Dear Writer

This week on Dear Writer, we tried out doing some personality quizzes as our characters. Our chosen quizzes were a Myers Briggs personality test from 16personalities.com, and Love Languages from 5lovelanguages.com. The results we got were unexpected and interesting. We discussed the way we thought this could be used to help write our novels and increase creativity.

This week, we continue our discussion about writing sequels and series. We give some tips about writing a series, chat about some of the technical aspects of series writing, and talk about how different cover designs can help show your book is part of a series.

On this week's craft episode, we discuss writing series and sequels. We chat about the pros and cons of writing a series versus a standalone novel, and some of the writing elements that need to be considered before embarking on a series.

This week on our Author Spotlight we had Sue Glamuzina and Kynan Wright, the organizers of the Auckland Writers' Anthology, 'Tales of the Domain'. We both partook in this Anthology, and it was interesting to have a behind-the-scenes chat to glean how the anthology was created. Click here --> https://mybook.to/talesofthedomain

This week on Dear Writer we tried another creative exercise, called "eight" which Ashley found on the Reedsy blog. It involved using the 8th sentence from the 8th chapter of a random fiction book, and using it to create a poem eight lines long which relates to your current work in progress.

This week we continued with our discussion of short fiction, in particular discussing short stories. We talked of our (limited) experience in writing short stories and how we had found the experience coming from a background of primarily novel writing.

This time on Dear Writer we talked about writing short fiction. In part one, we discussed what short fiction is and some of the elements of short fiction that are important in creating an engaging story.

Today on Dear Writer, Sarah talked with Jennifer Chastain, a romance author from a small town in the state of New York, who now lives in North Carolina with her husband. We had a very engaging and inspiring conversation about Jennifer's journey so far, and her upcoming romantic suspense series.

This episode of Dear Writer, we were lucky enough to speak with Lee Murray about writing speculative fiction. Lee is a USA Today bestselling author and a four-time winner of the International Bram Stoker Awards. She writes speculative fiction in a number of different sub-genres, and resides in the beautiful Bay of Plenty district in New Zealand.

On this week's episode of Dear Writer, we continue our discussion about creating tension in fiction. We talk about some the common techniques for making tension and chat about some of our writing tips for enhancing tension in your novel.

On this week's episode, we talk about the importance of creating tension in your novel, what the different types of dramatic tension are, and the distinction between tension and conflict.

This week on our Author Spotlight we had Astrid V.J., a South African fantasy author and USA Today bestseller. In her day life Astrid is a social anthropologist and transformational life coach who lives with her family in Sweden. We had a great chat about how she uses her skills and interests to create inspiring characters who work through personal trials to tell her stories.

This week we tried another creative exercise, and used AI text to image software to generate pictures from our novels. We discussed the experience of doing this and how we think it might be useful to creativity and as writers.

In this week's craft episode we dive into part II of our micro vs macro discussion where we talk about the techniques that can be used to enhance the macro and micro details in your writing.

In this week's craft episode, we discuss the basics of writing micro (details) and writing macro (significant traits) through the lens of character and description.

This week we interviewed Steven J Kolbe about his books and his writing process. We had a great discussion on the importance of portraying mental illness accurately in media and greatly enjoyed talking to Steven about his experiences. If you want to find out more about Steven and his books, visit his website at https://stevenjkolbe.com.

This week for our creative exercise we explored found poetry. We each took an instruction manual and used the text to create our found poems. We discovered this was a very enjoyable exercise. To read our found poems, visit our instagram @lindersoncreations.

On the week's episode of Dear Writer, we continue our discussion about world building. We talk about the important elements of building a realistic world, how much detail you should give to your readers, and some of our hot tips for effective world building.

On this week's episode of Dear Writer, we talk about some of the exciting new changes happening on the podcast before jumping in to a discussion about world building. We cover topics ranging from how world building and setting differ, to why it is important to consider world building in your novel.

This week on the podcast we had a very interesting interview with Joanna Penn about how the ever-evolving world of technology affects our careers as authors. We discussed the advances in artificial intelligence and how it can be used as a writing aid, before moving onto the topic of digital narration and what benefits might be derived from this technology.

This week on our culturing creativity episode, we explored Sestina Poems and discussed how they can contribute to inspiring creativity. For this exercise, we used the instructions on the masterclass website linked below to come up with the Sestina Poem. Adhering to the strict structure was a challenge, but an enjoyable one! Click on the link if you are interested in creating a sestina poem yoursel...

This week we discuss the importance of having a diverse cast of characters in your novel. We chat about how we feel diversity in fiction has changed over the past ten years, how we feel we have changed as writers during this time, and some tips for creating authentic characters.

In this month's Talking Shop episode, Sarah reviewed Episode 7 and 8 from the lecture series Writing Great Fiction - The Mechanics of Dialogue and Integrating Dialogue into Narrative. Ashley reviewed chapter four of The Writing Experiment – Strategies for Innovative Creative Writing By Hazel Smith which was about using already existing texts to inspire new literature.

This week we talked to Melissa Guyan about her writing journey. Melissa is a New Zealand based indie author. Her work spans a number of subgenres in romantic fiction, with a different penname for each. In YA romance, she goes by Jordan Ford, in romantic suspense she is Melissa Pearl, and in romantic comedy she is Melody Sweet. She also cowrites Christian small town romance under the penname Sophia...

On this culturing creativity episode, we discussed the power of saying 'no'. Saying no can be a difficult feat to master, yet without appropriate boundaries it can be easy to fall victim to burnout. We talked about whether we find it hard to say no, and some tips and thoughts on how to ease the guilt and free up writing time.