Author Devin Davis is a single father of three boys living in a tiny house in Northern Utah. He has a real goal to become a known author, and he's going to share with you that writing a book is completely possible regardless of the circumstances.
Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
2Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products For the text of “The Plymouth Express Affair,” follow this link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66446 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products For the text of “The Plymouth Express Affair,” follow this link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66446 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Follow this link to get your Writing in the Tiny House MERCH! https://wth-podcast-merch.printify.me/products For the text of “The Plymouth Express Affair,” follow this link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66446 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
2This is the first episode of the discussion of "The Plymouth Express Affair," by Agatha Christie. A reading of this short story can be found in WTH Season 3, Episode 2. Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
2 Find the text to this short story on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66446 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Happy New Year, friends! This episode describes the new format we're taking for this podcast this season. It's gonna be awesome! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
As we close this season, I hope you have all had happy holidays, and a happy new year! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
It's more than a creative outlet. It's also a way to explore relationships. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
I experience things seasonally: I begin things, and I end things, and I know that in the future I will start again. Writing is one of the things in my life that has taught me this importnat lesson. Knowing that if I stop something, I can now predict when I will pick it back up again, and at that time I will be in the perfect headspace to do so. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
The benefits of writing tools. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
We start a big thing. We get sick. That thing gets delayed. We move on. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Hope you make it past the finish line with NaNoWriMo! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Happy NaNoWriMo, everyone! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Let's be friends on NaNoWriMo. Username: author_devin_davis “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
This episode has a a super awesome guided meditation to help you through the stressfull process of drafting your work in progress! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Get your tools together for our big drafting sprint that begins November 1st? And, let's be friends on NaNoWriMo: username: author_devin_davis “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Join me in NaNoWriMo! username: author_devin_davis Sign up today and add me as a friend! Let's do this thing together. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Do an outline! It can look many different ways. NaNoWriMo: author_devin_davis “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
We're doing Preptober by making character profiles! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
We're starting Preptober a week early this year as we prepare for NaNoWriMo. This week: the benefits of a map! Don't miss out. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind Tik Tok: snow.white.whistles
Another clip episode where I take you into some of the moments of me going through the beta reading process. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
A dose of reality for today. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. The entire point of this podcast is to help the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and stress management, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in, and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Hello and good morning. It is another [00:01:00] Wednesday. And here we are in the tiny house doing another episode of this awesome show guys. It has been rough. Things have been rough, and I will compile another clip episode on my experience with beta readers later, just because that whole process isn't finished yet. I have a few beta readers who have not given feedback. I'm going to be meeting one of them tonight for drinks. I'm excited to hear what she has to say, but there has been a reality check in my life, and I have decided to share that reality check with you all today. at the same time, I don't want this to sound bitter or whatever, just because sometimes when we have moments like this, it's really easy to just get mad and it's okay to get mad. It is also a very healthy way to realize your life and to realize what you're doing, to realize the next [00:02:00] steps to realize. Your reality, hence the reality check. here's the fundamental question with all of this that I don't know that I've addressed in a previous episode of writing in the tiny house, what does it take to be a writer? What does it take for a person to say that they are a writer and like with so many art based things? I mean, in reality, you don't, you don't have to have painted anything in order to say that you're a painter, you certainly don't have to have sold any of your paintings to say that you're a painter and you don't have to have any of your artwork in your house. It is something where you can say it. And it is true I mean, with painting, perhaps you, you need to have held a brush at some time in your life, and that could have been at any time. And at that moment in time, you were a painter and you could still claim to be a painter because, because, because of opinions, because of, [00:03:00] you know, time isn't real, anyway, stuff like that. Writing is the same. If you have written an essay ever in your life, you are a writer and today you could still claim to be a writer. If you have not written a single word since that essay in junior high school at the same time, though, if you do claim to be a writer, people will want to see. the fruits of your labor. They will want to see what you have done. And so if you say that you are a writer, especially if it is your profession instead of your hobby, and that's another tricky part with this friends, if you want it to be your profession, there's a lot of stuff that you're going to have to do. and the fact of the matter is most writers in this world do not support themselves through their writing. If you want to support yourself through your writing, there is a [00:04:00] lot you are going to have to do, and it will take a long time. I mean, there are always exceptions to all of the things that I'm going to be saying, but by and large, most writers don't support themselves with writing and. Those who do it has taken a long time to get there, or a lot of the writers that we see today are able to write full time because a loved one is actually supporting them Or whatever they write full time because they don't need to worry about income. Income is being provided somewhere else, either through a loved one or inheritance or whatever, whatever. and like I said, there's always exceptions to that. , but here we are here. We here I am. I finished another pass with TIS and we're doing the beta readers and I received feedback that ti needs to be longer ti needs to be a full on novel instead of just a Nove The beta reader who said that [00:05:00] had all of the reasons to back it up, had all of it for this reason and that reason and whatever the thing is, I originally wrote his. thinking that it would just be a short story. And so I worked it out in the method that we see short stories. There aren't many characters. There aren't many characters who speak, everything feels pretty condensed. and that's how I wanted it, but was it the best way to do it? This beta reader has shown me that probably it wasn't. So while there were definitely strong parts in Ts, and I appreciate that and I love knowing that those things were there. thus far, I've gotten a lot of good feedback from ti. Another trick, like another kind of interesting thing with beta readers is if somebody says that they don't like the main character and another person says that they do like the main character, the thing is both of those beta readers are right. I mean, there's always a chance that the first person missed [00:06:00] something or there's a chance that I didn't do it. Right. Or there's probably. A greater chance of a little bit of both of those possibilities, but I've received very good feedback from ti thus far, but one beta reader wanted to understand the scope of it all. the thing is TIS is supposed to be the first book of a world of books. I. Hesitate to say that it's a, well, it would be a series, but the thing is, each of the books is not necessarily a continuation of the previous book. Most of these books will have different characters with different plots and different things, but they all take place in the same world. And so this collection of books, this tales from LAER stuff. That we've been doing for the past while is actually a world of books. It is [00:07:00] a world of lives. It's a world of people and not necessarily all of the books are continuations of a previous plot. and that's where we are. So we have stories that take place in this city. We have stories that take place in another city and the stories are unrelated except for a single element that ties in later. And of course, all of this builds for the final thing at the end, just because that's how it gets to be. Right. You build for 10 books and then you have the final trilogy at the end with a big battle. it? It's something that we've seen a lot in fantasy. going back to this idea of being a writer and what it all kind of looks like this beta reader wanted to understand the scope of where we were headed with this of where T was going of the [00:08:00] future projects. that are on the horizon, so to speak. And she said that the story is too big and the world is too complicated. And the intricacies of the magic system are such that it cannot all be properly developed in a Nove. And the thing with releasing a collection of short stories and a collection of Noves over time is the entire world is not fully developed in each Nove. And unless the Noves are all released at the same time, the reader is only going to get a half baked world in each Nove over the next. Many years until I'm finished with them. And so I can either release a collection of Noves all at once, or I can kind of flex my muscles and do all of the world building and make [00:09:00] TIS a big beefy novel, which will then set off this entire collection of this entire world of books with a splash. There's a lot of. heat writing on the first book of any collection of stories and any series. The first book is super important and I am convinced right now that a Nove is not the best way to do a first book. It was a year ago. That I was seeing a trend of people releasing a Nove as a way to test a theory or to test the market, to see if releasing something larger or something, you know, along those lines of the Nove later would land well. And so the novella was a way to test the market and the thing. Now that we are [00:10:00] 18 months beyond that, beyond me hearing about that first trend, I have not seen the fruit of any of the people following those trends yet. I know of one person who released a Nove. His name is Daniel Green. and it was his first, anything that he ever wrote, he has a very large following on YouTube, a very respectable, big following. And so he's self-published because he already has a big audience that he directly addresses, I think two times a week on his channel on YouTube. And he released a novella and I don't know what has come of. I don't know if he has continued with that or not, or if it was just a good project that he did. And now it's done. Who knows? I mean, I could, I could figure it out and I probably shouldn't include that on a podcast episode, but here we are just standing here thinking so. [00:11:00] considering the length of time that comes in between these projects is a Nove the best way to go. Like I said, I'm convinced that it's not, that also means that ti gets to be largely rewritten. And so to be a writer, here's the thing, friends here is the hard thing to be a writer you write to be a writer does not mean that other people will have to read what you have written. You do not need to land yourself a big following in order to be considered a writer. I have thus far written, literally hundreds of thousands of words. Literally hundreds of thousands of words that all belong within this world of lado. And this dates back to my first novels that I released when I was 24. I mean, this was forever ago. And I mean, it's what happens when you're 24 and you're eager to have a book out in [00:12:00] the world. And so you release a book that has not had a final proofread. So those books are not available now, but they take place in lado and so, here we are. I have written hundreds of thousands of words. I am going to write hundreds of thousands of more words until a readership gets a hold of any of it. And so the question of the day is, and I ask this very seriously because I already know my own answer, but I'm going to pose it to you. The listeners of writing in the tiny house. I'm, I'm assuming that most of you are writers are hoping to be whether professionally or as a hobby or whatever writing fulfills in your life. If you end up writing hundreds of thousands of words and a handful of people only ever get to read some of it, is it all worth it?[00:13:00] So go ahead and think about that because hundreds of thousands of words represents hours and hours, hundreds of hours. if not more and as a writer, is it worth it? If only a handful of people ever read a fraction of the stuff you have written. So for me, the answer is yes, that's something that I've been toiling with for a long time. And I have this big ass series. That I have been struggling with for a long time to begin to start. And now, because life is different than it was 10 years ago, I can start it, but this is something that will likely carry me into my sixties. There's enough books and enough, there there's enough content to carry me into my sixties. we get to just wonder if something that takes up so much [00:14:00] of my life, doesn't get read by somebody else or only a handful of other people and whatever else is it going to be worth it, something to think about. So thank you for joining me. And I leave you with that sobering thought. And that is it for today. Before we go, I need to say that my current work in progress Tiz the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is ready for beta readers, people to read the novella and share with me their experience. It's a big, important step before publishing. So if you wish to be a part of this project, reach out to me on my social media handles; on Instagram I'm @authordevindavis, and on Twitter I'm @authordevind. And remember that my short story Brigitte is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible as an audio book. Check those out today. [00:15:00]
Even if you take time away from your manuscript, make sure to take notes while your brain (and beta readers) tell you changes to make during your next pass of edits! If you are interested in being a beta reader for Tiz, my novella, be sure to contact me on my social media handles. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. The entire point of this podcast is to help the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and stress management, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in, and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Well, hello and happy [00:01:00] Wednesday. It is another episode of writing in the tiny house. And thank you so much for joining me. So like I, well, like I have mentioned in the past couple episodes, my work in progress ti is in a place where it needs beta readers. And if you are in a position where you want to be involved, please let me know by contacting me through my social stuff. So all of that is listed in the show notes. Don't be bashful with beta reading. It's reading in a casual way, just like you would any other novel and then giving feedback. I don't want you to flex your muscles when it comes to editing. We're not to that stage yet. I just want feedback on content, but guys, today is a little bit about what to do in the interim between drafts and beta reading. We are at a point with ti where I have a group of people reading my book [00:02:00] and giving feedback, and they are giving feedback at different rates at different times during the week. And there aren't very many of them, but here's something to understand friends, beta readers are. Wonderful volunteers who are incredibly valuable to the process of writing. However, they are going to require an amount of reminding your book is not nearly as important to them. As it is to you. And if you are in a spot where you are ready for beta readers and you start to get your program together, it's important to spell out to everybody who wants to read your book when you want them to have it finished. And. That you are going to be following up with them throughout the process. It's important to let them know that so that when you pop in halfway through just to see how it's going and they haven't started [00:03:00] yet, they won't be mad and it won't be unexpected. I mean, like I said, these people are not getting paid. They are doing it out of the kindness of their heart. And so it's important to be grateful at the same time, there is an amount of patience with all of this and when you get feedback and that's what this whole episode is for. Well, two things. When you get feedback, you need to have a way to organize all of that. And what are you going to do with yourself during this time? This beta reading program has been going on for about two weeks. And I have said in previous episodes that it is important between drafts to let your draft cool off. That means that you don't get to futz around with it. You don't get to tease it apart. You don't get to pick apart that if different things that are not working or don't seem to be working. And you get to leave it alone. You get to step away and let it cool off. That's what some people call it. At [00:04:00] least when you. Put that time in between you and your current draft, it allows your mind to refresh. And so when you do finally go back and you start to read it, it's going to be with fresh eyes and it's going to be with a fresh mindset so that you can actually do better editing work. during. Your beta reading program. it is important to have that space, that time built into what you are doing. So if you remember a few weeks ago, when I finished my first draft and got it. Readable. I let it rest for a few days. I didn't let it rest for as long as I'm about to let