Writing Roots

Every writing journey has to start somewhere. No writer out there started with perfect stories, even the bestselling authors we know and love. One thing we want all of our listeners to know is that writing is a never-ending journey. Each story, each piece of writing, makes you a better writer, even if the writing itself was terrible.

We’d be the first to admit our writing is still improving. However, we can also look back on where we started and see the progress. That’s why we’re sharing that with you. Ley and Leigh dredged up their oldest pieces of writing – some dating back nearly 20 years – to share with you.

If you take one thing from this, don’t get discouraged. Keep writing, keep trying, keep telling your stories, even if you don’t think it’s very good right now. Simply writing makes you better.

First aired November 25, 2023.

Head hopping is one of those problems that, unless you know what to look for, you probably don’t realize you’re doing. Unlike an omniscient point of view, where the narrator is talking about the events from a wide third-person perspective, head hopping happens when you’re trying to write from a third-person close perspective and swap that POV character without a clear delineation.

First aired November 23, 2023.

It’s too easy to accidentally create contradictions in your writing. Often it happens at the sentence level, coming through in the form of gerunds or misaligned descriptions. In this episode, we talk about how to identify simple contradictions, and when it’s okay to leave them in.

First aired November 20, 2023.

There is a delicate balance to providing descriptions to the readers. Write too little and your characters are empty shapes on a blank stage. Too much and it slows the pace of the book. Of all the problems we talk about this month, this is one of the more difficult to identify.

In this episode, we discuss how to spot when your descriptions need work.

First aired November 16, 2023.

Nothing can confuse a reader quite like having too many characters in a single sentence. This is especially the case when pronouns get involved. This problem extends beyond just characters, though. Listen for more about how to identify and fix convoluted sentences.

First aired November 13, 2023.

If you’re trying to pare down a complicated sentence, you may want to look for any extra adjectives and adverbs. While clarity and descriptions are good, they can also bog down your writing and cause more confusion in the end. In this episode, Ley and Leigh talk about how to identify when those descriptions are causing more problems than they solve.

First aired November 9, 2023.

Keeping a cohesive timeline through your story is more than simply maintaining an order of scenes. Even sentences can be out of order, causing little bursts of confusion that send the reader backwards in time. There are a few things you can look for to help you identify when you’re accidentally creating a confusing timeline of events at the sentence level.

First aired November 6, 2023.

We talk a lot on this podcast on how to fix problems with your writing or story. The most difficult aspect of that is figuring out if there’s even a problem in the first place. Throughout November, we will be talking about how to identify common problems.

We start with good writing. Knowing what bad writing and storytelling is can only get us so far in our writing journeys. We also need to know what makes good writing, even though it is subjective. In this episode, we talk about common ways to identify good writing, as well as our own personal criteria.

First aired November 2, 2023.

There may come a time, especially if you’re a pantser or a flexible plotter, that you’ll find yourself needing to add foreshadowing during your editing process. It is easy to accidentally put in too much, or place it in the wrong spots of your story.

In this episode, we talk about what to look for when adding in foreshadowing and how to identify when and where would be best.

First aired October 30, 2023.

Foreshadowing is a delicate matter when it comes to storytelling, which means there are many ways to do it wrong. In this episode, we talk about the more common mistakes people make when trying to foreshadow.

First aired October 28, 2023.

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