Writing Roots

When we communicate with each other, most of what is relayed and understood has nothing to do with the words we actually say. When you’re dealing with a written format, conveying meaning with something like tone or body language is incredibly difficult. Yet it is absolutely essential. That is why we are taking this episode to look at subtext within dialogue specifically. For a breakdown of what su...

Choices are the crux of your character’s progression through a story. Those choices will paint the picture about who your character is and what is important to them. As the author, it is your duty to actually give your characters an opportunity to choose. Instead of forcing them in the direction that would be good for your story, you need to consider several things. There are two types of choices...

If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you may have noticed a habit that is easy to fall into. From new to experienced writers, all of us have accidentally started sentences using the main character’s pronoun one too many times. There will be times, of course, where that is the best avenue. However, if you continue to use the same words and pattern to start each sentence, it begins to feel...

Psychic distance is a useful tool to understand in order to improve your writing in a way that will help the reader connect with the story. After all, that’s the basis of this concept. According to John Gardner in his book The Art of Fiction, psychic distance is the “distance that the reader feels between [themselves] and the events of the story.” The closer the reader feels, the more invested the...

Emphasis can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Too much emphasis and the sentence looses meaning entirely. That’s why knowing how and when to use italics in the formatting of your writing is so important. Using too many italics is is often a sign of a new author. You can use italics for more than just emphasis, though. In this episode, we talk about when and where to use this formatting...

If you really want to improve your writing, you need to start pushing yourself. Try things you never would have considered before. Even if it turns out terribly, there is a lesson to be learned in the process of trying something else. First aired January 16, 2022. The post S39E5 – Going Outside Your Writing Comfort Zone appeared first on Writing Roots .

Short stories take all of the nuances of crafting a novel and slam them into fewer than ten-thousand words. No, you won’t have a lot of sub-plots or side characters or even points of view. You will, however, need an entire beginning, middle, and end. Writing short stories is one of the best ways to learn the arc of storytelling quickly. In this episode, we talk specifically about how short stories...

We’ve often said that reading is one of your best tools to learn how to write. It’s more than simply consuming the stories, though. To learn the art of writing through reading, you need to be able to read critically. Critical reading is the process of analyzing not only the writing style, but your own thoughts and feelings toward the story. Writing is subjective. Not everyone is going to view a st...

An important step in improving your writing is learning how to participate in the feedback process. It’s more than just learning how to to take criticism of your work. You need to learn how to give feedback to other authors in a constructive and analytical way. Giving and getting feedback will help you figure out what works in your writing. We are often blind to our own works for various reasons....

It’s time to level up your writing. If you’re new to writing communities, you may be daunted by the amount of acronyms, abbreviations, and jargon you encounter every day. Sifting through seemingly nonsensical posts makes an already difficult process feel overwhelming. For our first episode of 2023, we wanted to dive into this lingo to help you understand. After all, if you can’t communicate with t...

If you’re new to the podcast, you may have asked these questions. “Who are you? Who are these people telling me about writing?” To wrap up 2022 and our FAQ series, we wanted to give you some answers. The podcast has grown so much in the last year. We are thrilled to be able to share our knowledge with all of you. For you to trust us, you should know our backgrounds. Overall, we’re writers and edit...

A surprising question we get often is “how do I make a podcast?” Though it may not be directly related to writing, it is still a topic we wanted to cover this month. Especially when you consider the benefits of using a fiction podcast to share your writing with the world. Podcasts, whether fiction or non-fiction, are a great way to reach a wide audience. It’s easy enough to set one up and to creat...

New authors are constantly asking how to write someone of a different gender or background. Readers are constantly making fun of authors who wildly misrepresent or stereotype their gender. Our goal in this episode to help show you the best practices for writing characters who don’t share the same experiences as you. There are physical characteristics to consider when writing someone of certain gen...

A good plot twist is a wonderful addition to a story. It can reframe how the reader views the rest of the story, spark a strong emotional reaction that will help them remember, or simply create a thrilling segment to experience. Writing a good plot twist takes planning and care (or for pantsers, a lot of detailed editing). There are plenty of places to go wrong with plot twists. Namely, don’t try...

Once you’ve hit “publish” on your manuscript, knowing what to do next is overwhelming. You get inundated with all sorts of marketing ideas. For authors who usually don’t like to go out into public, one of the most common forms of marketing include live author events, from signings to fairs. If you’re just getting started, you may be asking yourself how to prepare, what to do, and if there are smal...

One of the main jobs an author has is to immerse their audience in the story. One of the most effective ways to do this is to engage all of the reader’s senses – or at least their memories of those senses. We need to use sights, sound, smell, touch, and taste as we craft worlds and scenes. But that can be difficult. Books are limited in what they can actually show. Most of us tend to focus mostly...

Not all main characters have perfect plot armor. There will be times in your writing career where you will need to kill of the main character of your story. However, this is a delicate topic, as it is entirely too easy to incorrectly get rid of the hero. In this episode, we break down a list of Dos and Don’ts to help guide you in the decision to unalive those MCs. But it all comes down to one impo...

It’s becoming more and more common to have a large cast of main characters, especially in the fantasy and sci-fi genres. Having a dozen or more named, active characters in a single scene, though, is complicated. It takes a lot of work to make sure it’s balance, easy to follow, and still serves a purpose. In this episode, our hosts break down some of the best ways to have a large cast for scenes wh...

If you want to self-publish your book, you may be considering doing the formatting on your own. While we often advise to turn to professionals who know how to do this step, doing that is simply not plausible for everyone. That’s why we’re tackling this question in our FAQ series: how do I format a book for publishing or querying? There is a lot that goes into making sure a published book looks cor...

It’s a question we see frequently. Does taking a break mean I’m not a real writer? Does it mean I’m a bad writer? This is the first question we want to address in our latest Frequently Asked Questions series. All month, we will be addressing your questions and ones we see often within the writing community. For many of us, it’s difficult to think of ourselves as authors or writers. This is even mo...

We’ve all done this at some point: picked up a book and assumed it must be of quality because it’s gone through a traditional publishing process. We’ve also likely been disappointed more than once by that initial assumption. Whether it’s poor copy editing or simply a bad story, it’s important to remember that not every traditionally published book is bad. Having this understanding is so important...

No piece of advice is shared more often than this: write what you know. We hear it constantly, often as encouragement to help us write better. It’s definitely something to listen to if you’re writing non-fiction. However, if you’re writing anything in fiction, be it contemporary or fantasy, writing what you know is incredibly limiting. It places you in a box instead of allowing you creativity. In...

If you encountered a fork in the road of your author journey, which would you take? One path appears to be a well-groomed road with guidance along the way. The other looks overgrown with thorns and no clear direction. It seems too easy, right? The obvious answer must be a trick. Unfortunately, that thinking often leads new authors into believing they must forge their own path to become an author....

Few things are worse for your book than making a character perfect. We don’t mean perfect for the story. That’s a good thing. We mean perfect as in always positive and has no flaws. There is a common misperception in the writing world that only positive, upbeat, and “perfect” characters can be likeable. Readers will reject all others as lesser characters. However, the opposite is true. We’ve talke...

Responding to critics, especially in a public forum, is one of the fastest ways to get people to remember you in all the wrong ways. While this piece of advice isn’t one people often say, it is one shown in their actions. Time and time again, authors and other artists get pulled into the trap of trying to defend their work to critics. One author even infamously called reviewers names after leaving...