwriting – applying multiple adjectives like “he London bus was big, red, and smelled of lentils.” We know it’s big and red, it’s London. The interesting part is its smell but if the sentence read “big, red, and smelly” we wouldn’t really know what it smelled of, would we?

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It’s been a couple of years since we dealt with first lines and opening pages and in our revision efforts, we only just touched on where the story should begin and how many times we’ve rewritten Page 1.

So today we’ll look at what makes a strong opening page, how to work through the opening scene in revision, and whether you need to revisit that opening scene in subsequent pages or at the end (kiss the beginning as they say).

We’ve done this topic before, as mentioned, in Episode 94 way back in 2020 and again in Episode 171 but that was in January 2022. So we’ve learned a lot since then. Right?

This time, we’re going deeper in the rabbit hole. I’ve taken the links from our blog and clicked through their links. It’s very meta.

Let’s start with this “How to Start a Story: 10 Tips from Literary Editors” (we should have run these by Heather last week):

Start with something unexpected (they gave the 1984 example - clocks striking thirteen)
Start with a compelling image (leverage the 5 senses - what does it smell like here?)
Start in media res (we did a whole show on this) – get right to the action, just make sure your reader isn’t untethered from the character so much so they don’t care what’s happening no matter how exciting it is
Start with something short. An observation that makes us curious enough to read further.
Start with a question. But not a question, really, except that it makes the reader question or maybe the main character is questioning something.
Start with curiosity. Give enough to make the reader curious but don’t make it so cryptic they’re frustrated by it.
Start with building the world and the setting. If that setting is dynamic - a storm coming in, the coast after the storm has receded, the busy terminal of a train depot, etc. Or could a peaceful stroll through a quiet town interest a reader enough to keep reading?
Start with something new. So this is that insipid “be creative!” advice that we loathe, but the example of it: I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. Is actually more explanatory. It means to use your writing to say something that hasn’t often been said or to pose an unpopular opinion.
Start with tension that has room to grow. So, rather than the literal explosion, something intense that leaves room for the scene to grow or be revisited.
Start with something that will intoxicate your reader (I know, I know, ‘how?’). Remember your POV, put yourself in that position, share his/her experience in a way that draws the reader in.

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You’re on what version of this vampire novel? Tenth? Yikes. It’s called revision and it lasts an indeterminate amount of time. What to google to prepare for this conversation:

How many revisions does a novel need?
How long does revising a novel take?
What is a reasonable revision schedule?
What is a good revision process?
Where should someone begin when revising a novel?
Why does revision get such a bad rep?

The answers, of course, are 10, two weeks, every waking minute until it’s done, and beginning-to-end, repeat.

Only joking. Mostly. In truth, revision is as personal as writing and every writer does it differently. Show’s over. Joking again. We’ll unpack a few approaches and set some expectations and also explain what these different levels of revision actually are.

Revision - this is a holistic look at the story, characters, plot, etc. You’re re-visioning, seeing it again. This requires distance on the original creation of the thing.

Editing – this is the scene-by-scene paring down or pillowing out of the novel. Where do we get too much description of 17th century modes of travel and where could we use more description of the murder’s collared shirt?

Proofreading – this is grammar, punctuation, and if you’re a true stickler, it’s where you

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Let's talk about Dragon Boat racing first. What is this sport? Who does it? How does it work?

Why was Dragon Boat racing the right occupation for Tripp Avery? What is it about the challenge of Dragon Boat racing that requires more of Tripp than anything else he's done? He worked his way up from poverty to prosperity, became a 'someone' out of 'no one' roots, so how is Dragon Boat racing a different kind of challenge?

We all write what we know. Some of Tripp is some of Roger -- just as some of Brian Listo from After December is part of Kasie -- so how protective are you of Tripp as a character? I am fierce about Brian (flaws and all) so I imagine you're especially attached to Tripp. What made you decide to go first-person narrator with Tripp and put us in his head for the entire book?

Some of the book takes place in Charleston. A city you know well. What opportunities did setting the book there give you to celebrate (or maybe question?) Charleston as you know it? How important is setting to the story?

There are some great characters and relationships in this book. Among them are Amy, Tripp's wife, with whom he has a special bond celebrated through their mutual love of flowers. Amy is the one who encourages Tripp to coach the Dragon Boat in Beaufort. It's a devastating loss in a previous coaching life that makes Tripp reluctant to compete with such fragile athletes. How important is Amy's encouragement to get Tripp to take another risk like coaching the Dragon Boat? What does she know about Tripp that he doesn't know (or believe) about himself?

Tripp questions (in Chapter 12) if his commitment to the Dragon Boat work is his own love of turning underdogs into champions. There's a kind of selfishness to the undertaking, which he seems acutely aware of, and which he battles with throughout. In his "pep talk" he reminds the athletes that cancer is not an excuse and warns we will not allow them to humiliate themselves or each other by not giving all they have to the undertaking. What is it about a cancer diagnosis that brings this kind of determination to the front of any character?

The Final Victory is a difficult book, one that looks at mortality with eyes wide open and challenges readers to make the best of every minute they've been given in this life. Said one reader, "I had to put it down for a while." The journey for Tripp and his boat mates may hit a little close to home. But through its grief and triumph, the spirit of the novel is to be encouraging, to be certain good things can come from bad circumstances. Buy it local here.

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So two weeks ago, we talked about basic outlines and discussed the turning point method versus the beats method for figuring out the structure of the story. Then last week we went into the 3 Act Structure and basically whined about Aristotle.

In searching for 3 Act Structure resources, I found this link gives us 11 basic structures:

The Fichtean Curve
The Three Act Structure
The Hero's Journey
Freytag's Pyramid
The Five Act Structure
Save the Cat Beats
The Snowflake Method
Dan Harmon's Story Circle
The Seven Point Story Structure
The Story Spine
In Media Res

and OMG there’s some NAMED types here. So we’re doing that today.

I guess if you make the shit up, you get to name it. So let’s unpack Fichtean, Freytag, and San Harmon this week.

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It’s been more than a year since we studied plot arcs and even then we didn’t grab the recordings and add them to our podcast service. So we’re reviving those conversations for a few weeks to get some good episodes for the podcast.

Missed a week of Write On SC? Nostalgic for those oldy-but-goody topics? Check out our podcast library on Apple, Google, and Amazon.

ProWritingAid’s take on this story arc conversation can be found here. But here are some notable highlights:

Stasis. This is the current situation you find your main character in.
Trigger. This is an inciting event that changes the course for your main character.
Quest. The trigger results in a quest for your main character to achieve a goal.
Surprise. These are complications that prevent your main character from achieving his goal.
Critical Choice. This is when your main character chooses what path to take and confronts the obstacles.
Climax. The critical choice results in the climax, the peak of tension in your story.
Reversal. Your character is changed in some way.
Resolution. The story ends with a satisfactory closure.

These are high-level plot points. The Save the Cat beat sheet is more detailed:

(15-beat structure of Save the Cat!)

