How do you keep your middle act functioning for your plot? How do you avoid ending your story too early? How should you effectively use subplots? And what about tools like the “try-fail” cycle or the hero’s journey? Alida walks us through how to give your characters the perfect level of problems, and the skills to solve them!
What is the Steampunk genre? How real does your science need to be? And does it have to be set in the Victorian era, and in Victorian society? What sort of plot goals should a Steampunk novel have? And what archetypes do you need in order for it to feel Steampunk? Leeland gives us his tips on the perfect mixture to make a Steampunk novel, and how to get started if you are interested in writing one!
What can workshopping your novel with an editor do for you as a writer? What are Kathryn’s issues with Act One? And what does your reader truly need to know about your world and characters? Make sure you zoom out and look at the big picture of what you are trying to achieve with Act One.
How is ad writing different from your book description? How do you avoid creating ad copy that is all the same? How do you get to a really good ad sentence? And how do you convey genre in one sentence?
How did finishing a project bring Alina to a realization about herself, and her life outside of her author career? What experiences did she undertake in order to refill her creative well? And how does working on a project outside of what you previously finished help broaden your artistic horizons? We finish with a poem from Alina’s new book, Fire by Night.
I'm Alida
I help people express their gifts to the world.
I do not believe in formulas. I believe that the stories we are compelled to tell the world make demands on us, and it is our privilege to meet those demands in order to reach the most people in the most authentic and compelling way possible.