it rest. I mean, this has been almost two weeks. I did just a few days. And then I went through and did a first passive edit. Then I gave it to my friend my developmental editor crystal, and she went through and read it and took notes. And while she was involved with that, I let my [00:05:00] manuscript rest. so that when she had notes to give me, I was in a good place to go through and put in those notes and make those changes. Now that we are at an even better place with the manuscript, I get to let it rest again. So not only am I giving my attention to. Gathering information and compiling it into a meaningful, easy to understand layout. I mean, it's a Novea, it's not a full blown novel. And if I were doing a novel, I would have a different system to take notes with. All of the information that I'll be getting from my beta readers. And I likely wouldn't have given the entire document to them all at once. I would've likely split it up into a couple installments so that I could get fresher feedback that is more specific to what they just read. Instead of giving them a really big book and then getting feedback all at once and having them [00:06:00] forget parts, it's just a way to help them help you. So with a Nove, you don't need to do that. This thing is only 20,000 words. It's only about 125 printed pages or 120, depending on how you format your book, but that's about how long it is. And so there is no harm in just giving the book all at once in this instance. not only am I devoting attention to that, but I am. Paying attention to what the beta readers have to say. And as they give feedback, it also inspires me to make additional changes, but right now is not the time to make those changes. So here's the deal guys. when we come to swapping ideas and whatever, the wheels will start to turn in your brain and you are going to want to dive right back into your manuscript to make those changes. Especially if you get good feedback from one of your beta readers, I gave my book to, a young lady [00:07:00] who read it recently. And some of the feedback that she gave was perfect. she said all of the things that she liked, and then she said some things that she wanted a bit more of. And I can add that into the manuscript, but as I was thinking about it, it triggered a little bit of other places where I could add more to some other scenes in the book where I could insert a little bit of this or that just to fill it out and to give a better sense of who is there a better sense of setting and. That was inspired though. It was not mentioned directly in the feedback that I got recently from one of my beta readers. So this is my advice to you, my dear friends, listening to this episode during these times, when you are letting your manuscript cool off. It is still important to take notes as [00:08:00] far as what your brain is telling you needs to happen with your manuscript. be sure to have a good place. It can be on your phone. It can be a notebook at home. I have a sticky note on my desktop where I'm keeping a lot of these notes, but have a place To write down that inspiration so that you can have a list of points to make when you go through, another time to make more edits to your draft. So with developmental edits, you are going to be making several passes of edits until your book is at a good place to send to your editor. And it's important to make those passes. If you think that you're going to be making all of your developmental edits happen in one go, you are going to be surprised or maybe disappointed when it doesn't happen that way. However, the more that you do it, the more that you practice the [00:09:00] fewer times. Possibly, I mean, most likely fewer times that you were going to have to make passes in order to do some complete developmental edits or. You'll just get better at doing it. So the passes don't take as long and you can be more efficient with your revisions. I was thinking about a metaphor with all of this, with just this whole part of writing. And the thing is the first draft. if we are going to compare this to a garden or to a farm. Or something where we plant a thing and then it grows. The first draft is largely preparing the soil and planting seeds. The first draft is rough and it is hard to see some of the beautiful things in your first draft, especially when you read through it after you're done. I mean, there is problems and. It is through the many steps of revision that we coax out from the ground, the [00:10:00] beautiful things that we want and the beautiful things that are already there. So it's like the seeds and you are growing your flowers or you are growing your vegetables or your pumpkins or whatever else It is the labor and the tending and the weeding and the watering. All of those steps that make those things grow. and all of that comes through revision and through editing and revision, revision revision. And at the end things just get better. Guys. TIS was in a very good place when I sent it to my beta readers. Now that I'm getting feedback, I'm realizing that I didn't realize before that there are other places to make it fill out and to make it even better, to make it make more sense. And that's cool because I can see, I can see where it needs to go and then I can put the effort into it to get there. Again, just to sum all of this up while you are taking a break [00:11:00] from your work in progress and letting it cool off, be sure to still take notes. It's important to create some distance between you and your work in progress for an amount of time. But. It is still important to pay attention and take notes to the things that your brain and other people are going to be telling you about your work in progress. So thank you for tuning in. And that is it for today. Before we go, I need to say that my current work in progress Tiz the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is ready for beta readers, people to read the novella and share with me their experience. It's a big, important step before publishing. So if you wish to be a part of this project, reach out to me on my social media handles; on Instagram I'm @authordevindavis, and on Twitter I'm @authordevind. And remember that my short story Brigitte is available on Amazon as an ebook [00:12:00] and on Audible as an audio book. Check those out today.
Devin catched us up on his writing process by taking us through another round of developmental edits. This episode ends the day before he sends copies of his novella Tiz, the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor, to his beta reading team. If you wish to join his beta reading team, contact him through his social media. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Tiz is ready for beta testing! Reach out to me so you can get involved today! Contact me on social media. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. The entire point of this podcast is to help the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and stress management, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in, and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Hello? Hello. Hello, [00:01:00] and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. Guys, it's been a really busy summer. How has your summer been? I am doing one last, well, actually, I don't know. It's hard to say just how many passes of a work in progress constitute a session of editing, but I've been doing more content edits more developmental edits for the past while. And I'm feeling really, really good about my work in progress. Tiz is making huge strides toward being just kind of the perfect thing right now. And I'm getting super excited about it. I have a goal to get this round of developmental edits finished by this weekend so that I can move on to beta readers because we are at that point in our lives, my friends. So beta readers are super awesome and they are a huge part of the publishing process if you are professionally [00:02:00] self-publishing. just really quickly. If you already know what a beta reader is, and you want to be a part of my beta reading team, please reach out to me on social media on Instagram. I'm @authordevindavis Davis and on Twitter. I'm @authordevind and I will hook you up that way. If you don't know what a beta reader is, a beta reader is a person who read. A work in progress pretty casually, as casually as you would read anything else that you are reading for entertainment and then simply shares in some way, their experience with the author or whoever is doing the edits for the work that they are involved with. What that looks like. So all of that is well and good, but this is kind of what the process looks like, just because we're all busy. We all have a lot to do. And a lot of people. Oh, I would love to beta read, but they don't fully understand the importance that they are playing in the process. So [00:03:00] usually when a work is to the point of beta reading, it has been through a number of developmental edits. So in my case, I finished the work in progress and then I cleaned it up so that it would be ready for me to actually read. Because if you remember, I dictated my work. And that required a lot of tweaking afterward, which is fine. It, it was not a waste of time. And I was glad that I did it. It got me through, I cleaned it up as a way to just read it, to be able to sit back and read the content. I did my own developmental edits, at least one round of them. And then I sent my story to my developmental editor, crystal and a critique partner as a way to. Have them show me holes that I might have missed. And I have had conversations with both of those people in some way, crystal, we speak on the phone and then this critique partner, she actually sent me a big document [00:04:00] with her thoughts and her notes and her suggestions. And I have paid very close attention to both of those things. Now I'm working through it again, going through the developmental edits again, and things are improving. Things are better. Like the story is starting to bloom and I'm really excited to see that it's such a breath of fresh air to actually see what this can be to me, the magic of writing is in the edits anyway. And so when you crash out your first draft and it looks like garbage because it is garbage, you are tilling the soil and planting seeds, and then it's through the developmental edits that you water the place so that plants can grow. And I'm seeing that with this. So. This is the way a beta reader program works. while you are certainly going to, let's say that you go ahead and you sign up for my beta reader [00:05:00] program, because you are super interested in what I am writing and you want. Part of it. And you want to be involved in this whole process because you love the arts. You love fiction, you love fantasy fiction and how fun to be involved, right. Even if you're not a writer. So what happens is, and, and this is how it, it's a little bit different for every author, but I'm going to show you my. Program here and tell you a little bit about what other programs look like. So beta reading is in essence beta testing. When a person, when a company or when a. Group of people develop a product. They need to test that product to make sure it's something that people want to use. And so if you have been a part of a beta testing trial with new products, what they do is they provide you with the [00:06:00] product so that you can use it. And in fact, they may have some suggestions with specific applications for you to use it So that you can get a full feel of what the product is even for and what it's about. And then at the end, there's always a questionnaire. There is always a way for you to share your experience and offer feedback now with a beta reading program. It's much the same thing. An author is asking a person to read a book. So in my instance, this novella, read it, read it casually, read it as you would. Any other book that you read for entertainment? This is not about studying. This is not about asking you for free editing stuff. This isn't that your role as a beta reader is not to sniff out all of the common mistakes and the misspelled words. It is not to suggest [00:07:00] that this specific sentence would be better if you used this word instead of that word, that's not what beta reading is for. With beta reading, you have a manuscript that is not finished. And so we all just understand right away that it is not a perfect manuscript and there may be typos and little problems in it that you are going to be asked to ignore or to simply read. Through. I mean, if you're reading and there's a, uh, a paragraph where a section that is really problematic, it is really good of you to mention that, but nobody expects you to put on your editing cap and try to flex your grammar muscles, cuz that's, that's not what the beta reader role is. Your role is to read it and then share with the author or whoever is doing the edits experience. If you are [00:08:00] involved with a first time author, it is possible that they may not fully have a program developed. And so they may. Fully understand what sharing your experience needs to look like. It has been my experience with previous beta readers and just with other people who have read my stuff that you read a thing. And then if someone simply says, share with me your experience, you don't really have a lot to say. You just read something, you experienced something, but you don't have words for it yet. So hopefully the program that you're entering into will have questions to kind of probe through your experience so that everybody can get an understanding for what worked, what didn't work. And it's for the big parts of the story. It's for the relationships it's for setting it's for different things. A lot of authors will release [00:09:00] their books, especially if they have written a larger book and they are professionally self-publishing, they will release their book in sections to their beta readers so that they can have conversations fresh with each section of the book. And they can gauge how each section of the book is doing instead of throwing this huge manuscript at somebody and expect them To read it and remember everything as they go through it. So, because TIS is a Nove, it's already a shorter document and there's no need for me to release it in sections. But oftentimes the author will say here's the first section or maybe the first chapter. And then if they are prepared and they know what they're doing, they will have questions ready already for you to respond to. Questions about. How you felt, if there was tension in that specific chapter, if it was working for you, if the love [00:10:00] story is happening in a good way, just whatever the content is. If they know what they are doing, they will ask. Specific questions and they'll have that ready for you to respond. And usually they will ask you to respond in a timely manner. Sometimes it can be a texting conversation. If it's somebody that, you know, on a more personal level, it can be a phone call. It can be something like Marco polo. I don't know if. If you know what that app is, but it's basically video chatting or writing letters, but it's video. , that's how I feel that it is anyway. And you can go through and respond to those questions. It is important for you to be thorough. And it's important for you to be a little bit long winded. super short answers to these questions are certainly helpful, but elaborating. On what you mean by those answers is always more useful, even if [00:11:00] you err, on the side of sharing too much. So sharing all the things, even if you feel all the things is kind of a lot to get through is very, very beneficial to a person who is gauging the content of their story. And then once the beta reading project is over and done with, if it's an author, Has this all worked out, hopefully they are taking notes and they can go through and revise something or tweak something so that they can get ready to send it to their editor next. So this is a very important step in. All works in progress who were becoming professionally published professionally self-published. And so again, if you are interested in joining my program, please reach out to me in social media. And I will, uh, I will announce that again at the end of this episode, here is, what other people's programs can look like sometimes. So a [00:12:00] lot of people will recommend 25. Beta readers to read their work in progress. Sometimes it can be a struggle to find 25 people to read a book, especially if you're releasing a big book. If you're releasing this big epic fantasy thing, that's like 800 printed pages. It can be a lot to find people who can read that in a specific amount of time. Just because if you're releasing on a schedule, you don't have six months for somebody to get around to reading your work in progress with these shorter works like with TIS and with BJE it. Take as long to find people to beta read, just because they are much shorter works. I mean, JE was just 9,000 words. TIS is 20,000 words. It's a proper novella, but they're not long documents. And so people can read them in a shorter amount of time and it's not as big of a [00:13:00] time commitment. with many people, they suggest 25 beta readers and. I know of some authors who go as high as 45 beta readers. I have some mixed feelings about that. I do feel that you will flesh out absolutely everything. If you can get 45 people to read your work and respond to your thing. I also know that keeping notes on everybody's thoughts would be pretty tedious and a lot of people would end up sharing. The same things over and over again. And if you want to endure that 45 times, then that's fine. I don't think that I'm going to be searching out 45 people to read ti. Also with my particular program, I like to release it to a small number of people get their input. And if there are glaring problems, I like to do another round of edits in order to fix those problems. If I agree with them and then release it to [00:14:00] the next set of beta readers so that the manuscript can be continually improv. Before I send it off to my editor. So that's just kind of what the program looks like. That's what a program looks like. That's what beta readers are for beta readers are a huge part to the development of a book, and like I said, it is beta testing to see if the book would land well, if people would like it, if people would buy it. And if the content is something that would stick around and come across as something important. So beta readers are super a big deal. And this is why all authors are super grateful for their beta reading team. And that is it for today. Before we go, I need to say that my current work in progress Tiz the next installment of Tales from Vlaydor is ready for beta readers, people to read [00:15:00] the novella and share with me their experience. It's a big, important step before publishing. So if you wish to be a part of this project, reach out to me on my social media handles; on Instagram I'm @authordevindavis, and on Twitter I'm @authordevind. And remember that my short story Brigitte is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible as an audio book. Check those out today.
