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8 episodes with plot development
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You've got a great premise, compelling characters… but something's off. Your story feels stuck, and you can't figure out why. Chances are, your story beats aren't pulling their weight.
In this episode, Bill and Chris dive into a Nick Frost double feature, discussing the films 'Black Cab' and 'Getaway'. They explore the themes, narratives, and cinematic techniques of both films, highlighting the challenges of storytelling in horror and thriller genres. The conversation also touches on listener engagement and the evolution of their podcast. In this conversation, Chris and Bill delve into the nuances of comedy and horror in film, particularly focusing on a recent movie featuring Nick Frost. They discuss the performance styles of various comedians, the dynamics of family relationships portrayed in the film, and the cultural implications of being an outsider in a tight-knit community. The conversation also touches on the blending of horror and comedy genres, the development of the plot, and the writing and directorial choices that contribute to the film's overall impact. They conclude with their personal recommendations and ratings for the film, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses.
While I'm teaching my kids to surf during our summer beach holiday, and Valerie is shovelling out from a winter storm, we're bringing you a throwback episode from season 6 where we studied stakes and empathy. Based on Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew", "10 Things I Hate About You" is packed with lessons about what not to do. We'll be back with a brand new episode on January 8. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays story nerds! - M."Stakes equals object of desire plus consequences." Melanie Hill For access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.Follow Valerie on Instagram and Threads @valerie_francisFollow Melanie on X, Instagram and Facebook @MelanieHillAuthor
The tension starts with the title of this week's movie - The Banshees of Inisherin. Banshees cry right before someone dies. That's tension right there - who will it be? The anticipation about who is going to die is high because the outcome is unknown. Tension thrives with uncertainty. I also explore the idea of high and low tension in a story. Valerie is powering on with her study of the 4 Story Questions and showing why they are so important. If you don't want to waste years writing in circles, this episode will help you hold the story banshees at bay. -M"Tension is nested just like the units of story." - Melanie HillRelated Story Nerd EpisodesCalendar GirlsSeasons 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12 For access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.Follow Valerie on Instagram and Threads @valerie_francisFollow Melanie on X, Instagram and Facebook @MelanieHillAuthor
Milli Vanilli are back in the charts for the first time in over 30 years, and you gotta blame it on something. In less murderous brother news - Paulo reveals the names of the little dinosaurs from Bubble Bobble which prompts us to try to name their girlfriends with sub-par results. What were the Seinfeld cast up to in the 80s just before they became mega-stars, and Paulo thought Cheetara was the only scantily-clad, cat-like humanoid he had eyes for...until he watched Rock and Rule. To wrap up we wonder how Tiffany is going to imagine her 80s hits and realise that a cult may have inspired Footloose. Episode Timestamps **Introduction to the Show (00:00:18)** **Discussion on Netflix Series (00:00:23)** **Menendez Brothers Controversy (00:02:17)** **Documentary Comparison (00:02:59)** **Milli Vanilli's Resurgence (00:04:54)** **Music in the Menendez Brothers Series (00:05:40)** **Cultural Impact of the Show (00:07:55)** **Menendez Brothers and Redemption (00:08:38)** **Bubble Bobble Game Introduction (00:10:17)** **Arcade Gaming Nostalgia (00:11:50)** **Bubble Bobble Gameplay Mechanics (00:13:21)** **Seinfeld Actors Today (00:18:37)** **Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Career (00:19:09)** **Kramer's Iconic Style (00:21:02)** **Seinfeld's Influence on Fashion (00:22:11)** **Jerry Seinfeld's Early Career (00:24:13)** **Benson and Its Spin-off (00:23:01)** **Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Background (00:25:19)** **Saturday Night Live Years (00:26:05)** **Julia's Film Appearances (00:27:01)** **Elaine's Character Development (00:28:03)** **Seinfeld's Pilot Episode (00:29:43)** **Larry David's Role in Seinfeld (00:30:17)** **Double Trouble Sitcom (00:31:32)** **Introduction to the Show (00:33:10)** **Bad Sitcoms Discussion (00:34:13)** **Plot Elements of the Sitcom (00:34:43)** **Nostalgic References (00:35:16)** **Transition to Animation in the 80s (00:36:26)** **Description of the Movie 'Rock and Roll' (00:37:04)** **Main Villain Introduction (00:39:21)** **Movie's Release Year (00:39:26)** **Plot Development of 'Rock and Roll' (00:40:14)** **Character Dynamics (00:42:54)** **Animation Quality and Themes (00:45:46)** **Soundtrack Highlights (00:46:31)** **Animation Studio Background (00:47:32)** **Comic Book Adaptation (00:48:29)** **Comparison to Heavy Metal (00:49:49)** **Animated Rock Inspirations (00:51:01)** **Jessica Rabbit Comparisons (00:51:23)** **Seinfeld Cast Reflections (00:52:15)** **Michael Richards' Career (00:55:22)** **Tiffany's Music Reimagining (00:58:11)** **Footloose Discussion (00:59:32)** #1980s, #That 80 Show, #Menendez brothers, #Netflix series, #Milli Vanilli, #pop culture, #music, #television, #nostalgia, #arcade games, #Bubble Bobble, #TikTok, #Google, #Meta, #Tears for Fears, #Everybody Wants to Rule the World, #Jeffrey Dahmer, #anthology series, #victim-blaming, #documentary, #dramatization, #continuous shot, #Fab, #Technotronic, #Vengaboys, #retro concert, #Forbes, #UK charts, #Robert Rand, #biography, #I'm Gonna Miss You, #Seinfeld, #Friends, #Jerry Seinfeld, #Julia Louis-Dreyfus, #Michael Richards, #Jason Alexander, #Neil Opperman, #Pretoria Retro Fair, #animated films, #Rock and Rule, #post-apocalyptic, #humanoid cats, #dogs, #rats, #Mock Swagger, #Debbie Harry, #Cheap Trick, #Earth, #Wind & Fire, #Iggy Pop, #Lou Reed, #Nelvana, #Inspector Gadget, #Heavy Metal, #adult animation, #Canadian animation, #Jessica Rabbit, #Sweet Valley High, #Norman Lear, #Married with Children, #Katey Sagal, #animation style, #comic adaptations, #Cinema Nouveau, #ER, #Senior Trip, #UHF, #Miami Vice, #Problem Child, #Tiffany, #I Think We're Alone Now.
ESCAPE now available on Digital Download in the UK & Ireland from 30 September Escape, movie review, podcast, survival, girl power, human trafficking, film critique, character analysis, gender dynamics, entertainment, survival, revenge, human trafficking, morality, justice, film analysis, character development, ethical dilemmas, violence, empowerment In this episode of the Cast of the Pod podcast, hosts Josh and Cob discuss the movie 'Escape,' which revolves around a group of women trying to escape from human traffickers. They delve into the film's themes of survival, gender dynamics, and the portrayal of female empowerment. The conversation also critiques various elements of the movie, including character development, accents, and the overall execution of the plot. The hosts share their ratings and final thoughts, emphasizing the importance of making one's own opinion about the film. In this engaging conversation, the hosts dissect the film 'Escape,' exploring themes of survival, revenge, and the moral complexities surrounding human trafficking. They delve into character motivations, pivotal moments of empowerment, and the ethical dilemmas faced by both victims and perpetrators. The discussion highlights the film's intense action sequences and the emotional weight of the narrative, culminating in a reflection on the consequences of violence and the quest for justice. But that's not all—at the end of the episode, the Dream Team reveals a shocking behind-the-scenes story! Hear why Josh had to call the police on Cobweb and what really went down. You won't want to miss this one! 00:00 Introduction and Format Changes 02:57 Overview of the Movie 'Escape' 05:51 Character Introductions and Themes 08:51 Discussion on Gender Dynamics and Survival 11:51 Critique of Movie Elements and Accents 15:05 Plot Development and Character Actions 18:13 Ratings and Final Thoughts 41:32 The Turning Point: From Victim to Survivor 44:40 The Fight for Survival: Weapons and Wits 46:56 The Human Trafficker's Dilemma: Morality in Chaos 52:22 The Cop's Role: A Question of Ethics 56:30 The Climax: Revenge and Justice 01:01:18 The Aftermath: Consequences of Violence 01:08:42 The Final Showdown: A Twist of Fate 01:24:18 Conclusion: Reflections on the Journey
Sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than our successes - that's my story and I'm sticking to it this week! Narrative drive is an important storytelling principle to learn and this week's movie is an example of poor story structure resulting in terrible narrative drive. A mystery writer should have control of the information. Valerie's study of conflict triangles was more fruitful than my area of study this week. The conflict triangle is present and clear to see. -M"Narrative drive is all about information and the emotions it creates in the readers. It's also about understanding your role as the writer to control that information." - Melanie HillRelated Story Nerd EpisodesLate Night (Season 1, Episode 101)Doubt (Season 11, Episode 1101) For access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.Follow Valerie on X, Instagram and Threads @valerie_francisFollow Melanie on X, Instagram and Facebook @MelanieHillAuthor
We're kicking off a brand new season with two new story concepts. Melanie will be studying female characters and how women are presented in modern stories (her work in this episode is reeeeally interesting!), and I'll be investigating something I learned from Steven Pressfield, which is that we shouldn't introduce anything new after Act 2."Setups and payoffs are questions asked and answered." Valerie FrancisRelated Story Nerd Episodes:Lady Bird (Season 8, Episode 9) REGISTER FOR THE 2024 SPRING WEBINAR SERIESFor access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.Follow Valerie on X, Instagram and Threads @valerie_francisFollow Melanie on X, Instagram and Facebook @MelanieHillAuthor
Left-brained stories (mysteries, crime thrillers, spy stories) are among the highest selling books on the market today. Readers can't get enough of them, and that means the bar for authors is really high because we have to create a puzzle that our readers haven't seen before. Add to this the fact that the fundamentals of storytelling work in a slightly different way than they do with other stories. In this episode, Melanie and I summarize all the lessons we've learned over the past 10 episodes and we share our greatest a-ha moments.Our study of left-brained stories didn't stop with the podcast though. Offline we've been diving deeply into this genre that we both love. We've gathered up everything the writer of a left-brained story needs to know and we've put it in a webinar coming up on May 2, 2024. Don't miss it! To register, click here. - V."In a left brain story, the hook is an intellectual one, it's not an emotional one." - Valerie Francis REGISTER FOR THE 2024 SPRING WEBINAR SERIESFor access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.Follow Valerie on X, Instagram and Threads @valerie_francisFollow Melanie on X, Instagram and Facebook @MelanieHillAuthor
Are you planning to use a twist at the end of your story? Have you ever wondered how M. Night Shyamalan pulled off this famous gotcha ending? If so, this episode is for you! Melanie does a deep dive into story twists and surprises so that you can craft an ending that delights your reader. I focused on the Central Dramatic Question which is a key part of creating Narrative Drive (and you must have brilliant Narrative Drive if your reader is going to get all the way to the end of your novel).-V."Creating a good twist requires a deep understanding of human nature." - Melanie HillRELATED STORY NERD EPISODESTHE DRY (Season 9, Episode 2)Story Form (Season 5)The Hero's Gift Expressed (Season 2) REGISTER FOR THE 2024 SPRING WEBINAR SERIESFor access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.Follow Valerie on X, Instagram and Threads @valerie_francisFollow Melanie on X, Instagram and Facebook @MelanieHillAuthor
The movie had both me and Valerie on the edge of our seats. When we come across a masterful movie we pull out as much as we can for you. This episode is chock-a-block full of info about point of view, narrative drive, clues, and liars. We also examine how the twist in The Good Liar is set up and pulled off. I continue to track the clues and motives this week...or should we say I track the lies. Valerie discusses how point of view and narrative drive work together to create this exciting thriller.If you're building up to your twisty ending, this episode will have you speedwriting to get to the big reveal. -M"When the whole meaning of a movie or a story changes, because of a vital piece of information REVEALED AT THE END then this is a device called a twist." - Melanie HillRelated Story Nerd EpisodesTinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Season 9, Episode 4)The Bourne Identity (Season 3, Episode 2) For information about Valerie's upcoming webinars, visit: www.valeriefrancis.ca/webinarsFor access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle: www.valeriefrancis.ca/innercircleTo learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website: www.melaniehill.com.auFollow Valerie on X, Instagram and Threads @valerie_francisFollow Melanie on X, Instagram and Facebook @MelanieHillAuthor
In this episode, we examine ChatGPT's contributions to plot development, highlighting its capacity to generate engaging story arcs and narrative structures. Get on the AI Box Waitlist: https://AIBox.ai/ Join our ChatGPT Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/739308654562189/ Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaeden_ai
In the season 2 finale, we experience love and loss. Heart breaks and heart swells. But mostly breaks. Our girl Buffy is in for a rollercoaster, and we're here for every second of it. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram @justslayingpod, and email us your theories, complaints, and Buffy jokes to justslayinpod@gmail.com Announcements! This will unfortunately be Hannah's last episode with us for the time being. She is stepping away to focus on non-Buffy activities. This is a very long episode - we had a lot of fun with a longer form recap and discussion topics. I hope you enjoy! Time Stamps: 0:00 - Episode Summary 0:59 - Discussion Questions 1:13 - Highlights, Lowlights, and Favorite Moments 1:24 - Character and Plot Development 1:40 - General Lore and World Building
Hold onto your steering wheels, folks, because Fast 10 is here to push the boundaries of logic and storytelling like never before! Vying for that Oscar. Get ready for a turbocharged overdose of numbing plot twists, plot holes big enough to drive a tank through, and characters with more lives than a cat on a hot pursuit. MORE PEOPLE RETURN FROM THE DEAD.Vin Diesel as Dominic TorettoMichelle Rodriguez as Letty OrtizTyrese Gibson as Roman PearceLudacris as Tej ParkerJohn Cena as Jakob TorettoJordana Brewster as Mia TorettoCharlize Theron as CipherHelen Mirren as Magdalene ShawSung Kang as Han Lue00:00 - Intro01:45 - New Topics - Disneyland Expanding02:45 - Ooga Booga Bash05:11 - Two Minute Summary06:45 - Characters13:00 Scenes26:21 - What?!39:20 - Final ThoughtsBe sure to hit like if you like this podcast. Email us at: thebackseatcritics@gmail.com Find us on Instagram at TheBackseatCritics. Follow us @BackseatCritics on Twitter. Also be sure to follow our friends over at Play No Games Podcast on YouTube. They are also on Instagram @lookhere.playnogamespod.
In this episode of the How to be an Author podcast, writing coach Karena Akhavein explores the essential ingredients that make a novel gripping and unforgettable - conflict, tension, and emotion. We'll delve into how writers can use these elements to create dynamic characters, engaging plotlines, and intense scenes that keep readers on the edge of their seats. We'll also discuss common mistakes authors make when trying to up the emotion, conflict, and tension, and the importance of balancing these elements to avoid overwhelming readers and how to use them to keep readers invested in the story until the very end. At the end of this podcast, writers will feel confident that they have the skills and key ingredients that will make their novel unputdownable.
Today, I talk with Patrick Jaxxis Conway of The Content Creator's Guide (and cast member of True Vault Escapades) about what factors are at work to make Walter, Bunny, & Cage's stories come to work. Visit this link to subscribe and support Patrick! https://open.spotify.com/show/1Co0tBffXPTIgj2l7GVlg8?si=91LW6ve7Qy--22w0SeDXYA All Links → https://linktr.ee/abombradio Patreon → https://www.patreon.com/abombradio Email/Inquiries → atombombradio@gmail.com Twitter → https://twitter.com/abombradio Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/AbombRadio/ Merch → https://my-store-10162644.creator-spring.com/? Discord → https://discord.gg/JG8GcgatMV YouTube → https://youtube.com/c/XperimentalMIRV --- Audio program ©2023 Preston Hardin - All Rights Reserved. No reproduction of this content is permitted without express written consent. This podcast is not endorsed by or affiliated with Bethesda Softworks or ZeniMax Media and does not reflect the views or opinions of either company or anyone officially involved in producing or managing Fallout. Fallout content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of Bethesda Softworks or its licensors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
[Intro] Hello and welcome to "Novel Writing Insights," a podcast by SPI Publications where we delve into the world of writing and explore the secrets to crafting a compelling novel. Today, we're going to talk about plot development, and how to create a story that will keep your readers on the edge of their seats. I'm your host Prabhat, and I'm a novelist and writing coach. [Segment 1] Plot is the backbone of your story, and it's what keeps your readers invested and engaged. But, how do you create a plot that's captivating and original? [Segment 2] The first step to creating a compelling plot is to have a clear understanding of your story's theme and purpose. What message do you want to convey, and what do you want your readers to take away from your story? Once you have a clear understanding of your theme, you can start to build your plot around it. [Segment 3] Another important aspect of plot development is conflict. Conflict is what drives your story forward and keeps your readers invested. To create a compelling plot, you need to have a clear understanding of the conflict that your characters will face, and how they will overcome it. This conflict should be central to your story, and it should escalate as your story progresses. [Segment 4] In conclusion, plot development is a crucial aspect of writing a novel, and it's what separates a good book from a great one. Remember, your plot should be driven by conflict, and it should be built around your story's theme and purpose. With these elements in place, you'll be well on your way to creating a captivating and engaging story. [Outro] That's it for today's episode of "Novel Writing Insights." Join us next week when we'll be discussing world-building and how to create a rich and believable setting. Until then, happy writing!
Recorded on November 8th, 2022 - Matt and Ben are pulling a rare two hander and tackling this week's topic all on their own. How does pacing and plot development impact a story being told? Is fast paced better or slow paced? Can both be successful? Can both fail? And what happens when the pacing changes mid story? All that and more on this week's episode of The New Way Podcast!
John Gilstrap's loyal fans know a Jonathan Graves thriller will be jam-packed with pulse-pounding action, diabolical criminals, fast-paced pursuits, stomach-knotting tension, and justice served. The New York Times bestselling author has been widely praised as America's most accomplished thriller writers, championed by fellow writers from Jeffery Deaver to Harlan Coben. He's the author of award-winning action novels including the Jonathan Grave Thrillers and the Victoria Emerson Thrillers. A master of action-driven suspense, his books have been translated into more than 20 languages, and is the recipient of an International Thriller Writers' Award for Against All Enemies, the ALA Alex Award for Nathan's Run, and a two-time ITW Award finalist. Join Robert Manni, author of The Guys' Guy's Guide To Love as we discuss life, love and the pursuit of happiness. Subscribe to Guy's Guy Radio on YouTube, iTunes and wherever you get your podcasts! Buy The Guys' Guy's Guide to Love now!
John Gilstrap's loyal fans know a Jonathan Graves thriller will be jam-packed with pulse-pounding action, diabolical criminals, fast-paced pursuits, stomach-knotting tension, and justice served. The New York Times bestselling author has been widely praised as America's most accomplished thriller writers, championed by fellow writers from Jeffery Deaver to Harlan Coben. He's the author of award-winning action novels including the Jonathan Grave Thrillers and the Victoria Emerson Thrillers. A master of action-driven suspense, his books have been translated into more than 20 languages, and is the recipient of an International Thriller Writers' Award for Against All Enemies, the ALA Alex Award for Nathan's Run, and a two-time ITW Award finalist. Join Robert Manni, author of The Guys' Guy's Guide To Love as we discuss life, love and the pursuit of happiness. Subscribe to Guy's Guy Radio on YouTube, iTunes and wherever you get your podcasts! Buy The Guys' Guy's Guide to Love now!
Trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault In this episode, Megan tells a confused but very interested HJ all about the second season of The Witcher starring Henry Cavill, while somehow managing not to talk a lot about Henry Cavill. Topics actually discussed include how this season passes the Bechdel test, racism metaphors and if they can actually work, how high fantasy can be a great tool to explore trauma, and how it should be illegal for bards to be buff.
In this episode our heroes have a run-in with the law, briefly speak to their old friend Razbutan, and begin a daring prison break! This episode contains violence, profanity, drug and alcohol references, sexual content, and descriptions of gore.
