Podcasts about becca puglisi

The 9 Points Rating System: https://www.alostplot.com/9-points/ Code 8 Film Review: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/maverick51411/episodes/2024-08-15T17_07_51-07_00Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's Book on Negative Traits: https://a.co/d/1F6iXfQAngela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's Book on Positive Traits: https://a.co/d/iljebe5----------In this episode, Maverick and Avalon discuss what makes a character compelling and how to create compelling initial stories. They use the example of a side character, Mary, from the movie Code 8 to explore ways to make her more compelling. They discuss the importance of balancing flaws and positive attributes in a character, as well as the need for a character arc and a hint of a why for their motivations. They also touch on the significance of backstory and how it can add depth to a character. Overall, they emphasize the importance of fully understanding and developing characters to create compelling stories. In this conversation, Avalon and Maverick discuss the importance of developing compelling characters in storytelling. They explore various techniques to make characters stand out, such as empathetic hooks, moral standpoints, and unique quirks. They also analyze the appeal of villainous protagonists and how even despicable characters can have admirable attributes. They use examples from movies, books, and comics to illustrate their points. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the missed opportunity to develop a side character in a specific movie.----------Highlights:0:00 'Movies Worth Watching: Backstories and Compelling Characters' Introduction1:21 Analyzing a Side Character: Mary from Code 87:40 Framework for Creating Compelling Backstories15:00 Core Motives, Needs, and a Hint of Growth23:14 Side Character Example: Astrid25:21 Using Quirks to Create Unique Characters30:42 Backstories for Antiheroes and Villainous Leads37:02 Batman's Villains and Embodying An Idea#moviesworthwatching #filmthoughts #achristmascarol #thejoker #howtotrainyourdragon #httyd #hiccup #astrid #frodobaggins #lordoftherings #characterdevelopment #backstory #background #compellingcharacters #characterarc #positiveattributes #negativeattributes #protagonist #flaws #villains #code8 #alostplot #elementsoffilm 

Notes:Though we don't directly mention them by name, these previous episodes are connected with this series:Episode 31: Writing diverse charactersEpisode 188: Neurodivergence and Creativity Part 1Episode 189: Neurodivergence and Creativity Part 2Episode 190: A panel on neurodiversity and creativityEpisode 202: Language affects perceptionEpisode 239: Writing with DisabilitiesEpisode 240: Writing Characters with DisabilitiesEpisode 241: Diversity in Six of CrowsAs part of this discussion, we use this definition of embodying:- “To give a concrete form to; To express, personify, or exemplify; To make corporeal, to give body to a spirit, or to incorporate.”Here are a few articles and videos we consulted in preparation for this episode:- Amy Tan Teaches Fiction, Memory, and Imagination Masterclass Video “3. Memory, Truth, and Imagination”- TedEd Video “How to write descriptively - Nalo Hopkinson”- Diane Callahan Quotidian Video “Writing Fiction with Emotional Honesty”- Jericho Writers Article “Emotions In Writing: How To Make Your Readers Feel”- Writers Helping Writers Website & “https://onestopforwriters.com/thesaurus”- LitHub.com Article “Nicola Griffith on Writing Immersive Historical Fiction”- Writer's Digest Article “The Journey of Character Creation: How Trauma and Empathy Inspire Fiction”- The Guardian Article “Character building and what makes a truly great actor”- Arts.ac.uk Article “Techniques: Get audition ready- Embody a character”- Mariam-Webster.com Definition of Empathy- GreaterGood.Berkely.Org Article “What is Empathy?”- Linda S. Clare Article “Writing with Empathy”Books and Films Mentioned:- The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression (Second Edition) by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman - The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman Music from: https://filmmusic.io ‘Friendly day' by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, I sit down with the remarkable Becca Puglisi, co-author of the bestselling series from Writers Helping Writers. Join us as Becca takes us on a journey from the inception of the first book to the expansion of the series, sharing invaluable insights into the art of character development along the way. Discover the inspiration behind the 'Emotion Thesaurus' and how it has become an essential tool for writers worldwide. Becca delves into the challenges and triumphs of creating the series, the collaborative process with co-author Angela Ackerman, and how feedback from the writing community has shaped their work. And don't forget the very latest book in the series - 'The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Stress and Volatility'!

This week Ines and Leslye tackle how to bring stories to a close with a deep dive on story endings. We dive into character arcs, open doors (and windows!), and resolutions. BOOKS MENTIONED Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell: https://amzn.to/4a6NaqQ Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi: https://amzn.to/44v2TPn  One Stop for Writers: https://onestopforwriters.com/emotions  The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope: https://amzn.to/4btzGXe Save the Cat by Blake Snyder: https://amzn.to/4abpK3A  Save the Cat Goes to the Movies by Blake Snyder: https://amzn.to/4bpDJUm  Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody: https://amzn.to/3xf7TFV The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger: https://amzn.to/3WuZD4t That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming: https://amzn.to/3WuZwG5   Ines' Substack where she breaks down Marvel movies according to the Five Part Finale https://ineswrites.substack.com/p/5-part-finale-of-the-incredible-hulk   Check out Margie Lawson's courses: https://www.margielawson.com/lecture-packets/  Sign up for author Nalini Singh's newsletter to receive fan service here: https://nalinisingh.com/ Want the official Psy-Changeling Reading Order? Click here: https://nalinisingh.com/books/psychangeling-series/   Want to learn worldbuilding from Leslye? Sign up here: https://learn.myimaginaryfriends.net/ Want to learn story structure from Ines? Sign up here: https://ineswrites.com/PTP Get ready for Shield of Winter, coming in 1 week! Grab your copy to read along: https://amzn.to/4b6r34L    Find the hosts online at: L. Penelope: https://lpenelope.com/  Ines Johnson: https://ineswrites.com/  Credits: "Moonlight Hall" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

There's this really great book for writers by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi called The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. It came out way back in 2017. As they write in their prologue, “Life is painful, and not all the lessons we learn are positive ones. As with you and me, the characters in our stories have suffered emotional trauma that cannot easily be dispelled or forgotten. We call this type of trauma an emotional wound: a negative experience (or set of experiences) that causes pain on a deep psychological level. It is a lasting hurt that often involves someone close: A family member, loved one (etc.)… or results from a physical limitation, condition, or challenge.” So, the key here is to not just write a quick character study and be like, “My character Hammy the Hamster has resentment because his dad never thought he did a good enough job as exemplified by when he came in second place for the Hammy Olympic Wheel Roll.” The key is to make sure that this emotional wound impacts: The lie that festers inside of there (this is a false logic. Hammy believes he will never be good enough); The fear that gets bigger and bigger and bigger as time goes on, the fear that's because of this wound; Their view of themself (Hammy thinks he's a loser); How their personality shifts when things happen because of the wound or the lie. And there's even a website, that we've linked in the podcast notes where you can look up emotional wounds. That's called onestopforwriters. You have to pay to access the full features of that website. But it writes, pretty simply, “Emotional wounds from the past have the power to greatly impact our characters' personalities and choices in the future. Get to know your characters intimately by choosing the right emotional wound; understanding its effects will enable you to write realistic, fully-formed characters that resonate with readers and make sense for your story.” Angela and Becca even have a ton of resources (they call it the motherlode) here. And one of those things is a pdf for a backstory wound profile. It's all pretty amazing, honestly. DOG TIP FOR LIFE Pogie has a lot of emotional wounds and she says, "Don't let your wounds rule you; don't be afraid of them. You've got this." WRITING EXERCISE When was a time your character actually felt at peace? Describe it. Do they want to get back there again? Does your character do anything for self-care? What is it? Why or why don't they do it? How would your character be different if those traumatic events of their childhood never happened? PLACE TO SUBMIT Superpresent Spring Issue Deadline: March 1, 2024 Superpresent is seeking submissions on the theme Survival. We are looking for all forms of poetry, writing, video, and visual arts. Please look at our website for details of the call and to get a feel for our magazine. superpresent.org RANDOM LINK WE MENTION ABOUT KING CAKES AP article SHOUT OUT! The music we've clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here's a link to that and the artist's website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It's “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome. We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie's Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here. Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That's a lot! Subscribe

This week we chatted with Angela Ackerman, one of the authors of the classic writing book, The Emotion Thesaurus.  If you've never picked up one of the amazing thesauruses by Angela Ackerman and her co-writer, Becca Puglisi, you're missing out! Created especially for writers, the ten different thesauruses will help you add emotion, be more creative, and make your book sing!  In this particular episode (aside from Trudi and the other SPA Girls singing the praises of Angela's books) we talk to Angela about emotional wounds - what that means, why it's important for our characters and how we can add emotional wounds into our writing and give our characters more depth.

This week we chatted with Angela Ackerman, one of the authors of the classic writing book, The Emotion Thesaurus.  If you've never picked up one of the amazing thesauruses by Angela Ackerman and her co-writer, Becca Puglisi, you're missing out! Created especially for writers, the ten different thesauruses will help you add emotion, be more creative, and make your book sing!  In this particular episode (aside from Trudi and the other SPA Girls singing the praises of Angela's books) we talk to Angela about emotional wounds - what that means, why it's important for our characters and how we can add emotional wounds into our writing and give our characters more depth.

Sign up for my writers' newsletter to learn more about the craft of writing, know when my workshops are and be the first to get exclusive information on my writing retreats. https://www.subscribepage.com/katcaldwellnewsletterWant more information on my books, author swaps, short stories and what I'm reading? Sign up for my readers' newsletter. https://katcaldwell.myflodesk.com/signupYou can always ask me writing questions on instagram @pencilsandlipstick or on Twitter @PencilLipstickBack-to-School Bundle for Writers: https://www.shortcutsforwriters.com/back-to-school-for-writers-bundle-registration-page/Science of Storytelling Will Store https://a.co/d/2r0aPVnStory Genius Lisa Cron https://a.co/d/iGmBVZBThe Anatomy of Story John Truby https://a.co/d/4pYaSN6Story Fix Larry Brooks https://a.co/d/4RSgvPXHow to Market a Book and Amazon Ads for Authors Ricardo Fayet https://amzn.to/45fVhPeReclaim Your Author Career Claire Taylor https://a.co/d/hVDHNoBThe …Thesaurus Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi https://amzn.to/45csR92The Trope Thesaurus Jennifer Hilt https://a.co/d/1qKqCgBLaunchpad the Countdown to Writing Your Book Emma Dhesi and Grace Sammon https://a.co/d/58JhjPlThe Three Story Method J Thorn and Zach Bohannon https://a.co/d/cMGufgRThe Heroine's Journey Gail Carriger https://a.co/d/h9tXNrRTell It Slant Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola https://a.co/d/1rV2FCgThe Business of Short Stories Shannon Lawrence https://a.co/d/2thxsfVWelcome to the Writer's Life Paulette Perhach https://a.co/d/820jgRJ

Lyssa Mia Smith and Anna Mercier start at the very beginning of their writing process: character. They provide insights into building character and how character can progress the plot as well as make for a book your reader can't put down! Resources Mentioned: Endings: The Good, The Bad, the Insanely Great Emotional Wound Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi

Angela Ackerman is co-author of 6 best-selling writing guides and enjoys sharing her passion for storytelling with writers across the globe. Her desire to help writers in new, innovative ways is a love she shares with Becca Puglisi and Lee Powell and led to a powerful collaboration that became One Stop for Writers®. The post #169 – Angela Ackerman on How to Add Emotions to the Characters in Your Book first appeared on Write Your Book in a Flash Podcast with Dan Janal.

Angela Ackerman is co-author of 6 best-selling writing guides and enjoys sharing her passion for storytelling with writers across the globe. Her desire to help writers in new, innovative ways is a love she shares with Becca Puglisi and Lee Powell and led to a powerful collaboration that became One Stop for Writers®. The post #168 – Angela Ackerman on How to Put Emotion Into Your Book first appeared on Write Your Book in a Flash Podcast with Dan Janal.

Shayla Raquel is an author, self publishing mentor, speaker, editor, wifey, and dog mom. She's been helping authors on their publishing journey for over a decade and has writing tips to spare! We chat all things NaNoWriMo and how writers can get invested in any stage of the word count. As a former NaNo winner, Shayla divulges her current methods and tools that set her up for success. Plus, teach you how to apply the tricks for your own writing!Connect with Shayla:https://linktr.ee/shaylaleeraquelTwitter - @shaylaleeraquelTikTok - @shaylaleeraquelInstagram - @shaylaleeraquelPinterest - @shaylaleeraquelShayla's Bookshttps://amzn.to/3NADtFHNaNoWriMo 2022 Planner and Workbookhttps://www.etsy.com/listing/1304802050/nanowrimo-2022-planner-and-workbook-22Shayla's Facebook Group NaNoWriMo Adventureshttps://www.facebook.com/groups/nanowrimoadventures---------Resources Mentioned: A Writer's Guide to Active Setting: How to Enhance Your Fiction with More Descriptive, Dynamic Settings by Mary Buckhamhttps://amzn.to/3t03LcFThe Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi https://amzn.to/3FVwDux---------*SPECIAL FOR NOVEMBER*$20 for 20-minute tarot reading for your writing with L.J. KeysTo book, fill out the Google Form below for an appointment and mention the $20 for 20 mins at the end of the form when prompted for questions.Tarot for Writers Google Form:tinyurl.com/yeyvenrtL.J. Keys' website:https://thekeystothesoul.com/---------The YouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPcGXevs2NQk3Ab9OD66zuQSupport the Show:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/romancethestoryFind me below:Twitter - @RomancetheStoryInstagram - @RomancetheStoryFacebook - @RomancetheStorySupport the show

D.C. and Avery discuss their techniques and processes when creating new characters. Mentioned: Character Development Worksheet Writing Thesaurus Books by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

How can you intensify the conflict in your books to hook readers? How can you introduce different types and layers of conflict to improve your story? Becca Puglisi explains why and how to write conflict. In the intro, thoughts on the DOJ vs PRH trial [Twitter @JohnHMaher] and Publishers Weekly round-up; my thoughts on subscription […] The post Writing Conflict With Becca Puglisi first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Author and writing coach Becca Puglisi shares tips and tools to help you write believable characters that your readers will love. You can listen to this episode How to Write Realistic Characters with Becca Puglisi on Christian Publishing Show.

