In this episode we look at stage five of the six stage story process - the climax stage. We are going to answer the question "what is the climax?" and also look at how, as writers, we can make the most of this stage of the story. The most important lesson to take away from this episode is that the climax is not about blood and explosions - it's about characters and ideas, it's about the beliefs that characters hold dear, and will live, and die for. ...
My guest this week is the author Becky Chambers, author of the critically acclaimed novel 'The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet'. Becky’s novel was shortlisted for the Kitschies in the debut category in 2014, longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2016, and it has just been shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke prize. Becky knows what it is to self-publish and she also knows what it is to be commercially published, since her self-published novel was picked up in 2015 by Hodder and Stoughton. In the interview she shares her experiences and advice on the craft and the publishing process. Many of you will know Becky’s work, but if you don’t just check the search engine of your choice and you’ll see what I mean when I say that Becky is the talk of the town in publishing at the moment. ...
Writing the first draft of a novel, like scaling the north face of the Eiger, presents particular difficulties. In this episode, we look at what those challenges are, and how we can overcome them to get the first draft done. ...
