Writing Roots

Perhaps it's an overcorrection from the extremely verbose fiction of the 1800s to early 1900s, but there has been a shift in writing advice to avoid detailed descriptions. Authors are constantly told ...

25 Apr 202411min

One piece of good advice that is often applied too often is to "kill your darlings." It is good to approach the editing process with a sort of ruthlessness that can rival your story's villain, but rem...

22 Apr 202411min

This is another one of those contradictory rules you've probably heard: Only ever use "said" in your dialogue tags. Yet you've also probably heard "said is dead." So which is it? The real answer is fo...

18 Apr 202411min

When it comes to advice for starting your story, you've probably found lists of what not to do. Sometimes, those lists contradict themselves in ways that make it a confusing process to figure out exac...

15 Apr 202411min

Word counts are a rule for very good reasons. From audience expectation to publisher requirements, word counts are an established part of writing. For each time you've heard the standard for whatever ...

11 Apr 202411min

If you've heard any writing advice or rules, you've heard "show, don't tell." While this is great advice that can help enrich a story and immerse the reader, creating a book of only "show" becomes ted...

8 Apr 202411min

When it comes to rules of writing, the rules regarding prologues is important for getting readers engaged and interested right away. Prologues have the power to either pull a reader into a world or to...

4 Apr 202411min

For a podcast all about helping you learn how to write and craft your stories, we're not big fans of rules. Or, perhaps, we just like knowing that most so-called "writing rules" are there to be broken...

1 Apr 202411min