How do you create tension in your story that makes it impossible for readers to put it down?

By placing your characters in some kind of danger, even if it's subtle. Danger can be as harrowing as a plane crash, or as nuanced as unrequited love. 

In this episode, we'll explore two types of danger to raise tension, and make your story unputdownable.

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Not sure if your idea has what it takes to become a powerful story? This free quick guide will help you uncover the heart of your idea in just three simple steps. You’ll walk away with a one-sentence premise you can build your entire book on, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

Download Your Quick Guide Here

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.

How much backstory does your story need? And how much backstory does your reader need?

In this reprise episode from the deep in the vault, learn what backstory is important for you to know as the author, and what backstory belongs on the page.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• The two things you need to get clear on when it comes to backstory
• The importance of crafting backstory that adapts to your story 
• The actor's technique to developing character through backstory
• How to decide what backstory is significant to your storyline and to your readers

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Explore Your Character's Backstory with  Your FREE Character Questionnaire Here

Also Listen To:
Episode 12: Four Ways to Write Effective Flashbacks

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.

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.

Episode Web Page with Show Notes

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.

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

Episode Web Page with Show Notes

Not sure if your idea has what it takes to become a powerful story? This free quick guide will help you uncover the heart of your idea in just three simple steps. You’ll walk away with a one-sentence premise you can build your entire book on, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

Download Your Quick Guide Here

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.

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

Episode Web Page with Show Notes

Not sure if your idea has what it takes to become a powerful story? This free quick guide will help you uncover the heart of your idea in just three simple steps. You’ll walk away with a one-sentence premise you can build your entire book on, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

Download Your Quick Guide Here

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.

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

Not sure if your idea has what it takes to become a powerful story? This free quick guide will help you uncover the heart of your idea in just three simple steps. You’ll walk away with a one-sentence premise you can build your entire book on, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

Download Your Quick Guide Here

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.

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

Not sure if your idea has what it takes to become a powerful story? This free quick guide will help you uncover the heart of your idea in just three simple steps. You’ll walk away with a one-sentence premise you can build your entire book on, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

Download Your Quick Guide Here

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.

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

Not sure if your idea has what it takes to become a powerful story? This free quick guide will help you uncover the heart of your idea in just three simple steps. You’ll walk away with a one-sentence premise you can build your entire book on, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

Download Your Quick Guide Here

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.

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

Not sure if your idea has what it takes to become a powerful story? This free quick guide will help you uncover the heart of your idea in just three simple steps. You’ll walk away with a one-sentence premise you can build your entire book on, and the clarity and confidence to keep going.

Download Your Quick Guide Here

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.

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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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.