Blocking! What is it, why is it important, and how can you do it well?
Tools, not rules. For writers, by writers.
We begin with an audio glitch and a jumbling of our usual intro. Why? Because it breaks rhythm, and sometimes you may actually want to do that. Narrative rhythm is the pattern of story elements and associated structures that help drive the reader’s pace through a book. Consciously managed, narrative…
Mary Robinette Kowal schools Brandon, Dan, and Howard with her outlining system.
Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mary review some of Emma Coats’ “Pixar Rules” for storytelling
What are the things that matter to your characters? What things matter to your readers? After we get the obligatory ambiguity out of the way, we settle into talking about the “stakes” and the escalation thereof.
Dan Wells walks us through the seven-point story structure format he uses, and then we demonstrate by brainstorming this on a sample story.
Shanna Germain joins Brandon, Mary, and Howard for a frank discussion of love scenes.
Recorded live at Utah Valley University, here’s another Q&A episode from the LTUE Symposium! The questions: What was Brandon’s plan with Mistborn and the themes regarding establishment? Why does Kelsier shrug so much? (This leads into a fun discussion of “tells.”) How do you know when to stop a chapter?…
Brandon answers “The Way of Kings” questions from Mary, Howard, and Dan.
A microcast is our word for an asynchronous Q&A episode: you ask us tons of questions online, either through twitter or facebook or our listenermail account (on the sidebar), and we want to answer as many of them as we can. Not every answer can fill an entire episode, though,…