Essential Guide to Writing a Novel
James Thayer
Hosted by James Thayer, the podcast is a practical, step-by-step manual on how to craft a novel. It presents a set of tools for large issues such as story development and scene construction (Kirkus Reviews said Thayer's novels are "superbly crafted') and it also examines techniques that will make your sentence-by-sentence writing shine. The New York Times Book Review has said Thayer's "writing is smooth and clear. it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm only confident stylists achieve.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jun 23, 2023 • 25min
Episode 66 - Creating characters readers love. Also; techniques for writing sad dialogue.
A main reason readers put a novel on their all-time top-ten favorites list is because they fall in love with a character. Here's how we can create characters readers will love. Also discussed are techniques for writing sad dialogue. And also: how to get unstuck when writing or novel or short story.Support the show
Jun 16, 2023 • 26min
Episode 65 - A writer's thoughts on ChatGPT. And the benefits of identifying our genre.
I've been checking out the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, and here are some impressions of its use for writers. And: what are the benefits of identifying our novel as being in a genre? Also, more on those pesky dialogue tag modifiers. Support the show
Jun 9, 2023 • 26min
Episode 64 - How to get started writing, and tips on romantic and angry dialogue.
How can we get off the dime and start writing our novel or short story? Here are some thoughts. Also, readers love emotional dialogue; techniques to write romantic dialogue and angry dialogue are discussed.Support the show
Jun 2, 2023 • 31min
Episode 63 - How to bring our settings to life, and writing the romantic scene.
Here is a strong technique for immersing readers in our settings. Readers will think they are right there with our characters. Also, almost all stories should have a romance, and keys to writing romance scenes are reviewed.Support the show
May 26, 2023 • 29min
Episode 62 - A technique for bringing our characters to life, and writing the action scene.
Here is a strong technique to make our characters vivid and memorable for the reader. And also: most novels should have action scenes. The craft of writing a powerful action scene is reviewed.Support the show
May 19, 2023 • 23min
Episode 61 - How to detect and fix a sloppy scene. Also: how to unleash story ideas.
Sometimes a scene we've written just doesn't feel right. Something is amiss but we can't put our fingers on it. Here's a method to figure out what might be wrong and how to fix it. Also: we can get stuck in our thinking about the plot. Where should the story go next? What should we add? Here are ideas on inventing plot points.Support the show
May 12, 2023 • 23min
Episode 60 - Fabulous sentences of fiction, font fiddling, and slow motion.
A terrific way for writers to find inspiration is to hear legendary sentences from famous novels. Here are a few. Should we fiddle with fonts in our manuscript? And slow motion is a powerful tool for our scenes.Support the show
May 5, 2023 • 24min
Episode 59 - Plotting with a spreadsheet. And the unreliable narrator. Also, fiddling with the flow of time.
Can we use a spreadsheet to plot our novels? Some authors do. Here are thoughts about using Excel for outlining a story. Also, most main characters in a novel tell the truth to the reader. But some don't. Sometimes an unreliable narrator is a strong tool for plotting. Plus, should authors fiddle with the speed of time in our novels? Hurrying time and skipping time? Here are some techniques regarding the flow of time in our stories.Support the show
Apr 28, 2023 • 28min
Episode 58 - Making writing less daunting, and some techniques to avoid weak sentences.
How can we handle the dispiriting feeling that writing our novel is a huge, endless, and hard chore with completion far in the future, if ever? Here are some thoughts about facing our big writing project. Also mentioned are some sentence-by-sentence writing mistakes that are easy to avoid. And this episode presents some specific words we can delete from our manuscript, and our story will magically be better.Support the show
Apr 23, 2023 • 24min
Episode 57 - An important tool, the timeline. Also, authorial distance.
Creating a timeline can help us keep things straight as we plot and write. Also, here's a discussion of authorial distance, which is the closeness or distance the reader feels from the scene's subjects. And a list of ways to avoid sentence-by-sentence weak writing.Support the show
