Some characters walk onto the page, do their job, and disappear.

Others stay with us.

In this Fireside Chat, Hank Garner and Abby Mathews talk about round, flat, and foil characters—and why each one matters more than writers often realize. Not every character needs a tragic backstory, a ten-page wound, and a fully mapped emotional arc. Some characters are meant to change. Some are meant to stay wonderfully, stubbornly the same. And some are there to hold up a mirror so we can finally see the hero clearly.

We’ll talk about:

What makes a character “round”

Whether you’re writing a novel, revising a messy draft, or trying to figure out why one of your characters feels thin on the page, this conversation will help you think more clearly about the people who populate your story world.

Pull up a chair. Let’s talk characters.

#WritingTips #CreativeWriting #NovelWriting #CharacterDevelopment #DabbleWriter #WritingCommunity

Kevin Tumlinson, the Wordslinger, is back on the StoryCraft Cafe. We both came up during the first Kindle wave, and lately we've both felt it: that scrappy, take-the-bull-by-the-horns indie spirit is back, and a lot of it is being driven by what's happening in traditional publishing right now.

We talk about why authors are walking away from trad deals, why AI detectors are a scam with a subscription button, how the Claude watermark actually works, and Kevin's best advice for new authors: forget the world and go own your fifty-mile radius.

In This Episode

The indie spirit is back (00:00) — Hank on the early David-and-Goliath days, the hybrid years, and why that energy is brewing again.

What Kevin's up to (03:00) — The Wordslinger Podcast every Thursday, Ten Shots, and the new Story Cuts, reviewing movies and shows from a novelist's point of view.

Back to the Wild West (04:40) — Draft2Digital's new $20 onboarding fee, and how the AI witch hunt has circled indie publishing back to its earliest days.

AI as a writer's room (06:00) — Hank uses a chatbot like a friend across the coffee table for ideation. Nobody clicks a button and gets 80,000 words. Kevin remembers the same panic over Photoshop and CGI.

Guilty until proven innocent (11:40) — The $2.4 million deal an agent pulled over an AI accusation. One more gate, and no law behind it. Hundreds of Kevin's viewers have given up on trad because of it.

AI detectors are a racket (14:50) — A clean manuscript flagged "100% AI," then an upsell to "humanize" it.

How the Claude watermark works (16:55) — Statistical word choices that add up across a fully generated manuscript. It can flag AI text, but it can't name the user. And you shouldn't be generating your book anyway.

Assistive technology isn't cheating (19:10) — Non-native speakers, writers with disabilities, and a quadriplegic author who dictates his books. Never submit what the machine spits out, but don't demonize the tool.

Add a unicorn, blow up the spaceship (22:10) — Two pieces of get-unstuck advice that still hold after fifteen years.

Own your fifty miles (23:45) — A thousand true fans will support a career, so why hunt them worldwide? Kevin set out to be Austin's thriller writer: every bookstore, every farmers market, local ads. Then expand twenty-five miles at a time.

How to become unavoidable (29:30) — Copies in every county library, friends at every bookshop, signings at coffee shops. You can't do that nationally on $500 a month, but you can at home. Hank's rural county has 100,000 people.

Direct sales and the Amazon basket (32:30) — Build your store early but don't push it as the only way to buy. Let retailers do discovery, keep the email list growing, and have the storefront ready for the day Amazon shuts you off.

School visits and Paolini (36:25) — Kevin's hundred talks at Houston schools moved a few thousand copies in three months. Eragon got found the same way.

Trad math doesn't work (43:15) — Smaller advances, higher expectations, spine-out shelving, and no backup when accusations come. Kevin's direct store pays 97%. If you're the engine anyway, keep the money.

Where publishing is headed (46:30) — The most divided Kevin has seen the industry since the early days. In five years the labels stop mattering. Indie and trad are merging, and the future is bright.

Links

"If you can just dominate local, you will make a living." — Kevin Tumlinson

We're all about helping authors hone their craft with engaging, fun, and educational content.

On top of all that, Dabble Premium members get access to exclusive content like Craft Q&A Office Hours, Wordsmith Workshops, Deep Dive articles, bonus resources, and guest speaker workshops.

Happy writing!

A protagonist is only as strong as the wall they're trying to break through. Your antagonist isn't the obstacle to your story, and your antagonist IS your story.

