Generality Is the Death of the Novel

FromHelping Writers Become Authors

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Generality Is the Death of the Novel

FromHelping Writers Become Authors

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Length:

5 minutes

Released:

May 23, 2010

Format:

Podcast episode

Released:

May 23, 2010

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Helping Writers Become Authors provides writers help in summoning inspiration, crafting solid characters, outlining and structuring novels, and polishing prose. Learn how to write a book and edit it into a story agents will buy and readers will love. (Music intro by Kevin MacLeod.)

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yWriter Software Tutorial: Tutorial for yWriter, the quintessential organizer for writers. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
Details: Bringing Fiction to Life: Learn why the details of an author's prose decide whether a story will be the entertainment of an hour or a lasting piece of literature. by Helping Writers Become Authors
7 min listen
Branded: Negotiating Consumerism in Fiction: Two reasons to avoid specifying common and popular consumer names in your fiction. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Should You Outline Backwards?: Often, it's easier and more productive to start with the last scene in a series and work your way backwards. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
It's What Your Characters Do That Defines Them: Characters need to do something to prove themselves worth defining. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Making Cliches Work for You: Cliches need not be dreaded bogeymen who haunt our work, but rather exciting and multi-faceted challenges that we can make work for us in many ways. by Helping Writers Become Authors
7 min listen
Don't Let the Big Words Die: How authors can encourage the growth of vocabulary and use it to enhance their writing. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Characters: Likability Is Overrated: Learn why readers connection with imperfection in characters, more than perfection. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
Why You Should Write More Than One Genre: The better the artist, the more varied his work. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
Why You Should Be Writing Scared: A little dryness of mouth, a little dampness of face, a little quiver in the abdominal region - these are the symptoms of sheer, unadulterated panic. These are the symptoms of a good writer. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
Backstory: The Importance of What Isn't Told: Particularly during this modern trend of beginning stories in medias res (in the middle of things), a deep and full-bodied backstory is every whit as important as the story itself. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
6 Reasons Not to Listen to Your Critique Partner: How do you know when to heed criticism? How do you know what's worth listening to? You can start by asking yourself the following six questions. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
11 Dichotomous Characters - And Why They Work: Take a look at the following list of classic characters and the dichotomies that made them so memorable. by Helping Writers Become Authors
7 min listen
5 Ways to Pace Your Story: Pacing is like a dam. It allows the writer to control just how fast or how slow his plot flows through the riverbed of his story. Understanding how to operate that dam is one of the most important tasks an author has to learn. by Helping Writers Become Authors
7 min listen
Eliciting Emotion: Discovering what drives emotion in fiction and how to elicit it in readers. by Helping Writers Become Authors
7 min listen
Choosing Your Character's Career With Care: What your character does for a living, even if it doesn't feature prominently in your story, will profoundly affect who he is and how he responds to the world around him. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
Does Your Story Have the Extraordinary Factor?: Finding perfect harmony between ordinary and extraordinary will produce just the right about of conflict between the character and his setting. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
8 Ways Writing Longhand Frees Your Muse: Writing longhand is an invaluable technique my writing would suffer without. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Should You Write for a Specific Audience?: Writing for an audience, instead of merely to an audience means you're molding your artistic vision to please the whims of the public. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
How You Can Take Advantage of Art's Subjectivity: For better or worse, art (like life) is subjective. Not one of us looks at a story, a painting, a movie, or a concert in the same way. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Is Your Dialogue Pulling Its Weight?: So just what is dialogue is really capable of? by Helping Writers Become Authors
7 min listen
4 Reasons I Quit Writing Exercises: I argue that keeping a writing-exercise journal is an ineffective, inefficient, and occasionally even detrimental habit. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
Are Your Characters Talking Heads?: When planning your scenes, even scenes where what's said is what's important, give your characters something to do. by Helping Writers Become Authors
4 min listen
Sticking With a Story: If you are willing to stick with a story and resist the urge to let go when the going gets tough, you are likely to discover one of the most important traits of any artist: perseverance. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Why Genre Writing Could Kill Your Career: Genres too often lead to cliched storylines, sub-par writing, and, in the long run, a less discerning and demanding reading public. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Emotional Connection: Punch Your Readers in the Gut!: So how do you go about creating emotionally resonant stories? It's simple: You create stories with which you resonate. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen
Plot vs. Character: Which Is More Important?: The simple fact is that fiction requires both plot and character to achieve its full potential. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
10 Ways to Write Skinny Sentences: Learn to trim your sentences into lean, mean bundles of incisive power. by Helping Writers Become Authors
6 min listen
Angst, Mental Illness, and Creativity by Carolyn Kaufman: Is angst a necessary ingredient for creativity? by Helping Writers Become Authors
9 min listen
11 Killer Chapter Breaks: Chapter breaks are do-or-die territory for novelists. by Helping Writers Become Authors
5 min listen

