Have you ever played Myst? It’s an immersive adventure video game from 1993 and I was obsessed with it when I was in high school. It was a time long before you could easily Google for clues or hints, so it took me months to solve all the puzzles. I remember when I finally figured… Read more »
Today, I wanted to talk about an important—and often overlooked—area of the craft, and that is narration. I define narration as any part of the story that’s told by the narrator. This narrator can be a character in the story (as in first person) or they can be an entity outside the story looking in… Read more »
A lot of people think world-building only applies to fantasy, where you have elaborate maps of sprawling kingdoms. Or maybe they think it applies to sci-fi or historical fiction, where you have to bring to life all the intricacies of the story’s world. Whether you write something “world heavy,” or your story’s world is a… Read more »
Welcome to DIY MFA Radio, where I do a deep dive into the writing life as well as the craft and business of writing. Today’s episode ends our series: Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Podcasting. This is Lesson 10 – Embrace the Journey. Have you gotten the DIY MFA Starter Kit yet? This is… Read more »
In my last post, The Three-Act Structure, I talked about how this storytelling framework works. Today, I thought I would do a three-act analysis of Pride and Prejudice, one of my favorite books of all time. Spoiler Alert! Obviously, we can’t talk about the structure of a book without mentioning the ending and giving away… Read more »
Welcome to DIY MFA Radio, where I do a deep dive into the writing life as well as the craft and business of writing. Today’s episode continues our series: Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Podcasting. This is Lesson 9 – Take Baby Steps. Have you gotten the DIY MFA Starter Kit yet? This is… Read more »
Many writers have a love-hate relationship with the three-act structure. On one hand, it gives us a foundation for storytelling so we know exactly what pieces go where. On the other hand, it can feel a bit constraining, especially if we’re writing a character-driven story where there isn’t such a clear plot. To understand the… Read more »
Welcome to DIY MFA Radio, where I do a deep dive into the writing life as well as the craft and business of writing. Today’s episode continues our series: Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Podcasting. This is Lesson 8 – Track the Money Have you gotten the DIY MFA Starter Kit yet? This is… Read more »
For the past year, lawyer-hubby, the nerdlings and I have been living in a temporary location as our home gets renovated. We hit some bumps in the road and only now, eleven months after moving out, are we finally able to start making any progress on the construction. This got me thinking about how home… Read more »
Welcome to DIY MFA Radio, where I do a deep dive into the writing life as well as the craft and business of writing. Today’s episode continues our series: Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Podcasting. This is Lesson 482 – Practice, Practice, Practice Have you gotten the DIY MFA Starter Kit yet? This is… Read more »
