You’ve got your basic cast figured out, but the characters are missing something. A little pop, a little sizzle, a certain indefinable quality. Fortunately, it turns out that quality is perfectly definable, and that’s what we’re discussing today. We talk about strategies for making your […]

     

The main character needs agency, but they don't need to be proactive.

A universal rule of storytelling is that the main character’s choices need to matter; that’s agency. However, a main character doesn’t always have to be working on their own goals; that’s proactivity. How do these aspects interact? Can you have a character with agency but […]

     

You thought this was going to be a short blurb explaining the podcast, but actually it’s a meta reference to the episode’s subject. Are your expectations subverted? Probably not, because despite what you might have been told, subversions are hard work. You still need to […]

     

You thought this was going to be a short blurb explaining the podcast, but actually it’s a meta reference to the episode’s subject. Are your expectations subverted? Probably not, because despite what you might have been told, subversions are hard work. You still need to provide a satisfying experience; otherwise, the story is just worse. […]

You have an idea. It is beautiful and amazing and awesome. Now what? How do you take this idea and turn it into a story? That’s our topic for this week, and hopefully we can shed some light on this tricky situation. We talk about finding what’s really important to you, how to turn that […]

You have an idea. It is beautiful and amazing and awesome. Now what? How do you take this idea and turn it into a story? That’s our topic for this week, and hopefully we can shed some light on this tricky situation. We talk about […]

     

Every story needs to be called something, but the title you choose shouldn’t be a last-minute afterthought. Titles are a vital tool for communicating with the audience well before they turn the first page. But how does that communication work? What makes some titles better than others? Those are the questions we try to answer […]

Every story needs to be called something, but the title you choose shouldn’t be a last-minute afterthought. Titles are a vital tool for communicating with the audience well before they turn the first page. But how does that communication work? What makes some titles better […]

     

We’ve all heard how important it is for writers to “kill their darlings,” but what does that actually mean? How and when should you do it? Are there any other options? Why is this advice so common? We talk about all those questions and more […]