I went on a binge of LGBTQ fiction after having never read a single book in the genre, and this episode is all about how I became fully converted! The books I read that are covered in this episode: Bath Haus, by P. J. Vernon What if It's Us, by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera Here's to Us, but the same two previous authors And They Lived ..., by Steven Salvatore Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, by Jonny Garza Villa All That's Left in the World, by Erik J. Brown “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Join me as I take you behind the scenes as I make my first round of developmental edits on my manuscript Tiz. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Don't allow any aspect of your novel to get too complicated, otherwise you will lose interest from your readers! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
When we're going through our manuscript, whether we are doing edits or full-on drafting, finishing each pass and taking notes keeps us organized and gives us a sense of progress. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have this steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, [00:01:00] and welcome to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis and here we are guys. We are over the hump of July. We have made it. We are more than halfway through the summer, I guess, or at least the summer break. And can you even believe that? So I have been diligently working on this pass of edits with the current work in progress, TIS that I have been working on for a while. And now that it has picked up and it has become kind of a bigger thing. It is definitely gaining momentum in my day to day. And that is exciting. It is so good to be excited for a work in progress again. And I think I have some idea as to why, or some idea as to how I got here to this point of being excited. But first let's talk about TIS a little bit. Because of its length. So [00:02:00] TIS is a respectable novella. TIS is going to be between 25,000 and 30,000 words, which as a printed thing is about a hundred pages give or take ish, you know, and I believe, I believe that due to its length, I should be able to release it as a printed work in addition to an ebook. So with Brigitte being at 9,000 words, that is only about 50 pages of text, actually a little bit less than that. And because of that, it wasn't really plausible or really worth the time and effort or the energy to worry about finding a way to get it into a printed form. I mean, with a short story like that, Brigitte can always be part of a collection of short stories later on. I'm certainly not going to rule that out and I'm not going to say that I'm never [00:03:00] going to write a short story again, it is certainly not this work in progress with ti and it is not my next work in progress. My next work in progress is going to be a full blown novel, but. Due to length. Sometimes there is not really a plausible or a logical reason, or really just a feasible reason to provide a printed version of that story. But with TIS due to its length, I believe that I can release it as a paperback and a hardback. Which is kind of exciting. It's going to require some additional steps and some additional formatting on my end. And I'm going to have to get in contact with the guy who designed my cover art and have him expand it into a full wrap. So an image that does the cover, the spine and the back, which is what you need for a printed book, but at a hundred pages as it being a [00:04:00] normal novella I don't see why not. And that's cool To have it available as an ebook and a printed book. And of course, I'm going to turn it into an audio book. All of those things just makes it more accessible, which is cool because we all enjoy books in different ways. And so if all of the ways are covered, then that makes it more accessible to customers, which is cool. So that is already really good news, but I told you that this project has picked up some steam and it is becoming a bigger part of my day today. And I am eager to get this pass of edits done. And I believe that I have a secret as to why. So, this is a good rule of thumb when you are doing your developmental edits, which I call dev edits, or even if you're drafting. And the little trick that I want to talk about today is don't interrupt [00:05:00] your pass. That means that if you are writing your first draft, make sure that you finish your first draft without going through and futzing over the things that don't need to be worried about right now. Or if you know that there is a big plot hole in your first draft, instead of worrying about going through and coming through that and figuring out where it is. It is 100% okay. To simply take a note of it in your notebook or wherever you choose to keep notes and then proceed forward in your draft as if you already made that change. The thing is guys, it is so easy in these projects, just because everything here is self-motivated. Nobody has hired me to write this book. I'm writing this book just because I'm awesome. Because I want to do it and I love to do it. That [00:06:00] can also mean. that because it's just me and nobody is standing there tapping their toe in order for a, in order to get a release date or in order to get pages of the manuscript to read or whatever, because I am on my own timeline and only have to respect my own calendar. It is really easy to just not do it. And it's really easy to slow down and to lose some steam. So if you choose. To not interrupt your pass. So with your first draft or with your first pass of developmental edits or any subsequent pass after that, what it does is it gives you a sense of completion. It gives you a sense of progress. And so. , if you have taken notes as to where those different corrections and those different holes need to be, then you can go back [00:07:00] when you are done with your pass. and make those changes later. Sometimes we can get so hung up on a word or finding the perfect word or trying to figure out how a scene needs to play out, even though, you know, what the very next scene is going to be, or as I'm doing with developmental edits right now, sometimes patting out stuff. So I I just discovered. That there are some little things with the relationship between my main characters that needs to be more developed. It needs to be more mature and it just needs to be more right now, they are just kind of. They, they read as colleagues where in reality, they are lovers. They share a house, they have a very deep relationship. And so I need to work in the more mature relationship stuff that I haven't done yet. And I can. Spazz out about it [00:08:00] and freak out and go through and interrupt what I'm doing now and comb through what I've already combed through to try to find all of those little places. Or I can carry on with my pass and simply take note that I need to further develop and pat out their relationship. So that on my next pass, I can do that. The thing is guys, we forget sometimes that we are going to be reading. These works in progress like a hundred jillion times and , and sometimes we. Get impatient. And we forget that this process takes a lot of layers. There's a lot of building with this. and so it's easy to lose focus and it's easy to become impatient. And so in doing that in interrupting what we are doing so that we can go back and do this spazzy little thing of filling in something or worrying about a word or better developing a relationship now. It, it can create a lot of chaos and a lot of [00:09:00] disarray in the whole process itself, especially if you are really early in the process now it is important to go through and complete whole passes of your book. And to have a notebook or a place to keep notes so that you can keep track of where all of those changes need to be. And you can write down where they are so that when you're done with your pass, you can relocate those locations and futz about them. Then also, when it comes to things like word choices or some of these other things where. We're hitting a wall and we can't figure out what's actually happening or how the perfect wording for how things need to happen to lead to the next scene. Sometimes when we are already past the next scene, we have already finished our past. Sometimes we are in a far better head space to problem solve than we were when we were in the middle of our pass. and [00:10:00] so then we are better equipped to improve our manuscript in those little chunks. And once those chunks. Our improved upon, we make another pass. That's how editing goes. That is how this whole process goes. You are going to be reading your work in progress a number of times. And so it is important to read it in whole passes. So that is the news for today. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode on developmental edits and whatever. I've decided to do a little collection of episodes on developmental edits, because that's what I'm doing now. And I am going to be compiling another little clip show on how the developmental edit kind of looks like as I'm doing it. Like I did with completing. First draft with ti. So that will be coming later probably in August. [00:11:00] And yeah. Thank you for tuning in and be sure to tune in to next week's episode as well. Have a good day guys.
Would you like a collection of meditations specific to the writing process to appear in upcoming podcast episodes? Let me know! Reach out on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Join me as I take you through the thought process of completing a first draft. Everything was recorded in the moment! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Let's take a look at the Neflix adaptation of Heartstopper, a teen romance of two boys who meet, become friends, and fall in love. This series, and the graphic novels they are pulled from, subverts tropes and cliches left and right in order to give us a straightforward and powerful message about the beauty of self-discovery. (Also, there are at least 2 different ways to say the name Tara, and I apparently use them interchangeably. *shrug) “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have this steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. [00:01:00] Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. My goodness, friends. It is the final episode that I have for you in this very special month of June. I don't know about you, but this Pride month has been a huge roller coaster for me. There has been a lot to do. There has been a lot to celebrate. And I wanted to carry on with this for one final episode, but I promise it applies directly to creative writing, but we are going to delve in to a Netflix series and a comic coincidentally enough that has made its way into my heart and into the hearts of millions of people around the world. we are going to be talking about heart stopper, which is a Netflix series taken from the comic of the same name, which is created by a woman named Alice Oseman. Heart stopper came to Netflix just over two months ago [00:02:00] and it has been received with incredible positivity and a huge fandom already. I don't think that the people who created heart stopper could have ever imagined the success that it would get in just two months. And it has been astounding. Some of the things that I have seen on the internet, heart stopper has encouraged so many people to share in such safe spaces, their own stories of coming out, their own stories of struggling with this or that. And it has created wonderful communities of engagement for people to share these stories. And I personally believe that one of the most important things that we can do to heal one another is to listen to each other's stories. So today on Writing in the Tiny House, we are going to pick apart Episode three of heart stopper. And yeah, this is going to have spoilers. And so if you want to go ahead and hop on the [00:03:00] bandwagon and join the fandom of heart stopper, please do that. And if you don't want to hear these spoilers, then go ahead and pause this episode and take four hours out of your life to watch Season One of heart stopper on Netflix, and then come back and listen to what I have to say about it. This is not a critique of the show, and this is not a review of the show. I'm not going to pretend that everything about the show is perfect. But what we are going to do is talk about subverted tropes and subverted cliches, and the power that comes with keeping a storyline simple. I mean, sometimes a complicated storyline is absolutely what you need. If you are writing thrillers, if you are reading thrillers, then that's kind of what comes along with the genre. However, if you have a very simple message about a situation that is oftentimes misunderstood, sometimes keeping it simple is the [00:04:00] most powerful thing to do. As I go through episode three of heart stopper, I'm going to share with you what happens in the episode and then share with you the different cliches that come about in teen romances and in some of these other LGBTQ plus related movies and other series that heart stopper avoided. And what consequences it would have had had they played into that. So hard stopper is a very basic storyline and I love that. I mean, in the tagline for heart stopper, Alice Oseman says, boy meets boy, boys become friends, boys fall in love. And it's as simple as that. our main characters are Charlie and Nick. Charlie is an openly gay kid and Nick is a rugby player, a popular one too. And they attend the same. [00:05:00] All boys, school of Tru um, grammar school. And they are a grade apart and due to reassignments and stuff, they're in the same form and this is how they meet each other. Through this series, we see Charlie coming to grips with self-esteem and his role of how he gets to have some of the happiness that other people can give him. He has a history of being bullied and his coming out was not taken. Perfectly his coming out story was not easily accepted in an all boys school. On the other side of the coin or on the other half of this relationship, we have Nick who has, it seems never had a moment to explore or think about his sexual preferences or his sexual identity until he meets Charlie. And. This first [00:06:00] season of heart stopper covers his coming to terms with his bisexuality. He comes to realize that he likes both boys and girls, and this is him coming to feel that out and to embrace what that actually is. So in seat, let's see, in episode three, The main part that I wish to talk about is the birthday party. So this is a privileged kid's birthday party. He comes from a rich background and they rented an entire venue for him to celebrate his birthday. So the really like the ballroom, the really high ceilings. And of course, if you follow the staircases, there are empty rooms. all around. This is a very big building and they rented the whole thing to celebrate this kid's 16th birthday. During this party, it seems that everybody showed up and there are two other characters that become very, very [00:07:00] important. I feel at this point in time. So Nick is. Brought face to face with a girl that he kissed three years ago. Her name is Tara and. While they're talking to each other. they have a private moment for a second in kind of a quiet hallway or a corridor or whatever. Tara gets the courage to confide in Nick that she is dating a girl and that she is gay and yay. And Nick appears to be really appreciative of this and through their little conversation. We realized that Tara is very new to this scene, but she and her girlfriend Darcy are deciding to be more brave and less conservative about how they are. Dealing with their relationship. So they have decided to become a little bit more brave and to be a little bit more public with how they are showing their affection to one another. [00:08:00] And Nick seems to admire this a few moments later, everybody is on the dance floor and the camera zooms in on Tara and Darcy. and they're dancing. They're having a great time. There are the fluorescent lights everywhere. There's the really loud, really exciting dance music. And the two of them share a kiss and it is one of the funnest. beautiful moments in a teen romance that I have witnessed in a long time. And not only is it just a beautiful moment, but everything that comes afterward. So they are in a crowded dance floor and they have the courage to kiss each other potentially in front of all of these peers. and then immediately after the kiss, they get to celebrate by dancing. And so they're holding each other's hands. They're doing the spinning in circles thing because the age group of this crowd is about 15 and 16 years old. And so they're [00:09:00] celebrating as teenagers would, this was a big milestone for them. And it seems that even though it is a crowded room, Nobody really saw them do it except Nick and Nick stands there and it is obvious. With the way it is portrayed. And with the way it is filmed that Nick finds this to be a very special moment and a big gift for him to explore his own feelings and a few moments later, he and Charlie go to one of the empty rooms up upstairs. Now they're not bedrooms. This is a venue. This is like a smaller ballroom upstairs, or a smaller meeting room upstairs. And they're alone in this other room and they find the moments to very adorably share with each other that they have feelings for each other. And they, Nick and Charlie share their first kiss [00:10:00] immediately after that, because Nick is Venturing into uncharted waters. He hears some of his friends call his name. So he runs out of this smaller room to go talk to them because he's just worried. He doesn't want them barging in to see him and Charlie kissing and Charlie who is dealing with some of his past trauma and some of his distrust and his own self-esteem issues. Cause his dad. Completely heartbroken to come pick him up and he leaves the venue and goes home. And you expect this to be probably the worst thing in the whole world, as far as the way the series goes. However, at the end of episode, three, Nick shows up in the rain and you know, that they are going to make things right. And that is how episode three ends. So. Let's go through this again and talk about all of the tropes and cliches that heart stopper [00:11:00] chose to avoid in this. And I'm not, I'm probably not going to be able to touch on all of them, but I am going to mention some really big ones that show up in teen romance. And I'm going to say right now that some of the things that show up with the LGBTQ representation or the one or two LGBTQ characters, oftentimes those characters are there to be funny. it seems the male character is there to be snappy and witty and sassy and. Oftentimes, that is just kind of the role that they play, the stereotype that they get to be in with heart stopper. The entire thing is based on same gender, or there is one relationship that is transgender. And so representation is all over the place. But in this series, everything is treated as completely normal and that is already a huge. Step that is [00:12:00] already a very big point to be made here, but let's get to episode three again, to this birthday party, it's already kind of a trope that there is a rich kid who can rent out an entire venue for his 16th birthday. I was raised in very small town USA, and I don't remember really anybody celebrating their 16th that big. I mean, perhaps we could have rented out like, the front room of the days in or something. I mean, there were nice places in the city I grew up in, but these really big 16th birthday things, weren't something that we saw much where I was raised. I do know however that they do happen immediately. we see the absence of things that come up in a lot of teen romance or teen drama And the first thing that we get to not see is the presence of a lot of heavy drinking. So in almost I, in so many American. Teen dramas or teen romance series [00:13:00] and movies. If there is a party, it is going to be unsupervised and there's going to be buckets of underage drinking. I know that underage drinking is a thing, but it seems that it shows up everywhere in cinema. I also know that this does not take place in America and underage drinking as far younger over there. And so that's fine. But this is actually the important thing. Nobody was drunk at the party. there might have been something that I missed. I mean, there was one character kind of acting silly, but there wasn't drinking there wasn't drugs. There wasn't even talk of any of those things. And the reason why that's important is because these super tender moments that happen while at the party in. Their own private ways. That first conversation between Nick and Tara, if Nick or Tara had been drunk or on something that conversation couldn't have been so intimate and so full of trust immediately, [00:14:00] it was because everybody was level headed that Tara decided to open up to Nick and tell him that she was a lesbian and was dating Darcy also. On the dance floor when Tara and Darcy share in their kiss in front of all of their peers, the energy of that would've been entirely different. Had anybody been impaired, if that had not been a completely level headed kiss filled with love and joy and excitement and a huge moment of celebration, it wouldn't have carried the same weight and it would've not affected Nick in the same way. Did. then later with the first kiss that Nick and Charlie share, we have all seen the movie where that first kiss or that first. moment or that first vulnerable moment, one of the people in the relationship is drunk and does something by mistake. It would've completely ruined the storyline of this season, or it would've just created a [00:15:00] problem that would've had to be resolved later and probably wouldn't have been resolved very well. When when Tara and Darcy were on the floor and they have their kiss, they get a moment to celebrate and a moment to be excited about it. And Nick was there to see, there is always in a team drama. It seems that there is somebody looking out to stab somebody in the back. If that kiss would've been immediately ruined. It's possible that Nick would've not had the courage to share his affection for Charlie. If somebody would've stepped in and made fun of Tara, of Tara and Darcy for kissing on the dance floor, the entire tone of the party and the entire tone of the events that could have come later, would've changed. And it would've been more about throwing a wrench in the plot of the story, rather than showing [00:16:00] us the beautiful innocence and the beautiful transformation of these fun relationships. It also could have discouraged Nick from being brave and exploring his feelings for Charlie one last cliche, and then we'll wrap it up. in episode three, Nick and Charlie have their kiss. and then Nick hears his friends calling out his name and because he's scared for whatever personal reasons. It doesn't really say what perhaps he was worried of them. Worried that they would walk in and find this and he wasn't ready for that. He immediately stands up and runs out of the room to go talk with them. And who knows how long they were actually talking So a cliche that was avoided in this situation was actually having somebody walk in or having somebody listen in or having somebody a fly on the wall. [00:17:00] Invade the privacy and the tender moment of these two boys sharing their, a admitting their affection for one another. And then that person holding it over their head as a form of black male. We've all seen that before. We've seen people kissing people and somebody seeing that who shouldn't have seen it and then holds it over their heads as a way to get what they wanted or as a way to ruin a reputation or just ruin something a way to exact revenge or a way to. Pull negative attention away from themselves or whatever that didn't happen here. And I believe that had it happened that way. It also would've ruined the plot of the story. That was not the point of this. That was not the PO like that stuff is not the point of heart stopper. It's not how heart stopper works. in many of the current teen romances that [00:18:00] involve gay characters. It seems that many of the gay characters are very sex forward. And so to admit your feelings for somebody automatically leads to sex in those stories, that didn't happen with heart stopper either. In fact, there's no sex in hot in heart stopper, at least not in season one. and that's nice. So the reason why we are talking about subverting tropes and subverting cliches is because hard stopper is all about exploring and inviting the viewer or the reader. If you are reading the comics, because you remember this is a Netflix adaptation of the comics that share the same name. It allows the viewer or the reader to witness this beautiful blooming, this beautiful blossoming of something new. when it does that, the, [00:19:00] the reader or the viewer gets to see this happen and it allows them to feel, and it allows them to experience. The honesty of these situations and the honesty of these emotions, the thing is subverting all of these tropes and all of these cliches allows the entire emotion of. Heart stopper to be 100% honest feeling. I mean, it's a work of fiction. None of this is real, but it allows it to feel authentic and because it feels authentic, there's something to learn about it. We get to see in Charlie, a person struggling and overcoming the effects of bullying and The hard times and the hard job that it is to overcome all of that and still remain happy. He still struggles with it throughout the thing. And he's not 100% arrived at being better. at the end of the first season, And spoiler alert. The effects of [00:20:00] bullying actually gave him an unhealthy relationship with food, which is set up throughout all of season one. All of this completely makes sense also with Nick with him just being a simple rugby player. Popular doing his best, but not living life in a very deep way. And coming to this awakening that he is bisexual, that he likes both men and women. And right now he really likes Charlie. And so he's going to pursue a relationship with Charlie and coming to the realization. Oh my goodness. I am different. and, oh my goodness. What does this actually mean? Keeping everything honest and authentic pulls the reader in. So a lot of times the little tricks that I mentioned that heart stopper avoided, we throw those things in as a way to build tension in the storyline so that people will continue reading. But the thing is one of the [00:21:00] biggest things that I have learned about writing is. That people continue to read because there is a reason to continue reading. They continue reading because they want to. So regardless of if it is tension, if it is a thick plot twist, or if it is the threat of blackmail or if it is a big mistake, because someone was drunk, sometimes it is more of a simple. Honest heartfelt thing that will keep a reader hooked and a watcher in this case, because this is a TV show too. It will keep someone hooked to continue witnessing what comes next. So with heart stopper, we are watching the gradual budding and blooming of this beautiful same sex relationship. Actually, a couple of them. [00:22:00] Tara and Darcy's relationship was a little bit further along the path. It started out further along the path at the beginning of heart stopper, but everything ends in a more beautiful place. And we see the very beginnings of a relationship between a trans girl and a straight boy. because this is only season one and there is already a huge cannon of comics. It, it makes us immediately want to go read all the comics. We do that because we know That unless we read more, unless we see more, unless we continue with all of this, we are not going to see the roses that are inevitably going to be at the end. So that's the thing, friends, these little tricks, the little trophy things, the little cliches. Sometimes they do succeed in building tension, but sometimes. like in the case of heart stopper, they can [00:23:00] really pull us away from a deeper, more beautiful and more simple form of storytelling. And it can prevent that from conveying a very beautiful message. So one of the biggest takeaways That has formulated in my mind is that all of this, the same sex relationships love can look any way that it wants to. And here is a beautiful example of how, and to be gay, a person can understand that they are gay from the very get go. there are still other people who don't know. If they're attracted to men, women, or whomever in between until they are given the chance to decide, just because in Nick's case, it's possible that he never considered it. He never considered what all of that looked like for him until. he was met with a boy who [00:24:00] peaked his interest and they became friends first before they became boyfriends. So that is the take home for today. If you are a writer or a creator of some form of content, where you have a lesson about a topic that is largely misunderstood. And it can be about anything Sometimes keeping the story simple. Is a way to keep it powerful so that's all I have for you today. I hope that you have had a wonderful pride month. This has. One of the biggest months, probably in my adult life that I will remember. And I love the reason we celebrate pride. I am going to be celebrating pride in a very big way from here on out. So thank you for being with me all throughout this. Thing. It has been a huge journey and I appreciate the support of each and every single one of my listeners. And [00:25:00] so go out and have fun writing. We will see you next week. On another episode of writing in the tiny house. And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.[00:26:00]
“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the show Writing in the Tiny House. I am on a mission to abolish the idea of the tormented artist by sharing what I know about writing, publishing, and just life in general, so that you can have the tools to produce the content that you have been eager to write. If you have the steps in place, you can produce a short story in as few as three months or a novel in as few as 18 months. And hopefully through the ideas in this podcast, you will have the wisdom to adjust that timeline if you need to. I am Devin Davis, the guy who lives and writes in a tiny house in Northern Utah. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. [00:01:00] Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. My goodness friends. It is toward the end of June. Can you even believe it? This has been the most eventful June in the history of ever for me, at least, usually June is kind of that forgotten month in the summer before all of the vacations happen. And before the weather gets really, really hot, and it seems like I tend to forget that June even exists. However, with pride and with different things like that, this June has been crazy busy and it has been super eventful. Please tune into all of the other episodes this month. There's like three, all of them. And yeah, they've been super personal. They have been very inspirational at the same time. When it comes down to the nitty gritty of writing, that's kind of not what this month has really been all about. So today we are just going to do a bit of an [00:02:00] update as far as writing goes. And little bit of tips and tricks with some stuff that I have learned as I've been compiling some of these more special episodes. So you get to know that as of today, I have finished the first draft of Tiz which I have found out because of its word count is a modest novella. So it's about I think, 23,000 words, which makes it a novella according to the measurement of some. And that is super exciting. It means that I can delve right into editing and I prefer editing to drafting anyway. And so I have been itching to get this far. The next episode that we have with Writing in the Tiny House is going to be more of a clip episode that brings you along for the ride with Tiz, with doing this first draft. That is something that I have never done on this show before. It is nothing that I have heard of in a podcast episode anyway.[00:03:00] And so it should be a pretty good experience. And I'm really eager to share that with you. Sometimes it's fun to talk about what the steps are, what they look like. Sometimes the mental tracks that we go down and the thought processes that we have along the way, and other times, it's fun to demonstrate what all of those things actually look like. And so while I have been drafting Tiz I have been recording thoughts and just feelings and challenges that I have encountered along the way and this way, as I compile another clip episode, you can kind of get the idea in real time, sort of in real time in the moment like live in the moment, but you understand what I'm saying? So Tiz the first draft is finished and I will keep you abreast as to what the other steps look like, just because it is going to require a lot of editing. They [00:04:00] all require a lot of editing, but this is the roughiest rough draft I have ever done in my life. And that is the whole point of today's episode. So I have learned the value of dictation. I can dictate four times as many words that I can write and so this doesn't mean that I still have two hours to simply dictate because that is really overwhelming. And that's not what I can handle. What it does mean though, is I can dictate the same amount of stuff that I could write in two hours in 30 minutes instead. And because I am a person who has no free time, and this is something that really stresses me out, being able to dictate what I would do in a day in 30 minutes, frees up a lot of the stress and gives me a lot more of my time back to me. And this matters just because I tend to be a person to stress [00:05:00] and worry about a lot of things. I also don't really allow myself to rest very much and I am prone to burnout. So to know that drafting is only going to be 30 minutes. It doesn't take me as long to fall into the groove of drafting. When I am blabbing to myself as a voice note into my phone, as it does, if, if I were to sit down and write, it takes longer for me to get into the flow and. Like I said, I can crash through this a lot faster. The draft is rough. I'm not going to lie about that. But to me, the magic of writing actually comes through editing more than it does through drafting. And so I'm eager to take this to the next place just because it requires a different part of my brain. It requires different energy. And I have been eager to get into that energy with this novella with Tiz. TIS has turned out to be a very special project. I am [00:06:00] eager to get it ready and to get it released. I'm also eager to start the next project, which could be another novella. It may actually end up being a novel called Mateo. It is the next installment of tales from Laar. So be sure to tune in for more updates with that. So we all noticed, I'm sure that the title of today's episode is eat your frog. Mark Twain once said when he was talking about being productive, he said this, if it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs. It's best to eat the biggest one first. I am a fan of these fun little sayings when it comes to being productive in whatever else. This is mark Twain's way [00:07:00] of saying whatever is the hardest for you to do prioritize it and get it done first. So for me, the priority right now, Is actually taking care of myself and allowing me to rest. And so just a, a review of some of the things that I do in my day, I have a full-time job and I have found out that unless I come home and rest for about an hour and a half, I am really going to be grumpy and hate the things that I work on for the remainder of the evening. So. The first thing that I need to do that is a priority above all of the rest is to allow myself some R and R. However, the next thing that I need to prioritize. So it is my job in a way in the evenings, the frogs that I get to eat , which is a really unpleasant way of saying writing and getting my drafts done.[00:08:00] But the thing that makes me the very happiest is making progress in my first drafts and making progress in my projects. And so that is the next thing that I have to do first. The idea is get the horrible thing done in the morning so that it doesn't ruin the rest of your day. And if you need to eat two frogs eat the biggest one first. So to me, writing is important. Writing makes me happy and all of these other things that I also do, like the podcast. I love this podcast. I love writing more though. So, because I've discovered this trick of dictating. and because I can get as much done in less time, it is less of a commitment for me to write. And so it is easier for me to simply get that done to simply get 30 minutes of writing done before I do all of the rest, I had to record a lot of things with the podcast today. You can hear that I revamped the [00:09:00] intro and at the end of this, you're going to hear that I revamped the outro and yeah, that was the smaller frog. So I got the writing done and now I did the podcast editing and now I am recording a podcast and soon I am going to be recording a, a second podcast that I do for work. So that is the little tip and trick for today. If your job is to eat a frog, it is best to get it done in the morning. And if your job is to eat two frogs, it is best to start with the biggest one first. And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte," Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my [00:10:00] writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
Sentiments about Pride! Also, Michael Allen shares with us the simple story of magic that came about in his life after he came out. Michael's IG and Facebook page: @themichaelallen What are the small things that are getting in the way of your creativity? How can you take charge of that? “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
Know how your people are getting around, and what they layout of the land looks like in order to make things like travel more believable. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.