Author and writing coach Becca Puglisi shares tips and tools to help you write believable characters that your readers will love.www.NovelMarketingConference.com Support the show

In this episode of First Draft Friday from Authors A.I. our guest, Becca Puglisi is in a discussion with Alessandra Torre about conflict's role in plot and character arc.Becca's excited to discuss the pivotal role conflict plays in storytelling. It shapes plot, influences character development, and generates tension and emotion for readers—all vital elements for a successful story.Join us as she discusses using conflict for maximum impact.This is an unedited chat loaded with questions and answers.  Listen in!Did you know you can get an expert analysis of your novel in just minutes?Get your book analyzed here > https://authors.ai/

How can I find another word for happy? What kind of conflict would a childhood of excess create? How can I describe a rural setting with real language? Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman have the solution for you! Their Writers Helping Writers Descriptive Thesaurus Guides are best-selling writing guides that have helped authors and professionals alike. Today I talk with Becca Puglisi, one of the founders of the website Writers Helping Writers and One Stop For Writers as well as the co-author of the thesarus series.   Want to support the show? Become a patron! Looking for tips on writing, publishing, and storytelling? Join my writers' newsletter! Want more information on my books, author swaps, short stories and what I'm reading? Sign up for my readers' newsletter.

Exploring the physical, mental, emotional signs of worry as well as worry as weather. When worry is normalized we can no longer separate worry from living, worry from loving, etc.. Learn to recognize the signs of exhaustive worry to find your empowerment to choose where your energy goes and where it doesn't. The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.  For exclusive content visit our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/emotionalbadass

Show Notes In this episode we cover:  What conflict is and why it's so important for your novel How to layer conflict Mistakes writers make with conflict How to show conflict How to use “choice” and complicating choice to further tension and plot This week's question is: what is the best book you've read in your genre? Recommendation of the week is: 13 Steps to Evil: How to Craft a Superbad Villain audiobook written and narrated by ME! Audible US  Audible UK  Direct Link ***this show uses affiliate links Find out more about Becca at: The Conflict Thesaurus  One Stop for Writers   Rebel of the Week is: Andy Park If you'd like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or instagram me @sachablackauthor Huge thank you to existing patron Jeff Elkins for upping his pledge and welcome and thank you to new patron Luke Kondor. A big thank you to my existing patrons as well. If you'd like to support the show, and get early access to all the episodes as well as bonus content you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

Today's episode is a Craft of Writing episode with Angela Ackerman, co-author of eight best-selling resource books printed in eight different languages through which she shares her passion for the writing craft. If you are a writer, you may have heard of Angela's first book, The Emotion Thesaurus, a tool which helps writers show emotions through body language and internal reactions.  The desire to help writers in new and innovative ways led to a website called one stop for writers. It's a unique site originally co-founded with Becca Puglisi and Lee Powell, the creator of Scrivener for windows, and Lena Lennox. This creative portal contains game-changing tools and resources that enable writers to craft powerful fiction. As any writer knows, conflict is the engine of fiction and Angela has a wealth of information on how we can use it to power up our writing. Angela also takes us on a tour of the onstopforwriters.com website which has a myriad of resources authors can use to create compelling characters and page-turning plots. Join Pam and Angela on The Convo Couch as they talk all about conflict.   SHOW NOTES: Writes4Women www.writes4women.com Facebook @writes4women Twitter / Instagram @w4wpodcast   W4W Patreon https://www.writes4women.com/support-us-on-patreon   Resources Find more about the book here. Sign up for a notification here. See the master list of conflict scenario entries here. One Stop for Writers: https://onestopforwriters.com/ Writers Helping Writers: https://writershelpingwriters.net/   Find Angela on: Instagram: click here Facebook: click here Twitter: click here   Pamela Cook www.pamelacook.com.au Facebook: click here Twitter: click here  Instagram: click here   This episode produced by  Pamela Cook for Writes4Women.       Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/writes4women?fan_landing=true See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre interviews Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi of WRITERS HELPING WRITERS. Angela and Becca are the co-authors of the “gold standard” of writing guides, the Writers Helping Writers thesaurus collection. The series is available in eight languages and has sold over 600,000 copies. These books are used in universities and by editors, agents, writing coaches & authors all over the world. Learn more about Writers Helping Writers at https://writershelpingwriters.net//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career// Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way, and we won't charge you a dime. We take a cut of royalties on each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money! • Get started: https://Draft2Digital.com Get insider info on indie author success from our blog. • Visit: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog Tune in to our monthly livestreams and ask us anything! • D2D Live: https://D2DLive.com Promote your books with our Universal Book Links! • Books2Read: https://books2read.com//Get ahead of the Self-Publishing game with our Amazing Partners// Findaway Voices || Find a narrator, produce your audiobook, and distribute it to retailers worldwide, including Audible.com and Apple Books. • http://findawayvoices.com/d2dReedsy || Assemble your team of publishing professionals! Find editors, cover designers, marketing experts, ghostwriters and more. • https://reedsy.comBookBrush || Build graphics and video that help you market and promote your books. • https://bookbrush.com/d2d-mockups///Join the D2D Community Online// Facebook || https://facebook.com/draft2digitalTwitter || https://twitter.com/draft2digital

On this talking shop episode, Sarah reviewed a book she believes every writer should have in their toolkit: 'The Emotion Thesaurus' by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Ashley reviewed a chapter on dystopian fiction in the academic book, 'Beyond the Blockbusters: Themes and Trends in Young Adult Fiction' by Rebekah Fitzsimmons and Casey Alane Wilson.

In this weeks Story Works Round Table, Alida and Kathryn are joined by Becca Puglisi to talk about emotional wounds, and writing deeper and more compelling fiction. This episode previously aired as episode 028. Make sure you go back into the library and check out our other episodes with Becca Puglisi. Join your hosts, Alida Winternheimer, Kathryn Arnold, and Robert Scanlon, at the Round Table every week by visiting http://storyworkspodcast.com. Show notes, links, comments, and more!

In this weeks Story Works Round Table, Alida and Kathryn are joined by Becca Puglisi to talk about emotional wounds, and writing deeper and more compelling fiction. This episode previously aired as episode 028. Make sure you go back into the library and check out our other episodes with Becca Puglisi. Join your hosts, Alida Winternheimer, Kathryn Arnold, and Robert Scanlon, at the Round Table every week by visiting http://storyworkspodcast.com. Show notes, links, comments, and more!

Flesh out your characters and shake up your writing with the Emotion Thesaurus.

Writing collaboratively can be a great opportunity for indie, hybrid and traditionally published authors. Whether you're good at working with others or see the potential benefits that a collaboration could bring to your business, joining forces with another writer could help you level up many of your writing projects. This is what happened to Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, the authors of the well-loved series of thesaurus guides that sit on many writers' desks.  In this episode Angela and Becca tell us about the opportunities and the challenges of working collaboratively, how they compensate for each other's weaknesses by dividing up the work based on their strengths, and why looking at readers' needs is the best thing an author can do to level up their writing career. (Bonus! In the past episode we officially reached our first big milestone for downloads of the podcast! If you want to see how we celebrated this event, don't miss out the first ten minutes of the episode. Thanks to all the listeners and viewers out there that helped us achieve this. You're awesome! :D)

On this episode of the Make Books Travel podcast I'm speaking with Becca Puglisi. Becca is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other books for writers. Not only does Becca help make books travel in the US and other English speaking countries through her creative writing books and her coaching work, she also does so in other languages. 2 Seas Agency represents translation rights in her books, which have sold into numerous countries. We discuss what led her to becoming a writing coach, the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on her activities, the success of her books specifically in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, and her #1 tip for aspiring authors. SHOW NOTES Becca's book recommendations: - Mary Pipher, PhD, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (Riverhead Trade, 2005) - Rosalind Wiseman, Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World (Harmony, 2009) - Dr James Dobson, Preparing for Adolescence: How To Survive The Coming Years Of Change (Gospel Light, revised edition, 2005) - Mike Michalowicz, Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself (Portfolio, 2018) About Becca: Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other books for writers—including her latest: The Occupation Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Jobs, Vocations, and Careers. Her books have sold over 500,000 copies and are available in multiple languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

Episode Show Notes   This week's questions is:   What job does your character have?   Find out more about our guest Becca Puglisi:   The Occupation Thesaurus: https://writershelpingwriters.net/bookstore/  One Stop for Writers: https://onestopforwriters.com  Writers Helping Writers blog: https://writershelpingwriters.net   Don't forget The Anatomy of Prose is now live, you can get it in ebook, paperback or hardback now. Click the link here. Order the Workbook here.    Book recommendation: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor   KOBO https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/daughter-of-smoke-and-bone-daughter-of-smoke-and-bone-trilogy-1    Apple: https://apple.co/2BOIAU4    Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2XdUZYZ  Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/317Czu3    These are affiliate links.   Listener Rebel of the Week is Steve Moore     If you'd like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or tweet me @rebelauthorpod    No new patrons this week but a huge thank you to all my current patrons for the ongoing support. If you'd like to support the show, and get access to all the bonus essays, posts and content, you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack  

In order to create characters who are well-rounded, empathetic, and relatable, you must first learn how to write emotions. Emotions, when written properly, will connect the reader to the protagonist and make them root for their victory. If you can give the reader a visceral experience where they can actually feel what the protagonist is going through, that character will stay with the reader long after they close the book.   In this episode, you will:   Learn why writing emotions is crucial for authors Learn how to write internal emotions Learn how to write external emotional reactions Lean how to create characters that are relatable   Hosts & Guests Host – Christina Kaye Guest Host – Becca Puglisi   To Learn More About and Connect with Becca Puglisi: https://writershelpingwriters.net/   To try out One Stop For Writers.com : https://onestopforwriters.com/   To Contact Christina Kaye: info@writeyourbestbook.com www.writeyourbestbook.com   For a Consultation with Christina Kaye https://calendly.com/writeyourbestbook/freecoachingsession   To Follow Christina Kaye https://www.facebook.com/writeyourbestbook https://twitter.com/yourbestbook https://www.instagram.com/writeyourbestbook/ https://pinterest.com/xtinakayebooks022 

In order to create characters who are well-rounded, empathetic, and relatable, you must first learn how to write emotions. Emotions, when written properly, will connect the reader to the protagonist and make them root for their victory. If you can...

Notes:The definition of tension is "the state of being stretched tight, a strained state or condition resulting from forces acting in opposition to each other, a relationship between ideas or qualities with conflicting demands or implications".The “Mystery Box” story style mentioned by the Verbivore was created by J. J. Abrams and tends to be seen in most of his work including the TV show Lost which he co-created. In his Ted Talk, J. J. proposes that this style of storytelling makes the unknown mysteries (hidden in the Mystery Box) that intrigue and generate questions more important than the solution to that mystery. The rabbit’s foot device that is the MacGuffin that everyone is after in Mission Impossible III and remains undefined throughout serves as a good example of this concept.The Verbivore mentions managing the white space of your work as a way to keep the reader engaged and the pace moving. Here is a definition from the writerswrite.co.az:“White space is a design principle. Simply, the absence of text draws your eye to the text. It literally refers to the amount of space around and between the words”.While doing research for these notes, we stumbled on this great article from WriteItSideways.com that shows some good examples of how writers can use white space to break up ideas, she also includes an example where the author choose to have a large block of text. The choice of how to employ white space is something every writer can decide for themselves based on the needs of the work.Fable references the Writescast Network blog post on Micro-pacing and Macro-pacing that she read prior to our conversation. That post is titled “Pace Your Way to Pro-Level Publishing”.The Stephen King 10% rule comes from his book On Writing, where he received advice from an editor that the formula for the 2nd draft should be the first draft minus 10% of your words.Fable and the Verbivore discuss the idea of “Killing Your Darlings”. In his book On Writing, Stephen King says “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” This idea is often discussed in reference to favorite characters who may have outlived their purpose, but the meaning is trully about any element (scene, title, sentence, theme) in a work where the author may have lost objectivity and kept it in solely due to sentiment rather than benefit to the story. The websites WritingCoopoerative.com and TheWritePractice.com each have an interesting article about this topic, with ideas about how a writer can identify these elements in their work.Fable mentions the Emotion Thesaurus (2nd Edition) as a tool to find realistic physical movements that express the emotion your character is feeling (ex. hands shaking when afraid). This is a great resource currated by writers Becca Pulisi and Angela Ackerman. They also have additional character emotional and personality development resource books titled The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, The Positive Trait Thesaurus, and The Negative Trait Thesaurus. Their website Writers Helping Writing is also a good place to find a list of recommended craft books for writers.The Verbivore discusses the important role of nonverbal communication in expressing what a character is feeling in a work of fiction. There are many articles that discuss and debate from a Psychological perspective the breakdown of what impact verbal and nonverbal elements have on the receiving end of our communications to each others. However, Albert Mehrabian’s research suggests that in some situtions our nonverbal communication (what we do) may be as important or more important than our verbal communication (what we say).https://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships-communication/nonverbal-communication.htmhttps://www.businesstopia.net/communication/verbal-vs-non-verbal-communicationBooks Mentioned:The Graveyard Book by Neil GaimanDivergent Series: Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Four by Veronica RothRed Queen by Victoria AveyardRed Rising by Pierce BrownCaraval by Stephanie GarberThe Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression (Second Edition) (Writers Helping Writers Series) by Becca Puglisi and Angela AckermanSix of Crows by Leigh BardugoBig Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel WallaceLight From Distant Stars by Shawn SmuckerFarm Girl by Corinne CunninghamTV Shows Mentioned:Lost Series - Seasons 1-6Music from: https://filmmusic.io’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

