The Writing Tools Podcast

One of the things that writers worry about more than anything else is how to keep the reader’s attention. Once you’ve actually got someone to sit down and read your work you want them to be able to enjoy it and keep on going until the end and hopefully into the next book, story or show.

So what tools can a writer use in order to help keep readers' interest in their mind on your work?

Here are my top tools of thumb to help make sure that a reader keeps on turning the page until the end.

Here we discuss tension, cliffhangers, mysteries and more. 

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Comment on any ideas in the show and remember to be respectful of one another. 

Story structure is an often misunderstood concept. To many, it means a template that will write the story for them. For others, it is a restriction that stifles creativity. Without it, our stories can be shapeless meandering messes but lean on it too hard and they are boilerplate production line clones devoid of imagination. So how can we approach story structure and what is the best tool to use when thinking about it?

Here we take a look at how to think about story structure. We take a look at Dan Harmon's story circle in order to better plan and/or analyse character arcs, give them definition and make them resonate with readers.

Welcome to the writing tools podcast. In our first episode we take a look at what the essence of a story is. I delve in to characters and conflict. Taking a look at how you can use them to drive the action in your story. All done with examples from existing movies and shows to show how it can be done well and why it may fail when not done right.