Story Works Round Table | Conversations About Craft

This week, Alida, Robert, & Kathryn discuss a Hemingway short-short story, "A Cat in the Rain." Listen to the story, followed by our discussion of the craft choices apparent in Hemingway's text. At about 600 words, it's surprising how much there is to unpack and learn! Join Alida's MPWW session of the Memory Emotion Body creative writing workshop before seats fill up! www.storyworksfiction.com...

This week at the Story Works Round Table, Kathryn and Robert put Alida on the spot. We talk about finishing a project you've already invested in a lot over a long time. Alida is in the home stretch of draft one of her current work-in-progress. We talk about the endurance game, staying inspired for the long haul, what happens when your setting and characters keep changing on you, research trips, an...

This week at the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert, & Kathryn talk about the alchemical (or so it seems) process of going from lightning bolt to draft. What do you do when inspiration strikes? How do you know it's an idea worth pursuing? What about those fully formed sentences of pure gold that come when you're in the shower? We talk about it all. Get all the details about Alida's essay,...

This week, Alida, Kathryn, and Robert welcome Shari Medini and Karissa Tunis back to the Round Table to discuss co-authoring. They have a successful parenting blog and now a book for busy, work-from-home parents. Whether you're thinking about teaming up to tackle a novel or a nonfiction treatise, you can learn a lot from this duo's experience as co-authors. Shari and Karissa are the parenting advi...

This week, Alida, Kathryn, and Robert welcome Shari Medini and Karissa Tunis to the Round Table for our annual New Year's episode. This year we take a different tack and look at how we can maintain our writing goals in the new year when we have extra challenges, like working from our busy homes. Shari and Karissa are the parenting advice bloggers at Adore Them Parenting and have a new book out to...

This month on the Story Works Reading Series, I am pleased to present Chris Hasara reading his short story, “Housekeeping.” After the story, we chat about writing in the cab of a truck, the Midwestern voice, single-character stories, his writing influences, including Edgar Allen Poe, and much more. Do you have a short story or essay ready to read? I’d love to see it! www.storyworkspodcast.com/subm...

This week, Alida, Robert, and Kathryn talk about ending your story. What is the purpose of your ending? How do you create space for the reader to really feel the emotional impact of your story? And when should you plan how you are going to tie up those plot points and emotional questions you opened at the beginning of your story? How can we add fresh twists to our inevitable endings? And how do we...

Have you ever wondered if your writing sucks? We're all plagued by doubt sometimes. And other times the work just doesn't flow. This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert, and Kathryn ask themselves what to do if your writing sucks?  We start off with a questions one of us may have been pondering before the call and weave our way through possible causes and solutions to this most...

Alida, Robert, & Kathryn use our voices to talk about voice. Not the spoken kind, but the written. What is an author's voice? Does it just happen or is it crafted? How does narrative voice used with character voice? What about a character whose voice does not fit with the narrative? Can that still work? And more this week on the Story Works Round Table.  Alida is offering group coaching t...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert,& Kathryn discuss backstory. Robert has been noticing novels that aren’t doing it well. How do writers go wrong when introducing backstory? When should you introduce backstory? How much can a reader take, anyway? Want more on this topic, I have a workshop on Writing Backstory into Your Now-Story. Check it out at www.storyworksfiction.com...

On today's Story Works Reading Series, Robert James Russell reads "Recreation." He brilliantly takes on the challenging form of the epistolary, then takes it one...or two...further by also presenting us with unnamed characters. Besides delving into the craft of this personal narrative form and getting a little bit meta, we talk about the solace of nature and things we can't decode. If you enjoy li...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida and Kathryn examine an excerpt of a short story by author Barry Lopez. “The Log Jam,” in his collection Desert Notes River Notes, is a powerful piece of writing. We dig into sentence structure, voice, setting, emotional impact, characterization, and more. You can read the excerpt in the show notes at www.storyworkspodcast.com Get creative writing wor...

