Tilling Your Characters’ Emotional Acres
So you’ve committed to Anne Lamott’s daily writing practice (as discussed in our previous podcast), good for you. Now let’s find out how to turn those embarrassing word scribbles into profound and meaningful insights. In this episode we start with the Bird by Bird chapters, School Lunches and Polaroids,...
Shitty First Drafts and Beyond!
How does one write an entire novel? It’s a bit like the advice for eating an elephant, one bite at a time. In this episode we cover Anne Lamott’s novel biting tips from her book, Bird by Bird. First comes her 1-inch picture frame technique, then her most famous...
And now for something completely different … Bird by Bird
It’s time for a new season and it’s time for a new book! We’re starting Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. This is the writing process book that everyone has heard of, and, given that it’s funny and self-deprecating, it’s probably one most people have read. We’re looking forward to...
ChatGPT, Write me my Novel
Think ChatGPT can finish your creative writing exercises? Let’s find out! In this episode we’re testing the cutting-edge artificial intelligence on some old school writing prompts. We dug out our copies of John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction and typed in two of the back-of-the-book exercises. Faster than you...
Bend It Like Bickham (the scene, that is)
We’re on our penultimate episode for our reading of Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure. So, what does the bullet point Meister have to squeeze into an end of a book that 90% of its readers will probably never get to? Well, first we give ourselves a little pep talk and...
Dramatic Principals & Devices FTW
Every composition teacher will draw out a rising action graph on the board (yes, we’re old school). But how do you translate that diagram into the sentences and paragraphs that keep your readers engaged in your story? In his book, Scene and Structure, Jack Bickham says to do it...
Common Scene Errors
Today we tackle Jack Bickham’s Common Scene Errors, and boy, are there a lot of them, 14 to be precise. According to Scene and Sequel, these simple problems will derail your scenes, rob them of their impact and drag down your novel. We go through each error, identifying if...
Character Driven Plot, plus Dialogue!
We’ve gotten to some hearty chapters in Ann Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. First up is plot, which “grows out of characters.” We discuss what this means and if it’s applicable to genre writing. Then we turn to dialogue, and how you distill intent from the rambling conversation of...