Do you want to write a page turning novel that will keep readers up long past their bedtime? Well, one key to doing that is to write chapters that keep readers turning pages. We go over some tips from opening lines to closing and everything in between to help you write chapters that will keep your readers hooked. To check out the book Plot Development that we mention in the podcast, follow this link: https://books2read.com/Plot-Development Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 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). Narrator (1s): You're listening to The Am writing Fantasy Podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (29s): I'm Jesper Autumn (31s): And I'm Autumn. Jesper (33s): This is episode 150 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And we are taking a closer look at Chapters today. How to Create Chapters, That Hook you readers, and hopefully give you some good and strong tips in the process here. Autumn (50s): Absolutely. I mean, these are sort of the building blocks of that. Pull the reader through the story. And I don't think there's a lot of people who realize maybe the importance of setting them up. I mean, we spend so much time talking about that Plot outline and what goes into the intro of your story, but we don't talk a lot about what actually is happening in each individual chapter. So I think this will be a good one we'll chapters or a book is made up by chapter. So I don't know why Chapters would be important at all at all. It's like building a wall without using any bricks. We're putting them on the walls. No, there's you go, but let's assume you want a wall and if you just put your bricks, like just dump them in a pile, you're not going to have a very good wall, so you should make sure you put it together constructively. Autumn (1m 41s): Okay. Well, if I say showed and I guess we have to talk a bit about that today. Jesper (1m 45s): Yeah. I guess we will. We'll talk about some construction equipment. No, thanks where you over there. Autumn (1m 52s): It's quite good. There is a school break here this week. So actually I don't have to get up that early in the mornings. That's very, very nice. That is always a sweet thing considering, especially, yeah, since I'd be getting up at 5:00 AM with my husband to see him off to his current training, he's going through yeah. That's, I'm envious if I'm AM's a little early for me. Yeah. The only problem is that now when you don't have to get up that early, you stay up later. And especially because my wife and I started watching squid game on Netflix. I heard about that. Yes. I've actually, I started up watching episode one and honestly I didn't get into it and maybe I was tired. Autumn (2m 35s): So I just kind of put it aside. How are you guys liking it? Jesper (2m 39s): Oh, I love it. I think it's so good. I finally understand why this caught on so big that it had it's I think it's so good. I buy have to try it again eventually, but yeah, I'll have to keep that in mind. Maybe I was just off that night. I don't know. But I think one good thing that be Taken away from us, you know, for us as writers and authors, is that the writer who wrote squid game, he actually tried to sell the script for 10 years, 10 years. Think about how much success it has right now. And it took him 10 years to, to sell it. Jesper (3m 19s): And finally Netflix said, okay, fine. We'll buy it. And then it's a massive success. Autumn (3m 24s): That's crazy. Jesper (3m 27s): Yeah. And I think that's a good thing too, to keep in mind for us as authors, as Willy, when we write our books. And so on that, sometimes it just takes a long, long time and then success comes so Autumn (3m 38s): Assistance and belief in yourself and just keep trying until someone finally says yes, Jesper (3m 46s): Exactly. Autumn (3m 46s): Very nice. I like that. Oh, it's been good. I, I showed you pictures, but yes, my husband and I entered dog, went whitewater kayaking. It was so cute. Yeah. We've done some really crazy adventurous things with this music, current terrier. So he's, he's a little, he's supposed to be like Toto, but he's a little bit of a, he's a monster version of Toto. He's a little bit like five pounds bigger than Toto would be. But yeah, we went, we went kayaking as a family and it was just gorgeous fall weather. And that was right before it switched from being like 70 degree days to now. It's like in the fifties that I've got the wood stove going, but that's nice too. It feels like fall. Autumn (4m 27s): I can't complain. It's bit of kind of dice. I've been burning the candle at both ends though, because I, I, this is like my, why we're meeting and doing our recording. This is my afternoon slump time. And I'm trying with caffeine to get through it, but I am horrible. I get up at five and I am dead until about six o'clock and then my mind turns on them and I'm fine. And I find, I go through the afternoon and there's this slump. And then right around dinner time, I'll wake up and I'll be good to like 10. And I just can't change that rhythm in my body. It's been that way since I was a kid. And so yeah, I try, I keep myself awake right now. Jesper (5m 6s): Yeah. But, but I think actually, I don't know, but I have a theory that probably a lot of people have it like that because I know exactly what I mean. What do you mean? I can also be like in the morning, you know, getting up for something you like really tired and it's like, oh, it's early. And then you think, oh, then I'll, I'll be thinking to myself then, okay. Tonight, I'm going to go to bed early because I'm so tired and I need to catch up on sleep and so on. And I'll be tired throughout the day as well on those days. Not right today, but in general, I mean, if that happens right. But then once I get to dinner time and afterwards, then I start getting, I start waking up and it's just like, no, you don't want to go to bed. And then the next day, the whole cycle repeats itself. And it's just like, I don't know, but you're not the first one saying it. Jesper (5m 50s): And I have it the same way. I don't know if it's like something, probably not all EVERY everybody, but I think a lot of people, I like that they, they wake, my wife has the same thing she wakes up in the evening. I dunno. It's weird. Isn't it? Autumn (6m 6s): Maybe we are. But I'm also really good at, up until about one o'clock in the afternoon from like 6:00 AM to one o'clock. I am fine. I am full throttle, but it's like, I need an afternoon nap. I needed like at one 30 to two, I need like a little bit of a nap and I'd be fine. And maybe I should just put that in my schedule somewhere. And I would probably be so much better, but I'm usually pushing myself through it. Jesper (6m 30s): So if it goes quiet on UN, then the listener will know it's because you take a nap and then we should just, we just sit around here and quiet on the podcast, waiting for you to wake up and then we can continue. Autumn (6m 41s): I won't do that to you. I think we can make it through. Jesper (6m 45s): Okay. Okay. Narrator (6m 48s): A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, Jesper (6m 53s): I noticed this morning that we just about to reach 7,000 members in the Am, Writing fences, you Facebook group order. Autumn (7m 1s): That is so I knew we were getting close. It actually, it seemed like we hit 6,000 wait went from 5,000 to 6,000 really, really quick. The 6,000 to seven has been a little slower, but oh my gosh, that is so many people and so awesome. Jesper (7m 16s): Do you remember the early days Autumn? Autumn (7m 19s): I Remember when it was me making the group and then inviting a couple of Fantasy authors. I knew it. I hadn't even met you yet. Or maybe if I had, I didn't know you on Facebook yet. I only knew you on Twitter and yeah, it was just me and a couple of people. So yeah, I remember very much so. And it was me and some crickets. Jesper (7m 40s): Yeah. And it was called slate. The fences, the Facebook group. Autumn (7m 45s): That's right. I saw the, I actually still have the original logo, like the artwork I did for it. Way back when tucked away and like terrified. You're right. You're right. That'd be great. I will have to go and do that too. Especially if I happen to catch it at 7,000, I'll do a little celebration and like, oh my God, this was, this was when it was just me and like three other people, which I think are still members too. So that'll be, I will do that. Jesper (8m 13s): Yeah. That would be fun. I think for people to see what it used to look like. But the funny thing is also when you have this many members, because I had the, there was somebody posting a, and there's nothing wrong with this. I'm just mentioning it for the fun of it. So the people involved should not feel bad about it at all, but there was somebody posting whether or not it was allowed to ask for some better readers in the Am, Writing Fantasy, Facebook group. And then I posted a, or I replied to say that, yeah. As long as you don't ask people to sign up to an email list or you know that in, in, in other ways you are trying to, to get them on your list or earn money from it or anything like that, then it's fine. Jesper (8m 59s): And then somebody else replied to say, are you a moderator? Or have you checked this with the moderators? Because I'm not sure, sure. That's allowed. And then I replied, I'm one of the co-owners of the group, but this is what happens when you have so many people. Some people don't even know who you are. Right. Let's say, Autumn (9m 17s): But I think it says like when it says admin next to our name. Jesper (9m 21s): Yeah, yeah. Maybe they just made me laugh. She was asking me if I had checked it with a moderator. I like that. I don't think I need to Autumn (9m 32s): Our Authors. No, we run very tight ship, obviously tighter than we realize. Jesper (9m 40s): Yeah. So if you haven't joined yet head on over to Facebook search for Am Writing Fantasy in the group section, and you will find us. But if you don't like Facebook or you don't use Facebook, I should also point out how you can go to Am Writing Fantasy dot com and sign up for our email list. Through there, you will get information and you will get tips on writing. We share some world-building advice and much, much more that we actually don't share anywhere else. And the best way is to just go to so to Am Writing Fantasy dot com and then on the homepage, when you arrive, there is actually the free self-publishing success course. Jesper (10m 23s): So the easiest way to do it is just sign up for that. And then you're going to get a full cost for free. And once you have gone through all the course material, you will be automatically added to our email is so that's the best way to Autumn (10m 35s): Do that. Yes. Come join us Narrator (10m 38s): And on today's topic. Jesper (10m 41s): All right. So chapters, Autumn, what do we say about challenges? They are quite important. I guess if you want to build a house, that's what I, that's what I learned so far. Autumn (10m 53s): That's a very important if you're building a house, you can't build a book. Well, actually I'm sure there, I would say you can't build a book without Chapters, but I am one of those people that would, as soon as you tell me, you can't do something, I'm like, ah, I must try it. So I'm sure you can. I'm sure there is like stream of consciousness writing that James Joyce was probably like never used a chapter and it was just publishers that forced them on him. So you probably could write a book. It would just be really tough. It would be a Jesper (11m 24s): Mess. Oh, Autumn (11m 25s): It'd be such a mess. Don't do it. I think the best way to be organized. It was with Chapters and it gives you so many things you can do. I mean, you can change up your story. You can keep Readers interested, purposely hook them. So they stay up till 3:00 AM. Cause we're cruel to them. You can change point of view of your writing in third person, point of view. So Chapters are really important. There's a lot going on in them. Jesper (11m 51s): Yeah, absolutely. And I think, well, it, it very easily starts sounding like science or something, this stuff, right? Like talking about how to do a chapter in the proper way. But, but I think honestly for start, we have to say like, this is our way of doing a chapter. It doesn't mean that it's the only way or the only right way at all. You might have other ways of doing it. Or maybe you hear some advice from somewhere else that you think makes more sense and then that's fine if it works for you, it works for you. Right. So we can only say that this is the way in all of you, that it should be done, but underlying all of you. Jesper (12m 36s): Okay. Autumn (12m 37s): Absolutely. And I guess to me, we have some social proof that we're not doing things badly. I mean, I have a ton of reviews of people saying I stayed up all night. I finished this book all the way through, or I didn't finish it all the way through, but that's only because it hit 4:00 AM and I'm supposed to go to work at six. So I had to wait until nine the next day when I finally called out a bed after calling in six and finished it at 10. So I don't think we're doing anything wrong because I've seen on both of our reviews that, you know, we have made Readers stay up to the wee hours of the morning to read our stories. And that's partially comes through by the chapters because if you mess up on a chapter and you have a hard end to one, if you don't pull the reader forward and they're like, eh, I don't care anymore. Autumn (13m 24s): I'm going to sleep. That's, that's where they take a break. If they get confused, lost, or you just don't have something that makes them want to flip the page. Jesper (13m 34s): Yeah. True. Absolutely. And when we are talking about Chapters, think of it as a mini story on his own. So by ministry, what I mean by that is that the character should be trying to achieve something just like the dog is trying to achieve something now. So that's in its own little mini story. There Autumn (13m 60s): Was a chapter break Jesper (14m 2s): That was a chapter break. That was a point of view chains. It was saying, Hey, it's my point of view. That's all right. Yeah. What I was trying to say is that this means that the character is trying to achieve something and you know, it shouldn't be so that the coach just sitting around in a coffee, shop, reading a newspaper or talking to some random other character. And honestly I have seen books where this sort of thing happens and you are wondering a bit like, why do I care about this? What's going on here? Right. A chapter should contain some sort of sense of conflict and also some sort of, well uncertainty to some degree, I guess you could say, it's something that makes you wonder what's going to happen next. Jesper (14m 47s): Right? Those should be the recipe for a good Autumn (14m 54s): Chapter. Exactly. It's to me, it's like, it's curiosity, your mystery. There's something going on where, whether it's the character who is curious, you know, is trying to solve something and trawls the reader along. Or if the reader is picking up clues and they want to see what's happening, or even just an action event, they either news that happens off screen or that's just received or, you know, it ends at a battle and someone might be wounded and you're like, I have to turn the page. You know, those are part of the chapters. And I think one of the things we're talking about Chapters as a building block of a novel, but there's building blocks in Chapters. You can have a chapter that it's an entire scene and you could have a chapter that's made up of lots of little scenes, maybe not too many. Autumn (15m 38s): You don't want to put in maybe 10 scenes into a chapter that might be a little intense, but two or three, it can happen. You can have scene breaks within a single chapter. And so those are important parts to remember too, if you approach a chapter and you just don't know what to do, or you not sure what's in it. Think of it as a scene. Scenes are different from Chapters, but a lot of people get them confused. Jesper (16m 1s): Yeah. So maybe put a few more words on that. Autumm okay. Autumn (16m 4s): Sure. Well, so it scene is an event that's happening and usually, you know, it's think of a stage and you have a stage set and you characters walk on, something happens and they walk off sometimes with a scene, you change point of view, but you often change rooms. You change other things that are happening within, but the reason they're combined into one chapter is because the chapter has its own goal. And to me, that's the most important thing. And we talk about this, We, I know you're going to bring it up. Well, we have a Plot development book and we do talk about Chapters in there. So that's a very good way. But to me, the first step in deciding what is making your chapter versus your scenes are the scenes that make up a chapter is a chapter, has a specific goal. Autumn (16m 52s): And I always look at it as like, I have a goal for the chapter as an author. There's a part of the plot. It is, it is unveiling. So it's part of the inciting incident. It is part of the reaction phase. So that's my goal as an author, but there's also the characters goal and that's the part that's moving the stories forward. And that's an important thing you want to make sure the character has a goal when that chapter begins. And you know, it's going to wrap up the end of that chapter is, and when that his goal is met or it's stopped. Jesper (17m 22s): Yeah. Let me put it into context to you because you mentioned our whole flooding guide book here, because in there we actually have, because now you're talking about character gold and so on. So I think just putting a bit of framework around it, the way we describe it in our book is that a chapter has five areas or you, you, you used the worst word building block before. So if we go with that five building blocks in a great chapter, so there is coach goal, there is a hook, there is conflict and Alima there's reaction and decision and there is the disaster. Yes. So by that, the idea is that you have a character who knows when the chapter starts, what he or she wants to achieve. Jesper (18m 10s): And this character then goes after that in one way on other that the reader will find fascinating or interesting. That's the hook pot. And then only it's not that easy to achieve what you want. And especially not. When you live life as a fiction character, you live in the worst nightmare sometimes. Yeah. So it's not that easy. And something is standing in the way and that's then causing the conflict, right? And once you have the conflict, then you have a reaction to what happened. And that will lead into a decision on how to proceed that the character makes. And in the end, we will then finish the chapter on a cliffhanger. Jesper (18m 54s): So if you can construct your chapter around those five steps, it will already be very interesting because you are showing the reader that this character, this is what the character is trying to achieve. Meaning that then the reader understands, oh, okay, this is what's happening. This is I, now I know what's going on. It's like, it's like when you enter a meeting in your day job, and there was no agenda and you have no idea what you're going to talk about it very quickly. It becomes very frustrating because like, why are we here? What are we trying to do? So putting that in front of the reader so that they understand what the character is trying to achieve, that's a good starting point. And then when you, you are making life difficult for the character and introducing the conflict and giving them something to react to, then it also humanizes the character because then you feel like, oh, okay. Jesper (19m 46s): I can relate to that. I see why they're reacting this way. Or are they getting frustrated or whatever it may be. It's not that a chapter, a good chapter has to have like dire consequences or something. It doesn't have to be like that. That's not what I'm trying to say, but more that there needs to be something at stake and something, as they could just mean that I don't want my brother to find this thing out, for example, or it doesn't have to be like fight scenes or anything like that at all. But when you have something at stake, you have a reaction to it. Then when you end the chapter on some sort of, some sort of cliffhanger, and again by cliff hanger can mean a lot of things. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that it's like a, in the middle of a fight or I think James W what is it called? Jesper (20m 32s): James Brown, John Brown. What is he called? The James Brown bet. James Brown. I think he has one where he ends the chapter with the, with the character opening a door, then he stops and you don't get to see what's inside. It that's a bit, I would almost say a lame, but okay. But it's a cliffhanger, but it doesn't have to be like that. It could just be like a cliffhanger could just be like, the character is wondering about something and you don't have the answer for it. And then you want to read on to figure out what is the answer. It could be all kinds of things. So don't say cliff hanger as like, meaning that you have to put some dire consequences on the table, every, in every chapter. Autumn (21m 12s): No, it's more like an, almost an unanswered question or an unfinished event. I think those are better way. And I do agree because we often call it, the chapter ends in a disaster, but it doesn't have to be a disaster. It is. Yeah. That's just maybe a typical way of doing it because often with hurdles, it is sort of a disaster someone's wounded, and you don't know what happens, but you could be in a lull or it could be a love scene or something. And someone walks into the ballroom or whatever, a vendor at the, the tourney or something, the next person walks in the love interest or something. And you just stopped there. And there was other people going, oh gosh, you know, there, he or she is. Autumn (21m 53s): And that's a cliffhanger because you're like, well, what will they say? What will they do you want to turn the page? It always should end on not wanting to turn the page. And it could be as simple as just receiving news, receiving a reading, finally, a letter that they've been holding in their hand and waving the entire chapter. They finally look and see what it says. And they're like, oh, oh my gosh, this changes everything. And of course you want to turn the page to find out what's going to happen next that's, what's important. Jesper (22m 24s): And what's so nice about that. Is that because of what you just explained there, you already have the hook for the next chapter and you also already know what the character wants in the next chapter. So it just adds another minister to the first story. Yes, it's so nice. Because then again, you can build the next chapter with a clear beginning, a clear middle, a clear, and it just makes sense, right? Autumn (22m 48s): It does. They build off of each other, which is why it becomes a whole story. They flow into each other with set happenings and events to see what it's going to happen next. And I always say like, as a writer, I always want to write the ending to a chapter. So excited that I want to write the first line to the next chapter. And so if you're that excited, the reader will be that excited. And I think that's, what's important. It's just, it has a flow to it and going even back to scene. So if you think about it as if there are these five or four aspects into a chapter, well, if you have the hook and then the character is doing something and they're going through the conflict or dilemma things, aren't going well. Autumn (23m 28s): And for some reason that just that character's point of view is done, and you do a scene break, the decision and action and disaster or cliffhanger could end up being in a different character's point of view. And that's sort of why you can have multiple scenes that fit into a chapter, but they still fit the chapter because you are still following that Hook, decision dilemma, the action emotion reaction, and then the cliff hanger disaster event that is unfinished, that you want to turn the page to see what happens to it. Jesper (24m 1s): I think the challenge faced by many writers is actually how to make that conflict part varied, because I mean, you cannot have a 400 page book where every single chapter has a fight in it or nothing. I mean, it could be either a physical fight, but it could also just be people arguing. I, I know when I started out writing at first, I had a tendency to create a lot of arguments and a lot of the chapters because it added conflict. So my line of thinking was good. But the thing is that it, it gets a bit tiresome if, if the characters are always arguing with somebody. Jesper (24m 43s): So I think personally, you know, your first spur of inspiration is in 99% of the cases going to be probably quite full of cliches, you know, and that, that's why we prefer at least to do a detailed chapter outline compared to a very loose one where, or even to compare to riding by the seat of your pants. Because I think that the problem is often that you, you keep beating the same old horse or on and on and on. Autumn (25m 22s): Yes, I think that's very true. And I, I think it also comes down to knowing your character really well, because you, as an author have, like I mentioned, you have a goal for what's happening in the chapter. And if you're trying to force things on your character, it's going to come across as artificial. And it's not as interesting. The stakes don't feel real. Something just feels off to the reader. But if you have a character and you give the character a goal, like you say, okay, this is going to be a hurdle. And you know, you're going to throw something horrible at the character. And you're like, okay, character, you'd go again. This is you're going in there. This is your goal. And this is what's going to happen. And then let the character figure out, you know, what in their world are they going to do to solve this? Autumn (26m 2s): Why do they want to solve it? Knowing your character really well, knowing how they'll react will help pull you through. And I'll also help the reader really resonate with the character. Cause there's a F you know, you want to feel that character trying to problem solve and get out of it on their own instead of being pushed forward, along by the author, because you need to go to the next scene. You can definitely tell when you're reading. Jesper (26m 27s): Yeah. And the, and of course the character arc is incredibly important in this whole conversation too, to make sure that you build in at certain points throughout the novel, in some chapters where you gradually showing on, of course, on less on less characters on a steady arc where they don't change. But otherwise that you have some chapters throughout the novel where you're gradually showing that the characters beginning to change. And we go in through it in great detail in, in our guidebook on, on how to plot a novel, but high level. It's often a good thing to start showing them, showing the reader, how the character actually insists on doing the same thing as they've always done, because that's how we work as human beings. Jesper (27m 16s): We only, we only start changing once we figure out that what I'm doing is apparently not working. And only once we realized that that's where we start changing, because otherwise we, we're not going to change. Human beings are lazy people. We don't want to change, but once we start, you know, we keep banging our heads against, into the wall because we keep doing the same thing and it doesn't work. Then at some point we will usually start questioning ourselves like, Hmm. I wonder if I could do something differently, then that's where you start seeing the change. So that's a good thing to keep in mind when you're writing as well with your chapters to have four, while the coach would keep doing the same thing and keep facing the same problem, like, you know, from a character arc perspective, like they keep failing basically. Jesper (28m 1s): And, and then gradually over time, they'll start trying to try to do some other things and get a different result. And thereby you solidify the change in the character. Autumn (28m 12s): Yes. That is very true in such an important aspect. And of course, when you say doing the same things as you don't mean like, you know, going and trying to attack the night that he's obviously not prepared to do, he's not going to do that three times in a row, but he are going to maybe have him pick three different fights or just always be in over his head, always react stubbornly or arrogantly and not us for help. And then finally, you know, there's going to be that moment where maybe it's usually called the dark night of the soul, that moment where, you know, something happens and someone's wounded or hurt or killed because of their stupid actions. And they finally go, next time, I'm going to ask for help because I don't want that to ever happen again. Autumn (28m 53s): But again, that's more the entire plot, but it's so true. Each chapter is just pulling the novel forward. And I did, I want to get back to it. You mentioned also speaking of, you know, not repeating, you said about not repeating like the same disaster, the same conflicts. And I also think is a really important not to repeat the exact same Hook or the exact same chapter ending. And those can be as simple as like you dialogue is a fantastic, like if two people are in the middle of a conversation, that's a neat chapter opening. And sometimes it's a really neat chapter ending, but you don't want to have every chapter opening being dialogue or every chapter opening being a description or even action. Autumn (29m 34s): All of those are things you should take notice of and kind of vary them throughout your novel. So that one maybe is a dialogue, but another was an action. Maybe one's a description, keep things varied and that'll help make your writing a little bit more interesting and will help remind you to keep things different with each one and, you know, challenge you, isn't Writing all about challenging yourself to become a better somebody. Jesper (29m 57s): Yeah, I would say so. I don't know. Are we missing anything? I feel like, I feel like that's pretty encompassing for, for How to Create Chapters. Autumn (30m 10s): I think so too. I be, and I can't think of anything else. The best thing to do is to check out, like I said, the plotting book we get into so much more detail on character arcs and plotting the whole novel as well as how to lay out your individual chapter. The difference between chapters and scenes and some good examples in there. So I think those are really, what's important to take a look at if you really want to go in depth, because there's a lot more to this and nailing your chapters and knowing how they build your story is going to one help you learn to write better. And you know, if you're doing well in your chapters, those are usually like when I was writing, I had writing goals. My goal was not a word count. Autumn (30m 51s): So I got Scrivener and it, it makes you, it allows you to do a word count goal. But I used to always be like, I want to write this many chapters this week. It's a nice, solid building blocks that helps you break down your novel. And two bites that are really, the reader is bites. The reader is going to stop and start at Chapters. They don't usually stop or start right in the middle of a chapter who wants to do that? That's because someone came in and like you have book from your hand or your Kindle ran out of batteries. That's when you stop in the middle of a chapter or if you're really bad, if it's really, really bad, baby, I don't know. Jesper (31m 27s): Yeah. I mean, the chapter's only pot, it's only one piece of the entire puzzle. So I'll book is called Plot Development and it is a very full step-by-step guy. You know, you you'll get everything in that book. You will learn about the character creation as well. You learn about the character arcs, how to build the entire novel, outline, how it affects the chapters and how to build those chapters and, and so on and so on and so on. So, so you're going to get everything you need in that one book. So we've added the link to that one in the show notes, if you are interested. So next Monday, we are talking about the evil within it's about your characters and how to explore them in greater depth. Narrator (32m 15s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.
