Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

A podcast by James Thayer - Fridays

Fridays

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136 Episodes

  1. Episode 96 - How to create emotions in our characters and readers.

    Published: 1/19/2024
  2. Episode 95 - More strong dialogue techniques.

    Published: 1/12/2024
  3. Episode 94 - Seven big dialogue writing techniques.

    Published: 1/5/2024
  4. Episode 93 - Can we avoid stupid writing?

    Published: 12/29/2023
  5. Episode 92 - Fourteen scene mistakes and how to avoid them.

    Published: 12/22/2023
  6. Episode 91 - The benefits of a buddy, and Willa Cather and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

    Published: 12/15/2023
  7. Episode 90 - Techniques for creating riveting settings.

    Published: 12/8/2023
  8. Episode 89 - Avoiding the biggest mistakes before we begin to write.

    Published: 12/1/2023
  9. Episode 88 - Writing the fight scene.

    Published: 11/24/2023
  10. Episode 87 - How to write a fabulous first sentence.

    Published: 11/17/2023
  11. Episode 86 - The importance of a tie-up later list. Also: sequels.

    Published: 11/10/2023
  12. Episode 85 - Dialogue's three most important techniques.

    Published: 11/3/2023
  13. Episode 84 - Why we should create a funny character, and how to do so.

    Published: 10/27/2023
  14. Episode 83 - How to show our character's thoughts to avoid interior monologue.

    Published: 10/20/2023
  15. Episode 82 - Finding the courage to write, and describing our first-person hero.

    Published: 10/13/2023
  16. Episode 81 - The top ten fiction writing techniques.

    Published: 10/6/2023
  17. Episode 80 - Maybe we are writing magic, and strong versus weak words.

    Published: 9/29/2023
  18. Episode 79 - Tips for writing YA fiction. Also: adding detail to our scenes.

    Published: 9/22/2023
  19. Episode 78 - Developing a distinctive voice, and flashbacks.

    Published: 9/15/2023
  20. Episode 77 - Eleven techniques for writing strong sentences.

    Published: 9/8/2023

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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.