Alida and Kathryn dig into narrative storytellers on this week’s Story Works Round Table. Have you ever written a story with a storyteller as narrator? That’s a narrator that is not invisible, like the typical authorial narrator, and is not a character, like a first person narrator. But this narrator is full of personality and can be as opinionated as you like. A storyteller’s voice evokes a sense...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida and Kathryn talk NaNoWriMo and pushing for big word counts. November is underway, but it’s not too late to join NaNoWriMo, so if you’ve been on the fence, check out Kathryn’s experience with and advice on National Novel Writing Month. But if you’re like Alida, you might fall into the “not for me” camp. We’ve got both sides covered in this week’s conv...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida and Robert discuss what it means to open your story in media res. When is it a good idea to start in the middle of action? How does that affect the opening of your work, character introductions, and more?  Get show notes, links, writing tips, and more at www.storyworkspodcast.com . Find Alida's writing workshops at www.storyworksfiction.com .&nb...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida & Robert talk about introducing characters to your readers on the page. After you've invested in your characters' development, make sure you don't skimp on the process of making introductions. There is a craft to making a solid first impression on your reader. One that doesn't overwhelm with a dump of traits but spirals the details of a person, p...

Alida and Robert sit down at the Story Works Round Table to talk fear this week. How do we get our readers to feel fear from just the written word? What craft tools can we employ? It’s one thing with a wide-angle narrative lens, but what about a close third POV? We dig into all of this and more! Love this topic? Join my workshop, Making Readers Fear & Fear For Your Characters on October 24th....

This week, Alida, Robert, and Kathryn talk about villains you can't vanquish: How do you handle a villain that can't wear a hat, black or otherwise? When your story calls for a force instead of a figure, what does that mean for your plot? For your character? What do you need to be aware of when writing a bad event or circumstance, instead of a bad guy? Are there genre-specific antagonistic forces?...

This month the Story Works Reading Series returns after summer break with a new piece of creative nonfiction by essayist, journalist, and writing professor, Jonathon Heide. I am honored to bring Jonathon’s essay, Eastern White Pine at the Corner of the Farm, to you followed by a conversation with the author about the intersection of nonfiction and storytelling, bringing your personal self into you...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert, & Kathryn talk about writing dystopian fiction when the world we’re living in seems dystopian. What does a dystopian story have to offer readers who already feel left out or beat down? Maybe…a lot. Register for the writing workshop Memory Emotion Body at www.storyworksfiction.com now. Class begins in October. Visit WordEssential.com and...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Kathryn, & Robert talk about the changes we've noticed in storycraft when reading books of past eras. How has storytelling changed with the times and what elements of craft should we hang onto?  What books of old have you read and how do you think storytelling is changing? Let us know on our comments page! www.storyworkspodcast.com Get Alid...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Kathryn, & Robert talk about those big, really BIG, scenes. When your story demands an epic battle or riot or disaster, how can you create the right blend of massive action & personal emotion? What are the pitfalls of multiple points of view in epic scenes? And lots more today at the Round Table. Pull up a chair & join us! Register for t...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert, & Kathryn ask, how can we develop our characters if we aren’t naturally curious about people? We three writers find ourselves putting our friends, family, neighbors, even strangers under our version of the microscope. What do we--and our stories--gain as observers of human nature? Where does our authenticity come from as writers? Is ther...

This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert, & Kathryn ponder whether or not people with a creative license need to worry about the conventions of grammar & punctuation. I don't think the answer will surprise you, but the whys, wherefores, & particular concerns we have with those craft elements may prove enlightening.  Show notes & more at www.storyworkspodcast.com...

This week at the Story Works Round Table, we cover one of Kathryn’s current pain points: when description doesn’t happen while drafting and how to get it done in revision. The role of description is much richer in your story than you may think. (Previously released as episode 125.) Robert resists adding description while he fast drafts, knowing he’ll have to face it in later drafts. Kathryn strugg...