Do you want to make your characters and writing pop? There are some pro techniques to enhance a character and connect the reader with her/him. One of them is using Deep POV. Join us for a discussion on Deep POV. What is it? How do you do it? And when are there times you can purposefully not use it? We've got you covered in this episode! To check out the K-Lytics report we mentioned, head over to https://k-lytics.com/dap/a/?a=7419&p=k-lytics.com/epic-fantasy And you can check out our book Plot Development here: https://books2read.com/Plot-Development Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Narrator (3s): You're listening to The Am. Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need. And literary agent, there is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (31s): Hello, I'm Jesper. This is episode 125 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And it's now time to discuss Deep point Of view, how we can Help you Story. I think that should be an interesting conversation, Autumn. Autumn (50s): I think so. I liked this one because you know what I like to put up the point of view, and this is like one of my favorite aspects of writing. And so we were just looking at what people liked as well on the, some of the pastor podcast episodes. And it seems like the ones that have to do with writing crafts are quite popular together with our very silly monthly ones where, where we just like go out on something as well. Those are my two favorite podcasts. So I'm with the listeners and I guess it means we have to do more of them. Right? Jesper (1m 22s): Probably we shouldn't do it like two or three times a month with it just to at least a half. I, that might be a bit too much, Autumn (1m 29s): but we can't have a whole, like there has to be a month dedicated to podcast in a room with nothing but a stupid tub, top 10 list. Jesper (1m 42s): All right. Maybe not, but we'll be fine, but how are things going on you and all of them. Autumn (1m 50s): I don't know if they are good as you know, but the listeners might not be as I just got back from a trip from seeing my parents, which I haven't been down to their house since like pre pandemic, of course, because we are a good little kids, but it was so nice and also so hard because they seem to have, like, it seems like everyone saying like the pandemic was like, what a century. They seem to age on way too much. On the last year, it was just terrifying. But you know, they take their naps and I got to spend some time with them and we went, we did go out, I got my first vaccinations, you know, 50%, 80% protected. I know it's a lot. So I have my next one scheduled. Autumn (2m 30s): And so we, we did go to work to do breweries and we went out just a little bit and then it could be a huge tide dinner or, you know, I'm a foodie yellow food. So I was making potstickers and Tom got gum, like Nike pronounce it Now, but I made it a coconut based supe. And it was just, honestly, it would be nice to go and visit your parents again after such a long while. Oh, it was eight drank too much beer drank too much wine, ate too much sugar. It's all of a good thing. It was a lot to like, exactly. You got to hang out with my folks. And they were definitely, they are definitely my, some of my favorite people on the planet. So it was really excellent. Autumn (3m 10s): And I got to see my nephew and he gave me, and I don't know if you saw the picture I shared on Instagram and Facebook, he gave me a 4k monitor, a 32 and just give it to monitor. So I, well, he wasn't using it and he does coding. He does, he was doing a little bit of a graphic design, but he's going more into coding. So it was like, I don't need for K to read code has got to monitor. I was like 24 inch side by side. He's good. But yeah, he didn't need this one anymore. And he knows I've been doing graphic design on my 13 inch Mac pro. And then it gives me this more as you put it, it was like, I could bring it to you, but it takes up my whole bag. Autumn (3m 51s): Wow. So I'm so excited. It was like the best late birthday present ever. It is fast. Spectacular. I have it. Yeah. I have to find a place to put it in our cabin Jesper (4m 4s): because it's too big for a table. Autumn (4m 7s): Yeah, exactly. It is. It is too big for a table. And so yeah, we were in, and we don't have a ton of wall space cause this captain has a ton of window. So like you don't get there or there are, so I can't wait though. And I already, yeah, I already was playing with a cover on it and going, Oh, I need to fix that. I couldn't even see it before. So, and it was a wonderful trip, Jesper (4m 30s): But we also have a trip that we went to visit my brother and his wife this past weekend, which is probably the first trip we've had in close to a year, I would say too to COVID-19 as well. And it was really nice. And the, the, the weather was good enough for us to sit outside a car, a couple of hours on the terrorist as well. So that was, that was good. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. But also over the past week, I've started watching a new show on Amazon prime. Have you watched the American gods? Autumn (5m 5s): Oh, no, I haven't. Not at all. I have seen it a little bit too. It, Jesper (5m 8s): I am only two episodes a season, but I would have to say, I mean, I avoided For, I don't know quite why, but for awhile I just felt like, know, it's not my thing. I don't want to watch it, but then I thought, yeah, okay, I'll give it a shot. And I started watching it. It's really good. I mean, after the first two episodes, so I'm like, Oh my God, I'm hooked. You know what? It's like, it delivers Autumn (5m 34s): Its kind of the way Jesper (5m 35s): That we liked to ride stores as well. Do you know? It it's very easy. You don't quite understand what's going on it. So it's kind of a bit of a mystery thing going on in there. Like, and, and the main character does not understand either. So he is trying to figure out what is going on here? Why are these people so weird? Did this? I think they are God, but they are behaving really weird and they can do all kinds of supernatural things, but it's not over done. Like is just small things. Like he flips a coin and every time it lands on heads, for example, just like every single time, just small stuff like that. And I still don't quite understand after two episodes of what they're trying to do and what does God actually wants the main character to do. Jesper (6m 15s): I don't know. And, and so that's the main character doesn't know either, but I like it. It is very intriguing and I want to watch more. Autumn (6m 28s): Oh cool. Well that's my husband has some trainings through may. Like he'll be gone half the month at two different times, so maybe I'll go check it out, but it sounds like it will keep me in touch with, Narrator (6m 38s): We can go on to the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Jesper (6m 43s): So back in episode 122, so that's not that long ago, but we had Alex Newton on from K Lytics and she had some great market research about the FANTASY Shamara and Alex were so incredibly kind afterwards that he should be at the latest detailed Fantasy market report with me. So I thought I would summarize the conclusions from that report here for everyone's benefit. Right. Autumn (7m 13s): Nice. Yeah, that sounds great. I can't wait to look at it when you summarize it and I know Jesper (7m 18s): You don't mind them. So I've picked out like what is like maybe eight, seven, eight different key points here that I thought I could just a waffle off here and hopefully be a bit helpful as well. Excellent. So first of all, after that, A romance in thrillers Fantasy remains the third highest selling Shamrock of The on the Amazon Kindle platforms. So, and during the first COVID-19 lockdown period, there was a very clear and very sharp drop in sales of APEC fantasy novels. Jesper (7m 58s): But the good news is that here in 2021 sales have been trending upwards again. So I don't know why people don't want to read Fantasy when they're on lock down, but I will hold it against them. I'll I'll have a grudge about that. Autumn (8m 14s): Yeah, I agree. I mean, seriously, you're stuck at home and maybe it's like too, like you can't go out and be in a fantasy world for a long time. Jesper (8m 23s): I would go. So the Epic Fantasy market is quite large. K Lytics measured around 800,000 a month in royalties being paid for Epic Fantasy. So that's pretty good. Mmm, wow. But it also shows actually there is in the top of the Epic FANTASY Shaundra, the competition is quite hard up there. So it means that it, it, it is a pretty good to write it in because there was a lot of readers, but to be on the bestseller lists and the two earn like on the top of the top of the chart, you have to sell a lot of books. Jesper (9m 12s): So it's not easy to get to the top of those lists, but, but at least there was a lot of readers. So I think that's good news. Autumn (9m 22s): Yeah. Yeah. That is good news. I mean even a small piece of a very big pie. It was a piece. It still tastes good. Yeah. Jesper (9m 30s): Maybe depending on what kind of pie it is. I guess I don't like Apple. Is that enough? It's true. I feel like most people like Apple. Yeah. Autumn (9m 40s): Well, you know, its kind of bland. Yeah. Well it, over here that there was a few States where they built cheddar cheese on top the top of the pie and I ain't touching that. Can Jesper (9m 50s): We do like a chocolate pie? Is that possible? Autumn (9m 54s): We Can do chocolate. I prefer coconut, but we can do a chocolate coconut and that'd be good. Yeah. Jesper (9m 59s): I don't think this is in Decatur or K Lytics report. So the next one and this one will interest you Autumn. So if one looks at the top 250 covers in the best seller list, then about half of them show symbols or scenery on the cover as opposed to any characters. Wow. Autumn (10m 26s): That's so interesting. It was surprising for me because me as a reader, I look at it and I'm like, eh, you know, what does it tell me about the Story? It's a pretty Fantasy picture, kind of interesting, but every time I've used a symbol picture as well. So I find it as interesting as well, Jesper (10m 43s): Because then it goes onto say that 23% of covers shows a male, usually like warrior type of character on the cover. Whereas 14% shows a female character. But the interesting part though, is that okay if you compare the sales rank between the books that has a female character on the cover, versus those that has a male character on the cover, the female covers actually tend to rank higher than the ones with a male Now. And I think that's a very interesting to know as, as well. 'cause if you look at the fact that there is 23% of the mails on the covers, you might go to the conclusion to say, Oh, well that means that it's better to have the males on the cover it, but actually it's the opposite. Jesper (11m 32s): It's better to have females. Autumn (11m 35s): Yeah. What do you need to have more, have more female cover? We have an Elvin female assessment. Yeah. Jesper (11m 43s): Got it. Autumn (11m 44s): Yeah. Well we can do, how can I put her into book one? Alright. We won't get in to cover a spectrum and other good Jesper (11m 52s): News for those who write military, that's a category on Amazon and hear the sales rank versus competition ratio is quite in your favor. So in other words, it's a pretty good category to publish your books in. So I think that's a good information to have if you're right. That kind of book. Autumn (12m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. Or if you're thinking of writing that down Jesper (12m 20s): Pricing, so $3, $3 99 and $4 99 is the most frequent price point among FA Epic fantasy books on Amazon. But the highest yielding price point is nine 99 followed by seven 99, which I think is pretty good news for us because we are planning to sell around six 99, seven, nine to nine or something like that. So that's pretty good. That is the highest, highest kneeling price point. Autumn (12m 52s): Yeah. That is really interesting. I'm surprised you think. Why do you think that counts box sites are those individually books? Jesper (12m 59s): I think it is. I think in part it has to do with the traditionally published books where the chart's more and there are, that's probably a school's to data in a bit, I guess M but what it does prove though, is the people who are willing to pay the higher price point for books a day. So if you make sure that your covers are indistinguishable from the traditional publishing, meaning that they look just as a professional, then there is, there should be no reason why people wouldn't want to buy it. And at six 99, seven 99 or something like that, even nine 99. I know we talked with the actually twice, I think, but way back when this podcast was a YouTube channel, we talked to Joseph Malick twice and he sells his, all his books are at nine 99. Jesper (13m 49s): So it's yeah, it's a possible, right. But anyway, three 99, four 99, that's the most frequent price points. So if you want to stay within the frame of what people are used to, then that's probably the price point to go for it, but we are going to sell out books a bit higher than that, but it's up to you. Of course. Autumn (14m 7s): Sounds exciting. And also Jesper (14m 10s): About two thirds of all the Epic fantasy books are outside Kindle unlimited. Autumn (14m 20s): Hm. Yeah. Interesting. So there's only a third that are in Kindle unlimited. Oh it's so that is, it makes me wonder if the people, if that's a smaller pool so that they are actually doing well, there's less competition. Or if readers just prefer to be outside of it, you know, there are wide, these books are, or why it's not a hundred a month. Jesper (14m 40s): I can only say got my gut feeling. Is that a, I think there is room to play in Kindle unlimited. If you put Epic FANTASY in there. I think, I think that you can get a new readers because there's not enough Epic fantasy books in Kindle unlimited. They want to read. So I think it's probably a pretty good place to place your books, but that is just my gut feeling. I don't have any data to back that up. So there is a ton more stuff in this report. So if you are curious, do you have listener? I should. Yes. Did you go and check out the full report is mighty helpful in order to understand what is working and what is trending in the Epic Fantasy market. Jesper (15m 23s): And I only gave you the highlights here. So we'll add a link in the show notes so that you can check it out yourself. The full report will cost you $37, but it is well, well worth it and on to perhaps a good place to stop is with a definition. Autumn (15m 47s): Why is it? Oh, that's all it's boring sometimes. You know, I think it was a very good way to start though. It's true. Well, it should be, it helps to clarify things, but yeah. So Deep point of view that has usually referring to a third person limited, which I think that sounds even more confusing point of view. So a third person is when you use, he, she, his, her, you know that tight, but rather than I, which is a first person and limited means not omniscience. You literally are like Writing along on the character. Scholder you can only see, hear, feel, touch what that character feels seasoned here is in touch. Autumn (16m 27s): So if someone has a running up to the character from behind the character is not going to see it, they're going to see what's in front of them, like their best friend standing up in throwing an X and thinking, Oh my God, why is he is trying to get out of my best friend or trying to kill me? Well, really throwing an ax at the, you know, the ogre coming up from behind. So those are the types of stories we're talking about. So if you write it in first person and your property, you are already limited and you are already sort of in a Deep point of view, your really grounded anchored into that character. So what we're doing is we're looking at anchoring the reader into a character, but using third-person now, why is a third person useful for Fantasy Writing? I know, you know this one, right? Jesper (17m 9s): Well actually, before getting that far, I was also thinking that, Oh, maybe I I've tried to prepare some examples just to a few prepare. I always plan things on them. Why do you keep pointing out things? Autumn (17m 29s): Yeah, because I think I just looked at the title of the day and said, Oh yeah, I'm good to know Jesper (17m 33s): This way. I plan things. It was just to try to give you a couple of examples of that. So maybe, maybe make it a bit more real, but basically you, so we are trying to, with the point of view, we are trying to sort of hit a style of writing where we immersed to read as much as possible into the point of view character. And I think it's basically like, if you imagine watching your favorite films or TV shows, you know, we are trying to mimic in the Writing that we only experience in CS and knows what the character knows a and thereby we are limiting the narrative, so to speak. Jesper (18m 19s): So I tried to make one of each, so an example where we have like a third person limited, like that's what most of us Fantasy authors normally. Right. And then another example with a Deep point of view. And I don't know how well I'm going to succeed here. So you'll have your own, my edit there anyway, Autumn. So you will have to edit stuff. Okay. This is the regular third person limited. Okay, ready? I need to do my voice storytelling my voice. I probably can't keep that up without a laughing. Okay, fine. Are you hurt the King's voice? Booming in the great hall, calling him in the way he had come to know signifying the King's anger. Jesper (19m 7s): What had he done wrong? Fi find out. I didn't know yet if a familiar unease ceased his stomach. Okay. So that was like third person limited, pretty standard regular. And now my attempt of a transforming the same scene into a Deep point of view. So, and now you are the editor here. Remember the penetrating force of the King's voice echo throughout the great hall. Find out, felt it in his bones. And as he had so many times before, what has he done wrong this time? Come here right now. Jesper (19m 47s): Shout at the King as if he was nothing but a laptop find out it felt the knot twisting and tightening in her stomach with every step toward the red faced man. Autumn (19m 60s): Yeah. That's perfect. Congratulations. I think that's fantastic. I think it's pretty obvious. Yeah. Jesper (20m 5s): Obvious. Which one is the most engaging, right? Autumn (20m 11s): Oh yeah. The second one that was just, I mean, you know, to me, it's so brilliant because you really, you feel it. It's not, you're not just being told what's is going on with the character or what he's thinking and feeling that you kind of, you feel it, you were like, Oh, the gut twisting, you know, the anxiety. It, it heightens to me like, if I'm thinking of it as an art terms, it's upping the contrast, your getting that really kind of gripping engagement, what you don't get with just regular sort of center or a third person limited. Yeah. You definitely don't get up. Jesper (20m 42s): All righty. You, you feel the blood boiling and all of that stuff right in that that's the way anger or the sadness or whatever the character feels that we feel it that's at least that's how I feel like Deep point of view, just bring so much more to the story. I actually learned what act in preparing, because yes, I do prepare for these episodes, all of them. But in preparing for this episode, I a, I actually learned that a star, this a Deep point of view Writing is actually only became popular in WRITING like 20 to 30 to 40 years ago. I didn't know that before or researching this. So that's that I find that quite interesting. Autumn (21m 26s): Yeah. I mean, before that, even if you look at Tolkin, it is technically omniscient, even though you're mostly staying with Frodo, but there are times token head hops because you know, no one else what other people are doing. They had more of a Narrator type of voice. Now we have more of a character. Yeah. Jesper (21m 46s): You told her why is that in the beginning? It is. It's much more akin to what you normally see in movies. And so on. I mean, I know of course you don't get under the skin of the characters in the movies, But, but watching the character's in a movie, you sorta get the feeling about their feelings. Right. So it's different from being told that The, then he went there and then he did this and, and so on. Autumn (22m 12s): Exactly. And it's, I mean, that's where you have those little tension. I think it really ups the tension to be in the point of view, even in movies, you had that moment where you might dwell on something like just the breathlessness or if a panting I have watched a movie recently were the whole seen was black. And you had just heard someone say breathing, that's a Deep point of view. So that is when you're just, everything is down to just that one little focus. And because it is so tension, field and emotion field, you really engage with the character. If the bad news is, if you hate the character, you really like, Oh, I don't think engage with this character. But if you like the character, if you were rooting for them, Oh, you are just like grip in the book or the Kindle. Jesper (22m 52s): Now I talk to my son. Well, so far away from what you were saying early on that, I completely forgot now. Autumn (23m 1s): Oh, well, why, why are there to see the author specifically writing in third person verses first person? Or what's the better angle that this is? What is the main mode? I do know there are some first-person stories out there, but majority of the authors are the right person. Jesper (23m 17s): You think the last part of it is because we like to have multiple point of view characters. And so when we write the third person limited, it, it allows us, for example, between chapter's to switch to another character. And then we are getting inside the head of that character. But if you were writing in the first person, you can see call every character. I then it would be pretty confusing for the reader who is I now? And then this is all of a sudden another person. So yeah, as you said, a fantasy novels do exist with a first person, but they are, they are pretty limited a that there is not that many of them, I think in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, Autumn (23m 55s): No, mostly urban fancy. Yeah. I think urban fantasy is mostly an AI-based Story, which surprises me. And even when I write from urban Fantasy and I always stick to a third person because I like characters that that's what Epic Fantasy I can think of Tolkien, how many doors and every one that was running her off onto this quest, all of the hobbits. I mean, there were so many characters. You could not write that in first person or he could do like, who are we here? What are we talking about? You know, I'm in small, I've got to just stick with a small, we're fine. Right? Jesper (24m 27s): Yeah. But I think as well for us, for this whole thing to actually work, you have to know your point of care, point of view characters really, really well, because otherwise you, you simply won't be able to write their personal point of view about what's going to happen. So yeah, there's a step. Autumn (24m 50s): Yeah. There is that you definitely its up and things, a notch because when you're in Deep point of view, everything comes as if it was from that character. So even your word choice, one of my examples is I had a character who hated her father. So every time I'm in her point of view, should, did she ever think of even her father, his father? No. She thought of him his first name as father. She would never say daddy or dad, because that is, you know, that's an emotional resonance. And so it is literally picking every choice your metaphors become from that character. So we should do that anyway, but you really have to do it with the point of view. Autumn (25m 30s): So you have a character that is a sailor. Is there gonna be thinking someone has a S their tents like taught the rigging? There are not going to have some things, you know, Oh, their stress, like a farmer or under the hot son. That's not what they are familiar with. You, you have to be very specific with every word choice so that you're just kind of pulling the reader in to this very narrow window of what it is like to live in. Yeah. Jesper (25m 51s): Not only that also in terms of the character's personal and motivations and the background of the character, or even, you know, like something happens and a character don't like it. Okay. So you need to know, well, the reason he doesn't like it, this because a so-and-so happened in the past and it brings back back bad memories and stuff like that sort of thing. You can not see it into the narrative unless you know it, so it puts more demand on you to have a new character creation process to really know them. Of course, a in the plotting guidebook, we wrote, we have a whole section that we'll talk you through this. We will put the link to that won in the show notes as well. Jesper (26m 32s): So, so if your interest that you can check it out at any rate, or whether you follow a guidebook all, or you do it by yourself, I think the main point is just that you really need to understand all those details about the, or otherwise it's going to be very hot. You can ride the point of view, but it's going to be very hard to do it well, unless you know those things. Autumn (26m 54s): Yes. And it does, it's going to take practice anyway. But yeah, and I think one of the other things is like you mentioned your, Your have this character reacts a certain way because of something that happened in the past, but not always jumping back into that flashback, or even explaining like acted, you know, aggressively or said, I don't want to hear about that being. And then he has, and then you'd do that character. He thinks about the time that blah, blah, blah, you don't do that. In the point of view, you don't go wander off into character thoughts either. You, you really it's picking and choosing what is going to be related to the reader slowly and over a time. And it should come out in the other dialogue or a, maybe you'll do a flashback later, or you'll have something else to explain why that reaction is. Autumn (27m 38s): You can allow that the reader to be a little bit like, Oh, well, I don't know why they did that. Exactly. But it's an obvious trait. Something triggered this emotion. And that is definitely one of the writing techniques to is that you actually get rid of things. Like he thought he wondered hee all those little verbs. It says the character is thinking that no one of these just do it. You have that thought, Oh yeah, you do this action. You don't think about doing it, right. Jesper (28m 4s): Yeah. At least some of what you said there. I think that that applies just as well to the third person limited you, you should try to not wander off into all these kinds of other explanations as well. And that's not specific to Deep point of view where so much I think it's yeah. It's, it's just good Writing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Autumn (28m 27s): Yeah. Geez. You both said it. Yeah. Too funny. Jesper (28m 31s): But is there, I was just wondering, because you're being the editor here. So if, for example, let's say I'm being the listener here. Now I wrote, I wrote my first draft and now I'm sitting down and I want to edit it and I want to make sure it is Deep point of view. Well, enough if I can say it like that. So is there anything you would say, like, this is a sort of the check list or these other things that you should be top five things you should be looking for? Something like that. It is. Is there any, anything you do when you edit all of them too, to make sure that, that the product is well in or written well, and the point of view? Autumn (29m 21s): Absolutely. And I mean, the first one I think is taking out those things, like he thinks like, when she feels like if you had to sentence, like he, you know, if he feels a sweat of sweat beat on his forehead, no, you just go straight to sweat. What does it feel when a sweat runs down out of that hit right on his skin. Yes, exactly, exactly what you try to really imagine what it would feel like to do that. And you cut out those words that he feels, and he thinks, because those are actually create a little barrier between the character and the reader. And the whole point of the point of view is to just remove that barrier. And another thing is you often see people say like, he thinks about this, or he thinks that she is an idiot. Autumn (30m 8s): No, it would literally be like, she's an idiot. That would be the character thought you would start doing those little introductory phases because it is literally like journaling in third-person. You want it to seem like you were just totally seated in that. Yeah. Jesper (30m 22s): Yeah. I think that is exactly the key. Right? If you imagine yourself, when you're riding, if you imagine how I am inside the character, I wouldn't say to myself, I'm thinking, I would just think it right. Autumn (30m 35s): I know exactly. If you wouldn't write it in first person, you won't write it in a Deep point of view. And so, yeah, like I think about going to the grocery store now, don't you just go to the grocery store and that is how it works. And those are the important little clues. And even like I said, the Italian is a lot of ice. Sometimes get readers who will read back when I stuff it's like, well, this is a thought it should be an Italian as well. You don't have to do that at the point of view, it should come across very naturally. If you want to see some really good Deep point of view, go read some George RR Martin. He is an expert at really anchoring into a character's head and really feeling like that world comes alive through that character. Autumn (31m 18s): And that is, you know, you really make sure you dwell on the other senses, seeing what else is going on so that you have the thinking, the feeling of the touching, the tasting, all of those things are very much alive and nuanced throughout every single chapter. Yeah. Jesper (31m 34s): Yeah, absolutely. And I think actually, I don't know if, if, if, if you agree with me here, but I'm almost thinking like isn't a lot of this really a bit of just a mindset shift on your approach to Writing rather than it is like a new technique as such. That's, that's almost how I think about it. Autumn (31m 59s): I think it is. It is just realizing that the reason for this person is so spectacular is that you are really just with one character and you feel so connected with that character. And that's what gets you turning pages is because you want to see what happens to that character. So this was being able to do that exact same thing and those exact same emotional pools, but with multiple characters. And again, though, this is where you need to be careful or is that you then don't want to have 10 character's in your story. You want to keep it as limited as possible. And when it really becomes hard is when you switch to a character you don't like, or like the villain, you want to do the best you can to be that character, his voice, and show the world through their perspective. Autumn (32m 47s): And that's why it works so fantastic. When you have those gray characters that you have a good characters that have some bad falls and bad characters that had some really good ones that you can show that they are really doing all of the wrong things, but for the right reasons. And that's where it's so impactful. It, it makes the stories. I think the ones that are really linger with you after you closed the book are the ones that are written and Deep point of view because you just really can not get these characters out of your head. And when you're writing it, you really can't get these characters. Knowing that Jesper (33m 19s): That's also a challenge in the sense that we recently completed our first a reader magnet on a short story where the character, he is one of the Ember dwarves and I was setting, which means that the end, but wolfs are not very nice, you know, setting a no. And then the third thing is that as people know, I can actually be quite a challenge to write a character like that because he can come across as not being very nice. He's not very likable necessarily because that's the way he is. That's a part of their culture. Jesper (33m 59s): So it was a bit of a challenge to write it in a way whereby the Rita actually understands where the guy's coming from, you know, the, that they understand, like he's not doing these things or he doesn't view things this way because he wants to be evil or anything like that. It is just, that's the way he grew up. That's, that's part of his culture. And of course, Deep point of view is excellent at explaining those things. But at the same time, it's also a bit of a challenge to, to nuance it a bit so that it doesn't come across as well as to blatant, because it's quite easy to sort of say, like, you're saying, well, we use grocery shopping before. Jesper (34m 42s): Right. But, but if it was, you know, if it was something set Fantasy related, like it all peoples all humans, I hate to humans or whatever. Right. And then it's very easily to just say that and move on. But then you're also leaving the reader with the feeling like this is a complete idiot, this person, right. I don't like that, that character. So I guess is what I'm trying to say and what I'm talking to, what else is probably as well that you need to be a bit mindful about how you do it as well, too. So you can just do not end up coming across as it will assholes. Basically. You don't want that either, right? Autumn (35m 22s): No, no. I think that's a really important, I mean, if for some reason maybe this is, it speaks poorly of me, but I have often been able to get into my villains easier than a few other characters. I had one that was a politician and an extrovert, and he could just whip off these speeches and to get into his mind. Cool. I mean, it felt like it was a contortionist, but that's just what you're trying to put on this other person's skin and its even more. So you have to understand how they act, why they act, how they would see things and why do they care about the things they do, even if its completely different from you and you'd have to avoid explaining it from an outside perspective, like, Oh, humans are horrible and just go all out. Autumn (36m 6s): But most humans, you know, and then going into a rant about what's going on with humans, no, you have to be like humans, there's stupid meat sacks. You know, you have to, they're always carrying about things that yeah. You know, like money and whatever, and that's not what the door is square or whatever it is. You have to stick really deeply into that mindset of that character in that race. And you really, like you said, you really have to have all of that, figure it out to start writing. And even when I used to have to get to the Deep point of view, if the character was an already alive in my head, I would have to do some journaling. I would have to do some day before story is, I'd call it like the day before they ended up in the novel and I would write those in first person and I'd be like, Oh, you know, that's why this character is acting this way. Autumn (36m 49s): And that's why we are that way. When you start on page one, when they enter the story, you are like, you already have that figured out, you know, their mindset and you can kind of push yourself into it because you really do have to almost right a little bit before you start writing to really understand the character or go back and add it in when you edit, because that's the other thing to look for is going back and, you know, checking over all your work and seeing where that mindset could be better, where you can cut out words where you can really make sure it's coming from the character as a worldview and their lens of how the world works and what they're really aiming. You know? Jesper (37m 26s): Yeah. The thing that I find quite difficult with the point of view is for example, in the novel's we are currently riding, we have a, a goddess and when you are dealing with basically a deity, you know, some, somebody who is, who is just not all of our world and probably have motivations and drives that we don't even understand. They are. I, I really feel with her when writing her and I feel is very, very difficult to, to do other than basically more standard third person limited around her because I don't know how she feels. Autumn (38m 16s): No, but I think it in its own way, I think that's kind of exciting because with their person limited versus Deep point of view, so you have a character that's kind of unknowable and you just kind of change how they're being portrayed, especially because you know, if that character is maybe not a good point of view, but you hear it, see them more and dialogue, or even if you are in their mind, but its kind of less clear and less anchored that's you can do that purposefully to make this character seem more unknowable. And it's a very slight difference, but you can use these to your advantage. And I think that's sort of, what's cool about it is that you don't have to have every single character anchored in to your point of view. Autumn (38m 60s): If you have one that is more lofty, you can keep them out of it. And one of the neat things is, is if you are a misleading character and they are firmly believed that EI is going to happen and that is what they're aiming towards and that as maybe the lie they have been told, but they believe at a a hundred percent. And so the reader will believe at a a hundred percent all the while, you know, see you is what's gonna happen and you have this huge shift, it can be so much more dramatic and maybe you shouldn't delay it in light to your reader is, but it's so much fun to lie to your readers and Deep point of view. And it's believable because there's not that omniscient pull back where you are kind of like hinting at it. Autumn (39m 41s): The character is going full tilt towards believing. This is true. And they kind of get a carpet whipped out from under there. So yeah, Jesper (39m 49s): You can have some of those a bit like what the character didn't know was blah, blah, blah, that you sometimes see that in some, I think you all can do this as well. Sometimes. Like what Frodo didn't know at this point in time was out at the door. That kind of thing is no go in and Deep point of view. Autumn (40m 8s): No. And I think a lot of writer's think that, that his building the tension, But 2 million that is completely remove the emotion of right. It's maybe you would have, yeah. You have a little bit of curiosity, four. It, but it's so much more like get you a gasp when the character is just yanked a different direction that you didn't see coming. But when you hear like this lady's little clues, but what if he didn't know it was over on the Shire? Oh, you know that's, if you're just suddenly pulled out of the story, I don't know if that character's head and its just not as much fun. You can actually put the book down at that point and a lot going on. Yeah. Jesper (40m 41s): Yeah. I would say that a guy in conclusion, I think I would pose a challenge to the listener. You know, if, if you're never written in Deep point of view before, try it out, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's fine. But just try it out. Try to imagine yourself in the skin of the character and Right. What you feel, what you hear, what you see, what you teach or taste, what you can touch and that's, that's what you are allowed to. Right? Nothing else. You are not allowed to say. He didn't know this, that he didn't know that. Or explain this in that like you would normally you have to go with what the character knows and feels and tried to write a chapter like that and compare it to your other chapters. Jesper (41m 28s): And I almost want to say with certainty that you will find that it's, Autumn (41m 37s): You'll find, you'll find that you resonate with the character more. You'll find those more action. There is a lot less. Tell me a lot more sho and it'll just be like, you'll be like, wow, this is, this is pretty good. And if you don't come back and let us know what I want to see the difference because I firmly believed the point of view. Those are the stories that I love to read. And they're the ones I loved to write. And I think you'll find other readers react differently. If you show me what you wrote to someone else. Well, no matter what you think, if you show it to someone or a reader, see what they say, which one? So I don't know. Is there any like, did we miss some important elements here when it comes to the point of view a Autumn? Autumn (42m 20s): I don't think so. The line is going to readers. I had hopping. I was just like doing that. I would love misleading my readers. I have to admit it. And just that it's an important way of showing even your evil characters. It really is a useful technique. Or even if you then switch to a third person, limited for a, some characters that are much more unknowable, it can be really okay. So next Monday we actually are gonna talk about one of my favorite topics because we are going to talk about creating a magic system. Narrator (42m 54s): And if you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.
