Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard
What makes something a novel, rather than just a serialized collection of stuff that happens? How do we use structure to turn collections of stuff into something more cohesive? What tools do we use to outline, map, and/or plan our novel writing?
Reference Note: “Scene and sequel” comes to us from Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, first published in 1965 (52 years ago.)
Credits: this episode was recorded in Cosmere House Studios by Dan Dan the Audioman Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:53 — 13.0MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS
Take a film or TV program, which you like, and which was NOT based on a book, and plot the novel that it would have been had it been a novel before being on screen.
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
Thank you for the cast. I think the value here is when Mary, Dan, and Brandon talk about how they outline a book. It’s a nearly-nineteen minute cast, but the couple of minutes where we have that knowledge is really nice.
In case anyone else wishes to witness the gore and glory of Howard’s finger injury, you can find it here: https://twitter.com/TheDanWells/status/831969329235177472
(Current events as depicted in the podcast are not current in all listeners’ timelines.)
One of the things Mary said came out a bit garbled. She mentioned that someone doesn’t have to be a POV character to get a character arc, that you can also do one with a *something something something.*
Can anyone clarify?
I believe she is saying: “you can do this with a single POV”
“with a single POV”
“…just because you’re giving another character a character arc doesn’t mean that they have to be a POV character, because you can do this with a single POV.”
She says “you can do this with a single VP” (viewpoint). Hope that helps! 🙂
“- I do wanna be clear that, just because you’re giving another character a character arc doesn’t mean that they have to be a POV character. ‘Cause you can do this with a single POV
-That’s true”
She says “you can actually do this with a single POV.”
No blip when I listened. She clearly says “you can do this with a single POV.”
I think you mean this line?
[Mary] I do want to be clear that just because you’re giving another character a character arc doesn’t mean that they have to be a POV character. Because you can do this with a single POV.
In other words, you can write your novel with a single POV protagonist/narrator, and still have secondary characters who grow and change during the story.
“I do want to be clear that just because you’re giving another character a character-arc, doesn’t mean they have to be a POV character. ’cause you CAN do this with a single POV”
It’s the original fantastic four! This time, talking about novels. What makes a novel a novel? Pacing, breaks, and breathers? Even beats for the emotional tick-tock of your novel? Yep, it’s all there, in the transcript now available in the archives and over here
https://wetranscripts.dreamwidth.org/134778.html
Ride that roller coaster, and enjoy the ups, the downs, and the loops! Write!
This broadcast got me thinking about the origin story novel I want to write about my female main character from my first novel. As Dan was saying, a story goes somewhere and isn’t just a sequence of events, and it’s been worrying me that as currently envisioned, this novel of mine won’t go anywhere spectacular.
But maybe what I’m working with is a coming of age story. So it’ll be ok if the point of arrival is my character’s re-embracing the calling she accepted at the beginning of her journey, but in a more enlightened, heartfelt, and experienced way.