This week’s book spotlight is on The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, and tonight we’ll discuss revising character and setting choices. Our guest is a writing coach and co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, along with six other writing guides. Join us in our discussion to dig deep into the emotions that make our characters tick. --- Become a Medium today! https://keystrokemedium.com/mediums/ Don't forget to Subscribe and get involved with the mayhem and shenanigans in the live chat! http://www.youtube.com/c/keystrokemedium If you have any thoughts or ideas for show topics or if you have authors you'd like to see on the show, let us know. Visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KeystrokeMedium For all the latest and greatest KSM Gear, check out our store at: https://keystrokemedium.com/ksm-store/ Also, subscribe to Sci Fi Explorations for the best discounted and free books we come across through our contacts: http://www.scifiexplorations.com Keystroke Medium Anthologies      Kingdoms of Iron and Stone - https://amzn.to/2GjbE6I       Horizons Beyond - https://amzn.to/2SrJ6uX     Farthest Reach – https://amzn.to/2UZINeo The Writing Dream – and How to Make it to Happily Ever After – Keystroke Medium’s first non-fiction book. https://amzn.to/2UZINeo If you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review and rate the show on iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher, or where ever else you found us!

Not writing what your inner parent says you “should” be writing? How to get over it.Fellow writers, KJ here. I have gathered you here today to discuss the moment last week when I sat down on my bed, surveying a pile of literary fiction, some of which I liked and some of which I most emphatically did not, and asked myself, as I have many times on other topics—should I be writing something other than what I am writing? Should I be good at something other than that which I am good at? This week, I lay it out there: sometimes I feel ashamed that I don’t write something more … serious. Then Sarina slaps me around a little, and Jess declares that even writers of serious stuff (I give her that title) sometimes feel like they’re not using their time wisely.Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, October 7, 2019: Top Five Reasons to Embrace NaWhateverWriMo. It’s a good one! And I happen to know the next one’s on dictation tools and is even better. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month.As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode.Keep scrolling—there’s some cool free stuff from Author Accelerator, below.LINKS FROM THE PODCASTThe Snobs and Me(essay) Jennifer WeinerFrom Uber Driving to Huge Book Deal(Adrian McKinty and The Chain)#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Jess: The Chain, Adrian McKinty, Pride and Prejudiceread by [Rosamund Pike] and Sense and Sensibilityread by [Emma Thompson]KJ AND Sarina: Things You Save In a Fire, Katherine Center#FaveIndieBookstoreThe Flying Pig, Shelburne VTFind more about Jess here, Sarina hereand about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.COOL OPPORTUNITIES FROM OUR SPONSOR:Every episode of #AmWriting is sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE—and they have two free webinars coming up. Details:CHARACTER CLINICAuthor Accelerator is excited to team up with Writers Helping Writers to showcase the NEW Character Builder tool in the One Stop for Writers software.Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi from One Stop for Writers and Author Accelerator coach Julie Artz will be co-hosting a free Character Clinic webinar on Tuesday, October 8 at 11 AM Pacific. During the event Julie, will be coaching a writer through the character work they have done using the Character Builder.We encourage everyone to register for the event even if you cannot attend live, as a replay will be sent to everyone who has registered.REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOWTHE INSIDE OUTLINE Jennie Nash developed the Inside Outline in her work as a book coach, and it has been tested in the trenches by hundreds of writers. It can be used to help you start a book, to help you rescue one that isn’t working, and to guide a revision.We're hosting another webinar about this life-changing writing tool on Monday, October 14 at Noon Pacific/2 PM Central/3 PM Eastern.We encourage everyone to register for the event even if you cannot attend live, as a replay will be sent to everyone who has registered.REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOWThe image in our podcast illustration is by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ:                                        00:01                    Hey there listeners, KJ here. In this episode, you’ll hear both me and Sarina give a shout-out to Author Accelerator’s Inside-Outlining process. The Inside-Outline is a took that helps you make sure your book has a strong enough spine to support the story you want to tell. It forces you to spot the holes in your character’s arc and your story logic before you throw 50 thousand words on the page—without being the kind of outline that feels limiting to writers who prefer to see where the story takes you. #AmWriting listeners have exclusive access to a free download that describes what the outline is, why it works and how to do it—and if you’re writing fiction or memoir, I highly encourage you to grab it. Use it before you write, while you’re writing or even as you’re doing final revisions to give your story the momentum that keeps readers turning pages. Only at https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting. Is it recording?Jess:                                     00:01                    Now it's recording. Go ahead.KJ:                                        00:01                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess:                                     00:01                    All right, let's start over.KJ:                                        00:01                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.Jess:                                     00:01                    Okay.KJ:                                        00:01                    Now one, two, three. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the weekly podcast about writing all the things, be they fiction, nonfiction, proposals, pitches, essays, freelance work. This is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing done.Jess:                                     01:40                    I'm Jess Lahey and I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a book I'm just finishing, it's due so soon, on preventing childhood substance abuse and you can also find me at the Washington Post and The Atlantic and the New York Times and places like that.Sarina:                                 01:55                    And I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 30 odd, contemporary romance novels and you can find me at sarinabowen.com.KJ:                                        02:02                    They're not all odd. Sorry, I just had to, some of them, though. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, I always hit the softballs, and I am the author of How To Be a Happier Parent, the former editor of the New York Times' Motherlode blog, you can still find me as a contributor there. And I'm the author of a novel, The Chicken Sisters, which will be out next summer. That's who we are and we are downright giddy with joy today for Jess who is on the downhill slide, the good downhill slide.Jess:                                     02:49                    I'm just so discombobulated. So here's where I am. The day that we're recording this, I'm 14 days out from my book deadline. I am going to make it. I'm in the stretch, I'm in that place where nothing else happens. I haven't left the house in days. I am barely getting dressed in the morning. Yesterday I wrote for 14 hours straight, literally all I stopped to do a couple of times was let the dogs out and grab something that I'd already prepared and stuck in the refrigerator and microwave that. So, I'm in a crazy space, but there's something a little fun about being in that full deep dive. Like this is all I think about and my family's being really lovely. They're cooking for me, they're doing the laundry. I've got a lot of support, so that's great.KJ:                                        03:46                    Is this what the last deadline felt like, too? I do not remember.Jess:                                     03:50                    Well, here's the thing, I was talking to someone about that just recently. Writing a book is like having children, you forget a lot of the worst parts because you know, we'd never have children again if we remembered it all. And honestly, I handed in Gift of Failure a whole day early. I was very proud of myself. I don't remember it being this bonkers.KJ:                                        04:14                    I don't remember it being this bonkers for you. But I do remember all the bad parts about having children, but I'm not sure I remember the bad parts about you having children.Jess:                                     04:25                    Well keep in mind also, I learned a lot from doing Gift of Failure. So a lot of the editing that I had to do after the fact I'm now doing before the fact. It's really funny, every time I compile a chapter in Scrivener and then put it into Word for submitting to our agent and then later on to the editor, I've got this huge list of 'Have you done this?', 'Have you done that?' So when I finish a chapter, it takes me like two hours to go through all of my lists. Like search for all recurrences of the word that, and then remove like 50% of them. Have you used a hyphen the right way? How many commas are there? You know, that kind of crazy stuff that just saves Lori from having to remind me that I overuse the word that. So, yeah, there's a lot of my launch codes that have to be run before I submit. I don't remember it being this bonkers.KJ:                                        05:31                    This is your experience of finishing this book. Who knows? Like last time, maybe not quite like this. Next time, who knows?Jess:                                     05:39                    It's interesting. I did learn a lot last time and I feel better about what I'm producing this time simply because last time I didn't know. I was like, I had no idea if my editor was going to come back and say this is great or this is ridiculously bad. Because I had nothing, I had never done it before, I had nothing to judge it against. So this is really a different experience for me in a good way. In that number one, she's seen chapters as we go along and I've already gotten feedback on those chapters and oh my gosh, she loves it and that makes me so happy. But she's also been able to give me feedback and I've been able to change direction. So like the chapter I handed in last night is different from the previous three chapters because she'd given me feedback on those previous three chapters, which I'll go back and fix later. But I'm able to make course corrections midway, which has been really great. It has helped me eliminate a lot of work on the other end. So yeah, it's different. The answer to your question is I think it's different.KJ:                                        06:44                    I'm just probably different every, it's probably different every time up to a point. And now we turn to the author of some 30 odd books, Sarina. Is it different every time, up until it suddenly isn't different or is it still different every time?Sarina:                                 07:00                    You know, I am trying to make it less the same every time. Because you and I, KJ, have spent a lot of time lately thinking about outlining. And I'm trying to shift my whole game towards becoming a better outliner so that I don't have a repeat experience, which is 'freak out about the ending on every single book'.Jess:                                     07:26                    Well, but one thing I wanted to ask you about is you just recently had basically what I'm going through right now except with editing. And that seemed pretty intense for you. Does that stay the same or has that changed and does it depend on whether you're working with a coauthor?Sarina:                                 07:41                    Well, I shot myself in the foot a little bit and set up a month where I had to do edits on two books in the same month. And that that was just either bad luck or bad planning, take your pick. But I find it quite exhausting to have to make everything perfect on two books in a row where you don't give yourself the fun part of drafting and inventing in between to break up the tedium of perfection.Jess:                                     08:09                    Oh, that's a good point.KJ:                                        08:12                    When I was doing the big edit of my novel, I couldn't draft. I thought it was going to be able to. If you go back about eight podcasts, I'm like, 'I'm going to do both. I'm going to edit a little every day and I'll write a little every day. And that lasted a week. Mostly because the editing was just more intense. Drafting is fun, sometimes. Editing is fun, sometimes. Making things perfect, maybe not so much.Jess:                                     08:46                    Well, the 14 hours I spent yesterday were sort of a combination of the two. Mainly it was editing, which can be really tedious and all that stuff. But yesterday I did get to have one of those moments where it got a little buzzy and I was like, 'Oh, I like that.' I got to have those, even in the editing process. In fact, I changed how the chapter ended and I had one of those sort of moments where it feels like the minor chord changes to a major chord and there's that big breath you can take at the end and you're like, 'Ah, it works.' It was really a nice moment. And that happened in editing, so that was really fun.KJ:                                        09:29                    I just don't think I have ever had an experience of writing that feels like what I hear you reflecting. So part of me is sitting thinking should I be writing for 14 hours a day? That's not something that's up. I mean, I've had a full time writing job that sometimes took that, but I wouldn't have been writing the whole time. I would've been writing and editing and screaming and coding and frantically going through the comments and all the other things. The intensity with which you are writing right now is not something that I have ever experienced.Jess:                                     10:06                    Okay. Here's the thing, though. It's not about the intensity and it's not about the amount of time. The only, and this is really helpful information for me, the only times I have gotten this really serious - it's like a runner's high kind of thing. It's a writer's high. And the times I get it, reliably, are when I'm writing creative nonfiction. It happened when I wrote for Creative Nonfiction. That piece 'I've Taught Monsters'. It's happening in this book and the good news is that my editor is encouraging me to write more that way and less like a research paper, which is great cause I get less of it when I write that sort of sciency kind of stuff. But it's nice to know that there is this genre that gives me writer's high and it's the stuff I like to read the most. So, it's kind of like knowing what your sweet spot is. So for me it's a genre.KJ:                                        10:56                    That is the perfect segue into the topic, which I have gathered us here today to discuss. Which is - what we write, how much we choose that, and how much it chooses us, and how we feel about it. Which is a very complicated way of saying that I had a crisis of confidence last week in which I sort of sat down on the bed, convinced that the fact that I do not and will not and never going to write literary fiction, basically meant that I had wasted my entire education.Sarina:                                 11:36                    Well, I have a crisis of confidence pretty much every day at noon schedule.KJ:                                        11:56                    I wouldn't call it a crisis of confidence, though. I like the book that I wrote, and I like How To Be a Happier Parent, and I like the work that I do, and I like the experience that I have doing it. But I have frequently had the experience of feeling like I should be doing something else. When I spent years writing about parenting for the New York Times, it was the gutter of New York Times writing when I was doing it. And it may be that the experience has changed, but you know, it wasn't something really important like sports. It wasn't finance, it wasn't politics, although it frequently was finance, and it frequently was politics. I just would often feel like, you know, a smart person should be doing something else. And I'm having a little bit of that same feeling, you know, contemplating my undeniably fun romp of a book, which I enjoyed writing and is exactly the kind of thing that I like to read. But, then I just sort of think you go to the bookstore right now and everything is sort of really deep, and dark, and meaningful, and apocalyptic.Sarina:                                 13:31                    Sorry, I have some things to say. Well, first of all, my ghetto is located down the alleyway, you know, past a flap of tattered burlap, from your ghetto. Because romance writers are very accustomed to being in a ghetto that is ghetto-ier than everyone else's. And in fact, I remember this hilarious essay that Jennifer Wiener wrote for the New York Times a couple of years ago about going to the Princeton reunion as a commercial fiction author. And I remember tweeting to her, 'Well, you know, I sometimes roll up to the Yale reunion as a writer of occasionally erotic romance. And so, my ghetto mocks your ghetto. But, the funny thing is that Jennifer Wiener, I love her so much, and her favorite book of mine is a work of gay romance. So, she totally gets it. It was just a funny moment. And romance authors are very much accustomed to this idea of you're not a real author even if you're making six figures because there's a guys chest on the cover of your book. And we all have days where that doesn't seem fair or you get the weird look from the mom at the soccer game. But I always tell people who are struggling with this, that when you write some amazing line of dialogue, or that thing that happened in chapter two comes back as the perfect call out in chapter nine, it doesn't matter what you're writing that in, you feel just as good about it either way. When it works, it works.Jess:                                     15:36                    In the end, you're a storyteller. I mean the whole point of being a writer is to express yourself in stories. And frankly, you have told me on this podcast that there are awards for literary stuff that are out there that automatically mean they're books that you're not going to like. And you don't want to be trying to write that stuff because it would stink. Because you don't like writing it, you don't even like reading.KJ:                                        16:13                    I feel fine, I'm super excited about my book. In some ways, I'm more excited about it than I was about the nonfiction. It's funny how I think we all do this to ourselves. How I think we all have a should. And do you have a should at all?Jess:                                     17:10                    For me, because the stuff I really like to write about has to do with children's welfare, and ways prisons could be better and help kids. I really do love writing that stuff. The problem with that stuff is not a lot of people care, even though it's about kids. You know, as soon as you start talking about prisons or something, people are like, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever.' I get upset that I don't write that stuff more, because I feel like I should. Because that feels like if I were really doing my job and using the bullhorn that I have, because I'm lucky enough to have an audience, I need to be writing stuff that's more worthy. And so that can be really tough, cause sometimes I just want to write an essay about fishing with my dad. So yeah, I feel that, too. Should I be using these words to help kids be better or do I get to just enjoy writing?KJ:                                        18:11                    I had an idea for a new question we should ask everyone that comes on the podcast - 'What do you write when you write in your head?' You know what I mean? James Thurber used to tell, a possibly apocryphal story, about how his wife would walk up to him at parties and say, 'James, stop writing'.Jess:                                     18:33                    It's definitely creative nonfiction. I just thought about it and yeah, that's what I'm writing in my head.KJ:                                        18:40                    Are you writing essays or are you writing like opinions? Sarina, what do you write when you write in your head?Sarina:                                 18:49                    Well, I always am happy to admit that I'm a little bit trapped in romance at the moment. Because I have a platform and the bigger it gets, the harder it is for me to find tons of enthusiasm for striking out in a new direction.KJ:                                        19:06                    And you're kind of good at it.Sarina:                                 19:08                    Well, thank you.Jess:                                     19:09                    She's also incredibly good at YA, too. My favorite book of your happens to be a YA novel.Sarina:                                 19:18                    I actually love YA and I would like to write more of it. The Accidentals was a really good time for me to write. But the thing about YA though is that I don't love where the market for it is right now. So very objectively, I am not sorry that I'm not trying to sell something into that space right now. I might next year, perhaps. But not because I think the market will be any better next year. I don't love the direction of the young adult market and what's happening with it. So even though I feel suited to write it, even potentially better suited than I am to romance, that would be a really tough decision to make.Jess:                                     20:06                    KJ, what do you write in your head?KJ:                                        20:11                    I'm not necessarily sure that the question reflects like what we've written, I think it also reflects what we are accustomed to write. I write essays in my head. Sometimes they're angry, ranty essays. Sometimes they turn into actual essays, and sometimes they turn into actual angry, ranty essays. I recently penned an epic called 'Why Salad Is Just Too Hard'.Jess:                                     20:47                    I'm not going to talk about the details, but on the personal side, besides writing this book, there's a lot that's going on right now in my life. There's a lot I want to remember about what's going on in my life right now. There has been some funny and tragic and weird things that have happened. And it's been really frustrating for me not to have the extra time to sit down and write a lot of that down, so I've had to just jot down notes. But that's the stuff I've been writing in my head because I need to process that stuff. And the way I process is by writing creative nonfiction essays about it in my head. So, it's really weird. It's sort of like I'm constantly sorting through the weirdness of my life in terms of creative nonfiction essays. It's very bizarre.Sarina:                                 21:49                    So you're saying you have an inner David Sedaris?Jess:                                     21:52                    Yeah, I guess I have thought about it that way and also feeling bad that I don't have time to do what the crazy manic thing he does everyday. Obsessively writing notes and then transcribing those notes, because ideally that's what I would be doing right now if I had time, because so much is happening in my personal life right now that I'm afraid I'm gonna forget. If this was a perfect world, I would have two hours a day to process my notes into writing that I would then do something with eventually down the line. But I don't have time.KJ:                                        22:25                    I feel like you can only mentally do that if your day job is bartending or something. It's like if you're writing all day then to sit down and also write...Jess:                                     22:40                    I'm out of words, this happened during Gift of Failure, too. Although, during Gift of Failure somehow I was writing a column every two weeks, too. I don't know how that worked, I honestly have no memory of it, I've blocked it out. Since we're talking about people who have had a crisis of confidence, I have a cool story. It's about a book I read recently. So, there was this article in The Guardian that just just killed me it was so good. It was written by Alison Flood. It was in The Guardian recently and is about an author named Adrian McKinty. And Adrian McKinty has been in the media recently because he has a book called The Chain that was really a fun listen and I really liked it. And I was curious about what this guy's all about because it turns out he's written a bunch of mysteries in the past. He's been an author for a long time, he's written a lot of stuff, stuff that got critical acclaim, but just no one else read it apparently. So there's this article in The Guardian and it's called 'From Uber Driving to Huge Book Deal: Adrian McKinty's Life-Changing Phone Call'. Get this, so Adrian McKinty has decided to give up, he's decided I can't support my family as an author, he's Uber driving, he's working a couple of jobs just to make ends meet. Even though his books have gotten great reviews and critical acclaim, he's giving up. So he had mentioned this to Don Winslow, huge author Don Winslow, at a conference. This freaks Don Winslow out because Don Winslow has been through something like this, a similar situation, and he doesn't want Adrian McKinty to give up. So Don Winslow tells his agent Shane Salerno that Adrian McKinty is giving up writing. And Shane Salerno calls Adrian McKinty and says, 'Don tells me you've given up writing and I just don't think you should do that. Have you thought about writing a book set in the U.S.?' So Adrian McKinty has had an idea for a book and he writes 30 pages of it, like bangs out 30 pages of this book that he'd been thinking about. And at around three in the morning, he hands it in and at 4:15, the phone rings. And here's what Shane Salerno,agent to Don Winslow says, 'Forget bartending. Forget driving a bloody Uber.' Salerno said, 'You're writing this book.'. And he's like, 'No, I can't. I can't support my family.' He gets an offer of some short-term financial support from Shane Salerno. He's like, 'You need some money, just to get by so you can write this thing? I'll help.' Anyway, he writes the book, he gets a huge book deal for it, and then an even huger film deal. He got a six figure deal for The Chain and a seven figure deal for The Chain as a film. So yeah, he didn't quit. It's a crazy story. It's just nuts. Well, what was cool about it is that he had this idea for these two - it's sort of like when Stephen King talks about how he got the idea for Carrie - it was these two ideas that didn't work on their own, but when they came together, bang, there's a plot. So he had this thing kind of marinating in there, but he pushed back pretty hard. He's like, 'Nope, I'm done. No, really.' And there's also a nice moment when he gets the film deal, McKinty says to Salerno, 'I said, mate, you should have told me to sit down first. Can you say it all again really slowly as if you're talking to an idiot?' So anyway, it was a cool story. You might not love it, it's a people in peril sort of story, but a very cool idea. This is not a spoiler because it's right there on the book, but essentially your kid gets kidnapped and the only way your kid gets returned is if you kidnap another kid. and so on, and so on, and so on. So anyway, it's gonna make a killer movie. It's just compulsively read. I listened and it was a great listen. So anyway, cool story.KJ:                                        27:45                    So are we on what we're reading?Jess:                                     27:48                    Well, I don't know. Would we like to talk about what happened with the New York Times book lists?KJ:                                        27:52                    Oh yeah, that's right. Speaking of ghettos and having your ghetto sort of semi-recognized, but not really.Jess:                                     28:00                    Yeah, The Times is changing their lists. Who would like to take this one? Sarina?Sarina:                                 28:27                    My response was that this isn't even news. Because what they've expanded is that they brought back something they cut more than a year ago, which was the mass market paperback list used to be a weekly list and they also cut graphic novels at exactly the same time. So, bringing it back as a monthly is a non-event, especially because what sells in mass market paperback is a lot of romance and genre fiction.Jess:                                     29:00                    So Sarina, for our listeners who may not be as familiar, I would say, 'Sarina, why aren't you super excited about that? Mass market means romance. Why aren't you excited?'Sarina:                                 29:11                    Because the romance market keeps moving further and further away from mass market fiction. So they cut it at the moment when it could have made a difference and now it's just not interesting.Jess:                                     29:23                    For anyone who may not know, what does mass market mean?KJ:                                        29:26                    They actually haven't changed it on their website, the lists still look the same.Sarina:                                 29:32                    Right. It says the new lists don't even hit print until the end of October. So mass market is those rack sized books that they have at the grocery store. The market for those fundamentally changed a few years ago when the distribution company that was handling most of them stopped doing their business. And then publishers began to move away from mass market paperback and into the trade size, which is the slightly larger paperback you mostly see on tables if you go to a bookstore. So mass market gets two kinds of releases. They get some romance releases, just straight up. It'll be like e-book and that. Or, if you have a mega best seller then you might also get a pocket sized release after your regular paperback release. So by adding this, it's a really strange decision because there aren't that many books that come out in mass market anymore and the romance ones are selling most of their copies in e-book form. So when I read this change I thought, 'Oh the New York Times is trying to make a nod toward romance without having to touch anything that's independently published.' They basically are holding up a sign that says 'Self-published do not apply.'Jess:                                     30:59                    Here's a question, though. They do have an e-book list, so that wouldn't include self-published books then, is what you're saying?Sarina:                                 31:10                    Well, the e-book, it's called combined fiction. That's the list they have. They don't have an e-book bestseller list anymore that's just for e-books. Because it would have lots and lots of self-published things on it. And they didn't like that, so they got rid of it.KJ:                                        31:29                    Yeah, I was going to say there is no e-book list.Sarina:                                 31:35                    Nope, there was, but there isn't any more.KJ:                                        31:39                    Speaking of ghettos and not recognized. And I will also just note that they pulled their parenting list at the same time and they didn't even restore that one. They're not even pretending that if you don't manage to make advice and how-to (which some people do) you're just not.Jess:                                     31:59                    That's going to affect how publishers market books, too. You know, is my next book a parenting book? Is it an advice or how-to? Well, if I'm a smart publisher and I want it to make the list, I'm gonna make sure I push it as an advice or how-to. If I go into a bookstore looking for Gift of Failure it's never in the advice or how-to, it's in the parenting section. But if I were releasing that now, I would say, 'Well, we need to really push this as an advice or how-to.KJ:                                        32:30                    I don't think, and I could be totally misinformed here, but I think advice, how-to, and miscellaneous incorporates all the other. So it does incorporate parenting and now it'll have to incorporate sports and science, too.Jess:                                     33:15                    Since I already talked about The Chain, can I also just mention really quickly since we're going to talk about what we're reading? So when I'm in this crazy place like I am right now with this book. It's been really hard for me to find moments to calm down and relax. And I have been relistening to Jane Austen, but specifically, I had been listening to Rosamund Pike read Pride and Prejudice, who had played the sister Jane in one of the film versions of it. But now I'm listening to Sense and Sensibility read by the actress Juliet Stevenson and it's really lovely. And the nice thing about it is my mind can wander, because I already know the stories by heart. It's like when your kids are really, really little and they love having the same story read over and over and over again. I think that's soothing on some very primal level for me, so that's what I've been listening to.KJ:                                        34:25                    Yeah, definitely relistening is really good for that. I've been relistening to something that I have listened to twice already, partly just for that. Some of the reasons I had to listen to it was that one of my children was compelled to memorize the Declaration of International Human Rights or something along those lines. And said child required both an audience and to do that out loud, but did not actually require you to listen. So, earbuds, that's what I have to say about that particular experience. I do have some books, but Sarina, you want to go?Sarina:                                 35:13                    Yeah, I just bought a hardcover copy of Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center. Because not only did KJ like this book, but she told me that I would love it.KJ:                                        35:25                    That was the one I was sitting here before the podcast going, 'I know I read something I really liked recently. What did I read?' That was what it was! Found it. Now I have to change mine.Jess:                                     35:44                    What is Things You Save in a Fire? Is it nonfiction? Is it fiction? What's happening?KJ:                                        35:48                    It is flat out romance that has been marketed as commercial women's fiction and it is that, as well. But I see nothing about the story that violates the genre rules of romance. It is not one of those things where there are two people and only one of them gets her... We've talked about this before, the line is interesting and strange. And this one is a clear, fun, rollicking trip to the H E A. That would be the happily ever after.Jess:                                     36:22                    So it's not going to give me any guidance about what I should save if my house catches on fire.KJ:                                        36:27                    No, how-to and miscellaneous it is not.Jess:                                     36:32                    Alright, sorry. KJ, what have you been reading?KJ:                                        36:36                    That's it, I read that, I really liked it, it was really good. She has an amazing Instagram feed, too. Her name is Katherine Center and she is an artist, as well as a writer. So she paints on the books, which is killer. And as a doodler, I'm thinking I'm going to doodle on my books. I'm going to doodle chickens on my books for Instagram and I cannot wait to do it.Jess:                                     37:00                    Oh, that's a really cool idea. I like it. I can't wait. I have a cool bookstore for this week. When we first moved to Vermont, of course I had to go looking for all the independent bookstores in the area. And I've talked about some of them, but I have not talked about this lovely little one. There is a little town near us called Shelburne that has the sweetest little town center, there's a gorgeous museum that has all these old buildings from all over Vermont and New England that have been restored. And across the street from that is this little little village, it's really cute. And in that village is a lovely little bookstore called The Flying Pig Bookstore. It is small, but it is lovely, and they really know their books. And I have been trying to order my books through there because I can ride my bike to it, which is nice. I have a little basket on the front of my bike and so I have this very romantic vision of riding to my local bookstore and picking up my books and putting them in the basket of my bike. These are the kinds of things I live for at the moment, so I highly recommend it.Sarina:                                 38:09                    Sounds great, I think you should take us there when we see you next.Jess:                                     40:10                    Alright. Are we good, people? Have we done our job this week?KJ:                                        40:16                    And let me just say that if you agree and think that we have done our job, we hope you'll head over to amwritingpodcast.com and sign up for our weekly email. You get a transcript of all the things about riding around with your dog in the car and possibly some more useful things as well. And if you really love the podcast and crave more useful things, you can sign up for our writer top fives at the same place. That's a subscription service, supports the podcast, which is and always will be free. Also enables you to get our writer top five lists every Monday. Coming up, we've got top five reasons you should do NaNoWriMo, we've had top five questions you should ask your fictional character, top five reasons you should be on Instagram, we got top five ways to make your reader laugh.Jess:                                     41:15                    The burnchart one was great. And I can say that because I have nothing to do with them, because as I may have already mentioned, I have no other time to do anything but write this book. So this is all you two and I am so impressed with what you guys have done with these top five. They've been fantastic. I've enjoyed them as a reader that has nothing to do with them at the moment, but I will.KJ:                                        41:36                    All right, so head over to amwriting podcast.com. Check us out, support us, subscribe to us, and of course as always, subscribe to us and rate us should you care to on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast.Jess:                                     41:59                    This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

