Master Fiction Writing

What if the impossible is the best way to tell the truth?

Speculative fiction isn’t really about dragons, spaceships, magic or dystopias.

At its heart, it’s about asking one deceptively simple question:

What if…?

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, Stuart Wakefield explores why writers have always imagined impossible worlds—and why the best speculative fiction reveals emotional truths that realism sometimes cannot.

Rather than taking a tour through the different subgenres, this episode looks at speculative fiction through the lens of story craft. You’ll discover why memorable speculative novels begin with human questions rather than clever ideas, how worldbuilding should grow naturally from theme, and why character, consequence and moral pressure matter far more than lore.

Using examples from classics and contemporary works including Frankenstein, The Left Hand of Darkness, Never Let Me Go, The Lord of the Rings, Arrival, The Road and many others, Stuart explores what separates speculative fiction that merely entertains from speculative fiction that stays with readers long after the final page.

Whether you’re writing fantasy, science fiction, horror, alternate history, magical realism or something that refuses to fit neatly into a genre, this episode will help you create stories that are emotionally truthful, structurally compelling and impossible to forget.

• Why the real power of speculative fiction lies in the Worldshift—the one impossible change that reshapes everything else.
• How to develop stronger “What if?” premises.
• Why worldbuilding should be a consequence of theme, not the starting point.
• How to build speculative worlds that naturally generate conflict.
• Why readers remember characters and consequences, not encyclopaedic lore.
• Common mistakes speculative writers make—and how to avoid them.
• Practical exercises you can apply to your own novel immediately.

Download the free Writer’s Notebook that accompanies this episode:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zrvW4E3kAb3xVmJEitvEgiGLetwhV2fC/view?usp=sharing

For more writing resources, articles and coaching, visit:

https://www.thebookcoach.co

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following Master Fiction Writing and leaving a rating or review. It helps more writers discover the show and become part of our growing community of serious storytellers.

Less stress. More story.

In the last episode, we explored why so many argument scenes feel artificial and discovered that arguments aren’t really conversations - they’re attempts to change another human being.

Now it’s time to get practical.

In this second part of our deep dive into writing conflict, we’ll explore the techniques professional writers use to create arguments that feel unpredictable, emotionally truthful and impossible to stop reading. We’ll look at dialogue as strategy rather than speech, uncover the power of subtext, examine how arguments escalate without simply becoming louder, and finish with a practical revision masterclass you can apply immediately to your own manuscript.

Whether you write fantasy, crime, romance, literary fiction, historical fiction or memoir, these techniques will help you create dialogue that changes relationships—and keeps readers turning the page.

• Why dialogue is a sequence of tactical decisions
• The hidden conversation beneath every line of dialogue
• How subtext creates emotional tension
• Why escalation has nothing to do with shouting
• Lessons from Marriage Story, Fleabag, Harold Pinter, Sally Rooney, Jane Austen and Stephen King
• A step-by-step revision masterclass for strengthening your own argument scenes
• An editing checklist you can use on every scene you write

Final thoughts and next week’s episode

• Every line of dialogue should represent a new tactic, not simply a repeated opinion.
• Great dialogue is driven by objectives rather than clever wording.
• The most powerful conversations happen beneath the surface of what’s actually said.
• Escalation comes from shrinking options, not increasing volume.
• Every successful argument scene changes the relationship between the characters.

Take an argument scene from your current manuscript.

Read through it once without changing a word.

Now, beside every line of dialogue, write down the tactic the character is using.

Are they explaining? Deflecting? Using humour? Avoiding the question? Changing the subject? Becoming vulnerable? Remaining silent?

If you notice the same tactic repeated over and over, experiment with changing it. Don’t alter the characters’ objectives - just the strategies they use to pursue them.

You’ll often discover that the scene suddenly becomes more dynamic without changing the plot at all.

Choose one important argument scene in your manuscript and revise it using the five editing passes from this episode:

1. Objectives
2. Subtext
3. Tactics
4. Power shifts
5. Ending

Rather than asking, “Does this sound realistic?”, ask, “Does this relationship become something new by the end of the scene?”

• Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)
• Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge)
• Sally Rooney
• Harold Pinter
• Jane Austen
• Stephen King

In next week’s episode, we’ll be diving into speculative fiction to coincide with my upcoming presentation at WorldShift 2026 - a free, six-day online conference for speculative fiction writers.

My session is called:

Make the Monster Matter: Turning Speculative Ideas into Emotional Stakes

We’ll explore how monsters, speculative systems and extraordinary worlds become truly compelling when they place emotional pressure on your protagonist and force impossible choices.

