All Episodes

What even is Exposition and how does it work? Part 2

What even is Exposition and how does it work? Part 1

What's really at stake: Characters or numbers?

Writing Conflict Beyond the Brawl

Live Critique: Don't Leave Questions Scratching At The Reader's Mind

Let Your Characters Talk

From Perspective to Dialogue: A Guide to POV and Discourse

Back Inside: More on Interiority

Our Favorite Reads and Why They Still Inspire Us

Conflict Is Opportunity: The Hidden Engine of Story

Live Edit: How a Great First Page Gets Even Better

Live Edit: Nowhere and No One | Ungrounded Writing Problems

Using Internal Conflict to Create Powerful Emotional Hooks

Live Edit: What’s Missing Beneath the Surface?

Action Isn’t Enough: The Hidden Flaws in Common Story Openings

Don’t Ruin Your Book in the Last Chapter

Live Edit: The First-Paragraph Mistakes Killing Your Story

Paint With Words: Unlocking the Magic of the Five Senses

First Impressions: Amazons Bestsellers

Live Edit: Turning Drafts into Gold

Live Edit: Cutting the Fluff and Fixing the Damage

Turning the Last Page: Season Finale

One Page to Impress: Writing a Strong Opening

Writing Fight Scenes That Hit Hard

Writing Perfectly Imperfect Characters

Live Edit: Why Readers Struggle To Picture Your World

Beyond Original: Finding Your Voice in a Shared Story World

Live Edit: No More Telling, Seriously

The Art of Immersion: My Chapter One Breakdown

Don’t Try This at Home! (Unless You’re an Author)

Live Edit: Cutting the Fluff to Let the Words Work

Launch Smart: Secrets to a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

Crafting Unlikable Heroes Who Captivate

From Map to Magic: Elevating Your Worldbuilding Game

Live Edit: The Fatal Flaw in Your Opening Line

Behind the Pen: Writer's Break Down Their Latest Work

Is AI Killing Your Voice? The Dark Side of Machine-Assisted Writing

Archetypes 05 | From Victim to Victor: Evolving the Final Girl Archetype

Live Edit: Why Your First Page Is Losing Readers and How to Fix It

Episode 200!

Archetypes 04 | The Magic Within: Writing the Wise and Powerful Archetype

Archetypes 03 | Sage Advice: Rethinking the Mentor Archetype

Live Edit: Why Your Characters Aren’t Connecting, Yet

Archetypes 02 | Writing the Flawed: Building the Perfect Anti-Hero

Live Edit: How You Lost Your Reader Without Even Knowing It

Archetypes 01 | Become What You're Not: Voicing Perfection

Live Edit: Writing That Pulls Readers In

Live Edit: Winning Readers in the First Paragraph

First Page Reads: How to Get Agents to Keep Reading

Voices That Breathe: Writing Lifelike Dialogue

How to Write Interiority in 12 Steps!

Storytelling Technique: The Six Layers of a Dynamic Plot!

Live Edit: Plot can hook a reader, but interiority keeps them!

The Mental Struggles of Being a Writer

Live Edit: How to Paint Clearer Scenes, Drawing with Words!

Backstory In Opening Chapters

What Game of Thrones Got Wrong! (SPOILERS!!!)

Live Edit: Why Weak Openings Fail!

Mastering Tragedy: Writing Stories That Will Move Your Readers

Secrets to Starting Your Book Strong

Mastering the Art of Magic in Writing

Live Edit: Avoid the Pitfalls of Passive Language!

Too Deep for Fiction: Clarifying the Metaphysics of Story

Live Edit: Save Your Story from Falling Flat with Strong, Dynamic Language!

How to Write Unique Character Voices and an Unforgettable Cast

Live Edit: Master Punctuation, Master Your Story!

How to Write a Magic System that WOWs

Mistakes Writers Make That Kill Their Story's Tone

Live Edit: Hook vs Story - Which ONE is Killing Your Narrative?

WANT EPIC Fantasy Geography for your Fantasy World? Watch This Now

How to Build Fantasy Cultures: Craft Rich Fantasy Societies, Belief Systems, and Traditions

Live Edit: Turn Pages, Not Heads. How to Keep Readers Engaged

Character Development: What You Need Know About Your Characters and How to Reveal What's Important

Worldbuilding Geography Guide: How to Design Fantasy Worlds and Why the Details Matter

Grammar, Point of View and Language

Live Edit: Tips On Immersing Your Readers

Main Character Energy - Use Archetypes to Craft Psychologically Addicting Characters

Live Edit: Tips on improving your writing.

Worldbuilding Geography Guide: How to Design Fantasy Worlds and Why the Details Matter

Narrative Point of View: Decide Who is Telling Your Story and Why

Live Edit: The secret to success is GROUNDING your reader!

Break the Cardinal Rule: Show Don't Tell Might Be Ruining Your Fiction Writing

Selling Books at Conventions Made EASY

Are Weak Verbs Ruining Your Writing? Make an Impact with Stronger Action Words

Save the Cat Story Structure: Beat Sheets, Novels, and Screenplays

Live Edit: There's a twist at the end

The Journey of a Hero - Crafting a Compelling Story Plot

Live Edit: Working outside your style

Beyond Romance - How to Write Dynamic Non-Romantic Relationships That Give All The Feels

Best Tips for Mastering the Pacing of Your Novel

How to Tell a Great Story in Three Acts - Story Structure for Authors

Live Edit: Show me, don't tell me

Round two of the publishing game: Who will survive the slush pile?

Mistake Alert: Are You Killing the Tension in Your Stories? Learn How to Fix It!

