This week, Alida, Robert, and Kathryn discuss the relationship between stakes and agency. How do these aspects of plot and character work together to create forward drive in your story?
SWRT 287 | Crafting Character Arcs
Crafting character arcs takes planning, but it’s not difficult, especially if you reverse engineer your protagonist’s big shift.
SWRT 050 | Openings
Want to know what it takes to write a good opening? How do you hook your reader and get them invested in your story? How do you create character empathy and what are the action steps that you need to take in order to write a great opening?
SWRT 049 | Balancing Action & Non-action
What can cause problems in your action balance? How do you identify these problems? And how can you work to solve them? What counts as an action beat versus a quiet moment? And what should your characters be doing in those moments?
SWRT 048 | Misunderstood Storycraft Rules
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.
SWRT 047 | Unlikeable Characters
How often do you find unlikeable characters? Is there a difference between an unlikeable personality and moral or ethical flaws? What about morally repugnant characters? What kind of arcs do unlikeable characters have? And how do you craft them?
SWRT 046 | Writing Through Anxiety with Micah Joel
We welcome special guest, Micah Joel, back to the Round Table to talk about the writing life. No matter who we are, we've probably dealt with anxiety and depression at some point in our writing lives. Whether we're talking clinical or "normal" stress and overwhelm,...
SWRT 45 | Lit RPG Fiction with Micah Joel
What is LitRPG anyway? Where does all the confusion come from? And how important are those game mechanics? What are some of the genre conventions within LitRPG? And how do you interweave a story in with such a rigid set of game rules? What kind of stories can be a vehicle for LitRPG?
SWRT 044 | World Building in Dystopian & Post Apocalyptic Fiction
How should you approach world-building in dystopian or post-apocalyptic fiction? What do you do when your science doesn’t hold up? And what do your readers expect? How should you display your world-building on the page? And where are all those balance points?
SWRT 043 | Balancing Character & World Building
Does world building or character development paralyze your first drafts? How should you address this in pre-writing? How do you identify whether or not something is integral to your story? When it is, how do you make sure you get it right? And how should you approach research?
SWRT 042 | Dystopian & Post Apocalyptic Fiction with J Thorn
How do you define Horror, Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian fiction? What are the differences in genre conventions? How does it prey on the fears of our society? What are the differences between a good and a great book in these genres? And how and where should you innovate?