Often writers create antagonists who do bad, immoral, sometimes evil things.  They might be abusive or neglectful parents. An enemy. Or an otherworldly foe.

But when you're writing about your most trouble-rousing characters, you don't want to portray the givens. You want to surprise us.  You want to create an antagonist who's unforgettable. 

The stock villain gives the reader a stock reaction. And that's exactly what we want to avoid.

That's why in this episode, I'm sharing 5 ways to create a more captivating antagonist. 

So you can bring more nuance and complexity to your antagonist - and to your story.

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How do you make writing a priority when other commitments compete?  When you have a full time career and family? 

We all know writing a book is a colossal commitment. And it's so easy to get off track, especially when so much is competing for our time and attention.

In this episode, I’ll walk you through strategies to maximize your time, energy, and focus. So you can write without stress and overwhelm.   

You'll learn to:

• Re-frame your relationship to time and find a lot more of it
• Create a writing environment that inspires you
• Bring more vitality to your writing sessions
• Plan and focus on the right next steps

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Struggling with confidence when it comes to writing your story? Maybe you swing from excitement to self-doubt. Or you worry that no one will care to read it.

Maybe you lack enough confidence to even start. 

In this episode,  learn 3 ways to boost your confidence.  This is all about shifting your relationship to your work.

We'll cover:

• How to stay focused on the process, not just the end result
• Why writing what you think readers want is the wrong approach, and what to do instead
• Setting manageable goals to keep you showing up consistently
• How to use your own excitement as a guide to moving your story forward

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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. 

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Not sure where to begin writing? Need a way in to your story? Or a way through? Click here to download your FREE 9 Story Starters.  

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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.

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Not sure where to begin writing? Need a way in to your story? Or a way through? Click here to download your FREE 9 Story Starters.  

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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.

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Not sure where to begin writing? Need a way in to your story? Or a way through? Click here to download your FREE 9 Story Starters.  

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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.

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Not sure where to begin writing? Need a way in to your story? Or a way through? Click here to download your FREE 9 Story Starters.  

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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.   

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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.

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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

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Got value from this episode? Share your insights and wins with me!

Not sure where to begin writing? Need a way in to your story? Or a way through? Click here to download your FREE 9 Story Starters.  

Want to join a community of like-minded writers? Need inspiration and support? Join us in our private Writer Unleashed Community Facebook Group. It's totally free to join.