Full show notes out on the blog here.

Full show notes out on the blog here.

Full show notes on the blog here.

Full show notes on the blog here

get the full notes on the blog here.

Last week’s episode on war was so rich, I’m glad to continue the conversation this week with author Jerry Dean Pate, a former journalist in print and radio media turned novelist of historical fiction. Pate’s first novel, Plagued by Bad Beliefs was published with friend of the show Alexa Bigwarfe through Write|Publish|Sell. We’ll talk about the novel, the origins of the story, the rigor of historical fiction, and the choice to indie publish the book.

Here’s a little bit about Jerry Dean Pate

Here’s a synopsis (and BUY link!) for the novel

Get the full show notes on the blog here.

So last week we did “conflict” and this week we’re turning it up to 11 with War which, as you might imagine, is extremeconflict.

Don’t miss adjacent episodes on raising the stakes and “White Knuckle Scenes” which address the concept of “tension” in fiction and our first “conflict” conversation way back on episode 10.

Last week we told you that conflict, according to this resource from Oregon State, means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire. It’s when a character wants something, but something else gets in the way.”

Today we’re going to take War as extreme conflict and work out what they do to the narrative in three specific capacities:

1. As setting (or backdrop)
2. As primary conflict (this story is about the war or violence itself)
3. As exposition (it happened before the story but the residue is still here)

A few years ago, World War II novels were all anyone was publishing and I (Kasie) read WWII in every theater on the globe:

• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (San Francisco)
• All the Light We Cannot See (Normandy/coastal France)
• The Postmistress (Cape Cod)
• Five Quarters of the Orange (French countryside)
• The Orphan’s Tale (Western Europe)
• Sarah’s Key (Paris)
• Wildflower Hill (Australia)
• Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (Shanghai)
• The House at Tyneford (England)
• The Bronze Horseman (St Petersburg)
• Atonement (England)

It felt like the only thing worth writing about was the stories surrounding World War II and I think the compulsion was that so many people who’d lived through the conflict were passing away. In any case, the “theaters” of war were many – the Pacific, the East Coast, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Great Britain. There wasn’t a place on earth that the war didn’t touch. I haven’t read any novels about Canada or South America during that period, but I’m sure there are some.

In any case, what was it that made WWII so compelling? Even Outlander jumps off from WWII before plunging back into the Scottish rebellion of the Jacobites in the 1740s. People were changed, irrevocably, by WWII.

And that – irrevocable change – is the reason war is a compelling topic for stories. 

Read more on the blog.

Get the full show notes on the blog here.

We did an episode on raising the stakes and one on “White Knuckle Scenes” back in October of last year. And when I texted you and asked, “What should we talk about tomorrow?” you (Rex) said, “tention.” Leaving off that “tention” is a misspelled version of “tension” I assumed you meant how to create drama, conflict, or action in the scene.

So we’re going to work on that today: how to make the scene interesting by building the conflict. Because, while we did the tension thing a year ago, we haven’t done “conflict” since episode 10.

Conflict, according to this resource from Oregon State, basically means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire. It’s when a character wants something, but something else gets in the way.”

In the broadest terms, there are 7 types of conflict (link):

1. Character vs. characters
2. Character vs. society
3. Character vs. nature
4. Character vs. technology
5. Character vs. supernatural
6. Character vs. fate
7. Character vs. self

At the scene level, these conflicts play out in dialogue and action, and drive the plot forward.

Read more on the blog.

Get the full show notes on the blog here.

We have done character episodes before. Early on, we did Despicable Characters, Archetypes, Names, and how to Be Mean to Your Characters. Then, more recently, Do you Have to Like the Main Character? and giving them agency, diversity, patriarchy, and arcs.

So we might have done it all. Except we haven’t. We haven’t done origins – where do characters come from? And we haven’t done values – what do your characters believe in? And we haven’t done sketches – how do you get to know these characters before you write them?

As an admitted pantser (Kasie) and an evolving planner (Rex), we will today talk about those Voices in Your Head – the ones you hear and cannot ignore and the ones you’ve heard for so long they’re more like friends.

All those weirdo writer things – the things we blame on characters – are up for discussion today.

What is character development and why is it important? (masterclass link) Do characters simply spring from your head unbidden? Are they living in there, lurking in there, like parts of yourself you won’t let out?

Read more on the blog here.

Get the full show notes on the blog here.

Wednesday night we had a fun time at The Aristocrat on Washington, reading short pieces called “flash” fiction. The official definition of flash fiction is stories that are 1000 words or less. Fiction, obviously, not true. But the crucial part of it is the length. Lengths vary, though, which makes it more confusing. Between 5 and 1000 words? Or between 300 and 1500?

So why write flash fiction? What’s the purpose?

According to this Writers’ Digest blog it’s to focus on the “narrative movement” rather than focusing on character development or any other trivial things like setting or plot. So what does the writer mean by “narrative movement”? I don’t know. She never explains. Just provides a list of links to other people’s articles on the topic. The fuck? Yup.

So these bits are from some of those articles. Come on. Rabbit hole with me.

Characteristics of flash fiction (FAQs link):

• Few Characters
• Descriptions that show rather than tell (isn’t that all fiction?)
• Verbal efficiency of a poet – yeah, I’ll give you this. Flash is a read-aloud form.
• Clear vision – know where the story is headed from the beginning and get there in the end (again, isn’t that all fiction?)
• Who publishes flash fiction? I dunno. Contests. Lit journals. Instagram. You name it.

Actually, this blog was written by someone who started a flash fiction press. So there’s some specialists. And she answers the question, “Why do it?” 

Read more on the blog...

So we’ve done some cool literary devices in the past but we’ve never done personification. It came up in my house this week because my mom’s dog, Clemson, has been staying with us and we’ve been speaking for her all week: “But, Kasie, I love walking in the neighborhood and sniffing everything and never peeing. Let’s do it again.”

All the sarcasm, silliness, and fun of pretending we know what the animal thinks led Charlie to suggest this topic for the show. It made me think of books that have animals as main characters and how and if the author chose to put us in the mind of that animal. So that’s what we’re talking about today. It’s an animal lovers’ paradise, complete with silly voices.

Definition time: personification is a noun meaning the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

So the first obvious thing to unpack is how authors assume one of two things:

1. We have to get in the mind of the animal and think about what it knows, doesn’t know, and cares about or doesn’t care about.
2. We pretend the animal acts and thinks like a human.

Full show notes out on the blog here.