Fiction Writer's Toolshed: Practical Tools for Authors

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I want to help you with the actual fiction you're working on-- for free.

Since launching Fiction Writer's Toolshed, I've been turning my own writing process into practical, repeatable tools. Now I want to put those tools to work with other writers. You get specific, detailed help with your writing, and I get to test and refine the tools through real use.

In this episode, I explain the offer, how we'll work together, and what I'm asking in return: subscribe to Unstoppable Maker, my newsletter, and let me share a useful portion of the advice so other writers can learn from it, too. You and your story can remain anonymous, and we'll agree on what I can share.

To get started, subscribe below and reply to the welcome email. You don't need a polished explanation-- just tell me where you're getting stuck.

Unstoppable Maker also brings you one useful writing tool each week. This invitation stays open while I can responsibly make time for it, with no guaranteed turnaround. This episode is for you if you have ANY fiction writing questions, but some examples are: - How do I write a novel as a beginner? - How do I outline a novel, chapter by chapter? - How do I write a fantasy novel? - How do I write a thriller or mystery that keeps readers guessing? - How do I write characters with depth? - How do I write a villain readers can't hate? - How do I write a plot twist that works? - How do I write dialogue that sounds natural? - How do I add tension to a scene? - How do I actually finish writing my book?

Join the Unstoppable Maker newsletter. Every Thursday, you'll get one simple, practical writing tool to help you make the next decision, solve the next story problem, and keep writing.

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What does selling a screenplay require beyond writing a good script?

In this episode of Fiction Writer's Toolshed, screenwriter and novelist Doug Hall returns to discuss the business of screenwriting.

Drawing on his experience of selling a screenplay to Trimark Pictures and optioning scripts across several genres, Doug shares his perspective on understanding potential buyers, approaching producers, sending query letters, and staying flexible when an unexpected opportunity appears.

Doug also explains why he recommends one specific and underestimated thing to all screenwriters, and how it can help you break into the business.

A practical conversation about the relationship between the stories you want to write and the business of getting them made.

Questions explored:

- What should screenwriters understand about potential buyers? - How can flexibility help when pitching a screenplay? - Why does professionalism matter in a screenwriting career? - How can writing a single-location script improve your storytelling?

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Could writing your ending first help you build a more satisfying story? In this episode of Fiction Writer's Toolshed, I talk with screenwriter and author Doug Hall about choosing your destination before writing toward it. After reaching roughly page 80 of a 100-page screenplay without knowing how to end it, Doug changed his approach. He explains how starting with an ending helps him develop character conflict, dialogue, theme, and the midpoint-- and build toward a payoff that feels unexpected but earned. Doug also shares how a bet led him into screenwriting, how he wrote the original draft of Leprechaun in the Hood in five days, and why the ending you start with can still change. Whether you're writing a novel, short story, or screenplay, this conversation offers a way to think about how the story you're building supports the ending you want to deliver. This episode is for you if you have questions like: - Should you write your story's ending first? - How do you write a satisfying ending? - How can knowing the ending help you plot a story? - How do you make a twist ending feel earned? - How can an ending guide character development and conflict? - What makes a story's midpoint interesting? - Can you change your ending after you start writing?

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How do you turn a screenplay into a novel? Mathew Tekulsky returns to Fiction Writer's Toolshed to help me work through a real version of that question: I'm trying to turn a musical I co-wrote with Jacob Lowry into prose. Neither of us has completed this exact kind of adaptation, so we build a current best approach together. Mathew suggests working through the script scene by scene, adding the point of view, interior experience, and selective description a novel can provide. We talk about how to expand a scene without padding the story, why rereading can reveal threads worth developing, and what happens when a musical's songs carry moments the novel must tell another way. Later, we discuss another difference between the forms: a novelist can finish a book largely through their own efforts, while a film brings actors, producers, financing, and new creative input into the process. Learn more about Mathew and his books: https://www.mathewtekulsky.com/ This episode is for you if you're asking: - How do you turn a screenplay into a novel? - Can you write a novel from a script or stage play? - How do you adapt a musical into a novel? - What should prose add to a scene that already works on stage or screen? - How do you add point of view and interior thought to a screenplay? - Can you adapt a script one scene at a time? - How do you expand a script without padding the novel? - How is finishing a novel different from getting a screenplay produced?

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How do you adapt a novel into a screenplay? Award-winning, bestselling author Mathew Tekulsky joins me to talk through the choices he makes when bringing his own fiction to the screen. Mathew wrote his novels before adapting them, but a finished book is only the starting point. He describes how he finds scenes to dramatize, why he removed a character from the screenplay of Saving Annie, and how he created new action in a scene when a short story gave him the seed of a film.

We also discuss keeping screenplay description lean, leaving room for actors, and studying movies with a writer's eye. Learn more about Mathew and his books: https://www.mathewtekulsky.com/ This episode is for you if you're asking: - How do you adapt a novel into a screenplay? - What should you keep or cut when adapting a book for film? - How do you turn a prose scene into action an audience can see? - Can you remove a character when adapting your own novel? - How do you expand a short story into a feature-length screenplay? - How much description should you put in a screenplay? - Should you write the novel or the screenplay first? - How do you get started on a writing project you've been putting off?

