Story Works Round Table | Conversations About Craft

This week, Alida, Kathryn, and Robert discuss inspiration, sources of it, high concept ideas, and whether you need to be inspired to write a story, or if the story you're writing can serve as your inspiration. Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

This week, Alida, Kathryn, & Robert discuss going beyond character development and making your characters distinct from each other, whether they’re POV characters or not. Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

This week, Alida, Kathryn, and Robert discuss setting. How is setting different from world building? What do you put on the page and what should you leave out? How much detail is too much detail? And how do you keep your setting active in your story? Robert gives great practical ways to evaluate your style of writing setting, and how to make it better! Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery...

Alida, Kathryn, & Robert discuss the importance of trouble to any story. The conversation gets nitty gritty with plot, character arc, chapter structure, and examples from both books & film. Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

This week Kathryn poses the interesting question, when does a character or place earn a name in our stories? If you name a character, does he have to reappear in the story numerous times? What about places? We discuss and clear away confusion—ours anyway! Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

This week we have Mike Stop Continues back to discuss literary fiction. What makes a work literary? How is it different from genre fiction? Is there really a value judgment to be made when comparing the two? We discuss some of our favorite literary novels from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. And after all that, Robert adds a literary nov...

This week, Alida, Kathryn, and Robert discuss cliffhangers. What are they? How do they differ from end hooks? Should you use them? Can you do them well? What risks do you face when you present your readers with a cliffhanger? If you enjoy the show, subscribe, rate, and review. You'll have our undying gratitude! Show notes and more at www. StoryWorksPodcast.com Visit WordEssential.com and book a di...

Alida and Kathryn welcome award-winning fantasy author Alina Sayre back to the show as part of our genre series. We have a fun conversation about genre expectations, tropes, cross genre fantasies, suspense of disbelief, multiple POV stories, and more! Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

This week, we welcome author Mike Stop Continues to the round table to delve deeper into the art of foreshadowing. We define foreshadowing, discuss its variations, and provide many examples from literature, ranging from Romeo and Juliet to Fight Club. Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

Alida, Kathryn, and Robert welcome Chris Fox back to continue our discussion of science fiction. This week, we focus on plotting those science fiction stories. What makes a book science fiction? What about mixed genre science fiction? What trends do we see in science fiction?  Show notes and more at www. StoryWorksPodcast.com .  Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

This week’s show gets a bit heated as we struggle to define (or agree on a definition) of foreshadowing and all its nuance. What makes good foreshadowing? How does it function in a story? Can you write it in draft one, or is it revision only? Enjoy the show? Please rate and review. Show notes and more at www. StoryWorksPodcast.com Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

This week, Alida, Kathryn, & Robert bring in novels and check out the way they open. We discuss what works for each of the very different stories and, at the end, Kathryn gives us the 3 key elements in any strong opener. Enjoy! Read along with us at www.storyworkspodcast.com If you enjoy the Story Works Round Table, please rate and review! Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call toda...

Alida and Kathryn welcome cozy mystery author, Sara Rosett, back to the show to discuss plotting mysteries. No matter the genre you write, plotting is integral to your story craft, as are twists, hooks, and suspense. Enjoy this conversation with Sara Rosett! Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

Alida and Kathryn welcome award-winning author Alina Sayre to discuss middle grade fantasy as part of our genre series. We cover lots of great topics from writing amazing prose to finding the voice of your protagonist to the fantasy canon we grew up on. A truly insightful conversation with lots of depth. Show notes and more at www.wordessential.com/storyworksroundtable Visit WordEssential.com and...

Alida, Kathryn, and Robert discuss the process of introducing readers to new worlds and new experiences by making the strange comfortable enough to get reader's buy in. Every step of the story's way, writers need readers to nod yes in agreement. If a reader pulls back, because something seems implausible or just too out there, the reader is probably lost. We approach the topic from our usual exper...

The rule is that your hero must have a character arc. So when is it all right to break the rule? Alida, Robert and Kathryn discuss the merits and pitfalls of writing a hero without a character arc. It has been done to great success, so why do so few people suggest it’s even possible to write an arcless protagonist? And when is killing your hero "justifiable homicide in self defense?" Visit WordEss...

Special guest, Chris Fox, joins the round table this week to discuss science fiction. We have a great conversation about sci fi's roots in pulp fiction and some of the early sci fi TV shows that popularized many of the tropes we see in fiction today. Chris and our resident sci fi author, Robert, share their experiences with alien characters, genre-bending plots, reader expectations, and you might...

This week, Alida, Kathryn, and Robert discuss the soggy middle problem and what to do about it. Many writers struggle with the middle of their plots as the action slows down and the protagonist has to get from A to B, or the reader has to be fed information critical to later plot points. This slog through the mid-point should never make it to readers' hands.  How to recognize the problem...

Cozy mystery author, Sara Rosett stops by the round table this week to talk about characters and the mystery genre. In a companion episode coming soon, we talk about plots. What kind of characters are essential to mysteries? How do you keep your amateur sleuth engaging in crime after crime? How do reader expectations affect your character development? And more.  Sara writes the...

This week, we discuss how dialogue functions in your fiction. We go deep into how dialogue is different from the ways we speak in real life and how you can use dialogue to advance your story.  Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

We welcome special guest, Lisa von Biela, to the Story Works Round Table this week to launch a series on genre fiction. Lisa has numerous dark, horror, speculative, and thriller fiction published, primarily with Dark Fuse. We talk about inspiration, plotting, and the twists of turns of dark, suspenseful storytelling. Get show notes and the video at www. StoryWorksPodcast.com. Visit WordEssent...

This week, we talk about point of view. You might be surprised to learn it's far more complex and meaningful than just your POV character. We discuss the narrator and narrative, how to choose the best POV character, how controlling your point of view leads to better writing, and more. Visit WordEssential.com and book a discovery call today!

Wondering what the Story Works Round Table is all about? Want to meet the hosts? In this brief episode, you can do just that. Alida Winternheimer, Kathryn Arnold, and Robert Scanlon introduce the show's mission and each other. Our goal is to bring a variety of experience, training, and insights from both the traditional and indie worlds to writing craft topics each week. We go deep and provid...