This week we discuss setting, we interview Becca Puglisi, Nicola foxes even Theresa with her "Name The Novel", Stephanie reads from her WIP, Heather amuses albeit briefly and Pat shares what's on her bedside table. Write Club The Podcast is a weekly show for aspiring writers, published authors and readers everywhere. Join Stephanie Rouse, Theresa Stoker, Heather Worsley, Linda Jackim Werlein, Pat Woolfe & Nicola Cairncross each week where they'll share guest readings and interviews, along with what they're reading, what they're writing and what it's really like to be an aspiring writer. You can join in the weekly "Name the Novel" quiz and find out "What's On The Bedside Table?"

Where is your scene happening? Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s “Urban and Rural Thesaurus” guides and onestopforwriters.com are mentioned in this episode. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/daria-white/message

In this episode:This week Mel had to do some Kemlo-ordered homework – reading the Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maas, Understanding Show Don’t Tell by Janice Hardy, and The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. She has trouble connecting emotion to her writing and needs to do more work on Chapter 5 before moving on.“When writing body sensations, you yourself have to be in touch with your own body. A lot of times we ignore our body sensations because we’re focusing on other things.” – MelanieKemlo says that it’s hard to layer emotion because it needs to be pervasive – it needs to be on every page, all the time. We as readers don’t cease to be human, and sometimes it takes as little as one or two lines of tweaking to add that nuance.Sometimes, just adding a character’s thoughts is enough to get the emotion across—and not just “I feel afraid” – what are they afraid of? What do they think is going to happen, or what do they want/not want to happen? There’s more power behind it if it’s character-specific.“One of the things I find fascinating when I read, say, the book A Man Called Ove – when you read it, there are places I’ve cried in that book. He’s just doing it in a really nuanced, really subtle way. Sometimes it’s the whole Gestalt of what you’re getting across. What makes it so hard is trying to get it on every page.” – Kemlo AkiMel points out that she and Abby (who has a graduate degree in) could walk into an art museum and while Mel could say “Hey, what a nice painting” Abby would see so much more because she’s got more experience with the subject. The same goes for writing – until you write a book, it’s hard to have a sincere appreciation of all that goes into the process. An experienced writer can look at a book and see all the different threads the author spent likely hundreds of hours weaving through their story, the subtle details that take seconds to read but add so much to the final product.Even mid-revision, Mel and Abby are reminded again that practice might not ever make perfect (what writer is happy with their book when the send it off to their publisher?), but it makes it better.

Alex and Nick share the TV writing resources they use for the screenwriting craft, from books, websites, and podcasts, to apps, tools, and hardware. We go over some of our personal recommendations we've discussed over the years, and why they matter to us. Content 1 - Books (00:30) 2 - Finding Scripts (11:05) 3 - Apps/Software (14:19) 4 - Hardware/Tools (19:08) 5 - Websites (25:46) 6 - Podcasts (34:55) 7 - Miscellaneous (39:06) Links "The Cheeky Monkey" - Tim Ferguson "Writing the TV Drama Series" - Pamela Douglas "Television Writing from the Inside Out" - Larry Brody "The TV Writer's Handbook" - Ellen Sandler "Write to TV" - Martie Cook "Elephant Bucks" - Sheldon Bull "Crafty TV Writing" - Alex Epstein "Successful TV Writing" - Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin "The Coffee Break Screenwriter" - Pilar Alessandra "The War of Art" - Steven Pressfield "The Hollywood Standard" - Christopher Riley "The Emotion Thesaurus" - Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman William C. Martell's Blue Book series "On Writing" - Stephen King WGF Library TV Calling Script Library Other TV script library Final Draft Highland Scrivener Sublime Text Slack Moleskine Notebooks Kindle eReaders Kobo eReaders Time Timer ThinkVision P27h-10 IPS Monitor TV Tropes John August Blog Go Into The Story Blog r/screenwriting (reddit) r/worldbuilding (reddit) "Screenwriting Lessons From" series on TV Calling Hemingway Editor Thesaurus RhymeZone Rainy Mood Bose QuietComfort 35 II Noise-Cancelling Headphones Paper Team Cheat Sheets on Patreon Breaking Bad Insider Podcast Battlestar Galactica podcast by Ron Moore The Writers Panel 3rd and Fairfax To Live and Dialogue in LA Scriptnotes Children of Tendu Draft Zero Parker/Stone NYU Lecture (Video) Big Brother Live Feeds If you enjoyed this episode and others, please consider supporting us on Patreon at paperteam.co/patreon! :) Special thanks to Alex Switzky for helping us edit this episode. You can find Paper Team on Twitter: Alex - @TVCalling Nick - @_njwatson For any questions, comments or feedback, you can e-mail us: ask@paperteam.co

