Writing Roots

If you’ve been listening long enough, you’ve heard us tell you that clichés are a good thing. When applied correctly, they can help provide a framework for a character and even your plot as a whole. H...

26 Sep 202211min

The last thing any reader wants is to be distracted while they’re reading. There are memes galore about it. What’s worse than someone deciding to talk to you as soon as you start reading, is the book ...

24 Sep 202226min

In media res is a common phrase used to describe how to start a story or scene. It means to get into the action quickly, to what really matters right away. This one thing can make or break a book. If ...

22 Sep 202211min

When we talk about main characters being annoying, we aren’t referring to their personality traits which may be annoying in a real person. For readers, an annoying main character is often one who is u...

20 Sep 202211min

Few things are more annoying than when a character makes a bad decision. We’re not talking about ones which are bad within the context of the world and the story. All characters need to make a bad dec...

15 Sep 202211min

It’s no secret that people turn to books to find an escape from the reality of the world. It’s why fantasy and science fiction are so popular. Even books outside those genres often include one impossi...

12 Sep 202211min

Plot points set up within a story need to be resolved. That’s pretty straightforward, right? That, however, is not how it turns out for a lot of new authors, especially pantsers (or discovery writers)...

8 Sep 202211min

Start too slow and you bore the reader. Start too quickly and you confuse them. Finding the right balance for the start of your story is essential. Unfortunately, it’s also incredibly difficult. Th...

5 Sep 202211min