One of June's special episodes celebrating Pride.
Elves. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] So let's just settle a debate right now. Tolkien's elves are better than all other elves, right? I'll let you decide. Today. We are moving into part two of our mini series of research, as it pertains to fiction on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. [00:00:49] I am your host Devin Davis, and I live in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and I write stuff and tell you how to also write stuff. So the point of this podcast is to give you the steps and the insight and the advice needed so that you can produce a short story in as little as three months or a novel in as little as 18 months, and hopefully have the vision and foresight and wisdom necessary to adjust that timeline if you need to. Most projects are not done in that short amount of time. Last week, we kicked it off with research and fiction and how it is good if you are writing historical fiction and you are including nitty gritty details of a particular event in history that you are adding a fictitious point of view or fictitious related experience, or if you are changing that point in time completely or modifying it somehow. [00:01:49] That it is good, it is common courtesy to include resources and references that you might've used to gather your information. With fiction you're not required to do a works cited page, but there's always the possibility of footnotes or even just author's notes at the end of your sections at the end of your chapters or whatever. [00:02:09] And if your novel does some stylistic stuff, like at the beginning of each chapter includes quotes by an important person in history or current day, it's important to include who said that and possibly when and where. So today we are moving on just with how to research as it pertains to fiction. [00:02:33] Like I said, if you're doing historical fiction, refer to the other episode, if you are doing something else, then go ahead and perk up the whole point of fiction is to create an experience that can be immersive and believable. [00:02:48] And sometimes it requires polling knowledge and theory and practices and cultures out of our real world and implementing them in some way into your own writing. So for those of you who are new to the game, I am a part of many different Facebook groups and there has been some debate, it seems weekly, probably not weekly, but monthly on elves. And it seems that everybody thinks that all elves belong to J R R Tolkien and they are tall and they are beautiful and they are immortal. And we forget that before Tolkien did that with the Lord of the rings, elves we're little horrible creatures. [00:03:30] And they were like little goblins and monsters and they fit into that category. So I bring this up just because sometimes we feel that there are cold, hard rules with how we are engaging our audience and how we are writing our stuff. And there are hard, like there are cold, hard rules. However, when it comes to elves and it comes to magic in general and it comes to any of these other particular things with elves, [00:04:04] Elves come from basic lore of different cultures in this world. So do dwarves, so do fairies. So do like Druids and such. It can be really good to investigate and to become better educated on your own as to where these things came from and how you want to further run with that, or if you want, instead to just invent your own thing. [00:04:34] I think about like Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan's implementation of Greek history or Greek mythology and Roman mythology and how he adds a modern spin on how those things come out. And sometimes I think that the books themselves are a little bit heavy. [00:04:58] Some of the mythology and some of it could be weeded out, but I appreciate what he's done. And it's obvious that he has done research and is familiar with those things. and even though he did not come up with a lot of the things that he mentions in his books and a lot of the iconic characters of [00:05:19] greek and Roman mythology, you can tell that he's still paying homage to those things. And he brings in some of his own stuff too. So when it comes to like elves and monsters and things, it's okay to know that not all elves are tall and beautiful. Not all elves have to be little monsters. Elves can be what you want, but if you choose to call those monsters, elves, you are representing a certain thing and it is really good for you to know what you are representing as good for. [00:05:49] To know that those words mean something to someone. And if that is not the picture you are trying to create, it's okay to try for something else. So when you are going through and gathering your information like I said, with fiction, you're not required to do like a work cited page. And for me, I like to be educated in a very general way, just so I can Bring some of these different elements into my own world. [00:06:19] And so when I say educated in a general way, what I mean is many of my stories in my world of late, or that I am building with these short stories and with some of the novels that I still have in progress, just because it seems as a writer, we get to have like 10 works in progress. They take place in a certain time period. [00:06:39] That time period is similar to an American or European industrial revolution. And I choose to keep their calendars and their years and stuff. I choose to have that kept in a similar way, just so I can actually have years and dates that represent a specific time period that is reflective of our world too. [00:07:02] And I wanted dress and appearance and culture to be represented of that. Just. Convey a specific time and place, or at least give a nod to a specific time and place. And so many of the stories that I'm writing in this world take place in what would be a late Victorian or early Edwardian equivalent of time. [00:07:30] And so. This means I get to know what a frock is and I get to know what Crystalens are. And and just all of these things that pertain to dress the ins and outs of corsets. I mean, I never thought in a million years that I would be researching corsets and I, I do all of this just so I can bring that familiarity and Draw from those ideas and pull the reader into the world. [00:07:59] It is okay to have some familiar elements in your writing if you choose to. And if you have those things already, it is easier for a reader to relate. So I encourage you to think about your work in progress and to come to a similar conscious decision on how you can pull from those familiar things. I think about the Bobiverse books, which is a science fiction series and how. The author, pulls so much scientific theory into his books. [00:08:35] And his books are fast paced. They are light hearted. They are a riot, they are fun and they challenge, or at least they show a possibility of what things would look like with artificial intelligence, with sentience artificial intelligence, and it's fun to have a sentient being exist entirely in a virtual world and only express outwardly through machines is. [00:09:01] A fun idea. And in order to do that accurately, he has had to show his own familiarity with some different scientific theory and with his understanding of chemistry and manufacturing of stuff and the physics of it all in a zero gravity environment. And so when you go through, make sure that, you know, if you are bringing in weapons or specific spells or references to LOR that comes from other cultures, make sure that you are doing that with sensitivity. Some people think that fairies and Fay and faithful and whatever else are all just fairies, that they are all like Sarah J mass fairies. [00:09:52] And the thing is, that's not right, even though they are like small Woodland creatures and many of them have wings, a lot of these ways to spell fairy or Fe or whatever. Ha. Some cultural background and I personally feel it's important to know what that background is before we just kind of dive into it, like spelling magic with a C at the end or magic with a K at the end, just make sure you know what you're doing so that you're not. [00:10:23] Blundering into some form of an insensitive situation. So that's it today. Be sure to tune in next week, as we further explore research, as it pertains to fiction, have a good day, guys. We'll see you then. [00:10:38] [00:10:38] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
Let's take a look at research as it partains to fiction! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.
You are in charge of your own marketing. For reals. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage.