An awesome fantasy world can make a story — just as a terrible or terrifying one can make you run for a different book. Join Autumn and Jesper as they go head to head to come up with the worst fantasy world... or figure out how to create a story out of some pretty horrifying recommendations. If you want to check out the Story Idea book Autumn and Jesper mention in the podcast, head over to https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas (and check out the brand new audiobook that was just released!). OR pick up the Plot Development book and get a free ebook copy of Story Ideas at https://books2read.com/Plot-Development. Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 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). Narrator (2s): You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need. And literary agent, there is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper. Autumn (31s): And I am Autumn. Jesper (33s): This is episode 123 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And today we are going to run it one of our not so serious episodes. We are going to dive into our alternate alternating lists. That's what, what I'm trying to say at the WORST and or scary fantasy world that we can think of. So they should probably be able to be a good one. Autumn (1m 2s): And it should be, I have some fun doing some research thinking or finding some books. I am not sure if I wanted to read, but just to get inspiration, but it was actually a really fun one to come up with the list. So will have to see if I do a stool. Appreciate. Dominic's a comment that I always win it. And so I just thought, well, that's, that's the stuff we don't talk to her. Jesper (1m 25s): And I think actually I think we already know who's going to win this one. So apparently we don't need to talk to, well, no, he does know what he was talking about it. Autumn (1m 35s): I figured out that comment would make you go and do like extra work on this one. Jesper (1m 40s): So actually it wasn't the back of my mind when I make my list, I was like, I have to come up with something good today. So I figured, so it will have to see, I definitely have a surprise for you at number one where I pulled it from. So it will have to, Oh no, it's already such as like, Oh no. Oh no. It, it must be a bad thing. One. Yeah. I'm sure you don't worry. You don't want you to stress now. And we have to get that. Autumn (2m 5s): It's like at the end, it's in 40 minutes. So don't worry about it. You don't want to stress to the next 40 minutes. I can probably count. Let it go. You do you have more of a calm? I thought I was a competitor until I met you and you have a much more of a competition edge. Jesper (2m 22s): Okay. To say, I like to compete, to be honest with him and well, I can at least pretend to be a sore loser. Normally. I'm not that I like to. I like to play the game here. You have to be a good example, too. The kids who are the referee and the adults you referee, sometimes it sounds like the last weekend I handed out three yellow cards for people who were doing the scent, you know, complaining about things. So well, but that's a nice thing that, you know, there are, I don't have to be the sole lose. If they disagree with me, I can just give them the yellow car. End of story. That you know, you do not have that power over me. I'm sorry. No worries. Jesper (3m 2s): Yeah. Yeah. I think I've said to my wife at some point that I would love it. If it was possible, you know, in business meetings to bring my yellow and red cards and you just like, yeah, Autumn (3m 12s): Well you are out by, by that. Wouldn't be so much easier than it would be pretty good, like a mediator or something. That'd be fantastic. You know, here's your card and you got to do your out time out yet. Go sit up for five minutes. So that would change the dynamics of things so much. It would. But I think that a lot of people wouldn't like you either, but That's a different story. You probably have to work for an independent agency where they can't fire you. Jesper (3m 39s): Yeah. Well, that's it, Is that the moral on again with all the cards in his pocket? Or what the hell are you Sure? It was like, Oh no, it's another meeting today. Yeah. Autumn (3m 49s): Oh, well, but it is besides that, besides the refereeing, how are things over on your side as well as the Atlantic? Jesper (3m 55s): Well, it's a pretty good. My son's were actually going to go to the hairdresser today for the first time in months down the road in the lockdown. Yeah. It was a sign that I was very jealous, but then it just got worse because then the head rest is a canceled. Oh no, it was so frustrating. My, my oldest son who was really annoyed by it at the, Yeah. I don't know, like everybody else, I guess a we, or like a hair monsters is walking around here the whole time Autumn (4m 23s): Or like my long hair. I took a couple years to grow this. Backout different for, you know, and that's the same as well. Go for the Viking. Look, you know, in braids and some long it'll be fine. Yeah. And that's your heritage, it's your heritage. You, you need to go for it. Yeah. Jesper (4m 43s): But that is true. But actually over the weekend as well, just to say, tell you that, that I watch one of the movies that you were recommending, Autumn (4m 51s): Which one Jesper (4m 52s): I've watched The yang yang master on the floor. Autumn (4m 55s): Excellent. What did you think you didn't even say? Jesper (4m 58s): No, I didn't know if that was on purpose Or holding out. I always want to hold Out and stuff up. Autumn (5m 5s): Then we recorded a podcast or a I'm sensing a trend. Jesper (5m 9s): Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. No, no. I think, I think it was good. I like the is not going to do in this partnership, but I liked, as you said as well that you don't quite see Don and coming. Oh, I like that. Autumn (5m 24s): Yeah. I, I, the setup was like, Oh, there's no way out of the day. Oh really? That makes so much sense. It's perfect. So that one is much better than the, the other one that is also the ying-yang masters, having the one that one's not quite as good. And like I said, especially for the one you just watched ferret demons. Oh my God, what a fair or a demon. So I might technically have one if you've seen my dog, but yeah. They're so cute. And they were all, so yeah. Jesper (5m 53s): So, so we have any listeners out there. If you want to a way that it is a FANTASY movie, it is, it is Chinese, but that doesn't mean I don't mind being a Chinese, but maybe some people do it, but it's called the young, young master. And it's a show on Netflix. So a, if you want to check that out and ah, yeah, I should have just have to do it. It's a bit different in many ways, you know, it's, it has almost like a human side to it as well. Like it's a, it's a bit, it's not silly at all, but, but it is a bit like some of the creatures is a bit, like, I almost feel like they put in down as a comical relief, you know, Autumn (6m 33s): And the turtles, Jesper (6m 36s): They are also pretty cool. I mean, it is very FANTASY heavy, at least. So yeah. Autumn (6m 40s): FANTASY have a very good CGI, very good acting and a story that has a twist at the end that you don't see coming and you don't see how that's going to have to work out. I thought it was a fantastic FA fantastic storytelling and fun event. It would, if it was a book, I totally would have to read it. So it was excellent. Jesper (6m 60s): Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was based on or off a book. No, no, no, no, no. I read actually the first movie, the one I just watched the yang master, that's actually based off a video game. And then the other one that you just mentioned, the turn it to yang yang master, they turn it to you or something. I think it was called that's based off the book. Okay. And that one is, I have not watched the second one, the eternity one yet. But as far as I read that one is a bit more dark. Whereas this one young master is a bit more lighthearted. Autumn (7m 31s): That sounds very correct. Yeah. Jesper (7m 35s): Okay. But how about you? You, you had a bit of a bumpy ride, this bus. Autumn (7m 40s): Okay. That seems to be a, as long as it doesn't go back to whatever month I said that I felt like I was cursed. I know, I think that was February, but as long as it doesn't go that way, we should be all right. But its been, that's been a little bit of a hiccup. My vaccine was canceled at the last minute. So now I don't get vaccinated until may because they changed the Johns, the Johnson and Johnson has some side effects, which I have to admit. I would probably be right in the target of potentials for side effects. So Lina, maybe it was a good thing, but it has been one of those weeks where you feel like the rug has pulled out of you, I'm a Hunter you with every step. So at this point I'm just expecting someone to push me off a cliff and we stay away from cliffs or they're just send me a parachute and Well, or Mary Poppins or has an umbrella or something I need to, I need a safety net this week, but we will get through it. Autumn (8m 36s): And I will not. Maybe it's because of what happens to be my birthday or a week. So maybe its just, you know, fate instead of rubbing in it, I will ignore that. I've been hoping for a good week. I'm planning for a good birthday. Oddly enough. It's been, the weather here has been gorgeous in the sixties. Sunny, just lovely. Except for oddly enough that day on my birthday, it was supposed to snow seven inches. Right. And so I was going to go out to a, a lovely restaurant were actually having a certificate. Autumn (9m 16s): I think it was going to be perfect. And now I'm just thinking, well shoot, I'm just going to get cheesecake and cheesecake. Good. Maybe it was too much hot chocolate in Rome and cheese kick-ass or movie or something. I feel like this movie and just get it over with, but that's how my week moving on. Jesper (9m 40s): Okay. So if you just want to move on, Autumn (9m 44s): Let's go up Narrator (9m 45s): A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Jesper (9m 50s): I okay. It took out a long, long time for audible to accept the files. I am pleased to announce that the audio book version of our guide book on how to develop story ideas is now finally available for like four or five months old. So I think more than that, I think it's great. They have a year of six month. Autumn (10m 14s): Oh that is insane. I am so excited though. You did it again. You didn't tell me this or no, I didn't come to you in education were running up this disk. They'll send you back for training. Yeah. Jesper (10m 29s): Well I thought it's excellent communication. I'm telling you right now. Autumn (10m 35s): Well, that is exciting. So what are we going to do to sell a bright, having our book finally approved as an audio book Jesper (10m 44s): That I don't know that it's a celebration. That's the part, I don't know how to do. I need more training on how I'll just say like, but maybe because I have an audio sample prepared, but maybe you could just to remind people what this book is about. And then afterwards I can just play a short sample right here and now Autumn (11m 4s): Six months in a week of heck it's a story ideas now. So I do remember that it is full of tips and ideas on developing your story ideas and how to generate different ways of coming up with ideas in getting the, that flowing, its almost like creating a muscle memory of how do you come up with ideas and develop that. And it's a whole different skillset. So it's all about that. And I think I did. Okay. And I'm going to stop speaking. Jesper (11m 35s): How are you afraid you are going to jinx it? Autumn (11m 39s): Yeah, definitely. Let me touch on the computer. It will go black. Jesper (11m 43s): Okay. So I have a, a short sample lined up here just so that the For Lissa listeners. So you can see, you can hear what is, sounds like it's a bit more than a minute in length. So a lien back and just a listened to it here. And of course listener, if, if you're not too interested in this book, just, you know, we use your podcast app too, a skip ahead in a minute or something, but here we go. Derek Botten (12m 10s): We don't need to understand how our brains produce Ideas. We need to acknowledge that they do. It's not magic generating story ideas. Isn't a single event, but a creative process that involves collecting input from our environment and experiences to transform those loose fragments into a coherent hole. Well, we said that most original ideas has already been conceived. We also mentioned how inspiration is at the heart of combining OLED elements into something new or the greatest novel it is yet to be written. And when that happens will still be able to say the greatest novel is you have to be written. Every idea in the world is waiting to be done again with a new spin or an unexpected reveal. Derek Botten (12m 56s): All it takes is to understand how to open our minds and allow inspiration to hit home. The more we experience, the more material we have available to interrelate and create new combinations from the better. For instance, when J K Rowling came up with the idea for Harry Potter, she was stuck on a train from Manchester to London, King's cross. Or how about Suzanne Collins? She got the idea for the hunger games when channel surfing between reality TV and actual war coverage from Iraq. The point is that story ideas are all around us. We need to train our brains to look for them and then note them down. As soon as they come into existence, in a sense, it becomes a simple matter of collecting enough input from your environment and putting those ideas through the brainstorming process. Derek Botten (13m 46s): This will lead you to the perfect premise for your story. So Jesper (13m 51s): How do you like the Narrator here? Why don't you want him? Autumn (13m 53s): And he's got a very soothing as a friendly voice. I can listen to that one all day. Yeah, I really liked. Jesper (14m 2s): So we place the link in the show notes from a where you can find this audio book and if you prefer an ebook version or a paperback that's found via that same link as well. And a little secret for our listeners here is that the Epic ebook version of this book is actually available for free because if you buy the plotting guide and will also put a link to that one in the show notes as well. But if you, by the plotting guide insight, you will actually find a link which will give you this story idea book for free. Of course the ebook version of it, the audio book version you can get for free. Autumn (14m 39s): You know, fortunately I was actually thinking as well, all of them that, and of course I'm communicating this to you now. Okay. That was great. A very Well known. Is it okay? Jesper (14m 54s): Yeah. Cause I'm going to have communication skills here. What if we a set that I'm the first five people who leave a review of this podcast will get a free audio book. Autumn (15m 10s): I think that's brilliant. I love giving rewards to listeners. So let's do it. It will have to, we'll have to be on the spot and checking times, but yeah, first five who leave a review. Jesper (15m 24s): Yeah. So we will do it like this. If you like the podcast, leave a rating and review right now and we are going to go first, come first served. Meaning it is when we receive your information about the review left. So you will leave your ratings, leave your review, then go to Am Writing Fantasy dot com and use the contact form on their and send us a link or a screenshot of the review. If you just left. And the first five emails we get and that's the timestamp in our inbox, the first five we get, we will get back to those five people with a free download code for this audio book. Jesper (16m 5s): So don't delay, if you wait too long, it will be too late. So yeah, go ahead and, and leave a review and a will give you a free audio book sound the same time. Autumn (16m 16s): Yeah, I think that's a really cool and then that's a way of celebrating. We go into audio book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jesper (16m 21s): That's true. Yeah. Inadvertently and this is celebrate is something I wouldn't even notice myself. That's my bad on who we are going to work on. That I have a feeling that we are accidentally going to expire some people today when we go through all of this Autumn. Yeah, Autumn (16m 45s): Probably I would think so. I definitely chose M one or two worlds where I think I would probably not make it more of a pro. Definitely not to the teenage years, but if it was dropped in it as an adult, I would probably have a few hours still live. So yeah, Jesper (16m 60s): It seems to be my way, maybe not to inspire people in the way that they are going to copy the actual things that we say, but maybe some of the stuff we say it may be. Some people feel like I can actually use a small part of that on an element of that and change it around to something else. And a, I think, you know, you know, if that happens too, some of the listeners please steal away, just take whatever we say and use it. I don't care. You can steal all you want from this podcast episode. And then of course at the end will have to conclude a winner. Even though we might actually do that in two seconds, that's probably a predetermined, but, Autumn (17m 36s): And knowing how my week is going. Sure. I Have no doubt. I'm expecting the PODCAST, to die and in a second, Jesper (17m 44s): No, no, please. Don't jinx it a, I know your blood will have, it has quite an effect on electronics, right? It does. It, it does. That's what it is. That one step back. Yeah. Don't touch the computer Please. Before we get started, I came across a very funny comment, a on the internet, but I just thought it would, she has to be okay. It doesn't really fit into the list of five, but it was just such a funny comment that the way I thought was good at it. So we were, there was the question on the inside and posted about, which was the Wii WORST Fantasy Worlds to live in four, a normal person. Jesper (18m 26s): And so it doesn't quite fit with our lists. Yeah. But somebody to answer to this question was, well, I think it would be becoming a volunteer firefighter in King's landing. Autumn (18m 41s): Well, that's, that has a pretty good comment, But pretty bad jobs to have it. It's a pretty bad job or that kind of hard for me. So I dunno, I think we'd be left. So if they want us to share it up, all right, well I'm sure you'll get a few chuckles or who are listening to it. So that, it's a very good one, but I have to admit, I said there is, I, we both made a point not to steal from work's because we don't want to say that we think this world is horrible and it's like your favorite story. So we tried to come up with our own and I think that's the way to do it, but getting some inspiration, like reading some comments and stuff online, and there were some really funny comments and there were some things at work. Autumn (19m 23s): And I did, I really did find the one that was like WORST Worlds. And there was a whole setup about a cursor town that I like. This is really would be interesting story. And it's sounds creepy. And what do you need to start bookmarking some of these, but it was actually not bad at all. Yeah, no, it was more of like, it's the WORST world. Like you would not want to be out in the world actually. And it was like, Oh, that must have been a very riveting story. So, you know, WORST worlds can be very inspiring. That's true. Jesper (19m 56s): Yeah. I don't think that's not quite the way I've gone with my list, to be honest, if either it's not like inspiring And at all, Autumn (20m 4s): I think I went with the potential for death horrifying and yeah. That's about where I went. Jesper (20m 13s): Yeah. I tried to put a slightly different angle on most of mine to be honest, but because I have to try too. Yeah. Well now that is to say that, you know, the problem is sometimes when you try to be too unique, then it falls apart. So I ah, no, I, I am losing confidence in my list. All of it. Autumn (20m 35s): Excellent. No, that's not good. I am ready to begin. Now I on me, I need a, when this week come on, it's my birthday. And we see that this my pantry, cause this is like Jesper. I powers your using on me. Like I'm Fe it's not fair. It's just not fair. I can't deny my breath. Right. Jesper (21m 0s): Okay. Okay. Well, I almost feel like I want you to stop because I want to hear if I'm, if you start out really strong than I am getting really nervous, but if we could settle my nervous a bit, If, if the first one you've come up with is like, yeah, no, it's okay. Then I would feel better already. Autumn (21m 14s): Well, this is my first one. We'll make you feel better because it was kind of, I actually changed it from something incredibly boring because I went with stories that would create Worlds that we create a horrible story. I guess it was really the theme of a mine. Yes, yes. And so that's what I wanted. But the first one is kind of, I just had to put it in there and I have a reason. And I'll let you see if you can guess because its something that I think you would suspect knowing me and also knowing something that's true to your heart as well. Jesper (21m 43s): So are you setting me up for failure? So if I can guess it, that it makes me look like for you, you should have known this. Autumn (21m 49s): Oh, we'll see. We'll see what we've already even talked about it today. So you're ready from my number one. Well, my number five is not the worst world. We are going to build out a number five. Yes. My number five. So this is a world where the water has been turned to undrinkable muck full of chemicals that will slowly poison you. Any animals that live in it or are mutated in the inevitable that live in the water. The soil has been contaminated so much that you are lucky to grow crops. And even if you could, the SOF, your reign will most likely destroy them. If it rains at all, it might be a drought year or it might be the aesthetic hurricane full of tornadoes. Autumn (22m 29s): It just comes in waves out. Everything. Most animals have been killed off due to the pollutants. The landscape has a wasteland have destroyed cities. Birt husks. The building's massive contamination from the number of dead bodies, trash and leaked chemicals where any humans are writing about like Savage cannibals in the cities. So your best bet to live at all is in the countryside. If you are lucky to find any areas with existing forest and have a decent soils and of course food is scarce as possibly contaminated. And but if you band together at all with other humans to check out An existence here, they may look at you as a potential food source. Jesper (23m 11s): Hmm. Autumn (23m 12s): So I do know there are a dystopian stories that kind of had this world, but can you guess why this to me is one of the worst scariest worlds I can possibly imagine even though it's number five on my list. Jesper (23m 32s): Hmm. Autumn (23m 32s): Before we start and before we started talking in a recording today, we were talking almost about this topic when you are walking on the coast. Jesper (23m 45s): Yeah. The people are Polluting stuff and whatnot. Autumn (23m 48s): And it's based on what my absolute terrifying vision of what can happen to this world in what we're doing to it. And it had to put this one in there, right? No, this is the conservation side of me going. Yeah, Jesper (24m 3s): No, no. So yeah. This is like a fast-forwarding 500 years or something. And then see what you get up with you on that. / Autumn (24m 10s): I was afraid of fast forwarding, like 38 years. Jesper (24m 14s): Three years. Oh my God. I hope not. Autumn (24m 16s): This is a 30, But yeah, there are days I am terrified to see what we are going to wake up to tomorrow. So Jesper (24m 21s): No, no that's true. So it was just a, just yesterday it was a sunshine here find with her and then like 10 minutes later it got all cloudy and it started snowing and I was looking at it, Linda White. What happened here is just like the way the climate is so fucked up. This incredible is yeah, it is really bad. Autumn (24m 42s): Alright. So hopefully that will be eased you into the competition. Jesper (24m 47s): Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know if I feel better, but I don't feel worse either. So yeah, it was okay. That's a win. Yeah. So this year you were a number five. Okay. So my number five is I'm sort of in the same vein as You. I meaning that I was trying to think of something that would be the worst nightmare for, from a writer's perspective. Okay. So imagine that you have created this wonderful fantasy world and you have created your characters, you have written the first chapter and now at some point during your world building, you thought that readers wanted something different, you know, something that they have never seen before. Jesper (25m 36s): So your decided that this world, it would rain once every day. Okay. So, so far so good. Yeah. That's fine. It doesn't sound too. Yeah. Autumn (25m 46s): But I know. And it sounds like the Costa Rica actually, it was like everyday two o'clock so we can turn on a faucet and it rained. Right. Jesper (25m 54s): That's why I got it from No, but the thing is that every time it rains, everyone changes personality. Oh. So every day, the past is your characters will now become somebody else. Oh. And they will want something else. They don't remember what they were doing or why they're just on a new mission with new ones and motivations all of a sudden. So imagine what a mess. This novel will be. Every single chapter, the character is somebody new and there is no coherent overlap it, everything that they're doing, no consistent. It's a story arc, just character arc. Jesper (26m 35s): It's just a random chapters of a person's life that goes nowhere. And you can go four, 150,000 words like that. Autumn (26m 45s): I don't know if I could read it 150,000 words you could imagine being in the editor. I'm just going. No, no, no, no. Jesper (26m 53s): But it is unique. Well building, no, I promise you. Nobody has seen it before. I Autumn (26m 57s): Agree with you. And there might be a reason for that. Jesper (27m 1s): Or you think, you know, maybe the, everybody else is just not as much of a genius too. Right? Autumn (27m 5s): This is true as a writer. That one is absolutely horrifying. I just how you are, right. It would be just a bunch of short stories that begin and end every 24 hours or so it was just me. Yes. You could say. I mean, OK. So you could come up with the characters that is doing it's so darn just like wondering if its maybe it was more aware and maybe is it because you get wet and trying to hide from the rain and, and maintain who they are or do you have past lives? Like memories of flickers of things that you might have been doing before? See, you could Plot this year. Jesper (27m 40s): Yeah. I can do it now. You are destroying it. It was a bad idea. Now you're making are starting to make it better and making it work. And that's not the point. It's the bad list. This one is not the point. This is not to make it work. Autumn (27m 51s): And not to say I could write a story in this world. All right. Fine. No, it's horrible. There you go. Jesper (27m 58s): I am not convinced that I was very sincere. Okay. You ready for it? By number of For, okay. Autumn (28m 4s): What do you want to move on? Alright, so this one, this one I actually named, I call it Thou shall not right. Jesper (28m 10s): Okay. That sounds serious. Yes. That's a very serious. Autumn (28m 12s): This is great. Yeah. Serious world. I would not last year. Ah, it's a world that is dominated by a very strict religion. Or if you're a futuristic tech, a very strict AI where the priest or AI can read