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What does "kill your darlings" actually mean for fiction writers-- and how do you know which parts of your story should be cut? In this episode, I explore a problem with one of writing's most popular pieces of advice: and give you a solution that works well for me. I'll give you a way to decide. I also break down two ways you might notice a possible "darling" in the first place. Then I give you three questions you can use to test if something is a darling. Most importantly, I reverse the usual advice. This episode is perfect for you if you have questions like: * What does "kill your darlings" mean in fiction writing? * How do I know what to cut from my story? * How do I know if a scene belongs in my novel? * What should I do when beta readers dislike a scene I love? * How do I decide whether feedback means something should be removed? * Can a good scene still be wrong for the story? * How do I know what reader experience my story is creating? * Should every scene match the same tone or mood? * What if my favorite part of the story doesn't fit the rest? * When should I change the story instead of cutting the thing I love? * How can discovery writers decide what belongs after drafting? * How can I revise fiction without cutting the things that make it unique?

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Robert E. Howard didn't tell Conan the Barbarian's life in chronological order. One story might find Conan as a young thief, another as an older adventurer, and another somewhere entirely different-- and somehow those gaps make his world feel bigger rather than incomplete. In this episode, I'm joined again by writer and editor Matt Click to talk about what Conan can teach fiction writers about writing stories and series out of order. We explore an approach I'm calling modular continuity: creating stories that work independently while still belonging to the same character, world, and larger continuity. Instead of filling in every step of a character's life, you can establish important anchors, leave open space between them, and write the adventures that interest you. Along the way, we talk about Robert E. Howard and pulp storytelling, why the Hyborian Age feels so enormous, Conan's surprising humanity and intelligence, The Tower of the Elephant, Savage Sword of Conan, Frank Frazetta-- and the extremely important question that started this entire conversation: Why does Conan rip so hard? Questions this episode explores: Can you write a fiction series out of chronological order-- and do it well? How do you keep continuity while leaving gaps in a character's timeline? What is modular continuity? How can standalone stories still feel like part of a larger series? Can leaving parts of your fictional world unexplained actually make it feel bigger? Why has Conan the Barbarian remained such a compelling character? What can fiction writers learn from Robert E. Howard's approach to serialized storytelling?

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What makes your writing original when your story idea isn't completely new? In this episode, I explore why 'original fiction' isn't about having an idea nobody has ever had.

I'll use Pokémon to show how influences can pass through one creator and become something new. Then I give you a simple exercise for finding the fingerprints already present in your own fiction.

Most importantly, I make the case for why the fiction only you can write is worth making and putting into the world.

In this episode, I answer questions like:

• What makes your writing original if your story idea isn't new?
• How do I know if my story is original enough?
• What truly makes one writer's work different from another's?
• Do fiction writers need completely original story ideas?
• How do your influences and personal experiences shape your writing?
• How can you use creative influences without feeling like you're copying?
• How can you find what is uniquely yours in your own writing?
• Why can two writers start with similar ideas and create completely different stories?
• Why does your individual perspective matter as a fiction writer?
• Why is the fiction only you can write worth finishing and sharing?

--- Fiction Writer's Toolshed -- Episode 26

Join the Unstoppable Maker newsletter. Every Thursday, you'll get one simple, practical writing tool to help you make the next decision, solve the next story problem, and keep writing.

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How do you write a scene that actually earns its place in the story? A scene can be well "structured", full of dialogue, conflict, action, or exposition and still feel like nothing happened.

In this episode, we talk about how a scene is a specific sort of container, and how to fill it. You'll learn how to separate activity in a scene from real change, choose a change target, and use a simple "dial" to track what changes and by how much.

This approach works for outliners and discovery writers, and it leaves room for slow burns, fast changes and even intentional stillness.

Along the way, we'll use Robert McKee's Story as a jumping-off point and adapt and simplify the idea for prose fiction, comics, screenplays, and other forms of fiction.

The question to carry back to your manuscript: What will be different because you spent the reader's time here?

Questions this episode helps answer:

• How do you write a scene that actually moves a story forward?
• What is the purpose of a scene in fiction?
• How do you know whether a scene is necessary or earning its place?
• Does something meaningful have to change in every scene?
• How can outliners and discovery writers use the same scene-writing tool?

Join the Unstoppable Maker newsletter. Every Thursday, you'll get one simple, practical writing tool to help you make the next decision, solve the next story problem, and keep writing.

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Trey Parker and Matt Stone's famous South Park writing rule is deceptively simple: if the beats of your story are connected by "and then," you may have a problem. Instead, they recommend building stories with "but" and "therefore," so one event causes or complicates the next.

It's great writing advice. But how do you actually use it to fix a story? What's the formal tool?

In this episode, I trace the idea from Parker and Stone's viral 2011 NYU writing lecture, to The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, all the way back to Aristotle's Poetics from 2000+ years ago. A chain to find a chain.

Then we turn the principle into a practical fiction-writing tool: the Causal Chain Audit.

If your novel, short story, or screenplay feels like a stack or 'gathering' of good scenes that somehow still isn't pulling you forward, this is a diagnostics tool you can use directly on your draft (and maybe even on your outline).