Chet is a line editor. He gives us a solid crash course on line editing and shares practical examples of common author mistakes. Writing is a craft that no one ever masters fully and it's always helpful to get inputs on how to improve. Chet delivers lots of tips and tricks. Whether you're an experienced writer and a newbie, there's lessons for everyone in the conversation Chet and I had. Enjoy some advice from a line editor. During the video, Chet mentions The Emotion Thesaurus. It's written by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman. It's an incredible helpful tool for authors. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression-ebook/dp/B07MTQ7W6Q/ref=sr_1_2?  New episodes EVERY single Monday. To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC  PATREON! Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy  LET'S CONNECT! Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/  Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/  Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper  Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Jesper (12s): Welcome to amwritingfantasy together with autumn. I run this, uh, the amwritingfantasy website where we share blog posts and uh, there was these YouTube videos, there is a podcast episodes of these videos as well. So if you're listening on podcasts right now, welcome. Uh, but today we are gonna talk or I'm going to talk with Chet about editing, which I thought was quite interesting because actually we haven't had any real videos or episodes around editing before, so, so this was an excellent topic to get into today. Jesper (47s): And uh, thank you so much for joining us on amwritingfantasy. Chet. Chet (51s): Thank you. Thanks for having me. Jesper (55s): Maybe you want to share a bit about yourself and what you're up to. Chet (59s): Yeah. Uh, my name is Chet Sandberg. Um, I am a fantasy writer, uh, as yet unpublished probably because I'm an editor so I'm pretty hard on myself. Uh, uh, I'm aligned in solid earth, which is kind of in between a copy editor. Proofer is, is getting the typos, getting the punctuation and I copy and he's doing a lot of that is also to make sure it things from ATPCO. Correct. I'm aligned in style editor. So what I do is I am not going to just make sure that your dialogue is grammatically correct. I'm going to make it sound like something somebody might actually say. Chet (1m 30s): So I'm going to do things like if you, if you've got two people in a conversation and they're using one another's names, a lot, we don't do that. We rely on context to do that. So, I mean, we don't need to completely sound like real human beings, but I would take out some of those things that are more artificial or would sound a unnatural or I would take out or point out, um, dialogue that is only there as a storytelling technique. Uh, you know, as, as you well know, magic works like this while blah, blah, blah. You know, instead of technically having it as exposition, you have it as dialect. Chet (2m 3s): You really don't. Uh, so stuff like that. Um, uh, my first major client was a journalist, uh, background, and so he gets a little tingle of excitement when I cut his five words down to to. So I focus a lot on concision. Um, if you're gonna, uh, talk about, say a top, you're going to say in front of, I'll say before, you know, a lot of stuff like that where I tend to cut things down. I also tend to, um, uh, well for a couple of things and I've got like a, a Google doc that I, uh, usually try to give out to people with their data perspective clients or, uh, I don't really have to do with my main client cause he, he understands everything when I'm cutting stuff. Chet (2m 44s): Um, w there are some things very, you know, if you've signed a lot of the word Barry in your approach to replace that word with what is, so if you say the thing very fast, you can say, you know, ran, walked very fast as rant or, or hurried or whatever it is, it gives more of a flavor. It's more unique. Um, I tend to really am stomp all over the use of the past continuous, which is, I don't know if it's completely unique to English, but I know beginning English writers love to do this and it makes total sense. Chet (3m 17s): I do it all the time and have to cut it out. And the reason you do it is because you're describing the scene in your head as it's happening. So you say he was standing by the door, she was talking, but every time you do that, you have a was in an ING around a unique verb when it's much, much has much more bite. If you give all of your verbs, uh, their own unique flavor in, in, in the reader's mind and in their mouth, if they're reading out loud. So instead of saying he was standing, you say he stood, it happened in the past tense. Like I said, the reason you do it while you're seeing it in your head is because you're literally seeing it as it happens. Chet (3m 49s): For the same reason, um, began or started to ends up in a lot of people's pros, especially beginners, um, where you'll say he began to you never, you only write began for, uh, activities that don't complete because that's all you have to tell them that something began. He began to say, but it was cut off, that kind of thing. If he completes it, you can just say it. He or she, if the character complete it, you can just say the simple past tense. They, they did the thing right. You can say, you know, instead of saying, well, he began to stumble, he started, he began to stutter. Chet (4m 21s): You just say he started. OK. um, and the reason you do that is because I'm in small works. These things don't really, uh, cause that many problems. But over the course of a long and fantasy run hobbles let's face it, we write a lot of long do works. You're getting what you really want unique. You really want concision. You really want to get rid of those things that can be repetitive. Uh, another thing that I tried to work on is something called new. During. The verb make a plan is planned. Make is a general all purpose verb that can apply to a whole bunch of things. Chet (4m 53s): Planned is a very specific word. But when you, when you say make a plan, you've made the focus, the verb, a very generic verb, and then you made the plan. Would you actually did, you made it a noun, makeup line. Uh, manage. If you write manage, I will write you a snarky notes in the comments about, uh, you know, like a Denny's what he's talking about. You know, man, if she managed to manage demand, these are things that I see a lot of times too where you just cut that out. Um, here's a big one. Um, could, could he could something, something, well, anything could happen. Chet (5m 25s): Tell us what actually did happen. And the reason people do this is I think sometimes they're trying to tell us through the POV character that they're unsure about something and occasionally that works. The main thing that I look for when I see code though is that people are putting in filtering. And this is one that's something I just was watching with Autumn's thing. Get the census involved, get all the senses I have to under described on my first draft and then have to go in and really described. Um, or sometimes there's two things I like, I want to talk about here. Chet (5m 56s): One is something I'm still trying to learn how to do really well. Can't really always add it in as a line style editor. It's something I like to use is if you've ever read the magicians, he does a lot of things that drive me up a tree, but I w Lev Grossman writes his description from his character point of view in such a way that he never really has to tell you directly how these characters feel because you can get so much about what his character's mind state is by how he describes things. It's amazing. It's like magic powers. I'm like, wow. Chet (6m 27s): I if, if, if you wanna I, I'm sure there are a ton of authors that do that. The first one that I really noticed it on, uh, was Lev Grossman with conditions and like I said, you know, there's a lot of stuff he does pass, continues up the wazoo he filters a little bit and now I want to switch over into filtering. Filtering is when I want to do this specifically because of something autumn said where you're talking about using census. I love using census. You really want to ground people in the scene and you need to do it with more than just the eyes. It's the one really great thing that people say the book was better than the movie. Chet (6m 59s): Part of what they're saying is in a novel, like with Lev Grossman, of course you can, you can use a description to tell something about the character. The character is what, what they're going through. But the other thing is you have all of these other aspects, internal monologues and thoughts. Uh, you know, you might have an internal argument with yourself. You might have, you know, uh, you might notice a smell that has a significant, she might notice a sound or, or something might spring to the foreground that you can't always do very well with cinematography. Chet (7m 30s): And, but with that, uh, that, uh, cinematography, he never asked you, what is that? Try not to filter the sensations through your character. Every time you do that, you were reminding the reader that they aren't the character and it pulls people out of immersion out for some things. You're going to want to do that. Uh, very occasionally, if you're writing something very disturbing, you're going to want to pull people out of it. But instead of saying something like, she heard shot from across the room, okay. You don't have to tell her that. Sh tell us that she heard it in her POV. You can simply present it. You can say a shot rang out across the firm, across the, from the other side of them. Chet (8m 1s): Okay, tell us the location, tell us what happened. But you don't have to remind us that we aren't, they're experiencing, when you say a sh, something simply happened, you know, um, um, the moon Rose, the moon Rose over the horizon or dips down or whatever the sun Rose, uh, from her eyes instead of saying he saw the sunrise, you know what I mean? We know he saw it because we're describing it. We're in their third close to the point of view. So as much as you can, if you can get rid of filtering, um, you know, instead of saying she felt sweat rundown, you know, that's that he'd say, you know, a drip of sweat, uh, you know, you can go to on more specificity, but you can just say it happened and the, and the reader will automatically insert themselves into the POB, a character's point of view. Chet (8m 45s): So filterings a big one. Um, and I think especially with the sweat there, you know, if you can sort of get into what it feels like on the skin and stuff like that, because Jesper (8m 57s): then it works. Right. Rather, I was flying back from am, I had a business trip to Cairo last week and I was flying back and then on the airplane and somebody was sitting next to me reading a book and it just sort of peaked over in it. And it was quite interesting because it has a, it's not really filtering, but it's more like a, I don't know if you have a more correct, if that's a word for it, but you know, it was summarizing a lot. So every piece that was more like, okay, and then in the morning this and this happened and that doesn't tell me the dialogue and then tell me what a day, blah, blah, blah, blah. Jesper (9m 29s): Something happened. It was just like I was looking at it and like that, that's so boring. You know, it just, I don't feel connected to what's happening at all. This is just a summary of whatever happened that day, that day. Chet (9m 40s): And that's what tell him versus, no. Okay. You'd have to show people and one of the best tools for that. Well, I don't think I have a Wiki cause I think I had a backward, I do most of my writing, which is as an ingredient one in there, but it's the emotion thesaurus uh, for English writing especially, it's, it's amazing. Um, you don't have to trust your reader. You don't always have to tell them that somebody said is feeling something. You can show it, you know, you can have the fidget if they're nervous, you can, uh, point out showing versus telling is something people always talk about. Chet (10m 19s): And nobody really, I hate these little snippets, you know the adverbs things because you need to know the why. If you don't know the why, you can follow the rules. But it's like being blind and carrying the lamp. You know, it's an old Zen story. Uh, I'm a, I'm a Zen Buddhist, so there's old gen story. He says, you know, there's a blind man and the son usually carry around. I says, why do I need a lamp? I'm blind. I'm gonna be able to see any way. So he's, you know, but you should carry a lamp because other people can see you. So he's walking around and somebody slammed into him, he gets upset. It's like, didn't you see my lap? He says, he said, you you crazy old names is your lamp has gone out. Chet (10m 50s): And if you don't know, he didn't know cause he's blind. So that's the thing. You don't know the why. So the reason for adverse, you know, Stephen King has said road to hell is paved with adverbs. And the reason he says this isn't because adverbs are always wrong. Good luck trying to, you know, don't spend three sentences explaining what doing something gingerly looks like when you have gingerly change release, just easier to get there. We get there faster. Where you really don't want it is in dialogue tags. You don't want it in dialogue techs. And the reason you don't want to dial it takes is one of two things is happening. Chet (11m 22s): Either it's in the dialogue but you don't trust it. It's in the dialogue. Okay. Um, in which case trust us in the dog or it's not in the dialogue and you think that you can tack it on by having an adverb. And I pull back on this for purely mechanical adverbs. So you know, if, if you want to say said slowly, okay, that might be the more preferable thing to say then slow then growled or S. cause sometimes those, those unique, um, dialogue tags, uh, distract from over there. Chet (11m 56s): Anything else you said is invisible? Yeah, I was just about to say because it, because you can also overdo that stuff. You know, it can be like, it's, it's almost a tour reading it because there's so many tax all the time and it's just like, what the hell? These emotional people all the time, you know, sometimes it's just better to just Chuck in as she said, and then move on as an experiment. Remove all your tags, remove all your tags when you're doing editing, do it in substitution mode and just move all your tags and then put back the ones that you actually need because you will, you'll find, especially if you get further into it or work, your characters will know the tone of voice of you writing your characters really well. Chet (12m 35s): See, part of what I'm, I'm kind of a slower writing compared to a lot of people and reason is eight I. I don't do as much telling you to go out my showing. But the other thing is I really entered the eyes and enter the experience of my characters. And so when you do that, they speak like different people. Um, so yeah, definitely stripping out tags. So what I look for is I look for covid could I always like, could cause, could, if you look for, could, first of all, it's, it's, it's, uh, you're really, um, uh, what's the word I'm looking? You're equivocating when you don't need to. Chet (13m 6s): But the other thing is that almost always is involved with filter work. Almost always it's could see, could hear, could whatever, could remember, you know. Uh, and so it's a very good hint to look for a, an equivocating filter. I filter in general. I also hate things like a little, a bit and a little bit in small short works, they don't matter so much, but Oh my God, if you writing along work, you know, and you're writing chapters that are, some people I write short chapters, people write long chapters, 2,500. If you have a bit, a little, a little bit in, you know, 16, 17, 18, 25 times, you know, imagine how repetitive that gets and it adds nothing. Chet (13m 43s): It doesn't tell us. It's not specific enough to really give us anything. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's, there is as a repetitive flavor that you really don't need. I was just about to say instead of a little or a bit or whatever, if you just say it is a small ass, what do I know? Then you're showing what it is as small as instead of just saying a little, which is, it doesn't really say anything and let a competitor what yeah, it's exactly, it's completely, it's the same thing about slightly, I don't like slightly, you can use it sometimes, but people over it. Chet (14m 21s): These are things that people overuse slightly. It's the same idea. Here's one that one of my critique partners early on really keyed me into that is amazing and has always helped me. And that is, this follows a rule that I'm going to go into a little bit right after this. But look, you look for these, let me search for these times. Turn or turn look or looked. And what it is, is that almost always we assume if somebody's speaking to somebody, they're looking at them. Um, uh, you know, um, you don't have to tell us every action that leads to the, when it's implied in the next, in the final action. Chet (15m 0s): So like you can say, and sometimes you want to, if you're, it's like I say, if it's a very first time you're describing your major preparing to spell, you might want to go into great detail about what that looks like. Okay. But if it's something like paying the bill, the waiter, you don't have to say he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and pulled out his card and handed as a waiter then signed it when it came back and doing some things. He paid the waiter. You know what I mean? We don't care enough. We need to know that things have concluded. We don't need to know every little piece of detail. You don't have to say he lifted his left leg then is right and in, in sequence until he ended up arriving at Heather's house. Chet (15m 36s): You can just say here that, you know what I mean? Yeah. So, um, these are all things that usually ends up in the second draft where you have to go back in and say, okay, how much of this, it's the same thing and this is more of a developmental stuff and style stuff. But I like to do time jumps. I like to jump to what is important. I don't, I'm not a token ask. Uh, uh, I mean I love him. He is my one of my first fantasy but I don't, it's just like, uh, George RR Martin, you know, I don't need pages and pages of banners, man-to-man stuff that, it literally, I'm, I'm already forgetting the first part of this. Chet (16m 7s): Like a math problem, a complex math problem where I'm already forgetting the first part of what you said. By the time we get to the third part of what you said. Literally none of this information is in my head anymore. I have spaced out halfway through. So, so I tend to like to do a time jobs, but you know, what I'm trying to work on is that about one in five people. Um, I ended up just losing somebody. They don't make the jump with me. So I've learned how to like put a little summary at the very beginning saying it was a day later, blah, blah, blah, blah. Jesper (16m 32s): Yeah. Well I think that the description part that that's obviously a very big matter of taste. I mean some people really love to have more description, which is fine as long as the stuff that you're describing is something that is relevant for me. Because also from a character point of view, I character wouldn't start to explain to them. I mean if you, if you go to visit, visit one of your friends, know you're not going to start explaining the friend that how you opened the car door and you put in the key into the ignition and then I turned on the car by turning to the right and you know, you don't do that. Jesper (17m 4s): You just say, I took the car to get here because we all know what it means. And even even in the fantasy setting, two characters talking to each other who might know what this means, but the reader might not exactly meet no one. It made you want to have a way to, to give that information because the characters won't start telling each other about it because they both know how it works. Chet (17m 24s): Expository dialogue. Exactly. That's what I'm saying and that was something I was talking about earlier, but what I really like to do there is just, just especially happens in Laura, could you, you know, there are terms that you can have there and be like, we need to explain this. No, you can get it from context of J one or two more paragraphs and you'll get it from context or I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing things wrong, but, but you can't just shortcut to what magic is your blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. A word that you can oftentimes get almost as another word that I like to get rid of almost. You know, it was almost as if it was as if it doesn't add anything. Chet (17m 55s): Again, um, that the word that there are so many places where you just do a search for that and every time you see it, ask if you really need it. Very, very rarely do you actually need the word that. Um, of course, if you're gonna say, of course it's not dialogue. There's no point in mentioning it. It is. Of course it is. It should already be evident. If it isn't, then it isn't. Of course. And you shouldn't write that decided is another filter. But it's one that people, a lot of people, well they decided to do this. You know how we know they decided it. Chet (18m 25s): They did it. Now you can have them grapple with the question. You know, man would he have gone left? You know, he was going here. He might've gone, yeah. Am I done this? And then he went left. Well you know, we decided to go left because he did it. You don't have to tell us that you decided to do it cause you're showing this to me. I'm talking about filter. We talked about actions as soon by later actions. Okay. This is a big one that I'm really working on and that is a dialogue. Tags versus action tags. Now, some people really prefer if you read am Oh was it Patterson? Chet (18m 56s): And I know he doesn't write his own stuff anymore. I was reading that it was a thriller novel and there was literally not a single dialogue tag and it was all action. Now if you do too much of that, it's going to sound like you're doing a screenplay about methods. Okay. Cause everybody's jewelry is L get out in there then they're just stumbling around. But what you really don't want to do is something like, and what I wrote here is um, you know the rules either dialogue or action but not both. So I would say this, don't forget the sausage Jerry said, looking me straight in the eye and make sure I knew how important it was, but we were better is to say don't forget the sauce period, not a comma. Chet (19m 32s): Jerry looked at me straight in the eye and make sure I get home port was, you don't have to tell us that he said it if he's literally doing an action right after it. The way we do this in paragraphs is, you know, the dialogue and the act are in the same paragraph, should have a new actor. You put them in a new paragraph typically. So get rid of the dialogue, take if you have action, you know. Um, Jesper (19m 51s): yeah, and I also quite like to do that on purpose in the way that the I put in a bit of action here, there just to get rid of not having to say this person said, and that person said, because it also gets a bit jarring to keep reading who said what? Where's it's nice to have it breaking up sometimes with