The Creative Writer's Toolbelt

How do you start a story? With a compelling opening line, of course. In this episode we will look at how you can write a great opening line, what the most important objective for an opening lines is, and how the dimensions of story can help you. We'll have a look at some great opening lines from literature, and a couple of bad ones that I've made created just for the episode!

This episode is a "must listen" for all writers of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. My guest is Jeanne Cavelos the primary instructor and Director of the Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust. In her role Jeanne directs the Odyssey Writing Workshop; a six week intensive course - the only workshop of its kind run by an editor. In this interview Jeanne gives us tips on planning versus pantsing, world building and character development and tells me about the single biggest problem she sees in the manuscripts that she reviews.

What is foreshadowing? How does it work, and how can you use it to enhance and enrich your writing? In this episode we will look at the different types of foreshadowing, how they can empower your writing, and how to use them to best effect

What's the most important thing in creating a plot and story development? It's knowing your guiding principle, or 'Controlling Idea' as the master of story telling,Robert McKee, calls it. In this episode we identify what that guiding principle is, and why it's critical to your story.

You know that feeling, you are about 20k to 30k words in to the story, and you suddenly begin to wonder where it's all going. Is this story really any good? Is it even worth you finishing it? These are all classic symptoms of the mid-story crisis, and in this episode we explore what that crisis is, and how you can resolve it.

This is a guest episide with Ottawa-based storyteller and science-fiction/fantasy writer, Marie Bilodeau. Marie's writings have been nominated four times for Canada's biggest SF award, the Aurora Awards. Her new dark fantasy series, Nigh, is about to be released. She's told stories across Canada in theatre houses, tea shops, bars and under disco balls. Find out more about Marie, her writings and upcoming shows at www.mariebilodeau.com.

One of the more contentious debates in creative writing is the question of whether authors should plan and outline, or simply go with the flow and dive straight in to their writing. In this episode we look at both sides of the argument and try to pick the best from both.

Continuing our review of the essentials of plot, in this episode we look at the things you need to deal with early in the story, namely setting out the main storyline and setting the core expectations and boundaries for your reader.

This episode is an interview with artist and children’s writer and illustrator, Claire Keane. Until 2013 Claire was based at Disney studios where she worked as a visual development artist. She contributed to two animated feature films, "Frozen" which was released last year, and "Tangled", which she worked on with her father, the animator Glen Keane. I invited Claire on to the show because of her interest in character development and story and sincerity and integrity in art. We had a great conversation, I hope you enjoy it.

We've started on the process of building a story from the ground up, and we're going to kick off with plot. In this episode we look at three aspects of plot: the shape of the story, the engine of the plot, and the danger of cliches