thoughts. So if you are disobey or if you even think about disobeying, you just killed your immediately kill. They just give up and go boom. So devotion is absolute or compliance is absolute. And that's why I'm saying, if I were in this world, it would be like five. It says you're out of here. So I am just not good at obeying things. I swear. I, it was a nice teenager. It's just been since then. Autumn (28m 54s): So yeah. That's, that's why I call it that I shall not because of this world. Jesper (28m 59s): Yeah. I wouldn't last long and I can tell you, And if they can, if they can read your thoughts, then nobody can avoid thinking something against the rules. Once in a while it was just impossible. I mean, everybody would die in this world. You know, there would be nobody left just the AI or the priests is. Yeah, Autumn (29m 19s): I agree. And that's what That I, so in the eye by making it so strict that even your thoughts, we can get, you killed that. It just writing a story. What are you going to do with all these robots? Like people just, you know, thinking happy thoughts or listening to like constant music to keep themselves like the site or, you know, you want to write about the rebel. You want to, if I right about the person, who's going to find a way out of this trick. But yeah. Jesper (29m 43s): But, but then if you had a non I'm going to, I'm trying to destroy you as too. So if you have the character who was actually the only one who is mine, they can not read. And he is trying to battle the powers that be in trying to figure out how we can free the rest of the people from this sort of mind control. Yeah. I can write that story. Not a problem, Autumn (30m 5s): A problem. As long as you can throw in the one person like you can't read, you'd be all set. But if it's a a hundred percent, they can read all your thoughts and your growth from the time you were a child, you were like, yeah. Jesper (30m 15s): Do you know what if it this way? What if it's one of the AI's who is going to be in it? Oh, I like that one. There you go. Ding, ding. Ding. Autumn (30m 25s): Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Okay, good. So if you were making my bad ideas is a good ones. I am going to make you a bad ideas and the good ones as well. If that's the way you want it to be that way. Yeah. Okay. So my number for yes. And this one might be quite interesting for the writer. I think maybe the reader we'll actually hate you for ' Jesper (30m 53s): It. Excellent. So The foreword to some one star reviews coming your way, Autumn (30m 58s): It would ever write a book just to get one star or you would like to start up the pen name. Like I want to write trash. Yeah. Jesper (31m 3s): You're going to change the worst stuff I can think of that. Autumn (31m 6s): But you might like, it would be the ones that take off anyway. Go ahead. Your number for her. Jesper (31m 13s): Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is a setting where it's, let's say it's mostly like the, well, the detail, so that makes it better. But it's actually the fact that there is no details. Okay. So everything is just made up at random as you go. Oh, and so it's not, it's not so, so that you make it up as you go as in like discovery Writing and then you will make it fit into what you already got. This is more like you have to use a random generator on the internet and whatever it tells you, that's what you have to use as the settings setting the elements. Autumn (31m 59s): So if it like spits out umbrella and Gumdrop rainstorm, that's great. Jesper (32m 4s): And then this is what it is then that's what it is. Autumn (32m 8s): This is going to be really fun as a writer, but you know, the readers or going to be like, Oh, this makes no sense at all. Jesper (32m 14s): Okay. Why did he throw in an umbrella at the dragon there? That makes no sense. So yeah. Yeah. I think readers will be pretty damn frustrated with this kind of world. No, but I can imagine teaching yeah. Autumn (32m 30s): Writer conference, I'm a writer course like an in-person one and it's like it's right. Or improv or it would be so much fun to teach, to be like, cause it is something like storytelling around a campfire. I have, you know, when you do some of those exercises where you have to continue on a story that you passed in the chain and it was going to be so much fun. So this is sort of like kind of along those lines. And you know, as a, as our teacher, I would like to, I want to go do this as a reader. I would hate your guts. Yes. Jesper (32m 59s): It would be like, Oh, this is the worst crap I've ever. Autumn (33m 4s): But it, yeah. For a tool I'm just like developing your author voice and coming up with Ideas. It would be a blast. Jesper (33m 14s): Yeah. True. All right. Well lets see, I like that one. Okay. All right. Well I don't like it, but okay. That's good that you do. Autumn (33m 22s): I, I see it a tool. It, it would be an interesting tool, but yeah. And I would never want to publish something that can get out of it unless you like developed it For Jesper (33m 33s): Well the fast, imagine how fast you can write it. Just copy and pasting out of random generators like in here with that. And then he did and then the next random generating And copy that paste in, it will take you like half a day and then you have another. Yeah, Autumn (33m 45s): Well it would be for the bizarre I'm sure some of it's going to go do this now and just see what comes up, dragon in whatever the search term comes up with it. Or you go out there. You are good. All right. So you are ready for my number three. Jesper (34m 1s): Yes. Autumn (34m 1s): All right. I named this one too. And it sort of reminds me of your number five. So I call this one now you're here now. You're not okay. And so this is a world where random wormholes appear without warning, you can be walking down a path and be transported to the top of the mountain or the middle of the ocean or in a erupting volcano. And so like Stories I life, it would be so chaotic and unpredictable that it would be impossible to actually write a comprehensive story because you would just be like walking and poof, you know, you wouldn't be able to be with any one. You love you wouldn't your life would be inconsistent. So where yours was your memories or a race, hear you are physically, you know who you are and you're physically transported. Autumn (34m 46s): Do you know to a cliff? Jesper (34m 51s): Yeah. Nice. But could you have like some sort of limited countermeasure or something? Autumn (34m 57s): I'm not sure if something, if you run up a bit. Jesper (34m 60s): Yeah. So, so if you have something like if you have this substance or whatever it is, and it's very limited in supply, but if you have it, you can basically just walk straight through the wormhole, roll out and taking you anywhere. You, you know, we just want to walk through it and keep going wherever you are, where we are going already. But if you don't have it, it sucks you up and drops you somewhere else. Autumn (35m 21s): I could see that. Or I can imagine if, you know, if, if you manage to have kids and you know, there are people are evolving on this world, eventually evolutionarily, someone's going to be able to control where the worm hole goes or at least start being able to manipulate it slightly. Would that be fun? So Yes, I, I was again, yeah. You know, you can find your way around it, but at, at, at its purest form before the child has evolved enough to learn that if they are thinking about something, they can direct where the wormhole goes and completely change as a society, it would be just a mess to Right. I, the love interest, poof. Jesper (35m 59s): Well, she is now in the middle of the ocean and proof. He is in the volcano. Autumn (36m 4s): We have stories over and it was the choose your own adventure gone wrong. Jesper (36m 9s): But it would actually also be pretty crazy from like, like say if, lets say you have the One like court made that knows how to control this and its like, poof, well the arm is, or is that your front gate now? Autumn (36m 24s): But yeah, there you go. That's like pretty great. Jesper (36m 28s): And yeah, and also, Autumn (36m 29s): I mean, that's the other thing. So I mentioned that it was all happens when you're walking. So what if you don't walk, you know, that's what you use to send them the servant's or something. There's definitely ways of playing with this so that it would be much less, much more controlled. And that's what you need to be able to develop a story is having control of things. But the minute things go completely random. Yeah. Good luck for writing the book. That's just me is true. Yes. Okay. Jesper (36m 56s): You are not my fault for my number three. I sort of decided that to make my list a winning list, I needed to also play on some scary ones are excellent. So number three and number two is scary ones rather than a terrible ones. Bad ones. Okay. And I felt like with two of those on my list is going to be really strong. Okay. And what better way to do that than picking some real world locations to serve as inspiration for Stories, settings. Okay. So when things are based off of reality, then it becomes a bit more scary and it's true. Jesper (37m 41s): Let's go back here in the Nordics actually in Norway to be precise, you will find a place known as ECA is house fortress. That's already sounds terrifying. Yeah, it is. As it sounds, it's a medieval castle and is actually also used as the mysterious setting for the fiction novel, the snowman, which is written by Joe Nesper. If you know him, it's a pretty well known Norwegian author. But the thing is that many locals act to report that this place is haunted. Jesper (38m 21s): Excellent. So the most famous residents today are the ghosts of a woman and the demon dog that wonder is the castle grounds. Oh demon dogs. Yeah. So imagine a story where you are trapped inside this castle. I think that could be pretty damn horrific Autumn (38m 43s): Though, if a real story. Cause we both have watched those M the haunting of Hill house, the haunting of, or something blind manner. I can't remember the one that is correct. We have of both watched those and Yes, I, horror story is hunting Stories are definitely spine tingling, especially when it's based on real events. So this can be quite, let's see, it's not a terrifying one to write it. And I think that'd be a fun story to write. So Writing. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a terrifying setting. It is a terrifying and that I did, I just didn't notice. We were so many people would say yes, it sounds like a great story to write, but we're talking like worse for at least this is a real thing. That's, that's terrifying. Autumn (39m 23s): You don't want to live and you don't want to live in, In even game of Thrones. I mean, it has to be people to live, to survive. If you are a good person, you are dead in like two days. So there's are no places if you want to really live. But yeah, Jesper (39m 39s): Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that was my Autumn (39m 41s): Number three. How do I like that? That sounds like it's going to be on must visit to the list when I come over to see, you know. Yeah. Jesper (39m 48s): Well it is in Norway and not in Denmark, but anyway, so yeah. Autumn (39m 51s): Is it still closer to you than it is to me? So yeah, Jesper (39m 54s): I guess it is. Yes. Technically you could say that. Yeah. Autumn (39m 58s): Okay. So it's the end of the world. It's good or excellent. I like that. I love it. I used to read horror, haunted, Real hauntings stories when I was a teenager. So that's really cool. All right. So you ready for my number to, Jesper (40m 14s): yes. Autumn (40m 14s): All right. This one I named poison. So this is a world where the soil is formed from uranium. So it's not such a high level that you would die instantly if you found yourself there, but high enough that it quickly starts affecting your DNA. So lumps will form across your skin has massive cancers form under your lymph nodes. Jesper (40m 38s): Your lungs will feel with cancer cells so that you have a hard time breathing. The marrow of your bones is altered, weakening the structure so that you can just break your leg or your toes as are walking. Your hair will start to fall out. Your skin turns to boils and kinda like just lost all of your body. Oh my God, you is excruciatingly painful until you finally die with relief. So this is poison. Have fun writing a story set there. Autumn (41m 12s): Well, I get it. I, I can see that there is a common trend here. And every one you come up with, this will have something like that. Nobody will survive this. It's impossible to live in those settings. Jesper (41m 25s): Do you know if your characters are dying because of the world? Its, you know, it's not going to be a really interesting story. Oh maybe when you made this list, you had a bad week and you poured it into the city. Autumn (41m 37s): I do it. Write this yesterday. No I I right noble. Right. And the reason I can write Nobel prize as I make lists like this one, I have a bad week. Every one dies, but I won't make it into a story. So this is what don't worry. Jesper (41m 54s): Got it. Okay. If you say So. Yeah. Autumn (41m 57s): Oh that's great. You are on for too. So, Jesper (42m 0s): But two is a yeah, I want again a scary one as I said. Okay. And I was thinking, what could make it more scary than number three is it sort of has to write. And I wanted to try to see if I could see all the way to read with this one. Oh, Autumn (42m 18s): Okay. And your number two. So this is confidence because you still have one to go. Jesper (42m 23s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I do buy number one is obvious. Who Autumn (42m 26s): Was the witness over? The last is fine. Jesper (42m 30s): Excellent. So the guy in the catacombs of Paris, those were used by actually one of my favorite vampire authors and rice. Yeah. And she used it for a coven of vampires in the novel, an interview with a vampire or interview with the vampire may be, or even vampire. I can't remember, but either or people know what I mean? Yes. And that is already pretty cool. But what if I told you that the catacombs beneath the city of Paris, there are actual skeletal remains of over 6 million people down there. Autumn (43m 9s): Well, let's see. Yeah. I didn't know it was 6 million, but I knew I've seen the walls of the skulls and the bones and I, yeah, I do. Like, Momento more, I, I, so I love these little death images and skulls. I should've been a goth, but I never was a goth if you do need to goth. But yes, the momentum OR I in the bones down there are S Oh, fascinating. I wanted to see them and it was in Paris and it never did make it down to the category. Jesper (43m 34s): Oh, nice. Yeah. You can actually see the, the part of the stacked on top of each other is down there in, in the, the catacombs there. But now I don't want to Fantasy setting where its just about skeletons everywhere to sort of a bit boring here. Well, I suppose it might be a bit scary for some, but I don't think it is scary enough. So what if the deceased walked a month among us, but you don't know who they are. So they act like us. They look like us, but they are not us. Jesper (44m 15s): So the scary part is that you know that they exist only. You don't know who it is, so it could be one of your friends. It could be your spouse. You don't know that it would be so imagining going through like that. Autumn (44m 34s): Not knowing if your, one of the other that would be good. Jesper (44m 38s): What are they up to? No good right there. Their trying to get rid of mankind. And so what a bit and you know that they exist, but you don't know who it is. Autumn (44m 45s): That would be very interesting. That'd be a fun tension filled novel too. Right? I have to admit, right. Jesper (44m 50s): Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it would be scary like hell Autumn (44m 54s): If it was real-world in like imagining that the Corona virus, the people who are infected were changed somehow. Yeah. If this was a real world and you just did it, it was the impact of getting sick with something was much more devastating and it wasn't just deaths, but change you into something like a zombie, you know, that's like not into zombie stories, but something like that. Yeah. Then what would be, if this was a real thing that would be terrifying. Yeah. Jesper (45m 19s): Yeah. But even in the Samba Stories, it's usually it's the human. So who are the scary ones into zombies? Story is not the Somme B's because the humans, humans are so scary because they can come up with all this ingenious ways of trapping in killing people and what not. So the sound bites well that they can be scary if there's a lot of them and you do. And you're trapped of course, but humans are much more dangerous. And imagine that if these people were like, look like you and act like you, but they are not you. And they want actually to, to kill you. So just going to grocery shopping you, you always have to be concerned if somebody's calling you over, it's like, Oh, are they going to kill me or something? Jesper (46m 0s): Or somebody at the side of it arose you, you come across a car has like, you know, the typical trope of a puncture tire. And they're like, can you help me? No. Hell no, I won't have to help you. Bye-bye Autumn (46m 13s): So much for a lot of good Samaritans. Jesper (46m 16s): They don't make system this setting. I think, Autumn (46m 18s): Oh, I like that. That is, that would be a very, I wouldn't know what to live there. I like, I wouldn't be able to trust you. This would be horrible. No. Yeah. I can't do that. Alright, so you ready for my number one? This one is a bit of a surprise. Actually. Jesper (46m 35s): I hope it's not too good, but yes, I'm ready. Autumn (46m 39s): This one also has a name. So its called the black Marsh in the bowl of Ashe, which both exists on the coast have storms. And I know that you are so intimately because of this one. I know we said we wouldn't pull from anyone else's novel, but I did pull from my novel. So this is from my Epic fantasy series, a rise of the fifth order. And I think they go back to it in games of fire. But so this is mine. So the, you know, stealing this one, but if you want to come and visit, talk to me, well we'll work it out. So it's, it was, it's a difficult place I'd never, ever would've went to visit here. And it was actually difficult to write about because it's so hard not to have your characters die. Autumn (47m 21s): So this is one character is mostly survive. So first this is the coast of storms, which is similar to the eternal storm. If you've heard of that in Venezuela, whereas the catacomb go river beats Lake Maracaibo. So there's an average of 260 storm, 260 storm days a year. So it's like a lightning there all the time. And that inspired the coast of storms in my novels. And it's always pitch black broken only by lightning and a lot of rain. So if your outside of the two main cities, you are in a landscape, you can barely see its most likely you are going to be soaking wet. You were walking through Mark and mud and to make it even more fun because you know what I like fun thinking as an ecologist, any plants or in this area, they can't photosynthesize. Autumn (48m 7s): They will be dormant waiting for the one or, you know, two days of sunlight where they can suddenly reproduce and grow leaves and all that other stuff or are they are going to find energy and a food source. And other means so most of the plants are actually carnivores. So giant thing is that Venus fly traps. My cat's for a strangling vines with thorns have suck your blood. So you know, the plants are going to kill you so you can imagine what kind of insects and animals eat plants up to the plans can already eat you. So you probably don't want to run into any the creatures that live there. What makes it even more fun? Autumn (48m 47s): Because you know, me and I love really fun. Fantasy settings is if you have magic, you can't use it in the black Marsh. And that is because most of the area is littered with bones of creatures that the bones themselves don't allow magic. So there are like nullifying bones, which it works out quite well. It's usually in the story, but the problem is why would that adoptation of animals having bones that repel magic happen? Well, if, because there is an apex predator that eats magic. So if you can actually save yourself using magic from these like kind of carnivorous plants, you're going to be attracting something that is going to come and eat you like giant or a pack of a lost or Raptor as a kind of reminds me of, they will just get you down and eat your way. Autumn (49m 36s): So yeah, I have some of my, I say my favorite characters in their it's just me. So I mean, it was really hard to just shove them into this landscape and hope that they came out the other side 'cause it was very desperately needed that they'll go in there, but you know, so that's my black Marche. It's quite a place. So I like that one. Yeah. It's quite fun too. Try to get your character's out of a pickle 'cause if they can be used magic, they shouldn't be. And most likely they can and there are fighting things when they are used to being trained with magics, there is something we got to use sorts of knives. Good. Look to you. Jesper (50m 15s): Yeah. But that's exactly why you want to have your character's in situations were in the beginning as an author, you don't even know how to get them out of it. And, and, but then if you worked hard at it to find a way for them to get out of it, it will come across very, you know, very, very strong reasoning and a, a, a, a very good logic. So, so yeah. Autumn (50m 35s): Well, thank you. I'm glad that you liked my number one. I do, Jesper (50m 39s): But I also feel is cheating because you took your own. So I think you were already disqualified now the Yes, Autumn (50m 48s): I will trust the listener's to decide if it was just qualified. Jesper (50m 51s): Okay. But I know, I don't want to say, I don't want to hear it from Dominick. I don't care what you said. I'm just kidding, Dominique. If you're listening, listening. Autumn (50m 60s): Oh, all right. Well lets see if I got, Let, just toss down. What is your number one? Jesper (51m 6s): Okay. So this one is really bad, like bad in an annoying way. So I guess if you, if you read it as a humorous book, then maybe it would be okay, but that's only until you realized that it was actually intended to be taking seriously and then it'll just be, So This is a world where we are bringing to life the most hated cliches that exists. So let me share some with you in this world. Like you have the fact that there is only one single way to defeat. Jesper (51m 48s): The bad guy can not be done in every way on the other, any other way. Only one way. That's the only way to do it. Okay. You have everything in the world with every place. And every item is a very long and hard to pronounce Fantasy names And the heroes cannot, of course also easily defeat, highly trained Warrior's in combat, even though there are no other system that is something you just do. Autumn (52m 17s): Excellent. And the majors are always wiggling their eyebrows. Jesper (52m 22s): And I can add some more if you want like villains who are apparently just evil because they are evil. They were born that way. Or how about everything that happens, happens because a prophecy for Told it. Yeah. I think that would be pretty damn annoying fantasy world to read. Autumn (52m 44s): And it would be a horrible one to read it. It would be, I think he was in the boring one, two right in. But yeah, that would be just, I couldn't imagine going through a whole book cover all of the tropes, every single cliche you could throw in there and just show up to go to town with it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Jesper (53m 5s): If, if, if you didn't take a serious and, and you just made it a bit like very humoristic that could work. But if you're trying to run it like an Epic FANTASY and you're stuffing all of this in there, it's going to be a nightmare. It's a reef. Autumn (53m 16s): It's one of those ones where if it's a role-playing game, it might be a fun one to be in cars. You can just decimate your competition. You are the hero and therefore you will get to the end, you'll get a Brown. And you'll definitely get that. You know, it's like one of those ones when you're having a bad week, you just want to play that role playing game because you're going to smash to everyone. But to sit there and actually read it all like a 150,000 words with me, just wiggling their eyebrows and women and chain Malbec, Kini is all the women that have to have to do it yet. Jesper (53m 44s): Yeah, yeah, of course. Yes. That is there a as well as an, every time a woman in the room that you will have like a full paragraph describing her upper body in detail. Like there's no reason for it. It's just like a long a description of that. It's just like, and then probably a very nasty old man made sitting in the corner of wiggling. His brows said something really nasty, like Autumn (54m 9s): Yeah, yeah. Oh lets just go back to the 1980s. Oh my God. I go and read one of 'em. Oh, one of those Hemmons or something. Jesper (54m 23s): Yeah, that's painful. That is a pretty painful one. I have to admit. Autumn (54m 26s): I am actually impressed that besides slightly with the rain versus my wormholes, having a slight kind of tendency to each other, we were in a completely different and again for this list, that's pretty impressive for WORST Fantasy Worlds Actually almost no overlap in these ones at all. Jesper (54m 46s): We did have some in the, in the us quite far back now, I guess in terms of Episode. But yeah, we did have at some point where our list has a lot of overlap, but not anymore. Autumn (54m 57s): Where are we seem to have gone away from them? I also think our list for a longer than I think they might have been 10 and now were just, you know, now we just choose the cream of the crop, have five. Yeah. It's like the best of the best. And that's all right. Well I have to admit to some of your story's I think it would be absolutely fun, but your number one would be except for a role-playing game. I just could not read that OR right in that I would just be, it would be less, it was Shrek a fish spoof couldn't do it, but it would be a fun spoof. If it would be fun to write comedic Fantasy one day I could get into that, right? Jesper (55m 33s): Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I like your AI thing to be honest. Autumn (55m 38s): And so I want to thank you. That's excellent. Jesper (55m 41s): I didn't say that. I just said I liked it because you know, you have to, again, communication skills here, Autumn, you know, before you deliver bad news, you get the good news. Right? So you just first say, I like your AI and then you said, but I'm sorry that you lost. Yeah. Autumn (55m 57s): So I, I am leaving that up to the listener. I'm sorry. You, neither of us are good in this list or if we are, we're equally powerful. Jesper (56m 8s): Really? I thought I was the one deciding who One. Oh, okay. Well I guess we will leave it for our listeners. So let us know who you think had the best list or that works best. And don't forget to go fill out a review and then go over to Am Writing Fantasy, to come and send us a screenshot or a link through the contact form. And if you're one of the first five, we will get you an audio book. Narrator (56m 43s): Okay. So next Monday we are going to discuss If social media activities at, can you help us all to us to sell books if its actually just a waste of time? If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am. Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.