Vanity Pubs really aren't all that bad. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Last week, we concluded our little mini section of this series of pitfalls of writing with talking about layout with giving some good guidelines on how you should be laying out your text if you are self-publishing. Today, we are moving away from cover art design and text layout, and we are moving on to bigger things. [00:00:28] We are moving on to what happens after your book is done, or at least kind of. For this episode, we are going to be talking about vanity publishers today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. It is another Wednesday and I don't know about where you live, but here in Northern Utah, we've had another bout of cold weather. It snowed the other day. So we had to kick on our heaters again and here we are reliving like the eighth winter of this year. [00:01:21] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny house. I am Devin Davis. I am the host of this show and I am the guy who writes things and tells you about it. And the whole point of this podcast is to give you the tools and the knowledge necessary to produce a short story in as little as three months, or to produce a novel in as little as 18 months, but to hopefully give you the wisdom and the foresight to adjust that timeline if you need. It is rare to produce a work that quickly, but it can be done. So today we are going to be talking about vanity publishers. I am a part of many different Facebook groups in this little world, and it seems almost every day or about every other day, somebody gets on the Facebook group and asks who should I pay to publish my book? [00:02:10] And here is like just upfront, this is a big misunderstanding. In traditional publishing if you want to be traditionally published, you will not pay any money for them to publish your book. In fact, With a traditional publisher, what they will do is they will take your book and pay you an advance on that book, and then hopefully pay you royalties after you have earned out your advance. Most authors don't earn out their advance by the way. If you are in a relationship with a company who says that publishing is what they do, but they are asking for you to pay them money, they are not a traditional publishing company. Traditional publishing companies, like I said, they pay you. [00:03:03] They pay you for your book. They pay you for the content that you are offering them so that everybody makes money through sales. A traditional publisher also will offer, well, we'll assign you to an editor and to a design team of some sort, and you may be involved with the design. You may be involved with the image production of your book. You may get to say yes or no to your book cover. You also may not. You may not even get to title your book. They may retitle your book, but all of that is the process of the traditional publisher. So we go through this, we have a book ready, we feel that it is time to take the next step towards releasing it out into the world for people to get it and to buy it and to read it. [00:03:52] And we see these other companies who are offering publishing services, but you get to pay them. There is nothing wrong or evil about these companies. I do feel that they are misleading sometimes, but if a company is offering publishing services in exchange for you giving them money, they are what we call vanity publishers. [00:04:19] And what a vanity publisher does is they offer you the services of doing the steps of self-publishing for you. When you publish under a vanity publisher, it will likely be under your name. You will have the rights to the book. And they may offer a few perks, like a newsletter or a magazine that circulates within their company. [00:04:44] Or they may have some connections here or there. They can probably get your book into some brick and mortar stores. I mean, there's always some form of a catch or a perk that is attractive to people who don't necessarily know what they're looking for. And none of that is bad. Some of that can be good to the appropriate customer. [00:05:06] If you are a person who has more money than they have time going through a vanity publisher, if you're not interested in querying and submitting to agents and going through the whole rigamarole of trying to traditionally publish sometimes approaching a vanity publisher as a way to do the self-publishing for you can be a very good thing just because self publishing takes even more time and it takes even more dedication and more brain real estate for your project. [00:05:45] And if you are a busy person, like I said, who has more money than they have time sometimes hiring a company to do those steps for you will save you a lot of headache and allow you to free up some space toward other projects that you have going. The issue is that a lot of the vanity publishers are not transparent about what they are offering. [00:06:09] Your book would still be considered self-published and That's just how that is. That's how vanity publishing works. Sometimes they will offer services to create a website for you. Sometimes they will offer a little bit of social media services, like. Offer you a spotlight on some of their platforms or offer you this we're that. [00:06:30] And the thing is all of those services are valuable. It is absolutely okay to have some recognition and to have some spotlight stuff on social media. Great to be able to tap into that type of a resource. The thing is with these vanity publishers, they usually cost a lot of money for you to take your book from start to finish. [00:06:52] Sometimes it can be upwards of $5,000. Sometimes it can be more than that. But the thing that they do offer is the connections to all of those different things. they know the artists, they know the people who can lay out your book. They have all of that ready because it is their business plan. They have the answers, they have solutions for that and you pay for it. [00:07:15] that is what a vanity publisher does. That is what they are for. They are to do the steps of self-publishing for you so that you can finish your project or you can move on to something else or so that you don't have to kind of figure out all of the different steps with self-publishing in order to get your book ready. [00:07:36] And that's okay. However, a vanity publisher is not a traditional publisher. I don't think that I can say that enough. And it all just boils down to an exchange of money. If they are giving you money, they are traditional publishers. If you are giving them money, they are not. This episode is definitely shorter than all of the other little episodes in this series of pitfalls of writing. But that's where we are. Vanity publishers are not bad. if you are giving somebody money in exchange for doing all of the steps for self publishing, your book is still going to be self-published. [00:08:13] And so just be aware of where your money is going and what the end result is going to be. So there's nothing. That, but next week we are going to be talking about marketing. So once you have your book ready, the fight isn't over. So join in next week. As we talk about marketing on writing and the tiny house. [00:08:34] [00:08:34] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
Find out some very basic tips to get a good layout to text if you are self publishing. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind
The pitfalls of book covers! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Over the past two weeks, we have talked about the pitfalls that come in writing. So the pitfalls or these two pitfalls that come with craft. Today, we are going to do episode one of two about the pitfalls of design, layout, and design today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello. Hello, and welcome to the show. [00:00:49] Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis and I live in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and writing is one of my very favorite things to do, and I write things and I have this podcast to tell you guys all about it. I have produced a number of different things in my day. I have also done a lot of research and whatever. [00:01:13] I tend to do my best to be as current as I can be on the things that we talk about in this podcast. And I'm here to show you that a short story can be produced in three months and a novel can be produced in 18 months. And hopefully through this podcast and through whatever other resources you are using, you can get the wisdom to understand that sometimes that timeline needs to be modified. [00:01:45] Back in October, I released the short story Brigitte and from draft to publish that short story was cranked out in two months. And it's a good short story, guys. I feel it's proof that a system can work if you are prepared for it. But as we can see, simply six months later, uh, my next short story, which is going to be Tiz, the second installment of tales from Vlaydor, is still in the drafting stage. And I have not looked at it for many Wiles for many weeks, and that is because life happens and sometimes you get to allow for that. So today we are talking about specifically your book cover if it's not going to be a book, the cover art that you are using for your stuff, the cover art that represents your work. So here's the deal, guys. I'm going to hurry and lay down some truth about your book cover, some kind of hard to swallow truth. Your book cover is your most powerful marketing tool. [00:02:57] So here's the deal and it truly is your book cover represents a certain amount of value of what is inside the cover of what is the content of this thing. It represents that. If it is not designed correctly, your work may be misrepresented and people will not be interested in reading it or buying it. [00:03:21] And so here's the deal, with a lot of this, especially with like self publishing. Sometimes we feel that we need to do all of the things. And the fact of the matter is even if you are traditionally published, you are going to be doing most of your promotion. Most of your advertising will be done yourself. [00:03:40] And it's okay to know that. It's okay to be prepared for that. If you get traditionally published, I hope that your traditional publisher will give certain amounts of resources to you, especially they tend to do that for debut novelists, not necessarily for a second book. As much. And the thing is with publishers, they are here to make money, which means they funnel their marketing resources to the people and the books that are already bringing in money instead of risking all of it on all of these newbies or specifically on all these people who have written a second book. [00:04:21] So debut novelists often make a bigger splash than the second book that they write. And if the second book is one of a trilogy, it will sell fewer copies than the first book does. And the third book will sell fewer copies than the second one, it's just how that tends to go. You will find plenty of exceptions to that rule, but you will find plenty more that fall in to what I just said. [00:04:49] So with your book cover, a lot of us feel that we are doing all of the things by ourselves. And so in order to save money or in order to save time, we feel that we need to also design a book cover in addition to writing an amazing book. My experience is, and this is going to be hard to swallow, perhaps, but this is my experience. [00:05:15] Not all writers make good graphic arts designer. Not all writers should design their own book cover. Me included. So if you look at Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: Brigitte, you will see that I designed that. So here I am saying don't do what I did. I designed that on my iPhone. And the thing is, Bridgette was largely an experiment in many different ways to test a system. [00:05:45] And I had all of the resources in place for the content of the story. I had my editor in, I had my trusted team of beta readers to bounce ideas off of, and I did not have the resource of a graphic arts designer on board with that. So I did my own because we were doing a system. We were testing a system. [00:06:06] If you look at the book cover for Brigitte, there are too many words on it. It's okay. It's not great. I'm not going to tell you that it's great. It's okay enough though. It's okay ish. In further, I guess, versions of Brigitte when I have a larger collection of these Tales from Vlaydor under my belt, I will have better artwork that is already on the plan. [00:06:30] So here's the deal. When you look at your cover art and you go to design a book cover, or if you are hiring a graphic arts designer, there are things that you really need to pay attention to. Just like the content of your book, it needs to be recognizable as being assigned to a genre while at the same time eye-catching and interesting. [00:06:56] And it's really hard to play that game of balance sometimes. Am I original enough to catch people's attention and to keep their focus, but Am I so different that people can't figure out where my book should be? Just because people like genres, people like to read specific genres and if your book doesn't seem to fit, they're not going to be as inclined to pick it up. [00:07:23] And so there is a certain look to contemporary romance. There is a certain look to contemporary fiction. There's a certain look to many historical fiction, and there's a, certain look to many different sub-genres of fantasy. It's important to be familiar with what you're going for and what you feel your book could fit in with where your book could go and find that balance between [00:07:52] interesting, but also understandable as to where it can go. So interesting. But categorizable, Your book needs to have certain symmetry. It also needs to have certain fonts, like a certain font effect. Don't use the font [00:08:10] Papyrus. Don't use that. You don't get to have that unless your graphic arts designer is going to be modifying that in some way. [00:08:17] Your book cover needs to be readable. And so if you are doing a big fancy something or another, with the words itself, turning the words themselves into a type of art, it needs to be readable and it needs to be readable from a distance. This was, a bit of a complication that we were having when we were going through the design process of my first novel as magic shifts. [00:08:45] So with that book, the word magic is very artistic. It's not a font. It's. Lettered after like magical smoke. And at first the artist who did the art for the book wanted the entire title of the book to be in that style of smoke. So he wanted all three words as magic shifts to be. This smokiness and it was super fun, but it was really hard to read, especially if it's going to be the front cover of the book. [00:09:22] So what we did was we kept magic. Magic was easy enough to read, but as and shifts, we made more legible with a font and it works. And then on the back cover where. The art history stuff is not as important because it's not noticed first. We had a smaller version of the entirely artistic title as magic shifts in that magical smoke on the back cover. [00:09:53] And that was a fun touch. the artist also included a couple other images that he gave to me in the package deal, I guess, that we brought in to the chapter headings as icons. And so the chapter headings themselves have some original artwork, which was fun to incorporate, but that is going to be talked about on the next episode. [00:10:16] So tune in for that next week. But like I said, Earlier your book cover is your most powerful marketing tool. When you save up your money and you hire a graphic arts designer and you hire an artist, the thing is guys be prepared to save up some money for that. There are some other options though. I have been on some. [00:10:41] Specific Facebook groups of graphic arts designers that crank out book covers and the art is actually very good. And if you can find one that works for your story or needs some very simple modifications, you can get away with a decent book cover for 70 to $300, depending on where you look, I pay. [00:11:06] For completely original artwork. I paid $800 for as magic shifts. For the witch's pupil, which in my opinion is even better artwork. And I can say that without hesitation, because the same artists did it for the witches pupil. I paid $650 for that because I went with the same artist, the artists who did those book covers is a man named Tyler at the time he worked for Marvel comics. [00:11:33] I don't know if he still works there. I haven't kept in touch with him over the years. save your money when you get your book cover, Make sure that your artist or your graphic arts designer, sometimes you hire an artist for the artwork and then a graphic arts designer to design the cover and incorporate that artwork as a book cover. [00:11:54] I'm likely going to do that when I do some bigger projects here, I don't think I'm going to do it exactly that way with my short stories, just because the short stories don't represent the same time commitment as a novel does. When all of that happens, make sure you have a portrait version of your book cover and to make sure that you have a square version of your book cover. [00:12:17] you want those two, if not more different versions of your book cover for several different reasons. If you ever choose to do an audio book of your book. The cover art for audio books is square. Also, if you're posting your book cover, on social media, like Instagram, you post square pictures, those posts are square, and it's good to use those. [00:12:44] If you have those two images. Ratio sizes then you can make on your own, the various different images that you are going to do to promote the release of your book, the sale of your book, and any type of other promotions that are going along so long as the book is available. And you can do that very easily through apps. [00:13:08] that you can get on your phone, like Canva or a couple other apps like that. So the images that people are only going to see likely once. With big text about like releasing February 1st or whatever the text may be. You can do those on your own, but the book cover itself, I will never recommend a writer to sign their own book cover. [00:13:35] Also, if you're a writer and you are reaching out to an artist and a book designer, don't require them to read your book, you get to be talented enough to write. a summary of your book anyway, or a hook or the stuff you're, you're going to be including on the back of your book called the back matter or whatever, or on the inside sleeve, that needs to be enough to make the book understandable. [00:14:02] And that needs to be enough for, you know, a person to start a basic design and then get some feedback along the way. requiring an artist to read your book cover to cover in order to effectively design artwork is not feasible and nobody is probably going to jump to do that. So I have seen some artwork by writers that is usually pretty laughable. [00:14:26] the artwork tends to be pretty low Rez. It tends to be a patch work of stock images, which is fine. But, a graphic arts designer will often use stock images, but they know how to knit it all together and make it. Professional looking. Sometimes it can include original photography, which becomes really weird and confusing. [00:14:51] If you are doing a fantasy book and your homemade cover arts is like your neighbor dressed up in a homemade wizards, robe beside a Creek in your backyard. And they're like chanting and casting a spell and it looks like someone snapped a polar or. it can get really weird and confusing. So my challenge to you is to find a sub genre. [00:15:19] If you are in fantasy or whatever, find a genre or a sub genre that your book belongs in and See what the other cover arts of many books that belong in that genre looks like, see how they do things. just see and pick out some things that you like, pick out some things that you want to represent. [00:15:39] and then finds an artist That can mimic that or do that, or has the style that is similar to that so that your book cover will be original, but still fit. So that is my take on book covers. If you are a writer, don't design your book cover. just don't do that. [00:16:01] You have already written a big thing and you have gone through the revision process and whatever else, but I can tell you, it is not the same work to design art as it is to design. A story. It's not the same work. It requires a different set of skills. So cut yourself some slack and simply save up some money to hire somebody hire professional or get professional work done somehow. [00:16:26] So that is it for today on cover arts. Join me next week. As we talk about the layout of your book on writing and the tiny house. [00:16:38] [00:16:38] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