somebody. He uh, he slammed the door and then he said, Oh, you know, and, and then you can add what he said. So he slammed the sniper guy full stop. And then there is the, uh, the, the dialogue piece there, right. I mean, but then it also shows you emotion then apparently he's angry about something. Jesper (20m 21s): So, and then you'd be, you don't even have to explain that then start saying if he looked at her angry or whatever, you know. Exactly. Chet (20m 28s): There's so much you can put in the context of actually, that's why I really love the emotion of the source for that. Um, something else you got to remember is like even the way we're talking, right. We're trying to be very respectful of one another but we interrupt each other. Yeah. And people talk that way. You when you, when you write dialogue, don't write dialogue thinking they have the luxury of going on on a a 10 sentence monologue. Right. I'm going to say what I'm going to say as concisely as possible because I'm afraid you might interrupt me at any second. Okay. The other thing is am got, Oh, a dialer preamble. Chet (20m 60s): Yes, yes. Comma blah, blah, blah, blah blah. If you asked me a question, I don't have to say yes. I can just give you the answer. The only time he really going to say yes a lot. You might do it occasionally but that is if you're slowing down cause you're trying to think of what to say next or if that's all you want to say where you here. Yes, but, but what's not said there is the important part of that dialogue. Yes. And then you should show it action saying he's the shows that he's a reluctant to keep going. Otherwise you could just get rid of the yes and you can just have the actual answer, you know? Chet (21m 33s): Yeah. Um, I told you about adverbs in the dialogue tags. Boy, I tell you that's, that one is one that I had to go, I had to go on a hunt through my own stuff. You know, there's really funny, like sometimes you, um, are there other things that are more developmental? And I'm still, I'm still trying to learn them so I'm not, I'm not really that great as our developmental editor for, for all the genres. I don't like prologues. Uh, if you are going to have a prologue for the love of God, please let it be me and character or at least introduce the main character somewhere in the prologue. Jesper (22m 5s): Yeah. And it cannot be an info dump. It, there has to be some relevant action taking place in the prologue. Just sort of like if you ha, I mean there are situations where I do think that a prologue is beneficial to have, but it has to be written in a way that is engaging and ups on a piece of history dump of stuff that happened 2000 years ago that maybe it would be nice for you, dear reader to know. Uh, I mean, well fine, but couldn't you just tell me when it becomes relevant in there in the chapter then Chet (22m 32s): it's the same thing with POB jobs. Don't make, don't you know you can do this with romance, but he said, she said romance. Yeah, as long as you've got was founded early, his point of view, her point of view, his point of view, her point of that, you can do that. But if you're writing, so imagine you're writing a fantasy novel with multiple points of view. You write a prologue connected to nothing. And anyway, then you write the main character for a chapter. Then you skip to another chapter. You've now gotten me about five to 10, five going on 10,000 words into your book and you've made me start it three times. Chet (23m 3s): That's three times you have to get me so involved that I will not put the book down. Good luck as a new way. Right? Cause what we all do as new writers I'm sure you did this on yours. I do this online. My God, it took me 15 chapters to get to the inciting incident. Now they're short. Thanks. We'd be Jesus the short the short chapters, but, but it, you know, you don't want to take that long. Now on the other hand, I don't really like books that start with action with characters. I don't know what care about yet either. So it's a fine line. Um, but just think almost every first novel writer I ever seen that does fantasy or scifi starts with a prologue and I would say 80 to 85% of the time it's either the wrong prologue or it shouldn't be there at all. Chet (23m 49s): That you can, you can, you can fill us in as we go. We can learn a lot from context. I'm still trying to learn how to write very compelling openers and I'm getting better with every new work that I start. But am Jesper (24m 2s): yeah. And I think we should probably also point out, you know, because the opening of a novel is the hot, one of the hardest things to write, uh, uh, it is, uh, well, okay, fair enough. Every part of the novel is difficult, the middle of social difficult because you need to keep the attention where sometimes in the middle of sort of gets a bit boring and it just sort of drags off because we want the, we want to get to the end. That is exciting again, but, but, but there is so much tied up in the beginning. There's so much you need to achieve with the beginning to read the same that it is very, very difficult to write. Jesper (24m 36s): And it takes a lot of the of uh, let's say, uh, trial and error. And even when you're written several, several books you there's still a lot to learn to do the better intro. So it's, it's not easy stuff, but that's also why you work with an editor to help you. Chet (24m 51s): It's hard, and I'm not a developmental editor. I am not always. Now, there's some people I have helped and I've worked with her. I said, you can cut all of these paragraphs away and start with them at the bureaucrat getting, getting their benefits denied. That's really where the story starts. That's where we have character. They're in a jam. I don't need to know how he got into the gym yet. You can let me know as we go. Okay. If it's just background stuff, you know, I don't need to know the political structure. I should learn that fruit interacting with the bureaucrat, interacting with the streets, interacting with the people on them, all of these things. Chet (25m 23s): So much things that are in cinematography. You know, people, it's so funny. You know, you look at something like star Wars or Marvel movies are so, so much as is, and you don't have this when you're writing, but you see it when you look at good movies in that. So you think about star Wars, remember, um, all of those machines were beaten up and dirty and messed up. Right. So much is told to you about the world that unconsciously you don't even know you, you're getting, it does that you don't get with with writing. So you really have to learn how to give enough description. The other thing too is that um, this is something I see a lot too. Chet (25m 56s): Sometimes people go into extreme specificity about their, about their am description and the problem with that is I get lost and then I get anxious that I'm not visualizing it correctly every single time they come up now I'm like, am I, is that I get that jacket right? And they switched, they change. Give me some highlights and some things I can remember and you know what, you're just going to have to live with it. If the jacket that I conjure in my head differs from yours as, as if you really want me to know exactly what you should go into writing you should go into, into uh, making movies and doing some photography and all that kind of stuff. Chet (26m 29s): Cause then you can really, really guy. But, but give me some highlights and then, and then from that point on, you know, it's really, it's really my, it's going to be my story now. At this point. You're, you're using telepathy, you're showing me important things. But you know, if you go into the exact physical details of a situation, you're going to lose me. Um, you're going to write acres, acres of words. You don't need a board to write. And the other thing is too, like if you're a reader like me, I start to get anxious about whether I actually know if I've got it right in my head, you know? And that's something a lot of times people don't think about. Jesper (26m 59s): Yeah. Indeed. I, I still have a, well, at least a one paragraph. Uh, I remember in my first book that is still, it's in the published version, however it got through all the editing. I don't know, but I that one's still pains me. It's like every time that those plays, I can't remember the exact details of it, but I'm explaining that it's a very dark place and they'd just go way too much into the specifics, specifics of how dark it is and move on. But you know, it happens to all of us. Jesper (27m 29s): It's a learning process. Chet (27m 31s): Yeah, no, it's so that's funny that you say that. You know, I got dinged really hard on the critique, uh, a person because I actually wrote sense via touch as afraid. I said that's a ridiculous phrase. Like, you know, felt that's what that was to be a touch. And my critiquer, you know, Ryan, he says, he says, he says, I sense to be a reading that maybe you got a little lost in it. Chet (28m 1s): I always so hilarious. You know, and you gotta you just gotta laugh cause there's stuff where you're going to be like, you know, and then of course there's the obvious stuff that I catch that that w copy editors will catch two, which is the repetition of awards three times in two sentences. You know, starting, you know, stuff that pro-rider aid is great for is are you starting three sentences or four sentences in a row with exact same pronoun or proper noun or word in general, you know, um, yeah, don't ever write very unique. There is no such thing. Unique is not a scale. Unique means one of a kind unique, you're not very unique, you're not pretty unique. Chet (28m 34s): Unique means there is one of these items is one of those things. Um, Jesper (28m 41s): yeah and I, I think, I mean with all of it is so good to, you know, get some editors perspective on writing and sort of what are other things that you, once you be careful about it. But I also sort of want to tell everybody who's watching and listening here that when you are doing your first draft, don't worry about all of this, you know, just get the story. I would get it onto the page and then in the later drafts you can revision all of this together with the Hill up, the editor's notes. They'll sit there and agonize over, am I not doing this or I'm not doing this right, or is this wrong at the first rest States? Jesper (29m 15s): It doesn't matter. Just get the story out. However choppy it's going to be, it doesn't matter. Just get it out. So that's the one thing I would say, don't, don't worry about it that at that point and just move on because otherwise go into after the fact. Yeah. Because, because you kind of get stuck in editing mode and then you'll kind of be kind of go over the same chapter again and again and again. And at some point did the amendments or corrections you're making is probably going to move the needle. Like what? Less than 1%. So it maybe, yeah. Which one reader album a million who would appreciate the energy? Jesper (29m 47s): Just sit, but there nine, 999,999 other readers don't give a Chet (29m 53s): crappy or they were good to notice. They won't even know. Um, you know, the guy that, that, that the main author that I, that I started at anything with a journalist, um, he said he spent an extra year and a half on his first novel and probably only improved it by about 5%. Right, right. Jesper (30m 9s): Yeah. So it's important to everybody who gets into writing, especially when you're starting out. You know, the thing with, with the writing as I've said over and over and over again, it, it, it, it improves your training and your only way you can improve this by writing more. So if you, if you get stuck up on, on the first three chapters and editing out 200 million times, you know, you're not gonna get any better, you're just going to sit there with the same stuff over and over. So, so just keep running, keep producing work and, and then what would somebody who knows what they're doing work with the emphasis that I would never, I mean obviously I'm not native English became so I would never ever put out a book that I hadn't gone through an editor because I make grammar mistakes all the time because this is not my mother tongue. Jesper (30m 53s): But, Chet (30m 54s): but you don't have the unique specificity. You know, sometimes you can tell when somebody has looked at the thesaurus for synonyms, right. They don't realize that every synonym is, is contextually dependent. Yeah. Like technically on a broad sense, these two words are synonyms, but you would never in a million people look at you like you were crazy. Do you use this word in place of another and you can't get, I mean, if I tried to learn, you know, uh, uh, uh, um, uh, Danish, you know, I mean, I've tried to learn Swedish. It's hardest. Jesus. Jesus. Chet (31m 26s): Well, cause I'm about to Swedish to sign it. You know, my back that Vince Gilligan is Swedish for winterize. Um, um, and I'm probably pronouncing it badly. I'm sorry. It's been to, we're going to Alanon and dad's gone and I'd probably really screwed it up, but it just, we dries, looked at just way too. Like I should have pictures of wolves in the background, kind of looking at the moon kind of. It's very eighties cheesy will sweat, you know what I mean? But at the same time, that really is the heart of, of a cold place. You know what I mean? Writing the second one is all about passion, so it's gone. Um, or elderly I I'm screwed it up. Chet (31m 56s): I know him. Am yeah, Jesper (31m 57s): but maybe a sort of a in, in wrapping up here, I'm thinking if, especially for, because those who are already further along in their writing endeavors, uh, they, they, I'm, I'm sure that there was some very good points and inputs here that they can pick up throughout the, what we've been talking about on what to avoid and then they can, they can sort of assault that on their own. But right now, I'm thinking a bit in wrapping up around those who are just starting out because that w is there some sort of a few common mistakes that you could advise to say those who are just starting out, but when you're just starting writing, is there like a top three thing that maybe somebody could just internalize it and just on those who are stopped Chet (32m 40s): to if you see what I mean? About four things. Four most important things. I think from a line and stop perspective, not from a developmental perspective, because I do not have, you know, you know what they say? They say when you write a book, you think that when you write a book, you learn how to write a book. No, you learn how to write that book. The next book is totally new book in your comment. I totally different. So, so developmentally, I don't have much to say, but style and, and, and that kind of lies. First of all, good Lord. Let's start with grammar. If you want to learn grammar, just read Elmore Leonard. I mean, you're not always gonna be using this line, but that man understands dialogue. Chet (33m 14s): But, um, I would say filtering, get your senses in, but don't filter. Okay. Uh, saw, heard, felt, remembered, noticed, uh, recognized I might've already said that one. Decided, you know, look for those filters. Every time you're doing that, you're pulling people out. Okay. And that leads into the next one, which is show don't tell. And what that means is don't tell me how somebody, what something was or how let the reader come to the conclusions by writing what happened. Chet (33m 49s): Okay. So to some extent, you know, um, show me anxious, show me angry. He could, his teeth, uh, slammed the door, slammed the door, yet it doesn't have to be that really seriously get, get, uh, the, the emotion thesaurus will you help with this? Um, cause I can always think of two or three different things. But the problem is if you're writing the same emotions over the course of the novel, you're gonna write the same three or four different. Chet (34m 20s): But, but, but yeah, so show, don't tell, but what does that mean? That means, um, um, don't, don't tell me what happened. Show me what happened. Put me in the middle of the action. Uh, I love this and know if it's, to me it feels like I have, uh, the federal makes me feel like I have superpowers when I know that the other thing that it makes me feel like I have superpowers is the am past continuous, if you're writing in the past tense was something, was standing, was sitting, was it? Chet (34m 52s): Whenever I see that, and I see this in professional writing, I see this in traditional publishing, I see this all over the place and it's not technically wrong. It's just you. I want you to remember that when you have a wall isn't an IMG wrote, every verb you're starting in your ending are all the same. They all blend together and you can give every single one of those verbs so much more bite. And when you put more bite in every single one more more juice and every single one of those verbs, you're doing such a better job at getting your, your reader into the text, into the situation when everything is distinct. Chet (35m 23s): It just, and I know, I guess the same thing with neutering the verb made a plan. Nope. Managed to Nope, don't found myself. No thought. Found myself as okay colloquial like you as like a folksy way of saying things every now and again. So I would say yeah am the big ones are filtering past continuous am and showed him to and I hate that hate even leaving somebody with show don't tell because for the longest time I had no idea what that meant. Chet (35m 53s): Yeah. Bit tough here. That show don't tell. What does that mean? You know? And what it means is, you know, Mark said angrily is telling am what the fuck was that for? You know, Mark balled his fists or you and he slammed his hand on anything. Why didn't you do that? You know what I mean? So sometimes it's just straight up in the dialogue. You don't even need an action. Like if you've got an exclamation point that you know, a lot of that gets, it gets to do with the context. Um, um, and instead of don't with fantasy so many people want to put you on a travel log, then we went here and then we want to hear them. Chet (36m 25s): We hear them when really, you know, take me on a journey. Put me in these places, you know, put in certainly into the story. That's what every reader is reading for their reading to be that character in that story. Not doing, they're not reading to read about other people. Notice their reading in order to be all, all fiction reading is, is, is a, is a, uh, it is building up your empathy muscles. It's why so many people would read so many books end up wanting to come writers because it's magic. Chet (36m 56s): You know? Am forcing yourself into somebody else's eyes and becoming that person. That's what you want. And so getting rid of the filtering helps with that and then showing instead. So telling you what I mean by that really is trying not to try not to take the easy way of, of angry can mean so many different things, but you can show it distinctively in a way that is very specific to that character that I then now and taking on for myself as as a Jesper (37m 23s): indeed. Thanks for thanks for right down. And it is funny because of what you just said made me think because I'm, I'm just, uh, I'm currently writing a nonfiction book on how to plot a or our autumn and I am writing the book, uh, and Chet (37m 39s): she's a high rep. she told me only part clause and part pants is right. She knows where to go. Let me, she doesn't tell them how to get there. Jesper (37m 45s): No, indeed. Uh, and, and because, and it just makes me think because when you set the fantasy likes to sort of get into a travel log, uh, because one of the things that I just wrote in the chapter the other day was basically that all stories are about the character. It is not about where they go. It is about the character and it's about the change that they go undergo throughout the novel. That's what the story is about. Where do you go matters less. Um, so, so that's, uh, I think it just made me what you said just made me think about that. Jesper (38m 15s): So, but, but I want to thank you a lot Chet for, for coming onto amwritingfantasy and sharing a lot of the editing inputs, uh, that, that I hope will be very, very useful for, for those watching and listening whether you're on YouTube or autumn. Chet (38m 30s): Yeah. Um, I wanna leave you with, um, a few if you want learn more about story. Um, I think his name is, I think his name's Brad bird. He wrote a book called the secret of story and the secrets of story and it really just mind melting. You know, he uses the word, uh, all kinds of uses that nice way, way, way. He didn't edit it for that, but all my God, like he'll just introduce you to some things where you're like, I never thought of that, but I know that instinctively about story. You don't know that. You know it until somebody really just points it out there, like, you know, so he's got a lot of the really good juicy, if you want to learn stories stuff. Chet (39m 8s): So the things I would plug would be that every, every writer should have the emotion thesaurus. If you want to learn how to show, not tell. Yeah, Jesper (39m 15s): yeah. We'll put a, I'll put a link to that one in the description field in the show notes so that, uh, for the, for those of you watching or listening you Chet (39m 23s): you can find it there if you want it. And, uh, I have a website that runs that is not, it's not optimized. So if, but I do have a am I do have a, a Raider fan group, uh, on Facebook. It's called Chet. Sandberg's close readers. You can find me there and I will probably put up a, I didn't want it. Like I said, I was telling you, I don't want to put a new butter tied, something to get away so people seek, my writing is like, uh, before they looked at it for editing, you know. Um, I typically, um, I usually get most of my jobs to interacting with authors and giving them sample pages. Chet (39m 57s): I'll give them a sample chapter. Uh, this is what I would change is what I fixed. A little bit of developmental, a lot of copy, but I'll, but, but I really focus on the stuff that's a little harder than copy, which is a line and style. I'll try not to, I try not to strip out anybody's voice. Uh, sometimes people want to insist on, on, on bad habits as being a voice in. It usually isn't. Usually they have something more distinctive in there that's, that's, that can be fixed with line style. But I hope, I hope that I just get people on the right foot with, with just those three or four little things, you know? Jesper (40m 30s): Yeah. That was our purpose here. And, uh, and of course if you email me a link to your website and whatnot, then I'll put it into, Chet (40m 38s): yeah. Within that function soon. But yeah, hopefully, hopefully before this comes out, maybe I'll have something that functions. I gotta figure out some way to get, uh, you know how it is. You've got to get a newsletter saying, I am not good at, I'm not good at anything. That requires multiple steps of, you can only do this one way. It's like a bottle of wine and Stella did, or not a proofreader. Okay. I don't want to look to make sure that every period isn't the right place. I want to get you I want to get your dialogue. That sounds like something a human from earth would say. That's what I wanted to do, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Chet (41m 8s): All right. Cool. Jesper (41m 9s): Thanks a lot. Chet and uh, thank you for listening or watching out there and, uh, we'll see you next time. Chet (41m 14s): Monday.

