Jeanne Cavelos, the Director of the Odyssey Writing Workshop says that the number one piece of advice she gives to writers is this: give your character a goal. It's so easy for us to create pet characters who just sit on the couch, docile and useless in our story. We may love these creations but they slow the narrative, and bore the reader. So how do we get our characters engaged, and working with our story not against it? Simple, we follow Jeanne's advice and give them a goal (or goals), as well as some strong motivation, and a driving passion as part of who they are. ...
It's time to start planning that story, but with so many aspects to creative writing and the creative process being such a subjective and mysterious thing, how do you plan? In this episode we explore the dimensions to a story and how to balance the discipline of structure with the flexibility to harness imagination ...
Four different writers, four different approaches to publishing your own work. In the first half of this episode, I talk to bestselling author and professional speaker JOANNA PENN about defining goals, thinking globally, and writing what we love. Then I talk to the local historian Heather Flack, NGO writer-in-residence Glenn Myers, and sixth form student, Holly Phipps – each of whom have used self-publishing for their own, very different projects. ...