Opening image – catapult your audience into the story
Theme stated – what is this story about?
Set-up – includes the “old” world or the regular world, how things are before the disruption; establish place, characters, and hint at conflict
Catalyst or inciting incident – disrupt the status quo, but protagonist isn’t in it quite yet
Debate – will they or won’t they? What’s at stake? Should the protagonist get in this fight?
Break into two – the clear choice between the protagonist’s options and the choice gets made
B story – whatever subplot you have planned should commence here
Fun and games – protagonist learns new tricks, advances in new skills, starts to figure stuff out
Midpoint – this may be a realization, may be a complication, may be the end of the escape hatch
Bad guys close in – something has happened that brings the danger closer
All is lost – the inevitable moment where the protagonist realizes this is just too hard (impossible!)
Dark night of the soul – protagonist has actually lost hope
Break into three – character claws around looking for options and trying to salvage the mission, possibly having to overcome some deep fear or damning belief
Finale – character synthesizes what they’ve learned and applies the solution to the problem
Final image – leave the reader/audience seeing/feeling the theme of the story

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We did some revision work last week and didn't get to this part of the show notes. So here we go, a whole episode on what would have been one segment last week. ::wideeyedemoji::

So how is it actually done? Well, here’s the link explaining what Six Pass Plan among others:

The Framework Pass
The Story Pass
The Plot/Scene Pass
The Feedback Pass
The Writing Pass
The Tweaking Pass

These aren’t really after-the-fact at all. They’re in fact a process for drafting and revising. The Framework Pass is actually the discovery of the novel, your first pass at it where you build in the basics of the plot, characters, setting, etc. You might try different points of view how the story will be told, distance from the narrator, that kind of stuff here.

The Story Pass is still big-picture stuff, only it’s not writing stuff (like POV), it’s story stuff like character motivation and plot holes.

The Scene Pass is where you examine each and every scene for its impact on the novel and its fitness or rightness for the overall book. Don’t skip this step, this is where you really tighten up your writing and find those lackluster or lagging places.

The Feedback Pass is where you give the novel to others to respond. This is usually after the beta readers have rendered their mark ups and you are incorporating their feedback or making their suggested changes. Did you notice how the first draft wasn’t given to readers yet?

The last two passes – Writing Pass and Tweaking Pass – are you going through to edit the writing. Sentence structure, repetition, phrasing and length of paragraph and chapter. The tweaking pass may be spellcheck, grammar, and punctuation, too.

Next week, we have areal editor joining us to talk ab

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So last week we talked about basic outlines and discussed the turning point method versus the beats method for figuring out the structure of the story.

We debated whether or not to write from a detailed outline in the initial draft – it provides direction, it stifles creativity – the age-old debate of planner vs. pantser. In any case, we agreed the outline is useful for knowing the trajectory of the characters and the plot.

Which brings us to the common structures for a piece. This link gives us 11 basic structures:

The Fichtean Curve
The Three Act Structure
The Hero's Journey
Freytag's Pyramid
The Five Act Structure
Save the Cat Beats
The Snowflake Method
Dan Harmon's Story Circle
The Seven Point Story Structure
The Story Spine
In Media Res

We covered the Save the Cat beats last week and the Seven Point Story Structure is basically the turning point structure. So this week we’ll look at the 3 and 5 act structures and then tackle some of the others next week.

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We’ve spent a few weeks on the various plot structures available and basically been working off this resource that gives us 11 basic structures:

The Fichtean Curve
The Three Act Structure
The Hero's Journey
Freytag's Pyramid
The Five Act Structure
Save the Cat Beats
The Snowflake Method
Dan Harmon's Story Circle
The Seven Point Story Structure
The Story Spine
In Media Res

We’re now down to numbers 5, 7, 9 and 10, leaving out 11 because we covered it here and three because that deserves a point-by-point breakdown which we gave here and here and here. Though it’s been a few years, so we might go back to it..

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Is there any more arbitrary experience than Groundhog Day? It’s a day when an entire town lets a rodent predict the future. Or the weather anyway. Several questions:

Is there any other profession besides weatherman insulted by the insinuation that an animal could do it as well or better than them?
Is there any other animal with psycho abilities equal to the groundhog (who, by the way, is wrong like 80% of the time)?
Is there any other tradition that is so meaningless and yet has persisted this long?

The answer to all of these questions is yes. Because humans are not always very smart.

Let’s start with animals who predict the future: before meteorologists we humans needed to know if it would rain and stuff and we relied on the animals’ superior senses (this link):

Cows lie down and dogs eat grass before it rains
Woolly bear caterpillars have less color before a cold spell
Oak leaves reach a certain size (a squirrel’s ear) and that’s when it’s time to plant corn
Migrant birds can hear the undetectable to humans infrasound that indicates a storm on the way
Cows, sheep, and dogs have all been recorded as having hyperactivity before an earthquake.

But it’s not just the weather, animals have senses about other things, too:

Oscar the nursing home cat predicts the imminent death of patients and he’s persistent - he’ll scratch at a door to be let in and stay with the ailing—dying—until they're gone.
Paul the octopus has predicted eight world cup champions from his aquarium in Germany (link) then he died
Sonny Wool the sheep took up where he left off and predicted all of his home team’s matches in the 2011 Rugby World Cup
Jim the dog, though, is even more impressive: identifying hickory trees, identifying cars by color and license plate, predict the sex of unborn children, and pick individuals from a crowd. The Missouri state legislature even tested Jim to prove his abilities and he passed. (link)
Here’s an article of 20 other predictor animals (link)

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Couple of paired episodes last week and this one. Last week we took on first person narrators. Some good discussion (if I do say so myself) on collective first person (we, us) and the limitations of the first person narrator, including the establishment of unreliability.

This week we take on the other point of view (POV) – third person. This is all those stories with the “he she they” characters. Increasingly we see a desire for “close” third so we’ll unpack that and help you identify third person when you see it.

BUT FIRST! Next week is listener appreciation week and we’ll be joined in studio by a couple of fans of us and the show. Our moms! Well, it’s Rex’s mom and my mother-in-law but she’s been my Mama for 20+ years so we’ll call her mom, too. If you want to weigh in on the show, complete this feedback form.

As always, Write On SC is grateful for the support of the South Carolina Writers Association. We have accepted the organization’s patronage this year and it’s helped us pay our bills and keep the lights on as they say. Thank you, SCWA for supporting the show and promoting our efforts to make better writers (and readers!) out of the audience on 100.7 The Point and our podcast audience, too.

Let’s get to it: What is a 3rd person narrator?

The narrator is the one telling the story and while sometimes the story is through the character’s eyes (1st person), a LOT of times, it’s more like a camera perched on one (or more) character’s shoulder observing what’s happening.

Back in Episode 83: Who’s Story is this Anyway? We talked about the different POVs. So we’ll borrow some from that. That was during COVID so we mighta been a little kooky. But then, before that, in Episode 56, way back in 2019, we also talked about this POV thing. So we’ll borrow some from then, too. I even did this was back on Episode 3 with my cousin Preston, who, not for nothin, now has a PhD in Literature and teaches out at Stanford. Back then I think he was still an undergrad.