Is there such a thing as good and bad tropes, or are tropes just tropes? Join Autumn and Jesper as they dive into the land of clichés, but also stumbles over some fantasy gems. Episode 87 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast will walk you through some of the common tropes in the fantasy genre, and explore if they are viable to use in your own writing? Link to our online writing course, the Ultimate Fantasy Writers Guide: http://ultimatefantasywritersguide.co... Link to Plot Development: https://books2read.com/Plot-Development Link to the Plotting Workbook: https://books2read.com/PlottingWorkbook Link to Story Ideas: https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 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). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper, and I'm Autumn. This is episode 87 of the am writing fantasy podcast. And we are looking at some of the common tropes in fantasy today. And we'll have a discussion as to whether they are good or bad. And I think this could turn out quite interesting. Well, it'll be a, yeah. I could see some questions and some fun things that we've got to discuss to clarify what we're even talking about. Autumn (1m 2s): Well, tropes is always interesting. So, but we will come back to that in, in a few minutes. Yes. How are things over in your lovely little country? Well, I'm basically like slowly boiling in my office. It is so warm. It's insane. Like you were complaining just like an episode ago. I think you had not had summer at all in Denmark this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I just told my wife and I can't remember if I said this on the past episode as well, but I told her, you know, I bet you once our summer holidays over the weather will turn really warm and nice. Jesper (1m 40s): And there you go. Now we have a 30 degrees Celsius, actually 33 yesterday. That's why. So we spent a day at the beach yesterday. Quite nice though. That would be lovely. And what are the peaches? I mean, do you have sand beaches? Are they pebble beaches? What are they like over there? No sand beach. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, but it's just the same that it isn't vacation time anymore. You know, I'd sneak away on the weekend. At least you don't have major COVID restriction. You got to go to the beach. Jesper (2m 12s): Yeah. Well, yeah, it's not feel bad here over here. I was just emailing earlier today with a, with a reader on the email as well. And you know, trying to show my sympathy for you guys in the U S it's just really bad, but, and especially compared to how it is, you, you know, we're in a very much, much, much better place than you guys. Ah, yes. I think only New Zealand is doing better than you wouldn't you. They're awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite dire over here. Jesper (2m 41s): Still only getting worse, but this fall will be fun. Yeah, we'll see. Well, we tried to stay away from politics quickly shifting topics here before we getting into politics things also finally moving forward with our sale that Has been like an ongoing, Ongoing, ongoing 2 (3m 6s): A long time now. But thanks Jesper (3m 8s): Finally, moving forward. That's so exciting. Yeah. So it's not final yet in that sense, but it's getting there now. So we have somebody who put in an offer and we have also agreed on the price. Oh my goodness. And we have also agreed on when they are going to take over that. Autumn (3m 28s): Wow. So clock sorta ticking. Jesper (3m 33s): Yeah. The only condition in the whole deal here is that they need to sell their apartment first. And if they can't sell the apartment, then of course the whole thing is just gonna take a long, long time. But it is an apartment in a very, like pretty expensive though, but very popular area of Copenhagen that they live in today. And they said to the real estate agent this morning that there was two people who came and what's the apartment over the weekend. Jesper (4m 6s): And both of them said that they want to buy it. Autumn (4m 8s): Oh, that would be really good. Yeah. Jesper (4m 11s): So that is really good. I mean, it could be that if all goes, well, I would say before we get to the end of August, like in a couple of weeks from now, then we could have sold the house and be planning to move. Autumn (4m 25s): Oh my goodness. That would be fantastic and exciting. And I think that's going to put you behind on the timeline we have mapped out, but that's okay. We'll figure that out, I guess. Probably. Yeah. Jesper (4m 38s): Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. It depends also because the thing is that we would like to build a new house and there is no lots at this point in time in the city where we one move to that has any lots for sale. So that means that we have to find something to rent temporarily for a while so we can stay there. And that's sort of the joker in the whole thing right now that we don't know, is it going to be easy to find something to rent or not? We'll see, we'll see that the part we don't know at this point Autumn (5m 9s): Going to be living like me, like a gypsy things still in boxes, just being really, really be really good at labeling what's inside your boxes. That's about all I can say. Yeah. Jesper (5m 22s): The most important thing is that I have my laptop across the internet router and mostly, Autumn (5m 29s): And that is the catch of being a writer. As long as you have those things, it's the lifestyle, a huge amount of equipment. You'll need your microphone and a few other things, but you'll be on microphone as well. Yes, that's right. Excellent. How's you've been, Oh, it's been, you know, pretty good. I guess if you hear any traffic noise, I apologize. I knock off at literally the last minute yesterday, my husband was doing a trip up to his parents who live in Maine where we live for 18. And so it's sort of like what you said it's summer. Autumn (6m 1s): The last trip is going to do for the summer and Maine and the coast and lobsters and the ocean of sailboats is, or something like, you know, my list of my favorite things. So I literally, he was sitting in the car and I'm like, but can you wait an hour through some stuff in a bag? My laptop and my microphone obviously as well and ran off up to Maine with him. And so we had some lobster last night on the beach, on the Wharf, right. At a lobster pound. That's nice right off the boat. Autumn (6m 33s): And we're going to go to our favorite pizzeria, I think tonight, which is different. And so, yes, it sounds strange because COVID is horrible in the United States. And so many States are locked down, but we came up from Vermont, which is about the only state in the entire United States. That's still green. So we're wow. Our state is doing fine and Maine is pretty much, it's one of the least populated States as well. So it's doing okay as well, but we'll definitely be cautious because I don't want to get sick because I'm writing the last chapter of my current work in progress, which is the first book of a new faith. Autumn (7m 9s): Post-apocalyptic kind of urban fantasy trilogy. So I'm so excited. It's been over a year since I was finishing, writing something because things have just been so crazy busy with everything we got going on in life. So it just, it always feels momentous to stand there and being, looking, looking down the word count of like 2300 words and I'm done with over 90,000 words of writing. And even though I'm not publishing until I finished the next two, I just feel kind of that warm hummings feeling and it feels good. Autumn (7m 42s): Very good. Jesper (7m 42s): Yeah. And you're also working on the world building course, so you don't have any time to be sick. Autumn (7m 47s): I do not between that. And so I'm cussed at some commissions on my other side of my writing, you know, coaching life, writing coach and graphic design life. I am so busy this month. It's not even funny. I've got to hire my husband, I think, to help. Jesper (8m 6s): Yeah. Maybe that's a solution. I think we got the internet writing fantasy podcast. Okay. A few things to cover here, but I wanted first and foremost to give a huge shout out to Iris because she increased her pledge on patron. Autumn (8m 27s): Thank you so much. I mean, you've been with us for a little while now, but do you know that you believe in us enough and that you appreciate us enough that we appreciate you, that you actually upped your pledge. So thank you so much. Jesper (8m 42s): Yeah. Thank you. That really means a lot to us. And I should say as well, if your deal listener, haven't checked out and writing fantasy and all the awesome reports that we offer to our supporters over on patron now is the time to do so. The link is in the show notes, but I can even say that within the next few months, we are actually planning to give all patrons subscribers, great gift, but I'll leave it that creativity and keep it as a surprise what this gift is all about. Jesper (9m 14s): But you might want to go and check it out now. Autumn (9m 16s): Yes, we have it figured out and planned, but we're just doing one chunk at a time and we have other plans for August, but it'll be exciting. Jesper (9m 26s): Yeah, absolutely. I could also mention that in a few weeks from now, we are going to record a podcast episode about how it has been like to launch our three nonfiction books. So the books on how to get story ideas are applauding guide and the associated workbook. And we released those wide here in 2020. So are going to record a podcast episode about how that went. But I can't say that they all became bestsellers upon release and people are, have been emailing us quite a lot saying how much they got out of those book. Jesper (10m 4s): Isn't that right? Autumn (10m 4s): No, you have been, I just, I love the comments and it's a goal of mine to try to find time this week to make some share images of, of some of the comments because they just are so wonderful. Jesper (10m 16s): Absolutely. Yeah. So if you haven't picked up any of those books yet we've included links in the show notes for those as well. And Hey, there's also a link inside the plodding book from where you can get the book on story ideas for free. So that's going to be our little, Autumn (10m 33s): I was going to say that's a secret. You just shared it with the world. Jesper (10m 39s): Well, yeah, Autumn (10m 42s): That's fair enough. And I do. I thought it was funny. I don't know if you saw the comment. I know you re we recently left, launched the podcast episode where you interviewed mere Lafferty who has written for star Wars. I don't know if you saw the comment in the M writing fantasy Facebook group, but Andre said, wow, score one for am writing fantasy respect. So I know you did that interview. So I wanted to make sure you saw that one. It was just such a fun comment. And you know, I thought Joanna Penn, when we hit, you had joined a panel on am writing fantasy podcasts. Autumn (11m 16s): That was big, but apparently we're, Laverty got a higher rating from Andre on that one too. So that's fantastic. Jesper (11m 24s): But it writing for Star Wars. That is pretty cool. Autumn (11m 27s): Oh my goodness. I know that's just good. Jesper (11m 29s): And she's like a multi award winning author as well. Autumn (11m 32s): The Hugo. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, Jesper (11m 37s): But finally, I also wanted to say that our online writing course, the ultimate fantasy writers guide will next week open for the first time in six months. So that'll be on the 31st of August. And I don't know, but perhaps you can say few words about the course autumn. Autumn (11m 55s): Oh, I still just, every time I think of it, I just remember why I created it and that was, I wanted this one stop shop that really, I mean, at the time there was no information out there now there's so much information out there you don't know which is true anymore. So this is the one stop where you can just buy this one course and you can learn how to write, get through all the plotting, the character, building the world, building all these details that you can still easily get hung up on as well as learn how to actually publish and format and covers and Oh, how to edit. Autumn (12m 26s): I still remember the first time I edited and getting advice on like how you tackle content and it's very Perth reading and the order of things. So all of that is in the course, and it is our one thing and even ends with how to build an author career. So I'm kind of proud of it as our first course. And of course we always bite off more than we can chew to start. It's the best way to learn. Isn't it. And so then I guess the best way to teach. Jesper (12m 53s): Yeah. And again, also here, we've included the link in the show notes, so you can go and check it out. But I should mention though that the cost will not stay open for very long. So come early September, we're going to close it again for another six months. So if you want in now is the time to do so. As soon as you listen to this episode, go and check it out. At least early September will be the latest point for you that you need to check it out. But we have reduced the price though of the cost by a hundred dollars. Autumn (13m 26s): That is, And then the announcement, I mean, with everything going on in the world and we just felt we needed to do something. So this is an amazing opportunity. We, I don't know if many big ticket courses that are doing a reduction like we just did. Jesper (13m 40s): Yeah, I don't know. But, but yeah, as you said with COVID-19 and a lot of people are finding themselves struggling with finances at the moment, right? So at least that might be a bit helpful to knock off a hundred dollars. So we'll see. But anyway, click that link in the show notes and there will be all the details on that page about what exactly what the course includes. And there is money back guarantees for 30 days, no questions to ask and all that good stuff. So you can safely check it out. Autumn (14m 13s): No, I think that really, those are some big announcements, so I want to get into Tropes. Jesper (14m 22s): Okay. So maybe I could just start by mentioning what are true. Autumn (14m 27s): I was going to say that we need to define what a trope are and compare it to maybe what a stereotype, you know, what are the other things that people could fuse a trope with? Jesper (14m 38s): Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I have basically made a note for myself and trying to define a saying like it's a repeated familiar symbols themes, characters, and so on, you know, so it's basically what we expect to find when we read a fantasy novel or I could also be, if we're watching a fantasy movie, there's no real difference there, but it's basically kind of the things that we expect from this young era. Would that be a fair way of defining it? Autumn (15m 5s): I think so. It's, it's definitely, it's what you expect almost. It's not the genre. Sometimes it's even the type of story like, Oh, I always the easiest one to think of as the farm boy who becomes King. So that is a trope. Jesper (15m 19s): Yeah. But go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I was just about to say before we get way into these tropes, I think I wanted to mention as well that if we ask a hundred people, what are the most common fences you tropes? We would probably get a lot of different answers. So this is just my way of saying that what we are about to say is it's just our view on things, right? It doesn't mean that, that this is the only truth out there and we fully understand as much, you know, but the French word for Shanghai actually means kind of so very good. Jesper (15m 58s): I think that gives us a bit of leeway there. Yeah, Autumn (16m 0s): I think so, too. And so what I was going to mention is that a lot of people can fuse a trope with like a stereotype. Like it is something that they has been seen over and over. And I think the biggest thing with stereotypes is it's a, it's a cliche. It is something that is kind of Pat. And it's quick to explain, like the mother-in-law, who's a wicked witch or something. That's, that's a stereotype, but something when you're describing a whole trope, which becomes, it's a whole story boiled down into a sentence or two. Autumn (16m 34s): And so they're not exactly the same things. There's a lot more tied up into a trope and a lot more expectations where a stereotype is, is kind of a little bit boring and seeing too much. Oh, we can discuss if we think tropes have been seen too much, or if there's any tropes that have been over done. Yeah. We'll I think actually, Jesper (16m 58s): If we, you know, if we have a conversation here about the common tropes, as least as we see them, but maybe we could also point out which one we both hate the most, but also wins which one we liked the most. That makes sense. Autumn (17m 13s): It sounds good. I'll have to think about actually which one I like the most I'll have to probably think which ones have I used because that's easy. I came to me instantly. I have a pet peeve trope. Isn't that sad? Jesper (17m 29s): No, I, it was the same for me. You know, I was thinking about it earlier today and I was like, Oh, it would be fun if we, if we put out like the one we hate and the one we love and I was like, well, Hey, that's easy. It took me like half a second to figure out what that was. Autumn (17m 44s): Yes. You warned me. You were going to ask that. And it took me about half a second to like, Oh yeah. If I ever read another story like this, I will burn it. So that's horrible. All right. So which is, let's go yours then it was since we started with the ones least liked, what is your worst trope that you hate reading about? You want to stop there if you don't, if you want to end there, we can do either way, but this will be fun to hear. Jesper (18m 11s): Yeah. It will be fun. I was thinking maybe we could just sort of start out by covering some of the different trucks that we see and then we could, once we've done that, then we could, maybe we should start with the one we hate the most and then do the one we liked the most, because then we were ending on a positive rabbit Autumn (18m 28s): And that'll give me some more time to think about, which is my favorite. Cause I'll have heard them all at that point, Jesper (18m 32s): Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I made an, I was thinking about this a bit like high level kind of, you know, high level tropes, but, and I'm sure you have some good pointers that you can sort of fling in here as well into the mix. But of course, one of the most common tropes I would say in fantasy is basically that fantasy stories has magic. Autumn (18m 55s): Oh yes, that's true. And that is, that is probably almost the basis of fantasy I would say. Jesper (19m 2s): Yeah. Isn't it. I mean, can you come up or can you think of any like stories that you would define as fantasy, but has no magic in it at all? I mean, some of them don't have a lot of magic, but can you think of some that doesn't have any at all? Autumn (19m 17s): No. I mean, I know when I first read game of Thrones until those dragons, I was gonna say until those dragons were born, it was lacking a lot of magic. I like a little bit more magic than that, but it eventually peaked in there. So there's some, and there's magical realism, which is, you know, very much minimal magic at times, but it's still there. I think I can't, I can't think of anything. I would classify as fantasy that doesn't have at least some magical creature or magic magic. Autumn (19m 52s): I can't think of any, Jesper (19m 54s): No. Do you know, I just thought of this because we talked about Malachi before. Right. But have you heard the whole debate about what Shanghai star Wars is? Autumn (20m 5s): Yes. I have a hard time. I mean, to me it's science fiction, but it's kind of science fiction fantasy. Jesper (20m 12s): Yeah. It's just, I know I'm going to probably going to piss off. A lot of people, people have, especially when it comes to star Wars, people have very, very, they're very, very opinionated, Autumn (20m 23s): Passion, passion. Oh shit. That was the wrong word I use. Jesper (20m 29s): But because I can sort of follow the logic when people say in star Wars that the force power is magic because, and then at some point they threw windows. What is like Mikel, Lori and wa how do you pronounce that stuff? Don't Autumn (20m 48s): Ask me, I'm horrible with English words. Jesper (20m 50s): I can't remember what, whatever it was called, but those things that you have in your body that you can measure. And then the more I have it, you have the more force power you have and stuff like that. And of course, and it can Skywalker was off the scale and whatnot. But I think that was sort of like, at least to me, it felt like an afterthought that they plucked in later on in the, I don't know if it was always the intention, but I also know a lot of people complaining that they felt like the force got to explained at that point. Whereas magic is often not that explained, but at least in my view, you know, I'm yet to read a fantasy book where a star ship, all of a sudden flies by. Jesper (21m 29s): So I would still say Star Wars is Sci-fi, but Autumn (21m 33s): I think that's that genre mashup of scifi fantasy or science fantasy. And that is a genre of itself. And that's kind of a fun one. I mean, I think dr who fits into science fantasy because I always complain that this stupid screwdriver, what, he just, he has this thing that it's supposed to just do one thing and he uses it like a magic wand and can fix anything with it. And I just get pissed off whenever it happens. Cause I want rules with it and it just doesn't exist. Jesper (22m 4s): No, Actually in the coming weeks here, I'm going to interview Chris Fox for our podcast here. So he's going to come on in the coming weeks. But, and I know Chris is actually writing dragons in space. Autumn (22m 16s): Oh, that's cool. That's pretty cool as well. I think that might be breaking a lot of tropes, so good for him. Jesper (22m 24s): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what's the more we wanted to say about Metro? Autumn (22m 29s): No, I think that is definitely, I think the foundational fantasy trope, I would say after that one is a, like the fantasy creatures, almost a fit. It would say a fantasy world, but sometimes, I mean, urban fantasy is becoming very popular and that usually takes place on earth or something. That's very much like a parallel earth, but is still got the fantasy creatures of the werewolves and the vampires. And so that's, I can't imagine a fantasy story that has no magic or none of those fantastical creatures at all, because I don't think that would be fantasy at that point. Jesper (23m 9s): No, I agree. And of course this does not have to be UL and auction and whatnot. I mean, sometimes it could also be like unique species. The author actually created themselves, so it can be a lot of things, but yeah. Fantasy needs to have some fantastical species. Do I need to say dragons? Autumn (23m 26s): I think they kind of get the implication. You already said dragons in space, so that's pretty cool. Oh yeah, that's true. Jesper (23m 35s): But at least some sort of fantastical species are usually part of the mix. And I would also say, you said a bit about the setting there because I really feel like at least most of the time the setting is a secondary world. Of course, in urban fantasy, like you said, you know, can be our world, but a lot of the time it will still be like, there is this sort of shadow world within the world that people don't know that there is werewolves. Jesper (24m 6s): Maybe, you know, the general public doesn't know, or maybe it's like a hidden fantasy world within the existing world or something like that. Otherwise I think if you don't have it like that, and I know I'm generalizing a lot in, and I'm sure listeners are screaming at the headphones right now saying with a ton of examples of the opposite. But, but my point is just that you quickly transcend over into something sort of huge superhero kind of thing. If it's all, everybody knows about it, everybody knows about fantastical heroes and creatures and that kind of thing. Jesper (24m 43s): Or what don't you feel like then it becomes very Marvel kind of way very quickly. Autumn (24m 47s): So I think it does. I think that does move more towards the Sierra superhero, which I would still say under, if you would be fantasy, a massive umbrella, I would actually put superhero under there, but you know, way to the edge it has that it has magic. And I don't know, I was please don't put it on this fence, Jesper (25m 6s): Like superhero thing. So please don't put it into the fence. She's young. I want to keep it up. Autumn (25m 10s): Oh, I read X men and stuff. When I was a teenager in the sand, I mean, Sandman comics, that was still, it wasn't really superhero, but it was written very much superhero like Neil Gaiman. He's fantasy. Sorry. Jesper (25m 23s): Now, well, I guess to be fair, I mean the original superhero stuff I think is probably absolutely fine, but it's just like within the last, probably five to 10 years, I feel like the big Hollywood studios, Marvel and whatnot, they they've destroyed the superheroes young or by just retelling the same stories 200 times in a row. And I don't know, it's just destroyed it for me. I have no pleasure in those movies anymore. Now it's just time a new one comes out. It's the same one as the last one. Autumn (25m 53s): I agree with that on so many levels because it does seem like every, like they wanted to do a new princess bride and there was such a huge outcry of don't ruin perfection that I think they kind of decided not to do that because they would have pissed up too many people in our age bracket. Maybe, maybe we would probably torch the theater, but yeah, let's move on to, there's so many amazing writers in the writers who were coming up with these amazing stories, choose something new, but that was exactly what I was just saying. Jesper (26m 29s): Thinking that just as you said, it, because I must assume that Writers in those writing rooms are very, very talented. So I just like it, maybe it's because the studio sort of put them constraints on them and say, well, we want something like this and that, because we know we can earn a hundred million at the box office about, you know, maybe something like that. But I just cannot imagine that the writers in those rooms can not come up with something new and exciting. Like my laugh at you talked about when she wrote for star Wars, right? She also said that she was under very, very strict constraints about what she could say and what she couldn't, but still she worked really hard as a writer to try to find ways in which she could talk about the character and the background, you know, all the smaller things that she could inject to make the story more original instead of it's just the same old, same old. Jesper (27m 20s): Right. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know. I just don't remember that, Autumn (27m 26s): But again, I think those, I totally agree. I actually prefer not to watch Hollywood and I love that that so many shows like Netflix and stuff we're actually filming in Canada in Vancouver. And I think it's just to get a little bit of fresh air, bring it in. Right. But yeah, so there's so many things, but those things do, whether you're looking at the superhero is a trope, but the underlying structure there are tropes their own. What is, it's fine to have the trope, but it's what you lay on top of it that makes it different and unique and fresh and new, unless you're using the exact same story and characters over and over and over again until the grooves are so deep that people are like, really again, Wolverine, Jesper (28m 13s): Yes. Autumn (28m 13s): We need something fresh and exciting and new. And I do think indie authors have that so well, and there are other authors and there's some great shows out there that are really fantastic. We just finished up watching. Oh shoot. So I'm trying to remember what is warrior nuns. That was fun. Jesper (28m 35s): What's it? Autumn (28m 36s): That's the ending totally changed the entire perspective of the entire season up until that point. And you're like, damn, that's awesome. Jesper (28m 46s): Wow. Okay. So it came up on my fetus weld warrior nuns, and then I heard some, I listened to these a couple of podcasts where they basically review new series. I talk about, and they were just dissing that series so hard. It's like, this is the worst thing, you know, kind of teenage kind of. And I was like, okay, after I listened to them, I was just, okay, I'm not going to watch it. It just felt or sounded way too hard. Autumn (29m 16s): So now I'm conflicted. I think I've looked at it from a storytelling. There were times there was narration from the main character that I got thought you could really do without. There was some times it took her to build up to building up until the actual true threads of the story. When they started coming together was a little slow, but I'm very patient. And when it got to that point where the, where the things came together and then the last episode really flipped entire perspective of what was going on. I was like, damn, that that is good writing. Autumn (29m 45s): That is such good writing. I appreciate anyone who can, who can take a story and flip it on its head and change your whole perspective. But believe me, up until that point, I'm leaking, we're talking about the Catholic phase phase and they're warrior nuns. They can't even become priest and you're giving them swords. This doesn't add up in my head, but they had some believers who are main characters and that, that makes it tolerable. Jesper (30m 11s): Okay. Well, I think there was also a bit in this setting there that I didn't like, but okay. We're getting off topic. Autumn (30m 18s): They don't care about our move. Our show we'll have to do a recommended show episode later. Maybe we should. So what's the next trope we want to think is pretty general. We're still not doing our worst favorite. Cause we settled still. Haven't gotten to the one that I can not stand yet. No, well maybe Jesper (30m 36s): You have more, you can inject it because the two I have left is the one I hate. And the one I like. So if you have some more, you want to inject and maybe you can do that. Autumn (30m 45s): Alright, well, I'm going to skip the one that is my least favorite. So I know one of the ones that is very often often use, that's not the news as much recently, but it's like the secret air. So it's the person who was born noble and doesn't know it. Okay. This is almost like sleeping beauty, I guess. I mean, she's the princess she sent off to, you know, grow up in the forest so that no one will come and you know, the curse will not happen. So that actually is a trope. That's been used. A lot of these fairy tale types of stories have these tropes. Autumn (31m 17s): So the older, older stories we have and they've been passed down for generations. And so they're still being used today. I mean, you think about it, Romeo and Juliet, the star crossed lovers. That's a trip to usually in romance, but I've seen it as a pretty strong sub genre sub plot to some fantasy ones as well. Right. And you did mention star Wars. So the evil empire, the evil overlord, believe it or not, that is not my worst Groaner, but that is definitely one that I've gotten tired of seeing where you start off a story and it's, you just have evil and they're evil. Autumn (31m 58s): And I mean, unless you're writing about Lucifer or the devil, or I don't wanna pick another cosmology that has, you know, a BA a good and a bad side, and they're just evil from the side of evil. That is another one. That's unless you're adding some gray tones and some explanation why they're evil. I definitely think that one's kind of been over done Jesper (32m 20s): Interesting because some of the stuff you're saying, I'm going to come back to Autumn (32m 23s): Totally be fine. Some of the other ones I've seen and you made me have to open up like my book of my filing cabinet, we were joking on Patreo and Irish and I, and that I, my, my organizational system in my brain is actually a massive cabinet, huge bureaucracy, immensely boring, but so well organized. So Jesper (32m 47s): Wants to get access to certain areas. Autumn (32m 49s): Times you asked definitely 10 different copies. Some of them are in blood. You got to watch out for those, but the, the reluctant hero. And again, I think it's another one where you, it's not as very, I mean, normally we have people, most of the heroes I think written about today are more go getters. They're very few are going, but I don't want to go have to go fight the dragon, but that is definitely something that's there. Jesper (33m 18s): Yeah, I agree. But, but don't, I would almost argue that that can, that can be in almost any stronger in thrillers or whatever. You can also have the reluctant hero who doesn't really want to take on the task ahead of them. I am not sure. That's a fantasy trope as such. It's just a storytelling trope, I guess. Autumn (33m 37s): Yes. But it's one that definitely crosses into it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. I guess, I don't know if you'd call it a fantasy trumpet, like the mentor trope, where you always have the kid who gets helped by the mentor or even you could have the one where it's like a young boy basically redeems the older hero who has done something in his past. And so that's another one that if it's done well, can be amazingly powerful and redemptive, but if it's not done well, you kind of feel like I've seen this before. Autumn (34m 11s): Yeah. But I guess you could say that with everything you have to layer on characters that are very three dimensional, you have to layer in a world that feels real, and it's all gonna become together to be its own driver. And without that, any of these can really feel like they just have been seen and done before. Jesper (34m 29s): Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. Autumn (34m 32s): All right. I think that's all the ones I can come to mind. I'm sure. I'll probably think of more. Oh, I know the powerful article, like the F the quest for the magic sword Excalibur. I don't do our Dorian tails anymore. I love them as a teenager, but I, if I read one more thing about the lady of the Lake and Excalibur, I'm just going to, just to Jesper (34m 56s): It's another one that came up on my Netflix feed here recently was w I cursed, I think it was called . It was also a new one, but that was also some sort of a King Arthur kind of thing, whatever. I was just like, Oh my God. No, thank you. Autumn (35m 16s): Yes, I would. It would take me a while to go back to them. I see. He gave it out to be an amazingly good character as do, make me want to sit through one of those again. Yeah. Jesper (35m 26s): Okay. So should I do the trope that I hate the most? Autumn (35m 29s): Yes. And then I'll do my trip that I hate the most. Jesper (35m 32s): Okay. And this is going to be a bit interesting because you touched a bit on, Autumn (35m 36s): Okay. So the Jesper (35m 38s): One I hate the most is the one I call the one. Oh, so this is exactly what you said before. So this is the farm boy who discovers that he is the one and the only person who can save the world or the young servant girl who discovers that she's actually rightful heir of the troll and you know, those sorts of things. And my God, I just feel like this trope has been beaten to death. I wish those kinds of prophecies, or it was kind of meant to be a, I don't know. Jesper (36m 11s): I, I just hate those kinds of stories and I wish they wouldn't be written anywhere. Autumn (36m 16s): Well, I know something kind of funny. Yeah. That's my least favorite ones too. The chosen one. I will, I hate it. I do too. I mean, the Shannara tales, those, you know, those came out a couple of years ago, the remakes again, of the elf stones of Shannara books. And it's just like, there's no purpose. You have the right blood. You are the chosen one. You're going to get out there and do it. And there's no earning your place. It's just, everyone's like bowing down to them. Autumn (36m 47s): Oh, you were the chosen one. You were the golden child. And I'm just like, Oh, gag me. I want to see them suffer and earn it and become, come something greater because it is their journey. Not because they were chosen to be this person. And I definitely know. Jesper (37m 4s): Yeah. And even, I mean, I know now again, I, you know, I'm good at offending people here. Why not? Why stop now when I already started, but I know a lot of people love. Yeah. I know a lot of people love the wheel of time by Robert Jordan. I don't like it. And I guess as well, I, it would not be fair to say that rant L toward a main character in that, he's just the one. And because he's just the one, I mean, he has to work for it. Jesper (37m 34s): So it's not entirely fair. But on the other hand, it is still, at least in my view, and this is only my view and people can shout at me and disagree. That's okay. But just in my view, it is still the, it's one of those, the one stories, because rant is the one who's supposed to defeat evil and, and all that. And it's just like, it feels to ordain. What should we call? Yeah. Or more like artificial story, construction kind of thing, rather than it just being, here's your average, Joe. Jesper (38m 7s): And he builds over time. And one day he then turns out to be able to defeat evil if that's what you want to do. But instead of it just being, well, it was also always written in the stars that you were going to defeat the evil overlord or what it's like, what seriously. Autumn (38m 25s): I agree. And I actually poke fun at this trope and my first fantasy trilogy, where there is one who's like, Oh, there's a prophecy of this elemental. And he will go on to do something. And it's you and no, it's not, it's not him. You know, it was basically, they're like, they're reinterpreting it. There's like a few just minor. It's a very minor subplot. But every once in a while someone mentions it. And even the main character is like, Oh my God, if you had mentioned this one more time, you all don't even know what you're talking about. I'm just going to go over here and take care of business. Autumn (38m 57s): Okay. Jesper (38m 57s): Right. That's good. Autumn (38m 59s): Yeah. I just, I got to poke fun at these things. Occasionally it's just in my nature, but yes. So we have, I guess it's a unanimous vote that the chosen one is it's was a very common theme. I think when we both were growing up reading fantasy, the seventies and eighties, it was just like, that is your main carers. They were chosen. They're going to go do this and they're going to win. And you just follow it along. And the stories of this decade is so much more nuanced. Good is not a hundred percent good. Autumn (39m 30s): They're kind of gray and evil. The evil characters have their kind of animals or something that, you know, there's something else about them. And those are the stories that really stick and grow, and everyone's got to earn their downfall or their nobility. And that is a much more interesting. And I guess maybe I'm saying that's what my favorite trope is now is simply the one that maybe flips a lot of the old tropes on their heads, even settings. I like, I like something unique. I like unique races. Autumn (40m 1s): I hacked my first story was I stayed away from the whole medieval setting and did sailing instead of horseback riding because I wanted something different. So I love it. When someone comes up with a story that flips something on its head and gives me something new. I mean, when Shrek came out, Oh, I was just in love with the movie because I was laughing my ass off at all. All of the, all the funny things that it flipped on its head and made it all new and fresh again. Autumn (40m 31s): I love that. Jesper (40m 32s): Yeah. Yeah. And actually that's a good point, you know, if anybody has not watched Shrek yet, then if you want to get a feeling of fantasy tropes, what's that movie, All of them. So you'll have one movie, you will have a very good taste and you'll see that even though you can have them all listed, you can do something completely different with them. And it's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. I think the one that I liked the most it's sort of placed off the one I hate the most. Jesper (41m 3s): That that sounded weird. Autumn (41m 5s): Yeah. So how does this work together then? Well, it's like Jesper (41m 11s): The one I hate the most is the one who saves the world. Right? Yeah. But at the same time, the ones that, the trip that I liked the most is the one where the world is in the balance. I like stories where the stake is the entire world, but I guess that's why right. Epic fantasy. Autumn (41m 31s): That's a good reason. I think Jesper (41m 34s): So. But the thing is, I just don't want it to be the chosen one who does all the saving there instead. It's I actually like when stories about saving the world comes as such a great cost that you can almost, once you sort of read the last chapter, you can almost start wondering, was it really worth it? What's the price really worth paying for what was saved? Hopefully you will say yes for saving the world, but you know, just that there is something in the back of your mind saying that was almost too great of a price to pay. Jesper (42m 14s): I like that. Autumn (42m 15s): That's a very good one. And I must say that that definitely is impactful and would make people think so. That's fantastic. I could get behind that, which is good because we'll be writing books together very soon. Yes, yes, I do like that, but it's definitely, I definitely think that yeah, pulling the other one, the chosen one on its head, like I said, even with the stories I've been writing, there's three or four or five potential people to save the world and oddly enough, the cost of what it's going to take. And I won't even say that the world is saved. Autumn (42m 46s): It's altered forever. When I get to the left third book, even though I'm only writing the end of the first one. So I guess I kind of agree with you because the way the story goes, it's a painful, painful cost. And the world isn't really saved. It's just not completely destroyed, but that's good. That is. So I guess I have to, again, as usual, even though we did not plan this folks, I swear to your listeners, we do not conspire. Autumn (43m 18s): We just happened to get along, which is a good thing. It meets the business. Isn't very solid hands. Jesper (43m 25s): Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's amazing. Well, we always tend to agree on things, even though we haven't coordinated any of our responses. Autumn (43m 33s): Yeah. Alright. Well, that's very good. I guess that's a good way of saying, you know, these tropes to wrap up they're important and they're underlying a lot of stories. And again, it's not necessarily, you should look around and see which ones people are complaining about. And if you're bold and brave, maybe you can do something to remake something that everyone else is seen way too many times. If you can make the chosen one into something new, fresh and exciting. Oh, that would be really kind of interesting. Jesper (44m 5s): Yeah. And I think exactly, that's also my conclusion on this because I do honestly believe that any trope can be done well, even the one I hate, but at the same time, any trope can also be done poorly. Even the one I like. Yeah. So it is a matter of how the trope is utilized in your storytelling and in your world building. And of course that's a million times easier said than done, but that's why we are doing the podcast and you're doing the writing very true. Jesper (44m 36s): Okay. So next Monday it's if all goes, well, I should have a very accomplished author on for an interview for you, but I'll keep it as a surprise for now. Narrator (44m 50s): If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.
What really is a "writer?" Jesper and Autumn run the gamut in this episode to break down the myth, history, and perception of what being a writer really means. Throw in some great quotes from famous authors, and you have a fun mix that will get you pondering what you call yourself ... and why it is - or isn't - a big deal in the first place! It's true! Pre-orders are LIVE for Story Idea, Plot Development, and Plot Development Step by Step! You can secure your copy for release day of August 3rd through the links below! Story Idea: A Method to Develop a Book Idea at https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas Plot Development: An Outlining Method for Fiction at https://books2read.com/Plot-Development Plot Development Step by Step: Exercises for Planning Your Book at https://books2read.com/PlottingWorkbook Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 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). Narrator (2s): You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's publishing landscape. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from Writing Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Jesper (30s): Hello I am Jesper Autumn (31s): and I'm Autumn Jesper (34s): Episode 78 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And today we are going to talk with him about what it means to be a writer. And I know that's going to require a bit of elaboration, but I will get back to that a bit later. Yes. I'm still looking forward to it and believe it or not, this will impress you. I did research for this one. Autumn (57s): Did you? I did writing work. Why? Because I didn't want to go outside. No. Aye. Because I wanted it. I like facts. I love history. I like, you know, things or things. You said the repeat themselves and we don't usually appreciate it. Cause we don't realize that if you don't know you're history, you realize that's repeating. So we did some digging on this one. I can't wait to share it. I usually just with all these episodes, maybe we shouldn't tell people that it's all right. I don't mind being notorious for, you know, showing up and doing a presentation with no preparation. Autumn (1m 32s): I just I'm waiting for the day that someone calls me, sees me in the audience and calls me up and asked me to do a whole hour on something. I'm like, Oh geez. I should never have said I do this all the time. Right? Jesper (1m 43s): Yeah. And actually I will say it depends on if it was me. It would depend on what they would want me to speak about. But I do think that certain topics I could probably work in an hour. The, it depends on what it is though. Autumn (1m 53s): Yesper talk about maps one hour ago. You would be all site, but yes. So how are things on your side or the Atlantic this week? No, it's good. Jesper (2m 6s): It's a good, eh, we are trying to get ready for some of occasion, obviously. So a sort of, a lot of things going, I mean, it's still like more than a month away, but were just trying, I'm trying to get everything wrapped up also for our stuff. So it's been actually just the few days ago where, Oh, well, yeah, that's a point of this recording. Of course not. When this episode released this, because that's the wonders of the podcast. And today we always have to be careful with the timing of when we mentioned things because we are prerecording some stuff here. Jesper (2m 40s): Yes. But at least at the point of recording this just a few days ago, I sent out an email to our Am Writing Fantasy lists recruiting what we call typos layers four, not one but three. Yes. You have that right. Three different non fiction books for authors though. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is crazy. Oh, come on. You're Autumn (3m 0s): Sending out the emails. I sent you the file's to put it up the pre-orders today. So it feels like this is really half a day. Jesper (3m 8s): Yeah. I am so excited that it is happening. So there are three of them. So just to mention, there is the first one is Plot Development And Outlining Method four Fiction and Plot Development Step by Step So that there was one that is the actual plodding book that we talked about so much. And then the other step by step one is the associated what books. And then we also have Story Idea Book and Method to develop a book Idea so it's basically like creating a whole premise, which we'll talk about later on in a, in a future episode or more on a, more about in a future episode, I meant to say, but that is three books that we are trying to launch right. Jesper (3m 47s): Leading up to summer holiday. So I don't know if we're a bit crazy here, but a lot Autumn (3m 52s): Considering everything we have going on. I know we're crazy, but it feels so good to be getting these things. So finally, after talking about them for so long, finally bringing them out. So Jesper (4m 4s): Yeah. And honestly, I can't, I can't wait to release these. Yes. So they, they are for the listener here. They are going to be out on the 13th of August. Ah, but you can actually, if I do all my time traveling, correct here with podcasting, you should be able to preorder them already now and we'll place the Link's in the show notes so that you can actually go and preorder them if you are interested in these books, which of course you're home. We hope you are. Jesper (4m 34s): But other than that, I just also wanted to mention a Autumn that I finally found a time to go back and listen to episode 75 when you have Kirsten Oliphant on. Yeah. That was a great episode. Yeah. Autumn (4m 45s): Yeah. She was a wonderful, wonderful guest. I really appreciate her time and her tips on pen names. And when you really need to launch a different author platform for what you're writing, writing in multiple genres. Yeah. And I can't believe she, she honestly said that she reads a book a day. She did say that I want to go back going really. I just really let that sink in. I don't understand. I mean, Hello, she has a lot of kids at the house with as well. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, maybe there, I don't want to assume that their kids' books, but she did say maybe she was saying she, maybe she went to say she reads a book. Autumn (5m 24s): She reads every day. Not she is. So she would make sure she reads everyday. Not a whole book. Jesper (5m 30s): All right. I know. Okay. But yeah, I think she said she ran a whole book at day, but yeah, that's a pretty damn amazing. Oh, well done it. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Autumn (5m 40s): Very good speed reader. That would be amazing. I could read that fast. I would probably read a little bit more because I task oriented. I get so wrapped up in things that I have a hard time switching to something else. So once I get to a good book and you're getting into like that new and getting really close to the climax. So that's back two thirds basically of the novel. That's it I'm hooked. That's all I'm doing. I'm not making dinner. I'm not Writing I'm not working on our courses. Nothing. I'm just reading. So I'm on a reading diet until we get some of this stuff done. Autumn (6m 13s): Alright. Yeah. I have to the opposite problem. It takes to me so long to read the book. Like sometimes I have to remind myself when I go back. What happened last time? I can't see. I'm so bad at it. Usually, you know, I read when I go to bed in the evening and when I go to bed, I'm so tired. I really don't have the energy to read. So I'd just fall asleep. I'm really good at falling asleep. You know, I can fall asleep within a minute or so. Yeah. So yeah, I don't get much reading done. And that was going to say with, and they're a task into, to do list with a vacation coming up. Autumn (6m 46s): I mean, I've already got to be keeping you up late tonight, the record, this podcast. So we can relax when we'd go on vacation, then I hope so. Ah, you better? Yeah. So will you also keeping busy? So how are you on your end or a very good, well, at the time we are recording this things are crazy. I'm in the United States' and I wish I could time travel to see if things are going to get any better when this is really you. So I'm just hoping they do, but it is kind of crazy over here and a little scary at the moment. Autumn (7m 18s): And yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to keep my head down and stay busy, but you know, at least in personal things, I've got a little bit of writing done. I've been doing some cover design, which is always fun. I'm getting our formatting books done. So things are progressing very well. My garden is growing. My husband has been working on 105 year old canvas frame, Cedar canoe, and he just put the canvass in the top coat on it today. And now it gets to cure for four weeks before. Autumn (7m 49s): Are you going painted? So its kinda cool to watch him and restore a hundred, five year old canoe is really something special. And why, where did you find that use? We actually paid a little bit too much for it. Cause we thought it was him. We bought it. It, we thought it was in better shape and its become a project that he's enjoying immensely, but it's Oh my God, this is not something you do because you have some, you know, your, your saving and skimping money. It's not a cheap enterprise, but, and he's doing very well and he's not usually the woodworker in the family. Autumn (8m 22s): I am. So I'm very impressed. We go on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast Oh, so we have a lot, lot, lot, lots, lots of interesting potent right in Fantasy Facebook. Hey, we were just going crazy over there. It is. Which I love its been so busy and I have actually managed again in a couple of times this week, so that's good. But yeah, it's such a vibrant, exciting group. Autumn (8m 54s): Yeah. I noticed how it, Chris was very Jesper (8m 56s): Helpful and he pointed out how publishing too Apple books. It no longer requires a Mack. So you just need an iCloud on iTunes connect account and then you can publish directly to Apple books. That's a pretty nice. That is cool. Autumn (9m 11s): Yeah. Pretty cool. That's a very, that doesn't surprise me about Apple. I mean, come on a, use a Mac and I can open any file you send me, but I have the files I want to send you I've come to translate so you can open them on your PC. Yeah, Jesper (9m 25s): Yeah. That's a bit annoying, but yeah, but Chris also mentioned by the way that the Google books appears to be open to anyone. That's what he said. And I have heard this as, as well in other places. So I think its absolutely correct. Yeah, it think so. But of course you and I are and we got in a long time ago, so I'm not sure if it works on it, but I guess for those listening, who haven't yet published their books on Google, you can go and check it out now and you should be able to create an account I think. Jesper (9m 55s): And then afterwards, you know, hit Autumn and I up on Twitter or leave a comment on this episode and let us know if it works. Yeah. I'm really curious. Yeah, that should have a book. Autumn (10m 4s): I was, are they still have so far to go in the dashboard? So I will warn folks if your going over there, it is not the same as Amazon's managed for us or anything else, but it does work and it is nice. You know, I want to change the price on a book. You have to go in and go in to this file and there's just like, you can't just see what the price is on. The main screen kind of would be Jesper (10m 26s): To be useful. But anyway, yeah, that's not the best. I mean by that and you have to download a sales report in Excel, you cannot manipulate it on the screen and stuff, but it's not that bad, but it's just a bit, maybe a bit more old fashioned than they would speak. Yeah. Autumn (10m 43s): Yeah. It's all right. Yeah, it works. So yeah. Let us know if it is working an open to everyone, that's kind of a huge step for Google and I guess if enough people do it, maybe they'll, you know, tweak it a little bit more. So that'd be excellent. I once gave them the feedback that they should have bought pronoun when that, when that site closed down. So probably which they had. Yeah, I can see. Jesper (11m 6s): Yeah. But Jason also mentioned by the way that he has written 40,000 words in the last 10 days, so that's awesome. Congratulations, Jason. Yeah, that is fantastic. Congratulations. That's always exciting to see the authors writing and doing well or a thousand words in 10 days. That's pretty good. That's a good milestone. That is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So I really liked how lively and helpful to the Facebook group is. So if you haven't joined it yet and you are listening here, then what are you waiting for? Join us in over to the group section of Facebook and simply search for Am Writing Fantasy and you will find us and we will let you in. Jesper (11m 43s): Yes. Autumn (11m 44s): Yeah. And it's fun because it's, it's everything from supportive to asking a fun questions like Hector who had written, you know, what spells would you give your antagonist that isn't to overpowered? So it's everything from pulling apart tropes to question's to support, to celebrating things. So I love it over there. So you actually initially came up with this topic Autumn so perhaps you can set the scene a bit. Autumn (12m 15s): What are we talking about here? We're talking about that idea that all a real Writer and real in quotation marks are a real Writer does, is write. And so this kind of comes up from, you know, lots of beams and things, online threads that you'll see where someone goes up to a famous author and says how much you know, Story I do you have to imagine this, how much do you see time? Do you spend writing every day to become such an amazing famous author? Autumn (12m 47s): And they go, Oh, well I write from nine to noon in the morning. And then from one til five 30, I marketing and the person that's a good question goes, Oh, Oh, you are not a real Writer and walks away. So that sort of where this comes from, it's this idea that a real, Writer a real writer write it's a real writer has a publisher. It's a real writer. Is this, this certain rigid thing that spends only time WRITING, it's a, it's a very, I feel like it's a very outdated way of viewing things to be honest. Autumn (13m 23s): But I, it surprises me because I think, I mean, at least every month I still hear people say that I have to admit, I think it used to be every week that I would hear people say, Oh, you know, Writing is blah, blah, blah. But there are still people who feel that if you're not Writing, you know, if you're not only writing, if your still marketing, then your not a real writer. Right? Yeah. I mean, of course there is some personal belief in this. I mean, everybody probably have their own understanding of what it means to be a writer. Autumn (13m 55s): And what does a writer do on doing well, eight hours of work and or whatever you wanna call it. Right. Write, I mean, we are probably, everybody probably has their own opinion about , but yeah, that's what we are gonna try to dig a bit deeper in here and try to at least share some of the, how have you seen and the, I don't know, maybe challenge you're thinking of it. I am not sure. Let's see. Oh yes. I definitely, I believe me. I think the world needs a lot more time listening to each other and sort of making assumptions and talking to dead air. So I think its just as a dun in an idea of to challenge a challenge, what you think a real writer is. Autumn (14m 30s): And maybe even if you hate marketing and maybe challenge or assumptions, that marketing is a part of Writing. So I tried, I, like I said, I did some digging in history of files to bring up some ideas for today. Okay. Let's hear it. Alright. Well I wanted to go, as I said, I think history itself, a lot of people don't realize that history repeats itself because we think now is like everything we forgotten, like I've was joking with my husband today. Autumn (15m 2s): I looked back at February when the room, my built in my cabin was snow in some debris and I look at it down, it's a room and I'm like, really? That was only a few months ago. So it's so easy to forget, but I looked up the history of self publishing. And what do you think is the earliest example of self publishing? I would say it's Jesper (15m 28s): Well I, I would say it's probably, I don't, I don't know any names of the authors or whatever, but I think it would be half to do something to do with somebody in a way we all times by buying a, a PR you know, getting his own book printed on a press and paying for it himself. Yes. That would be good. Autumn (15m 51s): We have a definition that would say that the definition of self publishing and so yes. So when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, that was 1440. And so yeah, some people say that it's the history of self publishing, but honestly the Chinese were using movable type way before that. So technically it's older even then that, and I mean, technically you, you can go back to it when people are writing scrolls, that would be self publishing. And the earliest evidence of that is 3,100 BC. Autumn (16m 22s): So a technically it depends on how much you want to go into it. So we're not gonna do a history lesson But yeah. So how did they do Amazon? App's in 1300 BC. Oh, I don't think it was him as well as he could have been. It was in the Amazon, right? Yeah. Jesper (16m 42s): But he would be somebody that says sitting out in the treats shop or shouting about it. Okay. The book is out. Yeah, Autumn (16m 48s): Yeah. That's right. Dunn. Yeah. You read it now. Hot off the lift. But so what are some, it was a time period and it was pretty big. So in the 18 hundreds, self publishing was actually very typical and they call it a vanity publishing. So where do you think vanity? Why do they use the term