Live Edit: Keep your writing style consistent

How to End a Book - Ways to End a Story that Will Thrill Your Readers

Live Edit: Make sure the story in your head is also on the page

How to Write a POV Character's Internal Dialogue and Not Bore Your Readers to Tears

Live Edit: Great premise, but keep the focus on the character

What is the Falling Action of a Story and Why Is It Crucial for Reader Satisfaction?

Finding Your Funny Bone: How To Write Prose that Will Make Your Readers LOL

Live Edit: Don't dump all your worldbuilding upfront

Ultimate Guide to Writing a Climax that Satisfies Your Readers 😏

Writing Love - How to Write Intimacy and Romantic Tension to Create Swoonworthy Love Stories

Live Edit: Choose the right narrative voice for your story

How to Write Rising Action - Mastering Pacing, Character Development and Plot Structure

The publishing game: Learn to write a better first page!

Writing Transformative Character Arcs: From Zero to Hero and Beyond

Does Your Inciting Incident Work? How to Write a Phenomenal Call to Adventure!

Writing dialogue: How to engage the reader when characters are talking

Writing dialogue: The mistakes every writer makes at least once!

Common mistakes writers make with their opening chapters

Live Edit: Focus on your story, cut pointless actions

The secret to applying plot devices well: PART 2!

You're Using Plot Devices WRONG - Here's How to Do Better

How to Write Fight Scenes: Avoid Common Writing Mistakes

Writing with dreams and flashbacks and telling?

Writing with allegories, when does it work and what makes it fail.

Making believable fantasy worlds & characters

Plotting a Novel: How to end your story

Plotting a novel - Think like the Villain

Mistakes writers make in creating tension and how to fix them

Unresolved themes are a problem

Plotting a novel - Sometimes the better ending requires major changes

The problem with inflicting nothing but misery on your characters

Plotting a Book - Make Sure you like your tropes!

Making believable fantasy worlds & characters

Plotting a Book - Transitioning from Act 1 to Act 2

Writer's Craft - Chapters, Scenes and Dialogue

One hundred hours spent on the craft of writing

Writer's Craft - Punctuation for Prose (because it is important)

Plotting a Book - Character Motivation and Story Threads

Writing a story: But why do I have to do that?

Plotting your Second Book - Magicfall 2

Live Edit: Attach the reader to your character and theme delivery

Starting a Story - Plots and Characters

Advanced Writer's Techniques: Filtering & Disguising Info-dumps

Live Edit: Your Point of View

Leading a project and other musings

Scenes, Hooks & Selling your Books!

Live Edit: Set the Scene (and magic bread)

Live Edit: Do not bury your theme

Keeping track of your plot - We complete Magicfall

Giving your plot room to breathe

Editing AI - Why Chat GPT can help, but can't write

Live Edit: First Person Narrative Voice

Good Dialogue vs Bad Dialogue - How to write better

More techniques for Showing and Not Telling

Connecting the Reader to the Character

Can ChatGPT Write?

Creative Collaboration: The best parts and the dangerous parts

Listener Q&A: Horror, Mystery, Many Characters and more...

Live Edit: Show Don't Tell

Plot outlines: How to, benefits & pitfalls

Live Edit: Plot, tone & saving the cat

Writer's Craft - How to write dialogue in stories

Things we hate in prose...

Standard Punctuation, prose structure, tertiary characters and other dialogue writing tricks.

Starting Your Story - World building and Character Introduction

Writer's Craft - Making the reader care about the character

Writer's Journey - Maintaining relationships and how to keep writing

Making your world feel lived in

A plot comes together... Magic Falls Act 2 (second half)

Fleshing out Act 1 & 2A - Magic Falls

Head book vs Paper Book

Introducing your character

Why everyman moments matter

Arguing Plot Points - Magic Falls

Writer's Journey: Trails and Tribulations - Copyright and Other dire dragons

How to create a plot outline - Magic Falls

Finding Inspiration - Using folklore and public domain content

Writing a Villain POV - Should you do it?

Creating tent poles for a story - Magic Falls

How to start a sentence and why it matters

Allegories, Symbology and Lamp shading

Getting Started with a novel - Magic Falls

A look behind the curtain

Writer's Journey - The darkest hour: Self editing your work

How to write magic in fantasy books

Building a Fantasy Magic System

Writing Character Relationships

How to write religion in fantasy

Show Your World

Writing Combat

Writing Politics

Practical Editing – Punctuation and Prose

Opening Lines

Sharing the Story

Building Your Lore

The fall and rise of a reedeemed character

The shrouded path to publishing

Alien Races and Focused Traits - Why do it?

Writing great character growth arcs

Creating Great Characters

Spinning a Yarn: Story Structure

Six techniques to polish your prose

Love wisely, but not too well

Psychology of a character – Mental illness in speculative fiction

Split Timelines are Flashbacks

Writer's Journey - Promises

Good Punctuation is Invisible

Writer's Journey - Trials and Tribulations - The Plot Diamond

Showing Emotion

Patterns in Prose

Writing Action

Writer's Journey - Trials and Tribulations - Self-Doubt

Writing with non-malicious villains

Agony Aunt - Relationships in Fantasy Writing

Picking a Point of View

Rethink Your Flashbacks

Practical Editing – Motivations & Openings

The Writer's Journey: The Everyman Writer

How to End Things

Narrators & POV & framing devices

A Practical Guide to Editing

Set it up. Pay it off.

Complications vs Complexity

How to avoid deus ex politics

Fantastical Races and how to write them

Mentors & Motivations

Scenes & Hooks

Redemption & Other Character Arcs

Hero's Journey - Conquest of Theme

Magic, Conflict, Prophecy & Character Death

Magical Items, Editing & Themes

Everything affects Everything

Immersive Storytelling & Expressive World Building

Grammar, Point of View and Language

Themes, Plotters and Pantsers