Monthly Archives: January 2022

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.5: The Promise of the Brand

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Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd

Your brand—your name, the cover art for your book, and even the typeface for the title—set expectations for the book’s contents. That advice about not judging a book by its cover? It’s lovely in theory, but in practice, that’s just not how it works.

In this episode we’ll talk about how your brand gets defined, and how you can work with those elements to correctly set expectations regarding your work.

Liner Notes: We’ve done several episodes about branding. 14.34 is particularly good.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Describe the perfect cover for your work-in-progress. What is the right typeface for your brand?

Illuminae, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Guest, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.4: The Gun on the Mantel is Actually a Fish

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Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd

In the previous episode we discussed how to ensure that your surprise feels inevitable. In this episode we’re covering how to make inevitability feel surprising. The title is a nod to the concept of the “red herring,” which is arguably the most useful tool for setting up a good surprise.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Do the reverse of last week’s homework: find a thing that is important later and find a scene early where you can “put it on the mantle.”

And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.3: Chekov’s Surprising Yet Inevitable Inverted Gun

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Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd

This week we’re talking about giving inevitability to our intended surprise, and we open with a discussion of Chekov’s Gun, which, as a writing rule, is mostly used in inversion.

Next week we’ll focus on making inevitable things surprising.

Liner Notes: Art and Editing of Suicide Squad (YouTube) 

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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In your current WIP, pin down a person, a place, or a thing you threw in for flavor at the beginning of your story but didn’t plan to use again. Write a scene for them to come back in the final act of your story in an unexpected way.

Dead Beat: The Dresden Files, Book 7, by Jim Butcher

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.2: It Was a Promise of Three Parts

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Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd

The title of this episode comes to us from the first paragraph of The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss—a novel which delights us with turns of phrase and evocative prose from beginning to end.

We’re continuing our exploration of “promises as a structure” by looking at the promises made by the prose of your first line, first paragraph, and first page. What does your first line say about the rest of your book? Did you mean for it to say that? Is your first line writing checks that your later chapters can actually cash?

Liner Notes: We did an eight-episode master class on first lines, pages, and paragraphs with DongWon Song. It begins with 16.27.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Write six different 1st lines, each of which makes a promise you don’t think you can keep. Ask yourself WHY you can’t keep it.

Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls, by Kaela Rivera

Guest, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.1: Genre and Media are Promises

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Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd

The genre of your story is making promises to the reader, and the medium upon which your story is told makes promises too.

In this episode we talk about the expectations set by various mediums and genres, and how we can leverage those to ensure that we deliver a satisfying story.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

Liner Notes: The entirety of Season 11, The Elemental Genres, is a deep-dive on this stuff.

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What do you plan to have your work-in-progress deliver? Does the genre or medium you’re working in support the promise of that deliverable?

Mine by Delilah Dawson