vanity for publishing? Jesper (17m 11s): Aye. I could be wrong on this, but I think that it has to do with is because the, well, the author has a bit of a hit, you know, that they want their own works published and no, at least the connotation it has today is that self publishing some times is called a bandage publishing because it's a bit like it's not, isn't it a really good publishing. It is just like somebody who wanted to put this out into the world. They probably tried to get in a, a, a traditional publishing house to publish it, which they wouldn't because it wasn't good enough. Jesper (17m 44s): So they went ahead and published it on their own. That's a bit of the stigma it has today, at least that Autumn (17m 50s): I don't know if that's way originated from as well. I need a little child little thing. Yes. Gold star for you. That is correct because it's considered vanity publishing because the author was vain and we want it to be published even though they've had been rejected, but that is a stigma. Even back then, that isn't necessarily true. Some people maybe they couldn't get published, but the thing about women writers, they were, they just couldn't even own property. They couldn't even talk to publishers unless they had a male relative. And this was even in England. Autumn (18m 21s): So some of them were paying to have books published and using a pen names or anonymous was very famous, basically meant AU is written by a woman. And so there is a lot of authors who were vanity publishing because they had no other means, but they're books were good because come on, you've got a guest, at least a couple people who, or a self published, just like, Oh, you could pick an author, the author and the author of a historic, you can choose a modern one Plato Oh, you know, I didn't go back that far. Autumn (19m 7s): It's not fair. I self published something. I bet he did too. I'm sure the Greeks were really into self publishing and we just don't appreciate it. But some of my favorites, I couldn't believe this. John Locke was self published, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther, Marcel Proust, some of the, what are some of the works that they published it that way. I see, Oh, I'm not even going to go into him. But how about some really good ones? What Whitman, the leaves of grass, in fact, well, Whitman is considered the first one who discovered Author branding. Autumn (19m 44s): He sold the leaves of grass based on his rather notorious lifestyle and who he was. So yeah, I didn't actually realize that he was so scandalous. That was kind of fun to read. It's a very salicious. I now have a new appreciation for the leaves of grass and you have to read it again. But two, the paragons that I could not believe are self published where Emily Dickinson and Jane Rustin, Jean Oxton, I mean, she is considered, she is second to Shakespeare in sales and notoriety and she self published in her lifetime. Autumn (20m 25s): So that kind of says something about what self publishing is. So it's self publishing has been around a long time. So that's only part of this question though. The question is, you know, what does it mean to be a writer? So these authors were self published. What I could not uncover and unbury unfortunately is how much time these Author spent. You know, it was shaking the Busch and telling people about their works, how they went about selling them. Autumn (20m 54s): However Jane Austin. It really was her brother, Henry and her sister Kassandra, who were shouting about our work here. She was very lucky that way to have very strong family support. And she tried very hard to not let people know. First. She tried to have to let people know it was written by a woman and then that kind of leaked out and she just signed her books. They were titled by a lady, but she did get to meet with the Prince Regent, who was a huge fan. So she did do some meetings and things like that. I think later in life, there was a few book signings, but other people, like I mentioned, well, what he was, he was of the brand and he was out all the time selling these books. Autumn (21m 34s): In fact, he basically published the leaves of grass in 18 different versions. He just kept adding on it and putting stuff together. That was his book. It was only, it was his only book, you know? And you just went on selling it and he sold it based on who he was. And people just wanted it because he was like, Oh, you wrote this. Oh my goodness. I want you to read us. So I just found, it's so fascinating to read through some of this history of some of these paragons, you know, people, we never would be like reading, I'm reading this and finding out, but you know, Emerson, you know, actually Benjamin Franklin, I self published. Autumn (22m 12s): A lot of these people published and they would do adverts in the local paper. They would do book signings. They would go to the societal dinner's and bring their book and be like, well, you know, I wrote this so you can do a little reading and the polite society rooms and try to get people to spread the word. I mean, this is, this was the earliest social media of going to these dinners and spreading the word about there books. And these are people that we just think, Oh, it's Dean Austin. Of course, of course she did well, but Nope, she, she had to shake the Busch. Autumn (22m 45s): So I'll think of this stuff up from somewhere. Yeah. You all start from somewhere until you get to be known. So I did really find this fascinating that there is a huge history of being not only self published, but Writer is having to do a lot more and a lot of heavy lifting than just writing. Yeah, absolutely. But I'll also even, even in the modern day, for example, you know, a JK Rowling, self-publishers her eBooks versions of Harry Potter, but I actually didn't know that's the, I didn't bring up to modern. Autumn (23m 18s): That's exciting. Yeah. So, so, so she didn't want to sign a waiver to REITs for the iBooks because it owns so much money. So, so she holds help hold onto those rights herself for her. And she's self publish is the Harry Potter books and books. And then she sign the contract a For, you know, paperback in hot back and whatnot ride. So that's an excellent, she owns the rights herself. So I'm self published. That is fantastic. And I wonder if she owns the IP assume there's audio Jesper (23m 46s): Books, there has to be audio works. So here we have hotter. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Are, there is a, I think that's with a publishing house, but I'm not an a 100% share on that, but I think it is considering, I am sure she would have had the money to hire somebody, but considering how difficult and time consuming of a process, they can do whatever she wants. Yeah. I think she is one of the richest woman in the world. So I think she was doing fine in those days. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Okay. Well actually I also find found the quote that I was thinking about four for this podcast episode here. Jesper (24m 18s): So I was thinking too, maybe just shared and then follow on with a bit of my thoughts, because if it goes into this entire topic here, excellent. So this is a quote from Ray Bradbury. So it goes like this quote, if you simply define a rider as someone who is WRITING clarity says In, you are truly a rider when you are writing. And if you don't write regularly, don't pretend to give yourself that title start writing more for me, they key is. Jesper (24m 53s): Yeah. And then yeah. End of the quote, write. And then what I want you to say is that for me, the key is in that word regularly because I can agree to that pot. I mean, if you want to, if you want to be an author, that also means that you have to put your butt in the seat and ride at the end of the day, we only authors if we write stuff. So I would say, you know, only writing his writing marketing is not Writing social media is not writing. Jesper (25m 25s): Only writing is writing. However, that does not mean that none of those other activities isn't a part of being an author is. And I think for me, that's where the distinction lies because you also have to do marketing. You also have to do social media and all those other things. So as you set in the beginning of the episode would have been the beginning of the section Autumn when somebody was asking, so how much do you write? And then if the answer was well, our right in the morning and I do marketing in the afternoon, and then people would say, well, then you're not a writer. Jesper (26m 0s): I think it comes from stuff like this. You know, that there was this kind of thinking that well, writers only write. And if you do anything else, then you not a proper right. Or maybe there's a bit of thinking as well that, well, if your a proper righty, your publisher will do all those other things for you. But nowadays in 2020 property says actually expect the authors to due to marketing as well. They do not, if your a Stephen King or something, then he will get whatever he wants. But for everybody else, even those who are those who have traditional publishing contracts, the puppet is that they will not really allocate any funding or attention to watch marketing. Jesper (26m 39s): They actually expect the author to do it. So that's why I also set up at the top that Autumn (26m 45s): I think it's a bit of an old fashioned outdated view on things this whole, this whole conversation, you know, it's, I don't know. I find it a bit weird that unless you ride eight hours a day and do nothing else, then you're not a right. I don't, I can't quite follow the logic day. And I probably can't, if we go 10 or 20 years back than maybe I understand now in 2020 now I don't get it. I agree. And I think that's a really good distinction is like Yeah writers writing is Writing and you're a writer if you're actively writing or at least trying to write every day, or are you have a scheduled in your reading, but an author, it incorporates a lot more. Autumn (27m 26s): And that's even book signings. I mean, we know someone who, you know, their publisher sends them off to some of these book fairs and stuff. That's not Writing, that's being front and center. Even if the publisher is paying your entrance fee, which is always nice instead of having to do it out of your Author business. But it, again, sometimes you go what you do, these book signings, your handing out cards and stuff. As you go and share, you've got a grocery store until when to ask what you do. And you say, you're a writer and you told them about your books and they're you go? Autumn (27m 57s): It doesn't matter if you have a publisher not, but I agree a lot of publishers these days do expect you to have done it. And a lot of publishers like to pick up authors and writers who have been doing it. So that's why there's a lot of hybrid authors that use days where they Be, they started out as a self publishing and they are doing such a good job at getting themselves known in an in demand that publisher thinks, Oh, you are a safe bet. So I'm going to skip, are you up? And you are going to keep doing what you're doing, but now we're going to handle the book sales and maybe some of that advertising or are paying for the expenses for you to go to these big, big book, fair is and booking you out two signings and things. Autumn (28m 36s): Now, I mean, this is just good business, right? Yeah. I mean, if, if you are running a business and you are the head of publishing at a big publishing house, who do you want to sign? And you want to take a chance on an Author. You never heard about And who has no media, a social media following on anything, or do you wanna pick the one where you can see that they have a lot of following a lot of people, you know, talking about them and probably buying the books, which of course is as a publisher, you want know what at that point in time, but you have a pretty strong indication if you see what they're doing on the internet, right. Or whether or not it looks like they have a lot of following. Autumn (29m 9s): And so who do you go with? Of course, you'd pick the one with the following, right. Because you know, well this guy, he or her, yes, they can, they can publish their way. They can promote their own book. I'm going to say, and, and they can make a cell. And that's what do you want? Yeah, that's a publishing house. I mean, right. And there are some benefits. I mean, some the publishing house is they have some great NS with libraries, like the bookstore, as you see it airport's and things like that as well. That's actually kind of hard to get into as an Indy published author. Yeah. I think that's probably the only thing to be honest. Autumn (29m 41s): Autumn Jesper (29m 43s): I say, I, I, going through, at this point in time, I'm recording the, a free course are that we are going to put up later in the year. And actually I was just going through with the other day, one of the modules, when I talk about self publishing and stuff like that. And one of the things I actually set there is that the only thing that traditional publisher can do that we can not do with self publishers, I am getting into bookstores and libraries in effective manner. That's the only thing that they can do, but there is nothing else that they can do at, we can not do as well. Jesper (30m 14s): And probably if we want to better, I agree. I, I, I think, yeah, yeah. And editing might be some slight different that that's probably something where I would say that they can do it well, and it's not that we couldn't do exactly the same thing. I think that the thing is just at when the traditional publishing houses do their editing, they go through like 10 rounds of editing or something. It's very rare that you find a traditional published book with a single type of way that it can happen, but its very rare and it is because it's a, they've gone over, over and over and over and over again. Jesper (30m 47s): And then of course, as self published authors, we could also, we could do the same thing. I mean we could hire 10 different proof reading editor's and then go through one by one by one by one. And hopefully by the end you will, you we'll have gotten rid of any tables. So if you want two, you could go through that labral in the process a as well. But at least that part, I think that they usually do better in the traditional publishing houses that we do. But when it comes to marketing, getting professional covers, at least if we know who to contact and get them to decide for us and even, even editing as well, you know, all, all those things we can do just as well as they can. Jesper (31m 25s): Yeah. I do you think they have the advantage of many different eyes on one thing? Yes. Yes they do. But I definitely, I definitely think there's a split there though, because sometimes you're dealing with lots of people who might give contrary advice and then you have someone who might be really pushing hard for Writing to market. And I have heard stories of authors being really conflicted with getting an offer, have a wonderful, it sounds like a really good deal. You'll be able to a real publisher, but you, no, they want to switch this character and they want to do this and probably still very good book, but that's really hard if you're coming from a creative, I love being in charge of all my creative input. Jesper (32m 5s): So yeah that's yeah. As our one guest Hollie had mentioned about her in her writing partner, Angelina in Delina, they are, they were creating the world together, but they were both writing their own stories because they both a little to controlling what else to share the same book in the same character. It was thought that was kind of a durable it's very honest. Hi. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's not always a, you know, you need to find some, but if your, what writing something together with somebody else, you need to find somebody who you, you aware of writing a new way of thinking and your way of working matches well with right? Jesper (32m 44s): So otherwise you kind of get sort of conflicts about things. So it's a, well, we actually talked about that in the past episode about finding a, somebody to write with. So go and search for that if your interested, but you said something earlier on that, a trigger something in me because I'm, there's also this whole debate about the, what is the difference between a writer and an author. And I did find, I did find some definitions. This is not me making it up. Jesper (33m 14s): This is some stuff I found on that. Autumn (33m 16s): The internet, which is always this. Yeah, exactly. Then Janette is always telling this truth, no matter what do you know? It Autumn that it's the way it is. All right. Never lies and everything you read is true. And you know what? I believe everything can say Jesper (33m 29s): Yes, but I found this ah, this way of wording it. Ah, and I thought it was just shared because then I want, you want us to talk a bit about what we think about it afterwards? So it goes like this, that some say that a writer is someone who writes a book, an article or whatever. Why not? An author is one who originates the idea of the Plot all the content of that it's been what is being written and both of those can of course be at the same person. Jesper (34m 2s): And then there are others who say that right, is our people who write Y all those authors who are those who have published their work and are earning money from it. So that sort of two different ways of Autumn (34m 15s): Distinguishing between being a rider and being an Author. Okay. I hadn't heard that first one before and it doesn't really resonate well with me, but the second one to me is, is more true. I Writer is someone who is REITs is writing. I mean, you could be a writer if your doing blogs and other things, a you're a journalist, you're a writer, but an author is definitely someone who has, you have given birth and produced a novel. And suddenly C's, you know, they've done the editing, they've done the covers. Autumn (34m 47s): Now they see, they had to do ads. They were doing the social media is more of a business idea. Even if they have a publisher, whether or not they have a publisher, they are an author B. It was like becoming a parent. Your not a mom until you give birth. So with the child. But do you know what my view on this? Is that, is that Yeah. Why do we care? It's a good one. Why does it matter? What is a Writer versus what, I mean, if you tie start typing it in, in Google law, in, in a, in your web browser, it'll automatically populate. Autumn (35m 23s): What is the difference between a writer and an author? Just like we can ask, why have we are debating what the differences are? It makes absolutely zero difference. It's very true. I think it's human nature to want categorize things and be able to define things as part of our little curiosity about, you know, understanding the world by putting labels in words, on things. But it does that make a difference at the end of the day, really? Jesper (35m 53s): Alan is like, I really feel like we need to break free of this line of thinking because I really don't think it matters at all. And the other part is that Autumn (36m 3s): Yeah, Jesper (36m 4s): A fair bit that some people might be checking out these definitions because maybe they feel a bit too insecure. So then they want, they don't want to end up saying, well, I, you know, if somebody asked, why do, what do you do to, I say, I'm a Writer or do I say Author? What is the difference between the two? And I definitely shouldn't say I'm an author if I haven't published books. So maybe I need to say I'm a writer. And so you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And on and on and on there's self goes. It's just like, I don't like it. Jesper (36m 35s): You know, get rid of that stuff. It doesn't matter if you want to say you're right. If you want to say an author or whatever, say whatever you feel comfortable with, but I just don't think in it, if it matters at all, I don't think it as well that it matters what people, other people they're the people or the person who received that answer. How did you receive that answer? It doesn't matter either. Now. Maybe they feel like, well, Writer, Author maybe those data, we didn't even think about it. Some people we'll be thinking about it and they will be the ones we talked about at, at the top, where, well, are you writing it hours a day? Jesper (37m 12s): And if the answer is no Autumn (37m 16s): Not good enough for those standard. No, I think no, an honest answer of, Hey, what are you doing? I'm writing a book that kind of, you know, call me whatever you want. Why do you feel comfortable with, yeah, it that's fine. I agree. I think the ideas, like you said, put your butt in the chair. If your, if you want to do this, but your in the chair and actually REIT, and don't worry at what people call you or define you because some people are going to call you are a writer, so I'm gonna call you Author so we will call you a HACC, but its just do it and you know, do it cause you love it or because it's a drive within you and that's really the important part. Autumn (37m 53s): And yeah, you might, if you go on to publish a book, you're going to find out that there's a lot more to Writing. Whether you are publishing through a publisher or self publishing, you're going to find out there's quite a lot more to it than just, you know, hitting done. And it's suddenly magically out their and selling. There's a lot more shaking. I always think of a word, little worker bees doing their working bee dance to saying I am getting my work done. So yeah, you're gonna, you're going to find that as part of your life too. Jesper (38m 24s): Yeah, that's true. I mean, for me it's like, if you need permission from anybody as a listener, you have my permission permission from now on you can call yourself a writer, an author, the muster of the universe of whatever you want. I don't care. I don't care if I mean, it doesn't matter if you've published anything or if you have that pup, is there anything, if you want to call yourself a writer or an author? I do. So I think that the only thing that matters, as I said earlier on is that you right on a regular basis, whether you are published on it or not, it doesn't really matter if you're right on a regular basis and you, if you're committed to death in my view, then you are a writer. Jesper (39m 2s): I like it. I, I agree with it. And I think that's where we should definitely end on that note that, yes, it's good to call yourself a writer, call yourself an author. Don't don't deny yourself that if that is what you're doing and that is what's in your heart. Yeah. I have a, I actually find just one more quick, which I think we can finish off with that. Both did our homework for this one. I'm so proud. It's amazing. Isn't it? When you put in the effort, something happens. Jesper (39m 33s): He's amazing. But this one, it's a firm Ursula, Kayla Quint and I, I quite like it to so are you ready? All right. Yes, absolutely. From Ursula. Okay. You may have gathered from all of this that I am not encouraging people to try to be writers. Well, I can't, you hate to see a nice young person run up to the edge of the cliff and jump off on the other hand. It is awfully nice to know that some other people are just as knotty and just as determined to jump off the cliffs as you are, you just hope they realize what they are in for at the quote. Jesper (40m 15s): Oh, I love it. I that's why I love isn't that amazing? That does amazing. And that is perfect. So yes, I am so glad. I'm glad for the internet some days, because I've met so many people just as crazy, if not a little bit crazier, which is hard to do than me. So yeah. Yeah. And I like the, I liked the core message in In at least a way I read or hear that quote. It's also that if you wanna be a writer, there is a million things that you could do that will earn you an income at a thousand times faster in a thousand times easier. Jesper (40m 52s): So if you really want to be a writer and you have to be a bit naughty, you really want to go through with this. So, you know, as she says, she just hope that they realized what they're in for For and I think that is such a good message. You know, that tried to go in and if your listening to podcast like this one, you are going in, open-minded all ready. So that is great. You are already enlightened. As you enter on this journey, by listening to podcasts are reading block post or whatever, or you may be doing a learning about WRITING. Jesper (41m 24s): But I like the core message of that, that you can tell people that this should be right. As you know, if they wanna be writers, they want to be right as, and then hopefully they just know Autumn (41m 34s): What's gonna hit them. It was a very good message. And I agree, you know, any bunch of people who, it doesn't mind having characters, talking in their head and the spouses and significant others of all of those people who talked to the partners about the people who are talking in their heads and don't end up in the lunatic asylum. It's good. It's all right. So next Monday and if all goes well, Autumn will take a break and I will have a great interview line up for you about self editing. Narrator (42m 9s): If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST please tell a fellow Author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn in Yesper on patrion.com/am Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.
will the movie "CATS" make you an alcoholic? yes
This week I discuss plot-driven stories.
Dervla McTiernan discusses plot, how important structure is in your novel, and how she approaches writing a novel. And she shares what the sign on her wall says, that reminds her what is important, every time she writes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
If your character wouldn't do the thing the party is doing, why are they even there?
It's the day after the mine exploration, but that doesn't mean things have settled down. Jonathan learns about his family's past. Katrina has a bad morning. Quis gets a new book. Leroy confronts Quis. Raner learns a new song. And to top it all off, a new adventure begins.
It's the day after the mine exploration, but that doesn't mean things have settled down. Jonathan learns about his family's past. Katrina has a bad morning. Quis gets a new book. Leroy confronts Quis. Raner learns a new song. And to top it all off, a new adventure begins.
Actress Maribeth Monroe (Mindy St. Claire) and visual effects supervisor David Niednagel shoot the shirt with host Marc Evan Jackson about acting on a secretive TV show, the behind-the-scenes visual effects process, how Maribeth got her start in improv comedy and a shirt-ton more.The Good Place: The Podcast is a production of NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
Actor William Jackson Harper (Chidi) and writer Demi Adejuyigbe join host Mark Evan Jackson to shoot the shirt about writing, the similarities between William and "Chidi," the challenges of joining a writers’ room in full swing, how philosophy has influenced their writing and performance process, behind-the-scenes stories including Joe Mande’s Frank Caliendo joke he couldn’t let go and a fork-ton more. NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
Actress Tiya Sircar (Real Eleanor/Vicky) and writer Jen Statsky shoot the shirt with host Marc Evan Jackson about how Tiya’s original audition was for “Tahani,” how the writers’ room is rarely about comedy writing, Mike Schur’s “good-for-something folder” and a fork-ton more laughs and behind-the-scenes stories. NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
Host Marc Evan Jackson shoots the shirt with The Good Place comedy writing team Josh Siegal and Dylan Morgan about the uniqueness of the writers’ room, insights into “Michael,” including Ted Danson’s amazing acting performance, protecting the plot twist and a fork-ton more. NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
Actress Kristen Bell and legendary TV producer Morgan Sackett join host Marc Evan Jackson to shoot the shirt about how Kristen became “Eleanor,” the art department’s behind-the-scenes Easter eggs, producing calmly while under pressure, comedy acting and a fork-ton more. NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
First-time actress Jameela Jamil (Tahani) and set designer extraordinaire Camille Bratkowski shoot the shirt with host Marc Evan Jackson about acting for the first time, Ted Danson’s unconventional behind-the-scenes relaxation techniques to enhance his comedy performance, the amazing locations you can actually visit in Los Angeles and a fork-ton more. NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
The Good Place casting directors Allison Jones and Ben Harris join comedy writer Alan Yang and host Marc Evan Jackson to discuss Jameela’s audition performance for Tahani, writing for demons, anecdotes about acting and writing and a fork-ton more. NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
Host Marc Evan Jackson shoots the shirt with storytelling mastermind, show creator and architect of The Good Place (the show, not heaven) Michael Schur. They discuss the backstory of Mike getting carte blanche to make the TV show he’s always wanted, the inner workings of Janet, dark corners of fringe ethics, plot development, behind-the-scenes anecdotes about writing and a fork-ton more.NBC Entertainment Podcast Network © 2018
It all starts with a good story... which means a good start, a strong finish, and knowing how to get there. We discuss how to develop an absolutely awesome, totally kick ass plot that your audience will love. Visit www.writersgrouptherapy.com for more info.SHOW NOTES:Big Ideas for Screenwriters - Producer/Writing Consultant Barri Evins http://bigbigideas.com/
Conjour 4 - Plot Development 1: Terry Mixon, Michael “Talthos†Willett, P.L. Blair, Rhonda Eudaly
Conjour 4 - Plot Development 2: Paul Elard Cooley, Mel White, Charlie Brown
This is another panel about plot development brought to us by Terry. The panelists are Paul Elard Cooley (Moderator), Julia Mandala, P.L. Blair, Jody Lynn Nye, and Lou Antonelli.
Panel #3 Terry has made available from Con-Jour 2011. This is a panel on plot development, and on the panel was Terry Mixon (moderator), Michael Willett, Charlie Brown, Beverly Hale, and Bill Fawcett.
This is a panel Terry recorded at ConJour 2010 about Plot Development.
Show #2-The Write Stuff, The Write Way series is dedicated to helping writers with writing, promoting, publishing and getting their book reviewed. Tune in to hear the best of the best in the writing industry such as Urban Christian Fiction writers Rhonda McKnight and Keshia Dawn. They will discuss their journey into writing, becoming apart of one of the top publishing companies for Christian fiction, how to successful develop a story line and their upcoming projects.
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