The presentation premieres on Tuesday 18 August at 9:00pm (UK time). It’s pre-recorded, but I’ll be live in the chat throughout to answer questions.

You can register for free here: https://worldshift2026.manyworldswriting.com

If you’d like expert support developing or revising your novel, visit: https://www.thebookcoach.co

Why do so many argument scenes feel strangely lifeless, even when characters are shouting, interrupting each other, and making excellent points?

Because conflict isn’t about disagreement.

It’s about change.

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, I'll explore why professional argument scenes feel so compelling, why amateur ones often become disguised exposition, and what readers are really looking for when two characters collide.

You’ll discover why characters rarely argue about the thing they’re actually arguing about, why objectives matter more than opinions, how identity drives conflict, and why the best arguments permanently alter relationships rather than simply exchange information.

Whether you’re writing literary fiction, crime, fantasy, romance, historical fiction or memoir, this episode will change the way you think about dialogue, conflict and scene construction.

• Why arguments aren’t conversations - they’re attempts to change another person.
• The hidden reason most fictional arguments fall flat.
• Why readers care more about emotional change than who’s right.
• How objectives create dramatic momentum.
• Why characters defend identity more fiercely than opinions.
• The psychology behind memorable conflict.
• How every argument should function as a miniature story.
• Why winning almost always comes at a cost.
• The importance of reversals, emotional movement and consequences.

Great argument scenes aren’t built around disagreement.

They’re built around incompatible futures.

When two characters argue, each is trying to reshape the other’s world in some way. Every line of dialogue should pursue an objective, every tactic should evolve when it fails, and every scene should leave the relationship changed.

Readers don’t become invested because someone wins the debate.

They become invested because something valuable is at risk.

Try this exercise:

Choose one argument scene from your current manuscript and ask yourself:

• What does each character want before the conversation begins?
• What future is each character trying to create?
• What identity is each character protecting?
• What changes by the end of the scene?
• If the argument disappeared completely, would the story still work?

If you struggle to answer those questions, you’ve probably found the scene’s biggest opportunity for revision.

The next time you write an argument, stop asking:

“What are my characters talking about?”

Instead ask:

“Who is trying to change whom—and what happens if they fail?”

That single shift in perspective will transform the way you approach dialogue.

If you’d like coaching, visit: www.thebookcoach.co

In the next episode, ee’ll move from theory into practice, exploring the tactics characters use when they’re trying to win: humour, guilt, silence, interruption, subtext, emotional escalation and the invisible strategies that make dialogue feel alive.

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to Master Fiction Writing. Reviews and recommendations help other writers discover the show, and if you know someone wrestling with dialogue or conflict, send this episode their way.

After all, every writer has written an argument scene where two perfectly intelligent people calmly explain the theme of the novel to one another.

You don’t have to keep doing that.

Quiet scenes are often where manuscripts go flat, not because nothing explodes, but because nothing changes.

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, Stuart Wakefield explores why low-action scenes still need movement, pressure, and consequence. Whether your characters are drinking tea, walking home, recovering from bad news, lying awake, remembering the past, or having a careful conversation, the scene still has to shift the story in some meaningful way.

Stuart breaks down the difference between external action and dramatic movement, explains how pressure can exist beneath silence, and shows how consequence can be subtle without being decorative.

With practical examples across fiction, memoir, romance, mystery, historical fiction, and speculative storytelling, this episode will help you diagnose quiet scenes that feel static and revise them into scenes that are tense, revealing, emotionally charged, or quietly devastating.

You can find the workbook here.

A phone call scene can look deceptively small on the page. Two people talk, some information changes hands, then someone hangs up, but if that’s all the scene is doing, it may be falling flat.

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, Stuart Wakefield takes a deep dive into one of fiction’s most overlooked craft moments: the phone call scene. Why do so many phone calls in novels, short stories, and novellas feel like convenient little tubes for information? And how can writers turn them into scenes full of pressure, subtext, tension, comedy, longing, and consequence?

This episode explores why a phone call is never just two people talking. A good phone call scene can reveal a lie, expose a relationship dynamic, shift power between characters, create suspense, deepen romance, or make a reader laugh because the visible half of the scene is quietly falling apart.

You’ll learn how to diagnose a flat phone call, how to give your point-of-view character something active to want, how to use silence and pauses, and how to make the unseen caller a powerful dramatic force. Stuart also looks at how phone calls work across genres including romance, mystery, thriller, horror, comedy, family drama, literary fiction, historical fiction, and speculative fiction.

Includes practical revision questions and a simple exercise to help you rewrite one phone call scene in your own manuscript.

