Topics of earlier episodes are boiled down to sixteen points, and we'll talk about them briefly.  Also, here are some things we can do to make our sentence-by-sentence writing more pleasing to readers' eyes and ears.

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How can we shake loose from our brains plots for our novels?  Here's my favorite way.  Plus, benefits and perils of writing with a partner.  More on accents.  And avoiding adverbs, which are not a writer's friend.

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Why don't we begin our novel?  Here's a reason, and a way to avoid it.  Plus, we'll talk about qualifiers and intensifiers, the leeches of language.  And some thoughts on profanity and slang.  And why age benefits novelists.

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Many adjective and adverb s do nothing but pad a sentence, making the sentence rickety.  Here are some techniques on avoiding these useless or unintentionally funny modifiers.  Plus, some words are just too much.  We'll avoid these, too.

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In this episode we focus on sentence-by-sentence writing.  How can we make our sentences vivid and powerful?   Some strong techniques are discussed, such as avoiding cliches like the plague.

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Our writing should be a clear window to the story, and a technique is to, in Einstein's phrase, keep it simple but not too simple.  Here are some techniques for doing that, along with a discussion of metaphors and similes.

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As writers, should we be concerned with a themes for our stories?   And a critical question: are writers allowed to be weird?  We'll also return to the need for early conflict in our stories, and then go on to discuss vivid writing.

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Our setting -- the place and time of the scene -- anchor our characters the the ground.  Here are techniques for writing our settings to get the most from them, so that they play a strong role in the story.

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Our topics this episode are how to avoid breaking the fourth wall, onomatopoeia (clunk, thud, kersplat), and techniques on ending the novel.  We'll also talk about some bad writing, really bad writing.

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Dialogue is so important to our stories that we'll talk more about it here.  Then we'll move on to foreshadowing--including the Chekhov's famous gun--and coincidences., where one is fine but two are not.

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