The Writing Apothecary Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary and to our next lesson on dialogue.  Today we’re going to dig into the conventions of dialogue and have a look at indirect and direct speech. I think this is such an important aspect of writing dialogue. Without I think it’s harder to understand how to write it and how to get it down on the page. We all know that when we are reading a story t...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to another lesson and a new month. We're going to explore dialogue, a topic that can make or break your story. We’re going to look at the purpose of dialogue, indirect and direct dialogue, bad dialogue and conventions when it comes to dialogue.  Today is a little introduction and some of the important points we cover in this episode: It’s exactly why a reader is...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to another interview for The Writing Apothecary. Sarah and I have an amazing chat about all things plot, her debut novel Control my Night and just how characters and plot are inseparable. In today's chat we cover: Just how Sarah breaks her plot down. How her plot arrived and she wrote it. And how she approaches her plotting. Sarah's Bio: Born and raised in A...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to the last lesson on plot. Once you’ve got your major dramatical question there needs to be a structure to support it and it might sound simple, but sometimes it gets lost with everything that is going on.  Every plot has a beginning, middle and ending. Plot and structure are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other.  The main plot points of today's les...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to another episode of The Writing Apothecary, this is a week at looking at drama, real life and plot steps when we start to play around with plot.   Every plot has a major dramatical question that is either a yes or a no, with the few cases where it’s a maybe. It’s the central-most organised force in a novel, no matter what you’re writing, there will always be a singl...

Send us Fan Mail Hey guys, welcome back to anew month and a new topic. Drum roll please! This month we're tackling plot and like all fo the previous lessons this is just a step that we're building into our tool box. Today we’re going to dig into a little bit of an introduction about plot. We all know that they’re really important and that thy serve to be an essential part of the story, b...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary and today I have a treat for you. We're sitting down to chat about Point of View with another dear friend of mine, Av. We met during our Writing and Publishing degree and is always a wealth of knowledge. Today we chat about all things point of view, focalisation and cats, because what is a writer without their cat? We go into detail abou...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and the last theory less on Point of View. Today we're looking at Distance and Focalisation.  Just a word of warning, focalisation is a lot to wrap your head around it and I feel like every writer needs to understand to get the most out of their writing.  The major points of today's podcast are: There are two kinds of distan...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to another lesson on Point of view. Today we're looking at first, second and third person POV. We're breaking them down and really understanding what they are and what how they can affect your story.  Have you ever read a book and really gotten lost in the character's story? Do you feel their pain or the mistakes th...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to a new month. You know what that means! It's new topic time. I can't believe how far we've come. We're looking at Point of View and expanding on what we learned in our Voice.  This week's lesson is really short and sweet.  The major points of today's podcast are: Point of View or PoV is really impor...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and our next guest on the podcast. Characters are such an important part of our stories and it's no surprise that this is the episode that I actually recorded two or three years ago when I decided I needed a podcast, but it seems that the world and my life wasn't quite ready for it. This interview is such a special one to me...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to our next lesson about characters, and today we're getting to know them. We're looking at the symphony that it takes to make all of the working parts move in sync.  To craft a believable, fascinating and memorable characters there needs to be a point where you start with them. Most of the time we create characters from...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to our next lesson centred around the desire and human complex when it comes to characters. I want to ask you, first, a few questions:  Who is your favourite character? Or characters?  What do you think makes them your favourite character? The major points of today's podcast are: All characters have a living, breathing desire...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to a new month and new topic. Welcome to character. Today we are looking at an introduction on character and how they are the central part of a story.  Characters are the core of the story and interact with or influence every aspect and element of a story. Some character will turn up fully formed and others may not. Some may even...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and our next guest on the podcast. I am really excited for you guys to meet him. Andrew and I met in uni while we were studying psychology and since then we have had a healthy back and forth competitive friendship built on chasing each other's word counts.  In this interview Andy and I talk about all things setting and the import...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to our next lesson on setting. Today we're looking at setting and characters, the details, the reality and a brief look at pace in time The setting your characters are in is also as important as their voice is to them. With setting it can play a big role in who your character is. A setting elevated how your character dresses,...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to our next episode on voice. Today we're looking at Place and Time when it comes to setting and how important it is for your story. When writers talk about place, they mean the specific and definite locations of a story on both a small and a large level. This is where we need to really nut it out, what planet are they on? Wh...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to a new month and a new topic. This month we're looking at the backbone of a story.  This is a small introduction in to what to expect and how a setting can elevate a character and the story. Without it, you don't have a story.  The major points are: Stories draw on authentic settings on time and place. Writers have the...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to the Writing Apothecary Podcast and to our first guest on the podcast. I am so excited for you guys to meet her. She is an amazing writer and woman and not to mention one of my close friends. She has to be one of my favourite writers so she is such a perfect person to be our first guest on the podcast.  After a month of lessons, we break down Peta's character v...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 007 Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to our last lesson on Voice.  This week we'll be looking at other ways to find voice and how to use it because there are other ways of using that we haven't covered.  The different voices that don't fit into the box are: Diary/journal entry kind of voice Stream of consciousness No grammar or punctuation...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and to our second lesson on Voice.  This week I've broken down the ways that voice can show up in your writing. The most important takeaway from last week is that we need to learn to separate our writerly voice from our own authorial voice. Can we do that? Yes! And here's the way that it can be done.  For this week I've...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary podcast and I'm so excited that we're looking at a new topic for the whole month. And this month we're looking at Voice! We're looking at Voice!! And something I really love to work on with my own writing and my clients is differentiating my own writerly voice from that of my characters. It's a bit tricky to get the b...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to The Writing Apothecary Podcast and to our very last episode on Writing Practice. It's been so fun to go through the fundamentals of what a writing practice is. In today's podcast we're looking at what effects a healthy writing practice can have for your writing life. Here is some of the great effects of a healthy writing practice: A daily/week/regula...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to the Writing Apothecary Podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at journal writing versus writing practice and we touch on the differences between them. Journal writing has always been a bit scary for me because I just didn't really like the idea of diving deeper. It's an avenue that allows us to express ourselves and understand more about who...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to The Writing Apothecary Podcast show notes. In today's episode, we cover the tools you need to get your writing practice up to scratch.  Writing needs to be a ritual and that helps your writing practice get healthy. We cover the essential tools you need and these are my non-negotiables when it comes to my writing practice.  1. Schedule it in This is so important. If...