The Writer's Block Podcast

Weak Endings - #10 of the Ten Most Common Mistakes

Barbara Wallace award winning author of romance and mystery will continue her discussion of the most common writing mistakes.  Weak endings are bad in lovemaking and in stories.  Debby, Shelly and Barbara will help you reach a great climax to your book.

• If the reader remembers the ending, they will forgive any early misgivings
• Don’t let your deadline stop you from flushing out your endings
• Is the pot so complicated that you can’t get out of the story satisfactorily?
• You should have an arc for your character (the murder gets solved, someone dies…)
• Readers like when the story ties up the loose ends
• You shouldn’t drag the ending out too long either
• Happy ending are not always satisfying endings

May you be inspired, feel empowered, and B. Well.

All this and more on this week’s episode of The Writer’s Block Podcast recorded at the Studio 21 Podcast Café and hosted on the United Podcast Network.

Stereotypical Characters and Flat Characters - #9 of the Ten Most Common Mistakes

Barbara Wallace award winning author of romance and mystery will continue her discussion of the most common writing mistakes.  Shelly and Debby and Barbara will teach you how to make your characters memorable.

• We spend a lot of time developing main characters but how much time do we spend on secondary characters?
• Is the secondary character necessary?
• They exist to further the plot
• How do you choose who is important to move the story along?
• Holmes, who lacks social awareness, had Watson to balance him out

May you be inspired, feel empowered, and B. Well.

All this and more on this week’s episode of The Writer’s Block Podcast recorded at the Studio 21 Podcast Café and hosted on the United Podcast Network.

Telling, Not Showing - #8 of the Ten Most Common Mistakes

Barbara Wallace award winning author of romance and mystery will continue her discussion of the most common writing mistakes.  Debby and Shelly will explore the benefit of showing rather than telling, which include how to emotionally connect your readers with your characters.

• It’s a weakness many authors have
• Telling is just giving the information
• Showing is demonstrating the narrative through the Human experience often through the
• Use all the senses
• Who is noticing what and why?
• Lay off the “ly” words
• Small details rather than the big picture
• Powerful verbs and adjectives
• Be specific to the character
• Dialogue vs simple narrative

May you be inspired, feel empowered, and B. Well.

All this and more on this week’s episode of The Writer’s Block Podcast recorded at the Studio 21 Podcast Café and hosted on the United Podcast Network.

Inconsistent Pacing - #6 of the Ten Most Common Mistakes

Pacing is the speed with which your narrative unfolds. The Writer’s Block welcomes Barbara Wallace to talk about the importance of pacing.

• Your book should be like a symphony
• The pace should be variable
• There should be a purpose to your pacing
• At what point in the writing process should pacing be addressed?
• Language and sentence structure can be used to control pace

May you be inspired, feel empowered, and B. Well.

All this and more on this week’s episode of The Writer’s Block Podcast recorded at the Studio 21 Podcast Café and hosted on the United Podcast Network.

Character Derailment - #3 of the Ten Most Common Mistakes

Barbara Wallace, award winning author of romance and mystery, will continue her discussion of the most common writing mistakes. 

This week's topic is Character Derailment.  This is when the character does something so "out of character" that the writer loses credibility and the reader loses interest.  Characters need to feel like real people to the reader so the writer can't make them do things just to move the story along or to hit a plot point. 

• Is your hero too stupid to live?
• Every scene should have conflict but it needs to stay within the confines of the character that you have created
• When you really understand your character you will be less likely to derail them
• What is pre-writing?
• What is your character's motivation?

May you be inspired, feel empowered, and B. Well.

All this and more on this week’s episode of The Writer’s Block Podcast recorded at the Studio 21 Podcast Café and hosted on the United Podcast Network.

Conflict - Avoid it in life... Need it in Books

What drives each story? Conflict - that struggle between opposing forces!  The Writer's Block welcomes Barbara Wallace, author and long-time writing group partner of Debby's to discuss the importance of conflict in stories.  We'll dive deep and look at the difference between internal and external conflict in writing.

 

Barbara Wallace, famous author and long-time writing group partner with Debby, is only 100,000 books shy of selling 1 million copies worldwide.   Today she joins the block to discuss the importance of conflict in stories.  She will also explain the difference between internal conflict and external conflict.  If we're lucky, maybe she'll share her secret to selling so many books!

 

 

Whether you are writing fiction, Non-Fiction, a memoir, or are just into creative writing this is the podcast for you. This podcast is more than just about how to write as we cover the why’s, when’s, and where’s of writing.

 

May you be inspired, feel empowered, and B. Well. 

All this and more on this week’s episode of The Writer’s Block Podcast recorded at the Studio 21 Podcast Café and hosted on the United Podcast Network.