Write On SC
178 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsBy writers, for writers, a weekly discussion of writing craft lead by South Carolina Writers Association members and guests.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Special Episode: Roger Jones, author of The Final Victory
January 27, 2024 18:10 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBA debut novelist, Roger Jones, author of The Final Victory, joined Kasie and Rex in the studio on January 20, 2024. Welcome to the studio, Roger Jones. The Final Victory is set to be released April 30th and is available for pre-order now on Amazon. The Final Victory follows Tripp Avery, a prominent businessman whose life gets disrupted by a cancer diagnosis. Tripp decides, during the peak of his battle with cancer to coach a mixed masters dragon boat on its way to the national championshi...
Ideas are not stories
September 24, 2023 21:17 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBIn Tuesday’s Summer Series session on marketing, a writer asked how she could protect her idea at pitchfest. She was going to share it with agents and publishers and didn’t want them to steal it or give it to another writer. Interestingly, the same thing had JUST come up on an episode of Suits which Charlie is watching and I’m giving one ear/one eye to when I’m between songs on Spotify or stories on my kindle. In the episode, a writer wanted to sue the bookstore/publisher she worked for bec...
Turn Right to Go Left
September 21, 2023 03:21 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBSo last week we did time travel and I have to confess, it was a LOT so I could think through my own time traveling vampires novel and the needs, uses, and functionality of time travel in the plot. So thanks. This week we’re doing the mentor-apprentice relationship and once again, I’m using it for my own purposes. See, I’m writing about a new-ish vampire, Blue, and his sire, Raven, and the hero-worship of progeny to sire – especially given the rules of their faith – and how eventually Raven ...
Timeless or Expired?
September 21, 2023 01:01 - 45 minutes - 42 MBRex is back from vacay. Renewed, refreshed, ready to hit the ground running? But he didn’t have a topic idea so I hijacked the show for a time travel discussion. I’ll admit it’s a Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) from-the-vault inspired topic. The song is Timeless and it’s on Taylor’s recently released re-recorded album Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) there’s a great story behind her re-recording the music, BTW, we can chat about that if we want. But this song was one she’d imagined for the album ...
Special Guests Coach Anthony Washington and Authorpreneur Jen Roberson
August 08, 2023 20:34 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBFull show notes including links to both books on the blog here.
7 Basic Plots Revisited with Dr. Anna Courie
August 08, 2023 20:19 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MBFull show notes out on the blog here. Joining me in the studio today is Dr. Anna Courie, an Army wife, nurse, corporate social responsibility officer, and author of six titles. Anna’s 20+ years in the healthcare field include experience in public and private sector health promotion. Anna is a graduate of Clemson University, the University of Wyoming, and Ohio State University. In her spare time, she consults in public health, facilitates retreats, writes books, and blogs for Living Compass ...
Why You Should Attend Storyfest
August 08, 2023 20:09 - 46 minutes - 42.9 MBThis week I’m joined by Paul Davis, prize-winning journalist and Brown University grad. As a freelance writer and reporter, he has written for large and small newspapers from the Tampa Tribune to The New York Times. At the Providence Journal, he chaired the newspaper’s in-house writing committee. He won awards for his stories about the homeless, New England’s struggling fishermen, the Narragansett Indians and the working poor. The Journal submitted his seven-part series on the Rhode Island-S...
Full Series Creation with Catherine Peace Part 2
August 08, 2023 20:00 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Write a Binge Worthy Series with Catherine Peace
August 08, 2023 19:56 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
The Appeal of the Outlaw
August 08, 2023 19:42 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MBFull episode show notes out on the blog here.
Writing in Lore Part 2
August 08, 2023 19:20 - 46 minutes - 42.1 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Writing in Existing Lore
August 08, 2023 18:57 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Character Origin Stories
August 08, 2023 18:55 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Where does the story come from?