Links Mentioned

Stuart Wakefield / The Book Coach:www.thebookcoach.co

ProWritingAid Write With Pride week:https://prowritingaid.com/write-with-pride/sign-up

Stuart is presenting at ProWritingAid’s Write With Pride week on 24 June. Session title to be confirmed before publishing.

Action Items from This Episode

Find one phone call scene in your manuscript, ideally one that feels a little flat, functional, or overly focused on delivering information.

Read the scene once and highlight only the information being exchanged. What facts does the reader need to know?

Then ask:

• Why is this moment a phone call rather than an in-person scene, text, letter, or summary?
• What does the point-of-view character want before the call begins?
• What do they fear will happen?
• What are they trying not to say?
• What does the other caller want, hide, avoid, or control?
• What can the reader see that one or both characters cannot?
• What changes by the end of the call?
• What would be lost if the scene were cut?

Next, add the visible half of the scene. Where is your character? What are they doing while they speak? Who might overhear? What object, interruption, silence, or physical action could carry pressure?

Finally, rewrite the call so the spoken conversation and the visible scene tell slightly different truths.

Let the dialogue say one thing, then let the body, setting, silence, or timing reveal another.

That gap is where the reader leans in.

A character walking into a room might seem like simple scene logistics, but an entrance can reveal far more than movement. It can show power, fear, desire, belonging, exclusion, secrecy, status, and change before anyone says a word.

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, Stuart Wakefield explores the doorway scene: those small but potent moments when a character crosses from one emotional territory into another. Whether your character is arriving at a party, entering a meeting room, returning to a family home, stepping into danger, or trying not to be noticed, the way they enter can quietly reshape the whole scene.

You’ll learn how to use entrances and arrivals to create story pressure, deepen character dynamics, reveal shifting relationships, and strengthen subtext without making every doorway feel grand or symbolic. This episode also includes practical revision questions and a simple writing exercise to help you spot underused threshold moments in your own manuscript.

The middle of a novel is often where writers begin to worry. The opening had energy, and the ending may be in sight, but somewhere in between, the story starts to feel slow, repetitive or strangely... directionless.

The usual advice is to raise the stakes, add conflict or introduce a twist. Those tools can help, but what if the real problem isn't that your protagonist needs more obstacles? What if they need a deeper understanding of what their goal is going to cost them?

In this episode, Stuart explores why a compelling middle does more than make a character’s original desire harder to achieve: it changes what achieving that desire would mean. Whether you’re writing romance, mystery, thriller, speculative fiction, historical fiction or family drama, you’ll learn how the middle can reveal the emotional, moral or personal question hiding beneath the visible plot.

You’ll also get a practical exercise to help diagnose a middle that isn’t working and uncover the more difficult question your story may be waiting to ask.

What actually makes a thriller a thriller? It isn’t just murder, spies, guns, plot twists, or car chases.

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, we take a deep dive into the thriller genre as a pressure system: sustained threat, escalating stakes, urgent choices, controlled information, and the nervous anticipation that keeps readers turning pages.

We’ll explore how thrillers differ from mystery, suspense, horror, and crime fiction; how to create tension without constant action; why stakes need to be specific and personal; how twists differ from revelations; and how writers in any genre can use thriller principles to make their stories more compelling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode and you’d like to support Master Fiction Writing, you can buy me a coffee over on Ko-fi. The link is https://ko-fi.com/masterfictionwriting

Does every protagonist really need to change by the end of a story? Not always.

In this episode, we look beyond the familiar “your character must change” advice and explore positive arcs, negative arcs, steadfast characters, ensemble stories, and intentional stasis.

You’ll learn how to ask the better craft question: not “does my protagonist change?” but “what moves?”

Do your characters keep feeling sad, furious, lonely, ashamed, or devastated on the page... but the reader still isn’t feeling much?

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, we’re looking at the difference between explained emotion and experienced emotion. You’ll learn why naming a feeling isn’t always the same as creating it, and how to give the reader stronger emotional evidence through behaviour, body language, thought patterns, sensory detail, dialogue, silence, subtext, objects, and action under pressure.

We’ll also look at when it’s perfectly fine to name an emotion directly, why over-explaining is such a normal drafting habit, and how to revise emotional labels into moments the reader can actually feel.

The takeaway: your job isn’t to hide emotion from the reader. Your job is to make emotion happen inside the reader.

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support future episodes, you can buy me a virtual coffee over on Ko-fi: ⁠https://ko-fi.com/masterfictionwriting⁠

No pressure at all, but it does help keep the podcast going, and lets me pretend I’m a terrifyingly organised media empire.