Writer Unleashed

What do you do when your novel or memoir doesn’t follow the typical plot structure?

What if there’s no crime to be solved, tsunami to survive, or evil wizard to slay?

What if your character’s only story problem is an internal one?

In this episode we’ll explore  4 thresholds your character will walk through at key points throughout your 3 acts.  So you can plot your character-driven  story, and keep readers invested every step of the way. 

Episode Web Page With Show Notes

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

We can all agree that your opening scenes are your only chance to capture your reader's attention. It's what hooks them into the story. 

Your first scene and several scenes that follow are your story's setup. 

The setup is essential to master. You have to be concise, deliberate, and selective with what you reveal and withhold. You don't want to give too much away too soon. 

Your beginning scenes must accomplish several things simultaneously.  And in this episode, I'm boiling it down to 4  essentials.

Episode Web Page with Show Notes

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

Our stories can become so overrun with ideas, they run away from us.

Each idea leads to another and another until you’re lost in the vortex. There are stories within stories. Endless possibilities. So many directions the story can go.

And then writing your story feels like an insurmountable task.

In this episode, I’m giving you 5 questions to explore, so you can rein your ideas in with more clarity, focus, and control.

Episode Web Page with Show Notes

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

Most writers know how their characters need to change.  They know what happens on the plot level. They know their character's struggles.

 Often, though, the main character doesn't seem to change, even though the external events change dramatically.  Other stories stay mainly in their character's interior without jumping into the fray of action. 

Either way, the story can be static.  The best stories blend both the inner and outer journey.

In this episode, we'll explore 3 approaches to help you integrate what happens on the plot level with your character's internal journey.

Episode Web Page

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

There’s no shortage of writing advice.  Especially in the online space. Google is not the best gatekeeper. And some FB groups  are doling out conflicting advice, canned advice,  bad advice. Writers hear the same advice so often, a lot of them have come to regard them as the only way to craft a story. 

But these are often half baked ideas that are keeping you from moving forward. They’re taking you totally in the wrong direction. They’re myths. 

Myths about plot and structure. Myths about how to create drama. And what it means to write beautiful sentences. 

Myths that are taking you way off course. It’s either the wrong approach, or it just doesn’t go deep enough. 

In this throwback episode from Season 3, I’m debunking 4 common myths about story writing, and I’ll give you different approaches to apply to your pages.   

Episode Website

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

Why do readers read?  Is it just for entertainment? To escape everyday life? Or is there a deeper need?

What is it about story that keeps us captivated from beginning to end?

It helps to understand why stories are so impactful and precisely what readers are hungry for when they turn to a book.

In this throwback episode from  Season 3, we're going into the mind of your reader, and what they want when they turn to your story.

We'll explore what the reader is actually responding to when he forgets about the real world and gets entranced by the world on the page.

So you can use this intel to craft your story.

Episode Website

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

Your first chapter matters.

It's what binds readers to your story. It makes them care. And when they care, they can't help but keep reading.

There's a lot riding on your first chapter.  So you want to get this right.

Bore them with too much exposition, long forays into backstory, too many characters and superfluous  details, and your reader will grow bored, overwhelmed, and will stop reading.

In this episode,  I'm sharing 5 ways to nail your first chapter.

We'll cover how to:

•  Resist the urge to tell readers too much too soon
• Write exposition that doesn't read like exposition
• Choose which characters to introduce, who to omit, and who to save for later
• How and when to use backstory and where to place it
• Shape your first chapter 
• Embed conflict and narrative tension right from the start

Episode Website

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

When a story moves us, it’s not because of beautiful writing, or a strong voice – it’s not because of a great plot. All these things are important, but those things on their own don’t move us.

What makes a story unputdownable and unforgettable is that the reader goes on an emotional journey of his or her own.

They don’t just feel for your characters, they feel with your characters. 

In this episode, I’m sharing 3 techniques to master emotions in your story. So you can  move readers in a way that stays with them long after they finish your pages.  A story they can’t stop thinking and talking about.

Episode Website

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

Show, don't tell.

How many times have you heard this advice? You may understand the concept, but it's still not sinking in.

So, what's the difference between showing and telling? Should show don't tell be applied to every line and paragraph of a story? Are there times when it's better to tell?

When do you show? When do you tell? And how do you write it?

In this episode, I'm going to tease apart the difference between telling and showing, using examples that integrate both. 

Episode Website

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me

You want your characters' dialogue to sound natural, like real people talking.  But what do you do when the dialogue just sounds mundane, forced, and dull? 

Writing dialogue requires practice. And there are some ways to think about dialogue to help you write it better. 

In this episode, learn 5 do's and don'ts of writing stronger, more absorbing dialogue.

Episode Website

📚 Get the character-led method to shape your story from start to finish, without the overwhelm, second-guessing, or endless rewriting. Enrollment closes Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm ET. → https://3actstory.me