Empowering the Powerless:Tim Waggoner’s Tips for Keeping Horror Heroes Active Check it Out: The Hero’s Journey Study Guide Horror stories and the hero’s journey – a match made in hell? In this insightful workshop episode, we talk with award-winning horror writer Tim Waggoner to explore his plotting techniques. Tim shares strategies for keeping everyday protagonists…

Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s JourneyStage Eight: The Ordeal Check it Out: The Hero’s Journey Study Guide Think you know where your hero’s journey is headed? Think again. We’re diving into the Ordeal – that gut-punch moment some people still confuse with the Climax (spoiler alert: they’re not the same thing, folks). This episode had us…

The Road to ArmageddonAn Interview with Summer H. Hanford Check it Out: The Hero’s Journey Study Guide Subscribe to our Newsletter How do you craft a journey worthy of an apocalyptic showdown? Epic Fantasy author Summer H. Hanford reveals the art of preparing characters for those fate-of-the-world battles that define the genre. Through insights from…

Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s JourneyStage Six: Approach to the Innermost Cave Check it Out: The Hero’s Journey Study Guide Subscribe to our Newsletter Remember how we’ve occasionally side-eyed Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey? Well, today we fully roast this bewildering mess, starting with his “Approaching the Innermost Cave” stage, which is the part of the…

An Interview with Kristen Tate Check it Out: The Hero’s Journey Study Guide Subscribe to our Newsletter Looking for help with your novel’s middle section? While countless craft books offer guidance on crafting gripping openings and satisfying endings, the challenging second act often gets overlooked. In this workshop episode, we dive deep with freelance editor…

Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s JourneyStage Six: Tests, Allies, and Enemies Subscribe to our Newsletter What really happens between “accepting the call” and facing the big bad? Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey skims through this crucial story phase with vague talk of Tests, Allies, and Enemies. But Kim and Renee aren’t settling for that. Armed with…

In today’s episode we take a break from discussing and analyzing creative fiction to examining possibly one of the most important, and certainly most stressful, nonfiction projects in a young person’s life: writing their college application essay.

Our guest, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Martha Mendoza, has been helping high school seniors with these essays for over a decade and is one of the organizers in her local school district’s annual essay mentoring program. In our discussion she talks about what makes these essays so difficult, gives advice for how seniors might choose topics and how we, as writers, might help a student out.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday. Check us out.

How do you shift your book’s hero from their nice, cozy ordinary world into the adventure? According to Christopher Vogler’s, The Writer’s Journey, you have them answer the call. In this episode we discuss the various forms the Call to Adventure can take, and also why, even the most willing hero must “refuse the call.”

To illustrate how this works in a non-movie example, we turn to John Scalzi’s Kaiju Preservation Society that fulfills both these requirements in clever and witty ways. Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday.

Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey The Hero’s Journey Study Guide Subscribe to our Newsletter Does the mystery genre follow the Hero’s Journey? According to historical mystery writer Colette Clark. Not so much.  Join us for our discussion about how Colette structures her novels and figures out who the murder is (sometime just before she finishes…