So the primary advantage of third person is distance. Imagine reading all of Harry Potter’s books living in that kid’s head. Yikes. Third person lets the narrator tell the story, follow the character, but keep enough distance that we’re not bogged down with the internal monologue of our (likely) troubled protagonist.

What are some books that do a good third person?

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So we’ve been working on perspectives of the narrator the last few weeks and at the end of each episode we talked about how to choose. But today I thought we’d do something fun by imagining some pretty famous (well known) stories from someone else’s perspective.

Segment 1

But first! We have two very special guests in the studio this morning. Let’s introduce them and talk about how they’ve supported us and the show.

Segment 2/3

What is perspective? It’s the lens through which we view the story. Most of us are the hero in our own story and that’s true for fiction, too. Many of our villains don’t think they’re bad, they’re just doing what they need to do, what they feel called to do. Think of the retelling of The Karate Kid from Johnny’s perspective – this punk kid moves in from out of town and starts challenging everything. Ruining his senior year.

So, what about some of these stories:

Star Wars from the perspective of the Empire, or from Leia’s perspective
Gone With the Wind from Melanie’s point of view, or from Ashley’s perspective
Harry Potter as told by Neville Longbottom – this is actually a fan fic
Goonies and Home Alone from the villains’ perspectives
The Incredibles from Frozone’s perspective
Rocky from Adrienne’s perspective

Or these Christmas stories:

A Christmas Story from the mom’s perspective
How the Grinch Stole Christmas from the perspective of the Whos in Whoville or Max the dog
A Christmas Carol from Tiny Tim’s perspective

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Our first conversation about film adaptations of books happened way back in August 2019 with episodes 54 & 55 – we talked so much we had to continue it out the next week. But yesterday was National Screenwriters’ Day and so I delivered my five inimitable screenwriters on the morning show:

Tina Fey — Mean Girls, 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live
The Coen brothers — The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, o Brother Where Art Thou, and Fargo
Julius J. And Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch — Casablanca
Greta Gerwig — The Barbie Movie, Ladybird
Aaron Sorkin — The West Wing, The Newsroom

Only the Casablanca crew was working from source material, and that was a play. The others were written for the screen, specifically.

So what about that category at the Oscars of “best adaptation” – what makes adapting harder (is it?) than creating for the screen?

Last April we visited specifically the adaptations process with Episode 228 with the focus on the origin of the story. And today we’re going to expound upon that with the craft of bringing the book alive with some great ones and some terrible ones.

For example, what’s the difference between Wonka as played by Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp? They both have the same source material. So why are these interpretations so different?

I just watched Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. which was a Judy Blume novel in the 70s and became a cool retro look at teenage-ish girls 50 years later.

There’s a great line in Entourage (I think) where Jeremy Piven’s character says something to the effect of, “if screenwriting is hard, why do Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have Oscars?”

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So we’re in the middle of the “Must Read” challenge and Rex has completed 50% of the recommended texts and Kasie has completed 0%. How should we punish her for not doing her homework?

But really, why we’re here this week is to celebrate the new version of Road House being advertised. Haven’t seen the trailer? Here it is.

So, should old(er) movies be “rebooted” or remade into modern versions? Today we’ll take on the debate.

Assigned talking points:

Rex – the classics: what old movies have been re-made that are better in their original form? (mostly Kasie and Hollie will listen and nod because we won’t have seen most of these)
Hollie – the animated/live action travesty – why does every story need at least two versions?
Kasie – why is it okay to try to re-vise (re-vision) the same story - Shakespearean upgrades, etc.

Feels like we won’t need much more than these prompts, but if you’re interested in links to th relevant arguments, we’ll add those after the show.

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Apologies for last week’s aborted episode. We’ll be coming back together with Nick Roberts. He’s a cool dude and he took Kasie’s BIG mistake in stride. So thanks, Nick Roberts, let us know how we can support you and promote you. See you December 2nd!

So it’s Spooky Season and we’d normally dive head first into the ghoulish stuff but it’s also the two weeks leading up to NaNoWriMo and so we’re going to run a back-to-back prep sesh for the frenzy that is NaNo.

One plug for the ghoulish stuff: Halloween night (10/31) we’ll be at the British Bulldog Pub for a Noir at the Bar event brought to you by Raegan Teller and Chris Errol Maw of “Words and Wine” notoriety. The readers are Bonnie Stanard, Cathy Blake, Irene Stern, Kasie Whitener, AJ Brown, Paula Benson, Raegan Teller, and Phil Lenski. The program begins at 6 p.m. but Kasie should be there by about 5:30 if ya’ll wanna come have a pint.

So let’s break down this NaNoWriMo thing. What is it? National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Get their origin story here. They’re a non-profit of volunteers supporting writers and would-be authors and claim to have had a hand in books like Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and Marisa Meyer’s Cinder – both kick-ass novels. Highly recommend.

In any case, it requires that participants create a profile online and then climb into the driver’s seat and start pumping out the words. And in Rex’s opinion deliver a steaming hot pile of garbage in thirty days. I’m not going to disagree since my first NaNo project is the vampire novel I’m still re-writing six years later.

Last year 51,670 participants completed the challenge. So imagine all those authors working through revisions and eventually querying and publishing those books. That’s a LOT of books!

More importantly, the NaNo legacy is the eternal debate between the planners and the pantsers and that’s a topic we’ve taken on before in Episode 172 back in January 2022 and again earlier this year as we talked about Aging Into Plannerhood in Episode 226.

But today we’re going to compare and contrast the two as a way of delivering best practices and then next week, we’re going to share our plans for the NaNoWriMo challenge – new novels we plan to produce in November. Seriously.

If you think we’re exaggerating on how pervasive this debate is, check out this book written specifically on how to turn pantsers into planners.

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It’s week 2 of our NaNoWriMo boot camp and we’re just four days away from the kickoff of the frenzy of writing that is NaNo. So today we’re going to talk about what you should be doing, what you can expect from the month and whether this whole kerfuffle is worth it.

NaNoWriMo for anyone who missed last week is National Novel Writing Month and it’s facilitated by this website and the non-profit that supports it.

When did you first hear of NaNo? Have you ever done it?

The first step is to register, it’s free. The second step is to create the project. You’ll need a name (it’s a working title) and a word count goal. The site recommends 50,000 words. That’s how you “win.”

Why do it? Commit to a daily grind - write every day is advice frequently given by very prolific writers. Let’s unpack “Write Every Day” – what are the benefits? Certainly speed. When I was blogging everyday I could draft a 500 word blog in 15 minutes.

Another reason for NaNo – find writers in your area or online (in your genre?) to connect with and share the experience. This is an online challenge but local write-ins are organized, too. Columbia WriMos have a Discord Server and schedule meet-ups around town. Here’s the Discord link but not it’ll expire in 7 days so if you click it and it doesn’t work, it’s old. You’ll want to join ColaWriMos on the NaNo website and the lead will send you an active Discord link.