TOO MUCH DESCRIPTION! “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] Last week we began another mini series because thus far, this year has been the year of mini-series. But we started another mini series on the pitfalls of writing, just some things to avoid. And we are carrying on with the pitfalls of writing today with the second episode of this little mini series on craft. [00:00:25] So I explained last week that we're going to do craft, we're going to do a couple other things, but we're talking about the pitfalls of craft today on Writing and the Tiny House. Hello, hello. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who writes things in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and then tells you all about it. [00:01:14] So the point of this podcast is to give you the tips and tricks to create a good finished piece in order to share it with whomever you want to share it with. If you want to make money, if you want to sell it and make a profit, which is making money, this is kind of how it can be done. So I'm here to show you that a short story can be written in three months. [00:01:38] From drafting to publishing, and a novel can be written in 18 months. I'm also here to tell you that sometimes if you decide to do things that way, or if you rush through the process, you can kind of screw yourself over. And so we're giving you the wisdom to avoid all of those things as well. The writing process can be done pretty rapidly if you know what you're doing, and if you've done it before, if you have not done it before, it can take a little while longer. [00:02:08] last week we talked about the pitfalls of L Y adverbs. It's just a way to doll up your work. A way to add words, a way to increase your word count. but a better way is to use verbs that don't need adverbs and to use stronger descriptions so you can get rid of your L Y adverbs. Today on Writing in the Tiny House [00:02:34] so we are going to be talking about using too much description. So there is a lot to be said about this. I Recently started a short story. It was a thing on Amazon Vela. So it's a serial novel, I guess. Vela is a way for authors to release short story segments periodically, or I guess, chapters of a novel periodically so that you can kind of have this serial [00:03:05] effect like, this is what, this is how things happened in like the Victorian days. A lot of the classic literature that we call classics now, like Lamees and some other ones were actually released serially. They were released in parts and it's just kind of a fun way to revisit that, to revisit the way that things were, but with a modern adaptation. [00:03:28] So I was reading this piece from Vela and there was so much description in what I was reading, that it was hard to actually understand what I was reading. It was hard to pick up on the plot. It was hard to identify with the characters. It was hard to do all those things just because the writing was so heavy Laden with description. It was down to the sounds. It was down to the appearance of everything, the appearance of absolutely everything. I mean, the story opened up with this like undead army coming to life and like storming this farmhouse, which is a really exciting concept. But. There was so much of the farmhouse and so much of the method that these undead soldiers were marching and so much of the bunny Hutch and the various different things found in the farm that it was hard to pick out the story itself. [00:04:33] So this is the thing when it comes to description, a lot of us think that the more we add, the more delicious the piece becomes. And that is not always the case. I mean, sometimes like if, if we are having a cake, if we want to move away from writing and talk about cake, because really who doesn't want to talk about cake, it is entirely possible to add too much crap onto a cake and it ruins the cake. [00:05:02] It is entirely possible to have too much frosting, to have too much decoration, to have too much stuff. So that the cake itself is not really a part of the dessert anymore. And we miss the cake because of everything else. The same is true with writing. So if things are. So descriptive. If we describe every little bug movement, if we describe every little freckle on a person's face if we describe every thread in their clothing, everything, it pulls us out of the story and more into the description. [00:05:39] Which isn't what we want. And it's funny that that is entirely true. What I just said, it pulls this out of the story and sinks us into the description instead. that's not, it, that's not what we want. So I have been reading still the book, a swim in a pond in the rain, by George Saunders. And one of the things that he talked about that relates to description, but can also be tied into many other things. [00:06:06] In a work in progress in any other book that you can think of is it is the difference between having a conversation with somebody where it is give and take, and the conversation happens, and you're both expressing your original thoughts but still following the same train of thought, it is the difference between doing that and having. [00:06:32] A conversation that is pre scripted. So. stay with me cause this totally it made sense to me. If you were meeting a person for the first time and you meet them and things are great and organic and you're having a great time and it's easy to exchange ideas it's easy to communicate what's on your mind and share beliefs and whatever else, things get super interesting. [00:06:57] And you end up leaving feeling like you are full. However, if you are a nervous type and this, brings memories of the show monk that came out years and years ago, if you are the type where you are nervous by a conversation. And so you kind of write down some talking points and you go to sit down with somebody and you're talking and then like you pull out the next talking points and then you talk about that and then you pull out the next talking point. [00:07:25] The other person is not as involved in the conversation as you are. You are dominating the topic of the conversation by leaving out that. It's kind of like a job interview. That's how job interviews tend to work much of the time. And so with writing, it is best to simply use enough that works and then stop. [00:07:49] you, as the writer are conveying thoughts that are super important to you and you certainly want. Everything to work in a desired way. There is a formulation to what you are doing. There is a reason why things are being laid out as they are, because you get to get there. [00:08:07] You get to take a person from the beginning to the end, and this is the way you do it. However, oftentimes we forget that the reader has a brain and the reader is a person and the reader has. Memories and backgrounds and similar interests and things to us that they can draw from if they are allowed to, to make whatever you are writing, just as enriching to. [00:08:36] And so it is important to sit down and see kind of where you are going with the current chapter that you're in or the short story that you're in or whatever, see where you are going and see if all of the description is 100% necessary, just because it is super great to allow a reader to fill in some of the blanks. [00:08:58] Sometimes I have had. Discussions with many of my closest friends about books. always seem to be about books and with something like a novel with something like fiction, it is interesting to talk about how they envision things, how they envision the house, especially if the layout of the house isn't super important. [00:09:23] To describe or how they envisioned the person's outfit or the person's hairstyle or whatever. And from those conversations, I have come to see that my friend and I had different experiences overall of many of those stories. They were different experiences that led to kind of the same feelings and the same life lessons and the same, you know, stirring moments. [00:09:54] But as far as envisioning who Mr. Darcy is, or whatever, the person that I envisioned was different from the person that they envisioned. And that was okay to allow me that wiggle room as a reader. To fill in the blanks as I could, in ways that made sense to me was beneficial to me it allowed me to be more involved with my reading experience and it allowed me to enrich the experience on my own to use my own brain and to understand things in my own. [00:10:32] Realm of understanding so that I was more involved in my own reading experience sometimes we choose to fill in a lot of description because we don't trust that our reader knows what they are supposed to be envisioning. And sometimes that can serve the reader a disservice. So. I invite you to come over your work in progress and to think about the moments where it feels like the job interview with the descriptions where you are not allowing a moment for the reader to fill in the blanks on their own. [00:11:09] Allowing the reader to draw from their own understanding of words and understanding of situations and enjoy the book in their own way. So next week we are going to carry on with some of these pitfalls that we are changing to another subject. We are changing over to design and cover art. So be sure to join in next week on a new episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Thank you so much, guys. We will see you then. [00:11:42] [00:11:42] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] So you're a new writer. You are about to get started on your very first work in progress, but you are a little timid to get started because you don't know some of the danger that lies ahead. We are going to be talking about the pitfalls of writing. Today on Writing in the Tiny House. [00:00:21] Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. [00:00:48] I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah who tells you about writing as I write. Or as I want to write right now, my works in progress are a little bit put on pause due to personal reasons, but I love to share the way that writing works and the way that publishing works and the way that self publishing works. [00:01:16] I have decided to do this next little series, because I guess this year, we're all about the series of episodes. This upcoming series is all about the pitfalls of writing. Some of the things that we get ourselves tangled up in that can make writing hard or disappointing, and that is anything from craft to publishing. [00:01:39] And so I'm going to do two episodes on craft, two episodes on design, and then wrap up this little mini series on publishing itself. So let's get into the first episode on the pitfalls of writing that many newbies find themselves doing, and that is the trap of L Y adverbs. If you have ever read the very first Harry Potter book and you have read it out loud, [00:02:15] I encourage you to do that. Most of us have read Harry Potter and so take Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and sit down for a while and read it out loud. L Y adverbs, if you are new to the game of writing, L Y adverbs are one of those things that we do in order. There they are a crutch. They are words that we use to make things pretty, to make things prettier sounding, but they are a crutch to not using better words. [00:02:52] L Y adverbs allow us to use weak verbs And then put a bandaid on them by using an L Y adverb. L Y adverbs are the difference between [00:03:05] speaking loudly and yelling or [00:03:09] walking quickly and running. L Y adverbs you will find, can usually just be stricken from your manuscript. And if you really like your L Y adverb and what it's doing for you, see if you can simply use a stronger verb so that you can get rid of the L Y adverb. So a writer who struggles with L Y adverbs, it is usually something that can be pinned down very early in the editing process. [00:03:42] You send your work to a critique partner or whatever, usually a critique partner can pick up an L by adverb problem within the first 500 words of your manuscript. And if they know what they're doing, they will send it back to you with that type of feedback before having to read the rest of your manuscript. Or if you are early in the drafting process and you haven't finished your work yet, sending your work to do ,a quick, like first five pages or whatever, first chapter to a critique partner [00:04:19] so that you can get feedback like L Y adverbs, like passive voice, some different things like this, so that you can correct it early in your craft, early in your work in progress, and then address that as you carry on. So, like I said, L Y adverbs are the bandaid on a weak verb. And the way to get around L by adverbs is to use stronger verbs. [00:04:44] Now I'm not ever going to say that L Y adverbs are off limits, but I might as well, especially if you are new to the game. L Y adverbs are great. They serve a purpose and using them sparingly is great, but it is better to lean towards not using them at all. And so if you want to just open up your work in progress and do a quick find for L Y it will bring to your attention all of the times that you use L Y adverbs. [00:05:19] And I'm going to throw in the word. Very is not an L by adverb, but it is an adverb that can just be removed from your manuscript. I believe it was mark Twain that said the way to deal with, or I'm paraphrasing. I'm not quoting this directly and it may not be from mark Twain. Don't. Quote me on any of this, but a great writer once said, and I'm paraphrasing that an easy way to to deal with the word very is to change all of the instances of very, to the word. [00:05:55] Damn. And then your editor will remove all of the times you swore in your manuscript, and it's an easy way to get rid of all of it. So very and L Y advert. Oftentimes can simply be deleted if you read your work in progress and you come across all of these L Y adverbs, read it again with the LOI adverbs simply deleted. [00:06:22] Sometimes the fix is easier than you think. Sometimes we don't have to futz around with $10 words. Or fancy words or consult our thesaurus so that we can still come up with a good verb. Sometimes the verb is okay and the LOI adverb can simply be removed. [00:06:46] So this was one of the things that I struggled with with my first book as magic shifts, which was released, I think in 2008. As magic shifts took me, I think, 13 months to complete the first draft and my editor, Luanne Staley, who is no longer with us. She passed away a number of years ago. She did exactly what I just described to you. [00:07:15] She took my manuscript. She didn't have to read it all in order to address some things that I could work on myself to clean up throughout my manuscript. Oftentimes, that can be a big waste of time for both of you. And she addressed my LOI adverbs and what she did was in my document. She actually highlighted them. [00:07:36] She went through and made them all yellow. And so I had these glaring. From my document and it was obvious to me that I was using them too often. So I invite you to do the same, simply do a search for L Y and see how many instances you use L Y adverbs and work on greatly reducing them. LOI, adverbs, weaken your voice. [00:08:03] They weaken the strength of your tech. They weaken your pros and they can really get in the way with pacing with the way that the words are flowing and the way that things are unfolding in your story, they can trip you up. And another way, aside from the search that I suggested a moment ago is to read your manuscript out loud. [00:08:26] If you can tell that you are saying words that. And in the sound Lee too often, and you can tell that it's tripping up the cadence of your sentences and it's tripping up the flow of your words and it's tripping up all the other things that I mentioned. Then you need to remove your L Y adverbs. So replace them with a stronger verb. [00:08:53] Or just delete them and see how your verb holds up on its own. So that is L Y adverbs for today. This is kind of a shorter episode. Next week, we are going to be focusing on another pitfall, which is too much description. So join me then on the next episode of writing in the tiny house, have a great day guys. [00:09:18] [00:09:18] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