A protagonist is only as strong as the wall they're trying to break through. Your antagonist isn't the obstacle to your story — your antagonist IS your story.

Pull up a chair. Before we dive into Workshop 4, Hank Garner and Abby sit down for a relaxed fireside conversation about the most underrated character in fiction: the one standing in your hero's way. We're talking villains, rivals, systems, storms, and the quiet "no" that forces your protagonist to change. If you've ever written a bad guy who felt flat, cartoonish, or too easy to beat, this one's for you.

This is the warm-up. Grab a coffee, settle in, and come to the workshop ready to build an antagonist readers can't look away from.

In this chat, Hank and Abby get into:

#WritingCraft #Antagonists #Villains #WritingTips #AmWriting #NovelWriting #CharacterDevelopment #Fiction #WritingCommunity #StoryStructure

Why do readers stay up until 2 a.m. turning pages?

It's rarely because of the plot.

It's because they care about the person living through it.

In this one-hour writing workshop, Hank Garner breaks down the core principles behind unforgettable protagonists—the characters readers will follow anywhere, even when they aren't always likable.

You'll learn how to build characters with emotional depth, compelling motivations, and authentic character arcs that keep readers invested from the first page to the last.

In this workshop you'll learn:

What a protagonist actually is (and how they're different from your POV character or hero)

The three pillars every great protagonist needs:

Desire

The difference between what your character wants and what they truly need

Why readers don't have to like your protagonist—they simply have to be compelled by them

How specificity, contradictions, vulnerability, and voice make fictional people feel real

How to avoid passive protagonists by giving your characters meaningful choices

A simple five-question character test you can use on every novel you write

You'll also complete a practical character-building exercise and see how Dabble's Character Notes and Plot Grid make it easy to organize your protagonist's arc from beginning to end.

Whether you're outlining your first novel or revising your tenth, this workshop will give you a practical framework you can immediately apply to create protagonists readers won't forget.

Readers don't read your book because of your clever plot. Readers fall in love with your book because of your CHARACTERS. Each book is about a person, and your protagonist is the lightning rod of your book.

In this Fireside chat, Hank and Brooke talk about what makes a great protagonist and how to craft characters that bring people back time and again.

This is an exciting week where we finally get to unveil what's new in Dabble 3.0. Join Abby and Hank as they discuss their favorite new Dabble 3.0 features.

Most unfinished manuscripts in the world died somewhere between chapter eight and chapter sixteen. The writer didn't lose interest. They lost the shape of it. The plot started to drift. The scenes started to feel disconnected. The book stalled.

This 65-minute workshop is about the shape. The bones of a novel that works — and the structural diagnostic that tells you, every time, which beat in your draft is the one that needs work next.

Novelist and writing coach Hank Garner walks through Freytag's Pyramid, why it's incomplete for novels, the modernized six-beat story arc that every working novel hits, the midpoint shift that fixes a sagging middle, and the five most common structural mistakes in first-novel manuscripts.

You'll learn:

Try out Dabble free for 14 days and see why it’s the best writing tool on the planet—no credit card required! Visit our website at www.dabblewriter.com to get started.

We're all about helping authors hone their craft with engaging, fun, and educational content.

On top of all that, Dabble Premium members get access to exclusive content like Craft Q&A Office Hours, Wordsmith Workshops, Deep Dive articles, bonus resources, and guest speaker workshops.

Happy writing!

Meet the folks from your favorite writing app, Dabble. This week we introduce you to Yasmeen Salama.  

Most new writers freeze on the first line because they think it has to be brilliant. It doesn’t. The opening line isn’t the point. The opening page is. And the opening page is doing a job.

The lie about first lines that kills more drafts than anything

Join us at DabbleU to continue the conversation about this workshop at https://www.dabbleu.com/c/cafe-chats/join-us-today-for-our-dabble-workshop-how-to-start-a-story

Try out Dabble free for 14 days and see why it’s the best writing tool on the planet—no credit card required! Visit our website at www.dabblewriter.com to get started.

We're all about helping authors hone their craft with engaging, fun, and educational content.

On top of all that, Dabble Premium members get access to exclusive content like Craft Q&A Office Hours, Wordsmith Workshops, Deep Dive articles, bonus resources, and guest speaker workshops.

Happy writing!