They’re also using Facebook, so search ColaWriMos there and you should be able to find the full events listing. Write-ins are fun if for no other reason than to not write alone. I usually end up saying “hi” and then putting my earphones in because for real people use it as a chance to talk about the book they’re supposed to be writing.

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We’ve had the last three weeks to do something other than this on Saturday mornings and I gotta say, this is a better use of my time (laughing emoji).

November 4th was Storyfest and that was awesome.

November 11th was the SC Libertarian Party state convention and that was interesting.

November 18th Kasie went Clemsoning.

So we’re back here, live on November 25th and we’ve decided to challenge one another to read better books. Really we just want to have read some of the same books. Longtime listeners know we have a few go-tos: Gone With the Wind, The Great Gatsby, Star Wars. But other references are a little one-sided.

So we’ve decided in 2024 to get on the same page with at least 12 books. So I’ll challenge Rex to 6 and he’ll challenge me to 6. Today’s show we reveal what those books will be. Should be fun.

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So we have a couple of things to catch up on first. Two weeks ago was HorrorCON. How did that go?

Our dear friend and writing group lead, Ginny Padgett passed away on September 11th. So we’d like to take a moment to honor Ginny and talk about her influence on us.

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In August, we talked about antagonists and their impact on the protagonist’s pursuit of his own objectives. Check episodes 241 and 242 for details. In thinking about all the elements of a successful plot, I considered taking us down the “plot arcs” road again since our shows from last December on those topics do not have recordings available for them. But I wanted to make sure we do those one after the next and since it’s football season, we’re on an every-other-week rhythm here right now.

So, that said, we’ll keep looking at plot elements until we can get back to the plot types and arcs. Today’s element is conflict.

Primary conflict
Secondary conflict
Adjacent conflicts.

We did conflict about a year ago. Check out that episode here.

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Couple of paired episodes this week and next. The 1st POV and the 3rd POV to finish off the craft part of the year. Then we’ll have a listener appreciation episode, with a very special patron of the show live in the studio. If you’ve got thoughts to share with us, fill out THIS FORM and tune in on the 23rd to see if we read your responses on the air.

Special thanks to the South Carolina Writers Association for supporting Write On SC all year long. We’re grateful to them and glad to promote the SCWA as the place to go to improve your own writing, learn more about the craft and publishing, and join a community of writers here in South Carolina. Learn more at myscwa.org.

Borrowing some from Episode 56 (can you believe it’s been that long ago?): There are basically three kinds of narrative perspective: first, second, and third person. Some of the more interesting versions include collective first (“we”) and epistle second person (letters) and omniscient third (all-knowing).

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In August we attempted a series on characters: Episode 240 was about the protagonist. Episode 241 was about the antagonist and Episode 242 was, too. Last week we were off to assist SCWA with their one-day Indie Author Camp and that was too much fun. We’d promised we’d do best friends and love interests and longtime listeners might think, “haven’t ya’ll done that?” and the answer is yes, kind of.

In Episode 100 (way back in June 2020 – COVID anyone?) we talked about Romantic Subplots and in Episode 159Catherine Peace made her first appearance and we talked about romance as a genre and in Episode 160, we added Ella Shawn to the mix and the three of us giggled through all the subgenres of romance.

And in Episode 98 (also way back in 2020) we talked about the role of the best friend and in Episode 131 just six months later we talked about why you have to kill the best friend character. We hit that topic again in Episode 214 earlier this year when we advised our friend Abby to kill one of her characters off.

So why do it again?

Because best friends and love interests are NOT the protagonist or the antagonist (except in romance working the friends-to-lovers trope). They are supporting characters who can do a variety of things:

Complicate the plot - make it harder for the protagonist to choose to pursue his goal
Offer encouragement to the protagonist – prop them up, cheer them on
Serve as a foil – show what the protagonist is not i.e. impulsive, cowardly, or ruthless
Prove the protagonist is likable – the thing about friends is, they teach strangers that we can be trusted, that we have redeeming qualities; in a story like After December, Brian’s friends tell the reader that people like him and if we don’t because we’re in his head, that’s less because he’s actually a jerk and more because he’s showing us who he really is.
Give the protagonist something to lose – Raise the stakes! When the best friend disapproves or the love interest is in danger, the protagonist has to make a tough choice

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Let’s talk through some frequently asked questions about best friends:

Do they / should they have their own character arc?
1. Yes examples - Hermione Granger, Samwise Gamgee
2. No examples - Melanie Hamilton, Goose, Sam in Casablanca
Should they support the protagonist?
1. Yes examples - Ron Weasley (until he defects in the last book), Kit from Knight Rider, Nick Carraway (doesn’t question Gatsby)
2. No examples - Watson to Holmes, Mercutio to Romeo
Should they challenge the protagonist?
1. Yes - The Last Starfighter - Centauri challenges Alex to become a Starfighter, so does Grig, Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; Charlotte Lucas to Elizabeth Bennett in P&P George Knightly to Emma Woodhouse in Emma
2. No - Tin Man, Lion, Scarecrow to Dorothy
Should they betray the protagonist - especially if the protagonist is in the wrong?
1. Yes - Neville Longbottom is a tattle tale; Benedick tricks Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing because Claudio humiliated Hero under false accusations
2. No - Iago betrays Othello because he’s jealous and in that way becomes the enemy of the protagonist; Edmund betrays his siblings by going to the witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Fredo betrays Michael Corleone because he feels he’s not getting what he deserves.

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Does the antagonist always have to lose? (link)

What about the mutual satisfaction ending?

Plot-by-role discussion of the antagonist at this link.

Early (the hook) - the antagonist has their own thing, not really engaged with or concerned about the protagonist
Inciting incident - the protagonist’s choice puts them in conflict with the antagonist’s goal; the antagonist may still be unaware of the protagonist’s goal, but their paths are converging rapidly now
Plot Point 1 - if the two haven’t met (and they might not for a while) at the very least, there are proxies setting up challenges on behalf of the antagonist that interfere with the protagonist’s goal
First Pinch Point - the protagonist should feel at this point the impact of the antagonist’s conflicting efforts; should feel the presence and power of the antagonist as a force working against the protagonist; the antagonist should make some sort of move against the protagonist here

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First, Kasie finally got around to that whole cache of recordings and put them all up on Simplecast through June 30th. July to come. It starts here with “The Write Stuff” from last fall. (I know. I told you it had been a while).