The final part of our Writer's Block series. What to do when you encounter writer's block because of your mood and the circumstances of your life. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. So we've talked about writer's block for a couple weeks. Now this is week number three. We talked about the structure of the outline itself. We talked about the story arc, but what if it is simply you getting in your own way? We've all been there too, my friends. So let's talk about your inner environment and how that can lead to writer's block today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the [00:01:00] Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in the tiny house in Northern Utah. And I write things and I tell you about the process so that you can write things. The whole point of this podcast is to give you the tools and the knowledge necessary for you to do your own creative writing so that you can crank out a short story in three months or crank out a novel in 18 months and still have the wisdom and the foresight to adjust that timeline if you feel you need to. Most things aren't done that fast, but it's good to know that they can be. So today we are on part three of our little mini series on writer's block. And today we are talking about the inner conflict that each of us has with our work in progress. So regardless, especially if you are writing a long thing, if you are writing a thing that is not going to be over [00:02:00] and done with in like one day, you are bound to have days where you hate what you've written. And you hate your work in progress. You hate your computer. You hate the place where you write, you hate your desk. You hate your chair. I don't have a chair. I hate my floor. I hate my standing desk. There are days where you will have a really bad attitude and there are days where t he energy of your work in progress doesn't match what you are going through. Sometimes this can be a really big thing. Most of the time it will be kind of a smaller thing that you can figure out and push through or figure out and resolve, and then get back to work on your work in progress. And other times it might require something else. So with your work in progress, if you are a person who has been pushing and pushing to get your word count in, and you have developed this cool writing routine, you have developed [00:03:00] this wonderful routine of writing every day, you have a nice lofty word count, and you have been achieving that word count all the time, but sometimes you feel like you're still spinning your wheels just because the work in progress can be a pretty complicated and a pretty long thing. It is completely normal to set out and think that your short story is going to be 9,000 words and it ends up being 20 or that your novel is going to be 95,000 words. And it ends up being like 125,000 words. That happened with my first book. I wasn't expecting it to be as long as it was. So anyway, word counts can surprise us. And sometimes even though we're writing a ton of words and we are being these good disciplined writers, sometimes some times writer's block can happen just when you need an emotional break. [00:04:00] Sometimes you need a break. Sometimes the very best thing to do is to put some distance between you and your work in progress and let that work in progress cool off. And when we say that work in progress cool off what we actually mean is you get to cool off. All of these attitudes, all of this despair, all of this, you know, grumpiness or whatever. All of the negativity associated with your work in progress. If you take a second, you save your work, you close it out and you let it sit there for an amount of time. If you have wrapped up a novel and you're at the end of your novel, it is good to let it sit there for at least two weeks and let it cool down. If you are struggling through a work in progress, sometimes, give it a day, give it two days, give it a weekend. If you are going on vacation, maybe you can write up until the day before you go on vacation and then like go on vacation and make sure that your vacation is [00:05:00] a way from all the things. And perhaps it needs to include your work in progress. And then when you get back, you can pick it up again and you'll be in a better place. Sometimes it can be just letting it go for the night. So that you can go outside, you can breathe some fresh air, you can get some exercise, you can play with your kids. You can play with your dog. You can go see a movie. You can go do all of these other things that perhaps you have not done as much of, because you have been focusing more on being your version of this studious dedicated writer. And taking a break from your work in progress can be enough to simply let your brain calm down, let the negativity that has been building up, disperse, disappear, go away so that after your break and I don't mean forever. I mean sometimes, I mean, forever in a second, I'm [00:06:00] going to mean forever, but let your break be a simple way to recharge your batteries in whichever way charges your batteries best so that you don't develop a negative relationship with your work in progress. Just because if you have. A story or a novel or whatever that you're working on and you absolutely hate it. It will show in your writing. And if you are, writing as a way to beat yourself up, because you have something to prove or because if you don't write every day, then you're not a good writer, which is not right. Then developing a negative relationship with writing will eventually wear down your desire to write, and it will wear that away. And so I personally don't ever want to get into the spot where I hate writing period, the end. I instead find ways to give myself space and find ways to take care of myself so that [00:07:00] I can pick it up at a later date. Even if I don't know when the later date is going to be. So let's talk about a time where maybe you get to step away for forever and all ways. This shouldn't happen to you a lot. There are plenty of writers in this world who have written a lot more than they have shared. I am one of those people. So to just be cranking out creative content is certainly a possible thing too. it's a thing that we can do. It's a thing that I've done, but sometimes a person's published list is not an accurate reflection of all of the writing they've actually done. Back in November, if you have been following this podcast you are aware that we have been on the air, so to speak for more than a year now. We are in the sixties with our episodes, which is super cool. And like the downloading numbers for this podcast have been going [00:08:00] up slowly but surely this is pretty niche. I mean, creative writing is pretty niche when it comes to podcast content, but we're doing it. We're growing, we're getting more people involved and things are fun, and it's really fun to see it grow. But if you were around, back in November, You may remember that I was drafting a short story called auto and auto was something that I was really passionate about at the time. However, the content of the story itself was going to be really heavy. It was going to kind of take on an amount of like the little match girl. Type of story where there are definitely some glimmers of hope, but the overall story is pretty sad. I mean, with a little match girl, the poor girl dies at the end. It wasn't going to be exactly like that, but it was a thing where everything was just really sad and there's a little. [00:09:00] Of hope at the end, but it's all still really sad. Now, if you remember back in January 1st, I came out as gay on Facebook and to my friends and family. And there were weeks and weeks of preparing for that. That was a really big courageous, emotional moment for me. And. Back in November is actually when I started doing the mental and emotional work for whatever possibilities would come about from doing that from coming out at age 37 on January 1st there was a lot to worry about. There was a lot to work through and so dealing with real life back in November. And having such a dark and sad work in progress. I mean, had it been a different time in my life, I would have. Loved to finish drafting auto and I would've made it [00:10:00] the saddest thing in the entire world and it would have been great. It would have been heavy. It would have been sad. It would have also been great, but because of personal things, there came a moment because of life, because of real life, there came a very big moment in my journey with Otto that I simply could not write more and I wanted to power through it and I wanted to stay. I wanted to still write, I wanted to finish it. I'm a finisher of things. I start projects and I finish them and finishing things makes me feel like I've accomplished a thing. It's something that I find a lot of value with. Instead, I had another idea for another short story. Tos that I am still working on right now. I have taken a brief hiatus from writing just because I've decided to start [00:11:00] dating a little bit and so free time. I mean, it's a. But with TIS with tos, it's a story of two dedicated lovers. It's a story that fills me with hope and brought a lot of my beliefs about relationships and about unconditional love and what unconditional love actually means and how it would manifest in the lifetime of, of two partners. And I was excited to write that. And so. At the time I told myself that I was putting auto on the back burner and I started writing TIS instead. And tos fills me with joy. It fills me with hope. it is a message that I love that I want to run with. Whereas Otto was more of a message about bullying and I wasn't in a good mental space for that. And so. Sometimes to deal with writer's block, we get to write something else. that [00:12:00] means creating space between yourself and your current work in progress in order to start a different work in progress. And you can always revisit what you are leaving behind, or sometimes you. Bid add you to the things that you are leaving behind, which is what I think is going to happen with auto. I'm not sure that I'm ever going to pick that up again. Maybe sometime in the future. I mean, I guess never say never, but certainly not today. And probably not tomorrow. So this has been the final episode of our three-part series on writer's block. sometimes you get to pay attention to your internal world and take care of yourself. As a way to combat writer's block. So thank you so much for joining me. Let me know your thoughts on the past three episodes of writing in the tiny house [00:13:00] and be sure to tune in next week with a new episode of writing in the tiny house. Thank you so much for your time. We will see you there. Devin Davis: And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.[00:14:00]
When writer's block happens because the characters arcs don't make sense anymore. “Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brigitte+devin+davis&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 Become a patron today! Visit patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse Get ahold of Krissy Barton with Little Syllables editing services. She does free sample edits to see if you and she would be the right fit. www.littlesyllables.com Instagram: @authordevindavis Twitter: @authordevind The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show's webpage. [00:00:00] So we were talking about writer's block and let's talk about another thing or another type of writer's block. Sometimes it's not so much that we don't understand the events that happened; it's that we don't understand our characters. So as we carry on with our second part of this writer's block series, we are going to delve into story arcs. [00:00:30] Today on writing in the tiny house. Hello? Hello. Hello, and welcome to today's episode. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah who writes things and then likes to share what the writing process looks like. The whole point is to give you the tools and the inspiration and the knowledge necessary for you to start and finish a short story in three months, or to start and finish a novel in 18 months and above all to give you the wisdom and the foresight to understand that sometimes that timeline will need to be adjusted. [00:01:32] I would dare say almost every time. Sometimes not understanding the time commitment that something like this has, can deter us from even getting started. And so understanding that it is something that can clip along at a fast pace if we want it to, and if we are prepared to make that happen can be valuable for a lot of us to even get started. [00:01:53] So last week we talked about our cold hard outline. We talked about the scenes and we talked about reorganizing scenes. Revisiting and revising our outlines as a way to combat writer's block. Especially if we are writing a plot heavy book. If we are writing something super plot driven as fantasy and science fiction tend to be, sometimes our outlines need to be a bit more dynamic. [00:02:23] And sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to take a day off of our word count goals in order to revise the map of what our story is going to be and where things are headed. So today, and this is a situation that I ran into pretty recently. It is not so much that we don't understand the structure of the story itself. [00:02:47] It's not so much that we don't understand the roadmap. It's that as we get into the story and as we start composing and drafting, and these characters come more to life, sometimes we don't understand our characters very well. And so we get to a point where we simply don't know where else to go just because what is on our outline no longer matches our characters. [00:03:17] I mentioned last week that I am in a lot of different Facebook groups, all geared toward creative writing. And the idea of writer's block comes up a lot and I like to pay attention and see what people suggest and see what people are doing as ways as a way to combat writer's block. [00:03:37] And one thing that some people suggested recently that I really liked was the idea of sitting down and feeling out your characters. So the lady in the Facebook group suggested interviewing your characters. That can be whatever you want it to be. If you want to actually sit down and talk to a person or whatever, or if you want to like, say things in your character's stead or perhaps write out a script, whatever things look like. The point is to sit down and feel out your characters. [00:04:20] With a work in progress, it can be very valuable to actually keep a running outline of where you have been so that you can remember where things went and where things are going and where some of the character things where some of the huge developmental character things happened and how they happened and what they were for. [00:04:41] It can be really valuable to tease all of that apart into the separate character arcs so that you can see that if your main character is a woman named , which is the case in one of my books and you see that Hoshi co makes it to the main island and does the things, and gets in touch with an art collector and whatever else. [00:05:06] you can see where the big important events happened and you can see why, and you can ask yourself does all of that make sense and does all of that support where the character needs to be now and where the character needs to be here in half a second when I keep writing. And oftentimes the answer is not quite yes. [00:05:33] So it's important to do this with all of your characters that you are following through your story. All of the main characters, sit down and see where they're going. See where they have come from the big stepping stones that they stepped on or stepped over in order to get where they are now. [00:05:51] And now as a character who is well developed and more into this story, because the story is more real to you at this point. And. You can further flesh out and further develop things in a different way, from a better informed stand point than you did before you started. Just because, I mean, if we're getting writer's block, odds are we're a chunk in, we're a chunk into the story. [00:06:19] And we understand the story better than we did before we started. And so it is better to start making decisions like that at this point. Sometimes the inspiration or the solution to the writer's block can be that a character needs a specific thing or a certain event that isn't in your outline right now, needs to happen in order to get your character into a more believable place or some of the things that you wrote already may not have built up your character or your scene to a place where it needs to be. [00:06:59] I experienced that pretty recently, actually I was getting to the end of a scene. I felt pretty good about the way that I had written it up to that point. And yet here I was standing. So I have a standing desk in the tiny house, right now I don't have an office chair. I've been meaning to buy an office chair for like seven months and I still haven't done it, but I was standing here. [00:07:24] Dumbfounded mouth agape sort of staring at my computer because I could not figure out what was going on next, what needed to happen next. And what I came to realize was the source of the writer's block wasn't so much what was coming next. The source of the writer's block came from the previous couple of pages that I had written didn't build up the characters and the scene to a place where it needed to be. [00:07:53] It had been a slightly different direction. And so I needed to go through what I had already written and revise stuff and delete stuff. And add some stuff in order to correct the course that the story had already been going. And once I did that, the writer's block was gone. I was able to get back into the flow of writing again, and I was able to touch base with the characters and see where they needed to be and plug in the necessary things in order to have a good story. [00:08:26] That is just a simple, but a very good thing. It ties back into outlining, but you can see that it's bigger than just outlining. I mean, writer's block is bigger than just simply not being able to write. There are a lot of facets that go into writer's block and I wanted to touch on some of these things that go into that. So last week we talked about just structure of the story this week. Sometimes it's the character arc. Sometimes the characters need a thing, and sometimes what you have written does not support where they need to go. And so some revamping or some adding or some deleting or whatever is the right call to make that change and to get the flow back into the story. [00:09:13] And next week as we conclude this series on writer's block, we are going to talk about your inner environment. Sometimes it's not actually about writing sometimes it's about you. So be sure to tune in next week, as we wrap up this little mini series on writer's block, on writing in the tiny house. Thank you so much, guys. [00:09:36] Bye. [00:09:37] [00:09:37] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.
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