Today is a bit of a grab bag of topics, but it's all great stuff. The guys eventually get to talking about protagonists and why they find theirs worth writing about. They also discuss things like changing the beginning of your story without going back and rewriting it, letting your characters misbehave, asking questions about your world and characters in order to discover more about them, and a lot more. 

The guys briefly summarize their progress this week and then dive into something that might present a challenge to discovery writers, particularly new ones like them: villains. It'd be easy to just tailor the bad guy to your hero, create them solely to oppose what the protagonists is trying to accomplish, but there is a lot more narrative traction you can get out of your antagonist if you're paying attention. 

Today, the guys talk about how to give helpful feedback on work that isn't done yet, especially when they're part of a discovery written story. What should you focus on when critiquing a friend's unpolished draft or chapter in order to help them move forward and without throwing a wrench in their creative flow? Discovery writing continues to be just what the doctor ordered in the journey toward a completed first draft. If you're following along with your own work, and would like a fresh set of eyes on it, feel free to send the guys your unfinished drafts at [email protected].

The guys talk about how listening to audiobooks (The Witcher and The Name Of The Wind) this week has helped fuel their writing, particularly given their current emphasis on discovery writing. They also discuss how improvisational writing allows them to focus on pinpointing characters and relationships while plotting led them to simply using characters as pawns in the machinations of some malevolent, micromanaging deity (i.e. the author). 

They guys talk about how freeing it's been to write improvisationally this last week. Discovery writing is really letting them explore their worlds and characters without feeling like they're just robotically connecting pre-determined plot points. Discovery writing has allowed them to follow their impulses and ideas in-scene far more than before when they felt they had to stick to the structure they'd planned. So far, it's going really great, and they highly recommend trying it if you haven't before. 

The boys talk about the success they've had this week switching from plotting to improvising. They're finding that the discovery method is really helping foster more creativity and character-driven writing rather than filling in blanks between sterile and pre-packaged plot points. Some happy medium between the two will probably be where they end up but for now, improvisation is getting them results. Also, a special guest makes an appearance...for about thirty seconds. 

The guys are trying something new, something crazy, something scary: improvising. They did all that work on their plots in the first few episodes of the podcast, but it didn't really give them the flow they were looking for to complete their first drafts. The whole point of this podcast was to discover a way to actually finish a first draft, to not get caught up in world building, not starting over, not letting yourself stop. Well, the way they were doing things didn't seem to be doing the trick. Maybe it would for different stories, for different people, etc. But as for us, we're trying something new, just to see what happens. That's what we're talking about today. Do you look down on discovery writing? Do you consider plotting to be the only true writing method? We had some of those feelings at times, but we're trying to lay those aside and try different methods in our journey to actually complete a draft. 

Vito and John had some success in tweaking their outlines this week, but Vito in particular is finding that he's having more success discovering his story after combining his original idea (the Sicilian Vespers) with some other influences, most notably Irish Republican history. They guys also discuss the voice of the narrator in their stories, and how finding that voice can solve many other issues. Finally, they also discuss narrative distance, or how close your "camera" zooms in during your scenes. Also, John storms out after Vito makes a bad pun...

The boys got cut short by technical difficulties today. Not by much, but we lost the last couple minutes of the podcast. You didn't miss much. Just the fact that you can find us on facebook, instagram, reddit, and Twitter by searching our name: World Builders Anonymous. 

It's been a hot second since the boys sat down to write, and they discuss coming back to their stories with fresh eyes this week. In their ongoing mission to find the best way to finish a novel and avoid world building stalls, they've decided to take the pieces they've put together so far and use them to go back and flesh out their outlines a bit more. How much tweaking is too much though? How do you keep yourself from the vicious circle of burnout, new start, burnout, new story, etc? 

Today Vito and John answer a listener question about how to stay focused on a story when the call of world building and trilogy-planning beacons you away from what matters most. Then talk about their writing thus far, the progress they've made, and how they plan to stay focused.