In August, we’re doing a series. We haven’t done this for a few months. We’re focusing on Characters this month:

Protagonist (8/5)
Antagonist (8/12)
Best friends & love interests (8/19)

To recap the protagonist, s/he’s one of these four types:

Hero / heroine – achieves things because of their own means
Antihero – lacks the qualities found in the hero, distinctly unlike the hero
Villain – unequivocally the bad guy – The Joker, Joe Exotic The Tiger King
Supporting protagonist – less common than other types, when the story is told from the minor role’s perspective – Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby

And has these 10 attributes:

Has a problem that needs solving
Has the ability to act
Has reasons to act
Has something to lose
Has something to gain
Has the capacity to change
Has a compelling quality
Has an interesting flaw
Has a secret
Has someone or something trying to stop them

If your protagonist doesn’t have all of those things figured out, better get revising.

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Welcome to special guest, Nick Roberts. Nick Roberts is a native West Virginian and a graduate of Marshall University. He is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and the Horror Authors Guild. His short works have been published in various magazines and anthologies. His novel, Anathema, won Debut Novel of the Year at the 2020-2021 Horror Authors Guild Awards. His second novel, The Exorcist’sHouse, was released in 2022, and his It Haunts the Mindcollection in 2023–both by Crystal Lake Publishing. Upcoming work includes the novels Mean Spirited and The Exorcist's House: Genesis. He currently resides in South Carolina with his wife and three children and is an advocate for people struggling with substance use disorders.

Importance of the Protagonist

Something unique to horror stories is that there is an unusually large difference in power between the antagonist and protagonist, and this imbalance is present right from the very beginning.

Because the antagonist is so much more powerful than the protagonist, the protagonist's motivation needs to be clear, it needs to be compelling, and it needs to be readily understandable to your audience. It doesn’t matter if the protagonist’s motivation to pit herself against the monster is selfish (she doesn’t want to die) or selfless (she doesn’t want her daughter to die).

What elements make the most compelling horror protagonist? Does weakness in a character allow the reader to become more immersed in the horror?

Is the protagonist in horror simply a vehicle for us to see the antagonist? To experience his horror from a safe distance? Is it okay not to be interested in the protagonist at all?

Some have said the best horror protagonists have a downward spiral.

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Last month we jumped around a bit – special guests, time travel, the mentor character. It was all pretty self-serving. Rex went on vacay so I brought my friends on.

In August, we’re going to try for a series. We haven’t done this for a few months. We’re focusing on Characters this month:

Protagonist (8/5)
Antagonist (8/12)
Best friends & love interests (8/19)

The protagonist in the story is (link) the character who drives the action and whose outcome matters most. Emotional heart of the narrative and central to the conflict of the story.

Good protagonist examples:

Luke Skywalker
Scarlett O’Hara
Officer Brodie (Jaws)
Frodo
Rocky Balboa
Will Turner (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Clarice Starling
Elizabeth Bennett
Sarah Connor (T2)

Is the protagonist also the hero? (link) not necessarily.

Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver)
Anakin Skywalker
Micheal Corleone
The Punisher
Jack Reacher
Wanda Maximoff (WandaVision Disney+) – has a heroic redemption
Jack Torrance (The Shining)

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Today’s special guest is Heather Harris-Bergevin, an author whose business, Barrow Editing, is based in Columbia, South Carolina. She, her three children, two cats, and a happy pitbull spend most of their time fighting entropy. Her own poetry books are published with By Common Consent Press, and she has an upcoming children's picture book with Lucky Rabbit Press, based in Columbia, SC.

It's been said that copy editors are the "first readers" as well as the “last line of defense” – they approach a text not from the point of view of the writer, but the reader. They are advocates for the readers; they are "quality control" for the publication.

Agree, disagree, or both?
Why should a new writer hire an editor?
What misconceptions do most writers have about editors?
How you define a draft? Many of our listeners think this means rewriting the entire manuscript from scratch.

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A debut novelist, Roger Jones, author of The Final Victory, joined Kasie and Rex in the studio on January 20, 2024.

Welcome to the studio, Roger Jones. The Final Victory is set to be released April 30th and is available for pre-order now on Amazon.

The Final Victory follows Tripp Avery, a prominent businessman whose life gets disrupted by a cancer diagnosis. Tripp decides, during the peak of his battle with cancer to coach a mixed masters dragon boat on its way to the national championships. While the rowers work through their own cancer battles, personal lives, and identity crises, Tripp finds himself pushing himself and everyone else to overcompensate for being dealt a bad hand.

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In Tuesday’s Summer Series session on marketing, a writer asked how she could protect her idea at pitchfest. She was going to share it with agents and publishers and didn’t want them to steal it or give it to another writer.

Interestingly, the same thing had JUST come up on an episode of Suits which Charlie is watching and I’m giving one ear/one eye to when I’m between songs on Spotify or stories on my kindle. In the episode, a writer wanted to sue the bookstore/publisher she worked for because she had shared an idea with her boss and her boss had shared the idea with an established author. That author then wrote the book and the publisher and store was selling the book. The writer, a clerk at the store, claimed she’d had other ideas that the publisher took as well.

When the clerk first told the lawyer this story, I responded, “Write the book. The idea doesn’t count until it’s written.”

Anyway, the story went on with the lawyer trying to help the clerk only to finally turn on her saying, that same idea could have been any one of these titles and present her with a stack of books. The point? Ideas are nothing. It’s the work of writing the actual story that counts.

So, after delivering this same advice to the woman on the Summer Series session I said, “Have you written the book?” She said no. I said, “Don’t pitch. Don’t query. Go somewhere and write that book. Then query and pitch. No one pays for ideas. They pay for finished books.”

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Full show notes including links to both books on the blog here.

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Full show notes out on the blog here.

Joining me in the studio today is Dr. Anna Courie, an Army wife, nurse, corporate social responsibility officer, and author of six titles. Anna’s 20+ years in the healthcare field include experience in public and private sector health promotion. Anna is a graduate of Clemson University, the University of Wyoming, and Ohio State University. In her spare time, she consults in public health, facilitates retreats, writes books, and blogs for Living Compass Ministries, Christ Walk, 50 Days of Fabulous, Earth and Altar, and Lent Madness. Anna loves her family, Clemson football, traveling, reading and hiking. Home is wherever the Army (and God) sends her.

Let’s talk about what Anna’s been up to recently. Whether there are any new book ideas on the horizon. How the changes happening in her personal and professional life are sending her to the page to write or keeping her from that creative space. We’ll just riff a bit with Anna cuz she’s my bud and I think a really cool person to hang out with.

We’ve done the 7 Basic Plots before (March 2022) so we’re just going to quick review it and then deep dive on the ones Anna’s most interested in.

So this comes from the book by Christopher Booker which was basically his opus. It was the culmination of his career studying literature, and, honestly, is a pretty comprehensive list. So a couple of caveats:

It’s a list of basics which means they’re not all encompassing and there are certainly exceptions.
It’s an attempt to generalize which means they’re open for interpretation.

Here are the 7 Basic Plots:

Overcoming the Monster
Rags to Riches
The Quest
Voyage and Return
Comedy
Tragedy
Rebirth

Too general to be useful? Helpful in terms of a general outline for setting (and meeting) expectations?

