Essential Guide to Writing a Novel
Hosted by James Thayer, the podcast is a practical, step-by-step manual on how to craft a novel. It presents a set of tools for large issues such as story development and scene construction (Kirkus Reviews said Thayer's novels are "superbly crafted') and it also examines techniques that will make your sentence-by-sentence writing shine. The New York Times Book Review has said Thayer's "writing is smooth and clear. it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm only confident stylists achieve.
Podcasting since 2022 • 219 episodes
Essential Guide to Writing a Novel
Latest Episodes
Episode 219 - How to get our story going.
Here is a checklist of things we likely should think about as we begin our first chapter: some elements to have in the beginning pages of our story and some things to avoid. Also: the strong technique of using contrast in consecutive scen...
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25:26
Episode 218 - Our writer's voice.
What is a singular attribute that separates Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, and Edgar Alan Poe? Their literary voices. Here are thoughts on our own voices: if and how we should try to develop them. Also: the strong tool of cont...
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26:43
Episode 217 - Why and how to practice. And Edgar Alan Poe.
Writing is like learning the violin. We can get better. Here are reasons we should practice, and suggestions how to do so. And what sparked Edgar Alan Poe's imagination? Also: how much of our story should be scenes rathe...
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26:49