Join us at the Story Works Round Table as we sit down with Alethea Lyons, author of the supernatural dark fantasy Seer of York series, published by Brigids Gate Press. She writes various forms of SFF, with a particular love for science-fantasy, dark fantasy, dystopias, and folklore. We talk about the particular challenges facing writers of series and sequels.
This week on the Story Works Round Table, Sarah Branson returns to talk about getting to know your characters. We dig into the different roles characters play, depending on their relationship to the protagonist and how well we need to know them in order to write them well. Sarah’s novel, North Country, is available now.
“You have to put yourself in their life and try and figure out what their motivations are.”
Why is continuity so important? And what opportunities does it present you as an author? How can continuity be tracked through your manuscript? And what should you track? What things within your manuscript help maintain continuity?
What does it mean to restore balance at the end of your book? Do you always have to wrap everything up with a bow? How do we feel about leaving things open-ended? And how can you restore balance without a happily ever after?
In this week’s Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert, and Kathryn talk about too much of a good thing. When do you tip the balance from just enough, to too much or too little?
How has Molly’s arc evolved over the course of her storytelling? And how does she craft agency into her own story? How many ways has she had to approach the same topics? And is it okay to leave the actual abuse off the page in an abuse narrative?
Why did Molly choose to write a memoir? When and how did her writing journey evolve from oral storytelling to MFA, to memoir? How do you turn your family into characters? And how important is it that they stay well rounded? We dive into antagonists, aliases, and the tricky line to walk when using your real life in your writing.
Show, don’t tell! Don’t think, feel, and wonder your way through a manuscript. Dig deep! Use that narrative exposition. Use your dialogue and action sequences. Write visually. Never use adverbs. Use the right word choice. Make your writing strong and not weak. Don’t use to be! Don’t use said! We tackle some of the most commonly touted writing rules and how they should actually apply rather than some of their more misunderstood applications.
How do you come up with material for oral stories? How do you keep it under five minutes? How important is the hook? Or the ending? And how do you craft humor into your stories?
What is oral storytelling? And how does one craft a story for oral presentation? Molly McCloy takes us through her process, how she got into oral storytelling in the first place, and how she uses humor to keep her audience engaged. This is part one of our conversation, make sure to come back next week to check out part two, where we dive even deeper into the craft of oral storytelling.
How are we all doing when it comes to the ever-evolving world situation? We chat about our productivity, whether or not we feel we should be speaking into these situations, and how we are handling our inputs versus outputs. In the end, we all agree to just keep writing!