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This week I’m joined by Paul Davis, prize-winning journalist and Brown University grad. As a freelance writer and reporter, he has written for large and small newspapers from the Tampa Tribune to The New York Times. At the Providence Journal, he chaired the newspaper’s in-house writing committee. He won awards for his stories about the homeless, New England’s struggling fishermen, the Narragansett Indians and the working poor. The Journal submitted his seven-part series on the Rhode Island-South Carolina-West Africa slave trade for a Pulitzer Prize. Paul’s also our SCWA Vice President and chair of the Events & Education committee which is responsible for the upcoming Fall 2023 Storyfest event (more on that later).

Ash Smith, another SCWA Board member with a BFA in creative and professional writing. Ash is currently are working on their first novel. We met at the Fall 2022 Pawley’s Island Conference for SCWA and were fast friends. Ash has served with the Membership Committee in the capacity of outreach at events including Charleston’s AtomaCON in April and Columbia Writers’ Alliance’s Literary Arts Festival in May. As with most volunteer positions, once is never enough and everytime I’ve asked Ash to serve, they’ve stepped forward with enthusiasm. So thanks, both of you for being here.

We’re going to talk a LOT about Storyfest and what it is and how people can learn more and get registered.

Full show notes out on the blog here.

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get the full notes on the blog here.

Last week’s episode on war was so rich, I’m glad to continue the conversation this week with author Jerry Dean Pate, a former journalist in print and radio media turned novelist of historical fiction. Pate’s first novel, Plagued by Bad Beliefs was published with friend of the show Alexa Bigwarfe through Write|Publish|Sell. We’ll talk about the novel, the origins of the story, the rigor of historical fiction, and the choice to indie publish the book.

Here’s a little bit about Jerry Dean Pate

Here’s a synopsis (and BUY link!) for the novel

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Get the full show notes on the blog here.

So last week we did “conflict” and this week we’re turning it up to 11 with War which, as you might imagine, is extremeconflict.

Don’t miss adjacent episodes on raising the stakes and “White Knuckle Scenes” which address the concept of “tension” in fiction and our first “conflict” conversation way back on episode 10.

Last week we told you that conflict, according to this resource from Oregon State, means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire. It’s when a character wants something, but something else gets in the way.”

Today we’re going to take War as extreme conflict and work out what they do to the narrative in three specific capacities:

As setting (or backdrop)
As primary conflict (this story is about the war or violence itself)
As exposition (it happened before the story but the residue is still here)

A few years ago, World War II novels were all anyone was publishing and I (Kasie) read WWII in every theater on the globe:

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (San Francisco)
All the Light We Cannot See (Normandy/coastal France)
The Postmistress (Cape Cod)
Five Quarters of the Orange (French countryside)
The Orphan’s Tale (Western Europe)
Sarah’s Key (Paris)
Wildflower Hill (Australia)
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (Shanghai)
The House at Tyneford (England)
The Bronze Horseman (St Petersburg)
Atonement (England)

It felt like the only thing worth writing about was the stories surrounding World War II and I think the compulsion was that so many people who’d lived through the conflict were passing away. In any case, the “theaters” of war were many – the Pacific, the East Coast, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Great Britain. There wasn’t a place on earth that the war didn’t touch. I haven’t read any novels about Canada or South America during that period, but I’m sure there are some.

In any case, what was it that made WWII so compelling? Even Outlander jumps off from WWII before plunging back into the Scottish rebellion of the Jacobites in the 1740s. People were changed, irrevocably, by WWII.

And that – irrevocable change – is the reason war is a compelling topic for stories.

Read more on the blog.

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Get the full show notes on the blog here.

We did an episode on raising the stakes and one on “White Knuckle Scenes” back in October of last year. And when I texted you and asked, “What should we talk about tomorrow?” you (Rex) said, “tention.” Leaving off that “tention” is a misspelled version of “tension” I assumed you meant how to create drama, conflict, or action in the scene.

So we’re going to work on that today: how to make the scene interesting by building the conflict. Because, while we did the tension thing a year ago, we haven’t done “conflict” since episode 10.

Conflict, according to this resource from Oregon State, basically means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire. It’s when a character wants something, but something else gets in the way.”

In the broadest terms, there are 7 types of conflict (link):

Character vs. characters
Character vs. society
Character vs. nature
Character vs. technology
Character vs. supernatural
Character vs. fate
Character vs. self

At the scene level, these conflicts play out in dialogue and action, and drive the plot forward.

Read more on the blog.

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Get the full show notes on the blog here.

We have done character episodes before. Early on, we did Despicable Characters, Archetypes, Names, and how to Be Mean to Your Characters. Then, more recently, Do you Have to Like the Main Character? and giving them agency, diversity, patriarchy, and arcs.

So we might have done it all. Except we haven’t. We haven’t done origins – where do characters come from? And we haven’t done values – what do your characters believe in? And we haven’t done sketches – how do you get to know these characters before you write them?

As an admitted pantser (Kasie) and an evolving planner (Rex), we will today talk about those Voices in Your Head – the ones you hear and cannot ignore and the ones you’ve heard for so long they’re more like friends.

All those weirdo writer things – the things we blame on characters – are up for discussion today.

What is character development and why is it important? (masterclass link) Do characters simply spring from your head unbidden? Are they living in there, lurking in there, like parts of yourself you won’t let out?

Read more on the blog here.

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Wednesday night we had a fun time at The Aristocrat on Washington, reading short pieces called “flash” fiction. The official definition of flash fiction is stories that are 1000 words or less. Fiction, obviously, not true. But the crucial part of it is the length. Lengths vary, though, which makes it more confusing. Between 5 and 1000 words? Or between 300 and 1500?

So why write flash fiction? What’s the purpose?

According to this Writers’ Digest blog it’s to focus on the “narrative movement” rather than focusing on character development or any other trivial things like setting or plot. So what does the writer mean by “narrative movement”? I don’t know. She never explains. Just provides a list of links to other people’s articles on the topic. The fuck? Yup.

So these bits are from some of those articles. Come on. Rabbit hole with me.

Characteristics of flash fiction (FAQs link):

Few Characters
Descriptions that show rather than tell (isn’t that all fiction?)
Verbal efficiency of a poet – yeah, I’ll give you this. Flash is a read-aloud form.
Clear vision – know where the story is headed from the beginning and get there in the end (again, isn’t that all fiction?)
Who publishes flash fiction? I dunno. Contests. Lit journals. Instagram. You name it.

Actually, this blog was written by someone who started a flash fiction press. So there’s some specialists. And she answers the question, “Why do it?”

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Get the full original show notes here.

At the beginning of November, to help out our NaNoWriMo’ers, we did an episode on Character Arcs. In the third segment we briefly touched on the negative arc, or the moral descent. Here’s some notes from that episode:

The disillusionment (or negative change) arc, the character also believes a lie, is confronted with the truth and is able to overcome the lie, but the new truth — existence after accepting the truth — is tragic.

This is Michael Corleone. He believes himself to be good, to be righteous. But he is a criminal, a ruthless loyalist to his corrupt family. When he accepts this about himself, he is tragically doomed to lead the family after his father’s death.

