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What if writing the first draft was the easy part? Every week on serial writing websites like Royal Road, hundreds of authors will upload 5, 10, 20,000, or more words...
Everyone who’s read a blog post on the Hero’s Journey can spot the Hero and Mentor archetypes, but what about a Threshold Guardian, or Herald, or elusive Shapeshifter? Are...
In response to Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousands Faces, aka The Hero's Journey, folklorists and academics (many of them female) countered some of the major steps and archetypes...
The Mentor -- arguably the second most identified archetype from The Hero's Journey (after the eponymous hero). In his book, The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler has a lot to...
Last episode we explored the concept of the hero archetype as presented in Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey. But analysis is one thing; we wanted to see if we...
Whether every protagonist is a Hero is open to debate (and debate it we do in this episode) but on it we can agree that the vast majority of...
Writing Workshop with Kim & ReneeThe Writer’s Journey Subscribe to our Newsletter The Hero’s Journey Study Guide The Writing Workshop Exercise Map your Novel according to Vogler’s The Hero...
Even published authors have problems getting the magical stories in their heads into finished manuscript. But Anne Lamott’s account...
We’re covering two different topics from Ann Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. First off is scene setting, both its...
We’ve gotten to some hearty chapters in Ann Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. First up is plot, which “grows...
So you’ve committed to Anne Lamott’s daily writing practice (as discussed in our previous podcast), good for you. Now...
How does one write an entire novel? It’s a bit like the advice for eating an elephant, one bite...
It’s time for a new season and it’s time for a new book! We’re starting Anne Lamott’s Bird by...
Think ChatGPT can finish your creative writing exercises? Let’s find out! In this episode we’re testing the cutting-edge artificial...
We’re on our penultimate episode for our reading of Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure. So, what does the bullet...
Every composition teacher will draw out a rising action graph on the board (yes, we’re old school). But how...
Today we tackle Jack Bickham’s Common Scene Errors, and boy, are there a lot of them, 14 to be...
What writer hasn’t dreamed of leaving behind the stress and obligations of their day-to-day lives for a quiet, secluded...
In this episode, Kim interviews award winning science fiction author, Charlie Jane Anders about her recently published craft book,...
After 70 pages of Jack Bickham’s Scene and Structure we feel we’ve got a pretty good handle on how...
Chapter 8 – Scene & Structure Subscribe to our Newsletter How do you take a ponderous story into a...
When you’re bored with action-packed scenes and want to dive deep into the mind of your protagonist, maybe you...
The Role of the Trickster and Other Archetypes
Are we done with archetypes now? Almost! There are just three more archetype chapters in Christopher Vogler’s book, The Writer’s Journey, and we have issues with two of them. The...