Lee Powell is a writer and expert in technology. He works with Angela Ackerman and her co-creator Becca Puglisi at One Stop for Writers. He also created the Windows version of renowned writing program Scrivener. When the team collaborated, they came up with the Character Building Tool, which combines Powell’s software design skills with Ackerman and Puglisi’s thesaurus writing skills. In this episode, we chat about the following: the importance of collaboration Scrivener for Windows One Stop For Writers the Character Building Tool following your passion what happens when creativity and coding meet integrating technology into the writing process lifelong learning the importance of deep thinking   You can find out more about Powell, One Stop For Writers and the Character Building tool https://onestopforwriters.com/ (here) and buy Passion Driven https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Driven-Have-Found-Your/dp/0975177001 (here.) You can download your FREE Issue 3 of Author Success Stories Magazine https://writerontheroad.com/author-success-stories-magazine/ (here) for your chance to win one of two six-month subscriptions to One Stop For Writers. Entries close 31st March, 2019.   Read Full Transcript Mel Lee Powell is an expert in technology, who works with featured author Angela Ackerman and her co-creator Becca Puglisi on their site One Stop for Writers. He also created the Windows version of renowned writing program Scrivener. Lee I can't take credit for the inception of Scrivener itself. Keith Blount created the program for the Mac – I actually had to buy a Mac to use it as I was studying in the UK. I wrote to him in 2008 and said, “This is an amazing tool. You have a total paradigm shift. It's non-linear. It allows me to make a mess and write in any way I want. Have you thought about doing a Windows or Linux version?” He hadn't. He was busy enough trying to rewrite the base version of Scrivener – the first write of that code had been a disaster. He's not a programmer by trade. He was a teacher and working towards a PhD in medieval history, or something like that. When there was so much interest in Scrivener, he had to go back and write it properly. He's a really interesting guy. We formed a reasonably good friendship over the years, and eventually he acquiesced to my petitioning and we started collaborating in 2008 or 2009. Mel What kind of process was involved in creating the program? Lee It took me about three years to even get to version one of Scrivener for Windows and Linux. We were so far behind the Mac – he had a seven-year start on me. As a software engineer by trade, I thought it would be reasonably easy. I'd been building banking, finance, and trading systems during my career. Unfortunately I was totally depressed. I used to write a lot when I was a kid (terrible novels that thankfully never saw the light of day). I used to write poetry and songs as well. I'm a terrible musician, but I'm quite good with the lyrics side of things. Scrivener saved me. I was in my late thirties and had all the things I thought I wanted in life – kids, family, my wife. We've been married for 28 years now. It's had its ups and downs, and fundamentally we're happy. But I was totally depressed. I thought, ‘I've got to get out of this corporate thing,' but of course you get used to the money. It was a Catch-22. I just wanted to align myself with my core values. I've always loved writing, and the whole creative aspect of coding. The Windows version of Scrivener is completely rewritten from the ground up. We had to start from scratch, which was a wonderful experience. We had many years of seven-day weeks, until there was a little bit of money coming in and we could step back. It was a huge risk, stepping away from the corporate work. But it's like anything in life, anything to do with writing. You have to start on the side. The reality is probably only 100 authors...