This video calls this the “corruption arc” wherein the character has the truth, and is very aware of it, but as he is tested, he decides to exchange the truth for a lie — i.e. the Corleones must kill their enemies.

So what are the elements of the moral descent character arc? How do you know you’re in one?

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Complete show notes and links to Carolyn's books here.

You’ve met Carolyn Hartley before, she’s one of our Patrons and the owner of J. Merrill Press in Chapin, South Carolina. The vision for J. Merrill Press has always been to publish stories of courageous women and never is this more true than in Adele’s duet.

The first book, Redemption: One Woman’s Dream to Overcome Oppression, Find Family, Love, and Forgivenessintroduced us to Adele. Born into wealth before her father died, Adele and her mother found very different circumstances with her stepfather. Spun away from family into a life of poverty, strife and violence, Adele nonetheless retains the memory of a happier destiny. When she sets off in search of her place in the world, she finds more than she asked for. Themes of courage, family, determination, and resilience dominate Redemption and our connection to Adele is deep and wide.

It’s no surprise, then, that Carolyn picked up Adele’s story on the day of her grandmother’s funeral in Reconciliation: Atone the Devil in Buried Sunshine. No longer the timid, naïve girl of Redemption, Adele (though only 19) has inherited the family’s struggling coal mining business and her grandmother’s role as matriarch. Doing what’s best for her sisters and the town that depends upon their family, Adele navigates distrust, betrayal, and even her half-crazed step father’s relentless attempts at revenge. Reconciliation is a satisfying next installment in a saga that has so much to offer.

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Full show notes out on the blog here.

After reading an article about the reason we need to keep reading novels, I (Kasie) suggested to Rex that we take on this idea of critical reading and how we build that skill set. We take it for granted that people read. For two reasons: 1) we read a TON and think that’s normal and 2) we write and we are hoping (hoping!) that people will buy our shit and read it.

This week we take a look at this reading thing. What do the trends look like? What are the opportunities (to think about this like entrepreneurs) and what are the worrisome numbers? When I couldn’t find the original article I read, I just googled “screens are making us reading” (seriously) thinking I’d find it. Turns out, I found a lot of conversation, going back as far as 10 years, related to reading on screens versus reading on paper and predicting the end of books. Yup.

Let’s unpack.

Rumors of the long-form demise:

No one reads novels anymore
- This article is about how no one will read your book – is this a supply and demand problem? Are there not enough readers consuming enough books to meet the supply of so.many.writers.? Publishers Weekly thinks so. Stats: 16 minutes per day reading (for those few Americans who actually do read books) and 3 hours per day of Netflix (if you wonder WTF is with that ratio you’re not alone).
- The big 4 represent 75% of the commercial book market and people tend to read books that are already popular. Sigh.
Former bibliophiles confess to having a hard time reading or finishing a book in this esquire article.
- Blame our smartphones and their incessant notifications
- We’ve been training our brains to skim and scroll instead of reading for depth and understanding
- The author says, “my mechanisms for focus and attention have been gradually worn out and I find it harder now to shift gears.” Does that resonate?
- And this: “Reading is a prolonged and concentrated effort in dealing with only the subject at hand, weaving through the logical transitions paragraph after paragraph and building a comprehensive thought after one has gone through the entirety of the text. It is, after all, a skill that requires considerable and constant practice. Simply put, the kind of reading we do in social media is easy, messy, random and incidental.”
Is this about reading comprehension skills? If you had a strong reading comprehension skill set, would the extensive social media reading have degraded those skills? Or, if you had a poor reading comprehension skill set, was social media made for you and is exploiting that?

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Full show notes out on the blog here.

In entrepreneurship, we encourage founders to tell their stories so we can see all the millions of ways people come into ownership and no two stories are the same. And writing is the same. Everyone does their thing differently and so hearing a bunch of stories is a great way to stay encouraged.

That said, I found this awesome Joanna Penn blog with some “what I’ve learned” and thought we could riff on that. These are things she’s learned from being an authorprenuer for a decade and I think they’re relevant to those mid-stride authors like us and maybe even a little surprising and encouraging.

When you get bored or things feel a little stale, hang on a bit longer. Things will change, and you will, too.
You can keep a mature author business going with just a few consistent actions.
1. Writing books
2. Podcasting
3. Email marketing (grow your list!)
4. Other things?
You don’t have to grow your business.
1. Some projects are meaningful even if they’re not profitable
2. Some projects are FUN and this work should be fun

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Full show notes out on the blog here.

Professional writers who depend on volume for income (like those one-book-a-year professionals John Grisham and Nicholas Sparks) have the creative process down to a science. And all those teachers who teach “How to Write” have also disseminated their craft down to a process. We’re going to work on that today.

Since Rex teaches writing and I used to, many moons ago, we’re uniquely qualified to discuss what total horseshit some of this stuff is. We’ll break down the common elements of the process and some cool tips, tricks, and tools. Plus, we’ll debunk some stupid shit people say when they’re teaching you how to write and why you should ignore that garbage.

Ya’ll in? Let’s do this.

So Charlie’s gone back to school for nursing and he had to write his first paper this weekend and as he was talking about organizing his resources and writing his introduction, I got this weird deja vu from grad school when I had to be all intentional about writing. And then I thought about all the blogs (like this one!) that I write on the regular and whether I was following the tried-and-true or if I’d invented my own work habits around this thing I do for a living.

I consider myself a professional writer. Do you?

What delineates professional from novice? Or hobbyist?

What habits do we keep that support our distinction as “professional” writers?

The other thing that happened this week that made me think about this writing process concept is we hosted through SCWA a Writing Studio write-in on Thursday. The Columbia II chapter brought the prompts and we ran four 10-minute sprints with various prompts and some discussion afterwards.

Everyone thought it was very useful and productive. I used the prompts to think about the revisions I’m doing for the vampire novel. For two reasons: 1) I’m totally preoccupied with the vampire novel revisions right now and 2) I hate to waste my designated writing time on things that won’t move me forward. Meaning: I don’t want to doodle. I want to draw.

So some of the writing process steps include these forced-creativity activities that I can see having a place in a classroom but wonder if they have a place in the real world life of working writers. I wonder if Stephen King pulls out his trusty writing-prompt box of cards and decided to meander through some phrases like, “The thing you still need to know about me is…”

Do you “exercise” your writing? How? When? Where? What becomes of those exercises?

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Full show notes out on the blog here.

Today’s session is a good “beginning of the year” session, I think, because it can be part of your 2022 writing plan. We briefly touched on some writing goals we have and we’ve done entire episodes on setting, measuring, and keeping writing goals. So today’s exploration of the various writer types and what your type means for your writing habit should come in handy.

Take an actual quiz here.

Let’s start with the three levels:

Lawful – this means you stick to this type no matter the project, it’s ingrained in you and difficult to change out of
Neutral – this is conditional; so if you’re mostly this, but sometimes that, you’re in this category
Chaotic – according to whim, day of the week, or color of the M&M you just drew from the package

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Get the complete show notes on the blog here.