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Ep. 595: Clearing Up Some Misconceptions About In Medias Res: Is opening your story in medias res compatible with the Three-Act Structure? The secret is in understanding how the First Act functions. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 594: 8 Ways to Avoid Cardboard Characters (and Plot Contrivances While You're At It): If your story suffers from cardboard characters, it probably also suffers from plot contrivances. Good news: if you fix one, you fix both. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 593: Understanding the New Normal World of a Story's Resolution: In many ways, the New Normal World of a story's Resolution is what successfully completes the context of the entire story. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 592: Understanding the Underworld of a Story's Third Act: The Underworld of a Story's Third Act is symbolically important for creating powerful and realistic change with your characters and plot. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 591: Understanding the Adventure World of a Story's Second Act: Writers can use the metaphoric Adventure World of a story's Second Act to better understand this crucial part of story structure. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 590: Understanding the Normal World of a Story's First Act: Authors need to understand the four "worlds" represented within a story's structure, the first of which is the Normal World of the First Act. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 589: Deepening Your Story's Theme With the Thematic Square: If you want to deepen the complexity of your story's theme, one tool you can employ is Robert McKee's thematic square. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 588: 6 Ways to Find Your Best Ideas Before You Start Writing: Use these six ways to find your best ideas for writing your book, as you cultivate, channel, and honor your deeper inspiration. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 587: The Role of the Antagonist in Story Structure, Pt. 2 of 2: Examines the role of the antagonist in the second half of a story's structure--the Second Pinch Point through the Resolution. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 586: The Role of the Antagonist in Story Structure, Pt. 1 of 2: The major plot beats in a story are interwoven with the protagonist's journey. But what is the role of the antagonist in story structure? by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 585: Do You Have to Write Every Day? 10 Pros and Cons: Should writers make it a habit to write every day? Here are five pros of writing every day, as well as five potential cons. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 584: The 6 Challenges of Writing a Second Novel: Writing a second novel can often be surprisingly harder than the first one. Check out six challenges sophomore writers often face. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 583: 14 Tips for Dealing With the Passage of Time in a Story: Ask these important questions to make sure the passage of time in a story is strengthening rather than weakening its narrative power. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 582: 6 Ways to Craft Spectacular Set-Piece Scenes: Here are six important considerations to keep in mind when amping up your story's most important scenes--its set-piece scenes. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 581: How to Know When You're a Successful Author?: The question of "how to know when you're a successful author?" offers some obvious answers--and yet the subject is far more complex. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 580: Should You Take a Break From Writing? 5 Red Flags: When should you take a break from writing? And once you've taken that step, what in heaven's name are you going to do with yourself? by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 579: 9 Ways to Approach Relationship Dynamics in Fiction: Creating an amazing supporting cast that can offer important relationship dynamics in fiction will also help develop your protagonist. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Episode #578: Archetypes and Story Structure: How They're Connected: Learn how archetypes and story structure mirror each other in any individual book and can be used to further strengthen your story. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 577: Making Story Structure Your Own: Here are a five important questions you, as a writer of fiction, can ask yourself to help you in making story structure your own. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 576: Conflict in Fiction: What It Really Is and Why It's Important to Plot: There’s nothing incorrect in using confrontation to create conflict in fiction. But to understand conflict as only confrontation is too narrow a definition. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. #575: The Writer's Inner Critic: 10 Ways to Tell if Yours Is Healthy: Learn how to increase the health and effectiveness of the writer's inner critic while diminishing toxic effects. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 574: A Writer's New Year Reflections: The 6 Gifts I Gave Myself in 2021: Here are this writer's New Year reflections, focusing on six "gifts" I gave myself and why I believe they were profoundly life-changing. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 573: The Two Halves of the Climactic Moment: The two halves of the Climactic Moment require the story's final sequence to offer two very specific beats: Sacrifice and Victory/Failure. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 572: The Two Halves of the Third Plot Point: The two halves of the Third Plot Point work together to create a scene arc that moves from the False Victory to the Low Moment. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 571: The Two Halves of the Midpoint: The halves of the Midpoint are unique in story structure in that they mark the dividing line between the two halves of the entire story arc. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 570: The Two Halves of the First Plot Point: The First Plot Point is often referred to as a threshold, a visual metaphor representing the native two-sidedness of all structural beats. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 569: The Two Halves of the Inciting Event: A series examining the two important "halves" in each of story structure's major beats, beginning with the Inciting Event in the First Act. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. #568: 6 Questions to Help You Avoid Repetitive Scenes: Find out what defines repetitive scenes, as well as strategies for recognizing and avoiding them in your fiction. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 567: Archetypal Antagonists for the Mage Arc: Evil and the Weakness of Humankind: The archetypal antagonists for the Mage Arc often manifest subtly--not in obvious "evil," but in an ordinary person's weakness. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Ep. 566: Archetypal Antagonists for the Crone Arc: Death Blight and Tempter: The archetypal antagonists for the Crone Arc are represented as a Death Blight and as the subtle Tempter who would lure her from the Truth. by Helping Writers Become Authors
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Generality Is the Death of the Novel

Generality Is the Death of the Novel

Titles in the series (100)

More Episodes from Helping Writers Become Authors

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