The One Stop for Writers by Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi, and Lee Powell. Does this work? From character building, world building, and mapping scenes, you’ll find it here. Is the investment worth it? onestopforwriters.com is mentioned in this episode

Which writer’s guides are most helpful? Do I even need one? Decisions...decisions. In this episode, I mention guides by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, along with works by K.M. Weiland, Bryn Donovan, Mary Gray, and Nicholas C. Rossis. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/daria-white/message

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach, international speaker and co-author of six best-selling books with the latest one the updated Emotion Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Expression. Angela is an international speaker and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also enjoys dreaming up new tools and resources for https://onestopforwriters.com/ (One Stop For Writers), a library built to help writers elevate their storytelling. She’s also one half of the team over at Writers Helping Writers, alongside Becca Puglisi. You can find out more https://writershelpingwriters.net/about-writers-helping-writers/ (here.) In this episode we chat about the following: getting inside our characters’ heads creating strong experiences for our readers the relationship between setting and character the mistakes new writers make internal and external balance show and tell how to include backstory sensor detail – making details earn their keep emotional wounds authenticity and the human experience emotional layers and much more In fact, our podcast this week is more of a free writing workshop delivered by one of the best in the writing business. Thanks, Angela. You can find out more about Angela and The Emotion Thesaurus https://writershelpingwriters.net/author/angela/ (here.) Read Full Transcript Mel: Welcome to another episode of road around the road. It's not very often that we get to travel to Canada in the middle of winter so I'm pretty excited about that as we sweat through an Australian summer. I'd like to welcome Angela Akerman. Good morning Angela. Angela: Good morning and thank you. Mel: Angela a writing coach, international speaker and co-author of six best-selling books with the latest one the updated Emotion Thesaurus: a Writer's Guide to Character Expression. Angela: That was our very first book that we wrote, The Emotion Thesaurus, and it's kind of spread like wildfire. I think because it really tackled a topic that a lot of writers struggle with and there's not a lot written about there's not a lot of help in the emotion space. And I think the way we approached our book making it a really practical brainstorming tool that you can use as your writing or as you're revising it just really appealed to a lot of writers but being our very first book you know we were kind of feeling our way around it was we published it in 2012 when self publishing was really getting going and we were kind of nervous. You know will people like this or not. And so we've always wanted to go back over the years and kind of update it simply because we've learned so much in that space in that time we've grown as writers and as writing coaches and there's so many more aspects of writing that writing an emotion that we wanted to cover and there's so many other motions that we could cover in the emotional thesaurus so seeing that all of our books are a lot bigger. We've kind of gotten more verbose as we go along. We have as many motions as we can or as many settings as we can or whatever our topic is. So we have room to develop this book and so we finally decided that we were going to do it and we were going to go back and add fifty five new emotions to it. Mel: There were about 75 emotions to start with weren't they? Angela: Yes. Seventy five to start with and now this one has one hundred and thirty. Mel: It's an online resource as well as a beautiful physical book it's coming out? Angela: I think emotion can be kind of a taboo topic if you've got male characters you know in the sense that. Some people some males are not comfortable thinking about the deeper emotions that we have as people. But the reality is is we all have these emotions whether or not we show them or not and what we're trying to do through our fiction is connect to readers connect with them in a very realistic way which means you know. Pulling on...

Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said and did, but they won’t forget how you made them feel.” This is true whether you write fiction or non-fiction, and in today's show, I talk about how to write emotion with Becca Puglisi.  In the introduction, I talk about KDP Print proof and author copies […] The post How To Write Emotion And Depth Of Character With Becca Puglisi first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited to have bestselling co-authors Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi on the show! Angela and Becca co-founded the popular Writers Helping Writers site, a hub where authors can hone their craft, as well as One Stop for Writers, an innovative online library built to help writers elevate their storytelling. I happen to be part of their current cohort of Resident Writing Coaches on Writers Helping Writers and have been a longtime fan of their work. They are also both writing coaches and international speakers, and their books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. Angela and Becca’s popular Writer’s Thesauruses series is now up to fourteen books in total with their latest edition, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, which is available now. Listen in as we chat about their latest thesaurus, and dig deep into what an emotional wound is and how to use to create more believable characters.   In this episode Angela, Becca, and I discuss: Tips to find and use a character’s emotional wound to draw your readers in. Avoiding the research rabbit hole, finding what you need to know to write the story. What “show don’t tell” really means and how to do it right. Backstory, when to use it and why. The want, the wound, and the desire,how to combine them in your characters. Plus, each of these ladies’ #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: DIYMFA.com/185

Robert's still on vacation, so Alida & Kathryn welcome special guest, Becca Puglisi back to the show to talk about character arcs and role emotional wounds play in our characters' evolution over the course of a story. This episode is another one cram-packed with amazing takeaways! 

Alida & Kathryn welcome Becca Puglisi, co-author of the Emotional Wound Thesaurus, to the Round Table. Getting your characters' emotional wounds right can be the key to getting their backstory, motivation, and even moral code right. This is an insightful episode with lots of take-aways.  Show notes at www.StoryWorksPodcast.com