Okay, today’s writing-related (non-goal) topic is Great Beginnings. New Beginnings. First lines and first pages. Starting off on the right foot. All those euphemisms for the most important page in the book. The first one.

When we did this topic in May of 2020 (episode 94) I told you about a terrible beginning to a romance novel that had triggered my gag reflex. It’s often the case that the first page of a book is a bit of a difficult entry point. Even a more recent read (that turned out to be quite good), The Beautiful, struggled to pull me in. Too much world-building and exposition dumping. Needed information? Sure. As fascinating to me, newbie to the world, as it is to the author? Probably not.

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Complete show notes out on the blog here.

Let’s get into this Character Arc thing. So I found this tweet and YouTube clip that talks about Rick’s character in Casablanca and how at each point of the character arc, one character comments on how Rick is changing. Sometimes it’s even Rick himself. And I thought, “Have we ever done character arcs?” and the answer is, “no.”

So here we go. What is a character arc and what are some examples of types? This link will be of use.

The character arc is how the character changes over time and is linear — it has a beginning, middle, and end — but does not have to follow the plot arc.

Four basic types:

Positive change (moral ascent)
Transformational (hero’s journey — might include ups and downs)
Negative change (moral descent)
Flat
Open-ended

The lie your character believes about themself will be the thing they fight against and ultimately overcome to end the story. We covered this extensively in the core wound episode.

Character arcs are the whole purpose of fiction. The change that a character makes is the reason the story exists. Without change, there is no story. And change creates drama (tension) and that creates meaning.

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Get the full show notes out on the blog here.

Mark Allan Gunnells loves to tell stories. He has since he was a kid, penning one-page tales that were Twilight Zone knockoffs. He likes to think he has gotten a little better since then. He loves reader feedback, and above all he loves telling stories. He lives in Greer, SC, with his husband Craig A. Metcalf.

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Full show notes out on the blog here.

Google does it again. I found this link to the 30 scariest scenes in Western literature which was a goldmine for what we want to do today which is really break it down. What’s happening in the scene? How is it constructed and how does it work?

The rage of Achilles — when he arrives on the battlefield, the Trojans quake with fear and when he unleashes his battle cry, some of them fall back and impale themselves on their own spears. Um. Wow.

Banquo returns to haunt his killer — in Macbeth we know they won’t get away with it, right? But Shakespeare lets the dead man’s ghost show up with all of his descendents and scare the shit out of Macbeth.

The creature and the uncanny valley — in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley writes the creator’s rebuke of his creation as a rage-filled verbal lashing, but the creature’s response is exponentially worse.

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Photo credit: ArtHouse Studio on Pexels.com

Get the full show notes out on the blog here.

Theme for the day

Scary Series: Serial Killers

Agenda

SCWA Upcoming events and goings-on
It’s October! Let’s Halloween!
What’s up with Serial Killers?
How to write a convincing serial killer

I’m reading You right now which is a thriller about a stalker / serial killer that was made into a Netflix series. It’s crazy good. The narrator is so compelling I’m having a hard time putting it down. And the violence is so matter-of-fact and seemingly the next-logical-step that you don’t even have time to anticipate or dread it.

Thing is, I (Kasie) don’t know anything about how to do this. And Rex had done it before, so this might be a “how to” and it might be a general explanation of why a writer would take this on.

I googled “Writing Serial Killers” and found this awesome article. So let’s start there. Essential elements:

The killer — who is s/he? What do they want?
The victim — how do the two know one another? What was the last interaction the two had?
The location and condition of the body — direct quote from the blog: Where was the victim killed? Was the body transported and dumped? Was there and attempt to hide the victims identity? Why? How were they killed? Was it overkill? Rage?

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Get the full show notes on the blog here.

Scary Series: Vampires

Agenda

SCWA Upcoming events and goings-on
It’s October! Let’s Halloween!
Vampires aren’t scary
How to write a convincing vampire (no sparkling!)

I found a How Stuff Works (yeah, the science site) entry for How Vampires Work which is just awesome. Here’s the link. Here are the highlights:

They were once human
They died and “rose again” which makes them “undead”
Can be attractive, highly sexual beings
Can also transform into animals (most commonly a bat)
Death by beheading, stake to heart, fire, and direct sunlight
Injured by crucifixes, holy water, and garlic
Immortal and do not visibly age
Cannot cast a reflection
Have superhuman strength (and speed)

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Get the full show notes here.

Theme for the day

Paying Your Writerly Dues

Agenda

SCWA Upcoming events and goings-on
How have those book promotional events gone?
What to know about “paying your dues”
Even some super famous authors sat alone in a bookstore

My mom joined me at M Judson Books in Greenville back on September 12th. Four people bought books, two bought shot glasses and one got a wine glass, too. Then last week’s library event, two publishers of an online magazine and the librarian attended. I sold six books, a wine glass and a shot glass. At the neighborhood event my friends threw, two people came by and bought four books. Then I signed another half dozen that had been purchased by people who couldn’t attend.

So, overall, three events sold 20 books. Because COVID shut down my After December promotional calendar, these events were my first ever.

Is it usual to sit, lonely, waiting for people to stop and ask about your work? What are author events? What should you expect? How should you prepare?

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Learn more about Len Lawson here.

Visit the Featured Author section of the show notes on WriteOnSC.blog to learn more about guests and friends of the show.

Become a patron and get your spot at Featured Author on the website and the show.

Visit the YouTube channel for more interviews with authors.

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Full show notes on the blog here.

Welcome back to the studio, Catherine Peace, romance author. And our new addition, Ella Shawn, author of Southern Gothic Erotica. Let’s get to know her for just a minute.

Last week we broke down some tropes and sub genres of Romance. It was mostly fun to shock Rex with all the various layers and requirements of Romance writing. It’s more complicated than non-readers might suspect.

Today I thought we’d start with out favorites list. So here are the categories and we’ll just add ours as we go:

Favorite sub genre?
Favorite trope (here’s a list)?
Favorite couple?
Favorite era?
Favorite author?
What title brought you into the romance genre as a reader?
What author brought you into the genre as a writer?

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Full show notes out on the blog here.

Meet Catherine Peace
Romance genre expectations
How to write the steamy scenes

Welcome to the studio, Catherine Peace, romance author. Catherine Peace has been telling stories for as long as she could remember. She often blames two things for her forays into speculative fiction—Syfy (when it was SciFi) channel Sundays with her dad and The Island of Dr. Moreau by HG Wells. She graduated in 2008 from Northern Kentucky University with a degree in English and is still chasing the dream of being super rich and famous, mostly so she can sit around in her PJs all day and write stories. Catherine currently lives on a farm in South Carolina. E-I-E-I-O.

I (Kasie) of course jumped into This Time Next Year — a vampire romance — so let’s start there. How did you get started in paranormal romance? What’s the appeal?

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