August 08, 2023 18:20 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Grow Up! Aging into Plannerhood
July 31, 2023 14:39 - 45 minutes - 42 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Internet Grab Bag Spring Break Edition
July 31, 2023 14:29 - 46 minutes - 42.6 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Ceremonies, Events, and Rituals: Built in Stakes
July 31, 2023 14:13 - 42 minutes - 39.3 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Get in the Game Part 2
July 31, 2023 14:06 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
The Appeal of a Legal Thriller
July 31, 2023 13:42 - 46 minutes - 42.5 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
The 3 Act Structure
July 31, 2023 13:33 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
More Flaws than You Can Shake a Stick at
July 31, 2023 13:29 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Adding Dimension to the Story with Character Flaws
July 31, 2023 13:15 - 45 minutes - 42.1 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Characters Are Not People
July 31, 2023 13:03 - 46 minutes - 42.8 MBFull show notes out on the blog here.
Storytellers Do It With Words
July 31, 2023 12:53 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBFull show notes on the blog here.
Jerry Dean Pate's Lost Cause
February 28, 2023 15:02 - 46 minutes - 42.2 MBget the full notes on the blog here. Last week’s episode on war was so rich, I’m glad to continue the conversation this week with author Jerry Dean Pate, a former journalist in print and radio media turned novelist of historical fiction. Pate’s first novel, Plagued by Bad Beliefs was published with friend of the show Alexa Bigwarfe through Write|Publish|Sell. We’ll talk about the novel, the origins of the story, the rigor of historical fiction, and the choice to indie publish the book. Her...
War. What is it good for?
February 28, 2023 14:51 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBGet the full show notes on the blog here. So last week we did “conflict” and this week we’re turning it up to 11 with War which, as you might imagine, is extremeconflict. Don’t miss adjacent episodes on raising the stakes and “White Knuckle Scenes” which address the concept of “tension” in fiction and our first “conflict” conversation way back on episode 10. Last week we told you that conflict, according to this resource from Oregon State, means “thwarted, endangered, or opposing desire. ...
Gotta have some conflict
February 28, 2023 14:34 - 46 minutes - 42.5 MBGet the full show notes on the blog here. We did an episode on raising the stakes and one on “White Knuckle Scenes” back in October of last year. And when I texted you and asked, “What should we talk about tomorrow?” you (Rex) said, “tention.” Leaving off that “tention” is a misspelled version of “tension” I assumed you meant how to create drama, conflict, or action in the scene. So we’re going to work on that today: how to make the scene interesting by building the conflict. Because, whil...
Voices In Your Head
February 28, 2023 14:25 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBGet the full show notes on the blog here. We have done character episodes before. Early on, we did Despicable Characters, Archetypes, Names, and how to Be Mean to Your Characters. Then, more recently, Do you Have to Like the Main Character? and giving them agency, diversity, patriarchy, and arcs. So we might have done it all. Except we haven’t. We haven’t done origins – where do characters come from? And we haven’t done values – what do your characters believe in? And we haven’t done sketc...
Stories like Sparklers
February 28, 2023 13:59 - 46 minutes - 42.2 MBGet the full show notes on the blog here. Wednesday night we had a fun time at The Aristocrat on Washington, reading short pieces called “flash” fiction. The official definition of flash fiction is stories that are 1000 words or less. Fiction, obviously, not true. But the crucial part of it is the length. Lengths vary, though, which makes it more confusing. Between 5 and 1000 words? Or between 300 and 1500? So why write flash fiction? What’s the purpose? According to this Writers’ Digest ...
The good advice that you just didn't take
October 08, 2022 07:00 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBLast week we continued our work with literary devices working on flashback and juxtaposition. We took a little bit of time talking about extended flashback novels like The Orphan’s Tale which is also a frame story. So we’ll start with frame story today. What is a frame story? There’s a great video and full definition from the Oregon State University’s English department here. A frame story is a story-within-a-story – think Hamlet and the play happening inside the play, or The Princess Brid...
The best of times. The worst of times. Classic.
October 08, 2022 07:00 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBLast week we continued our work with literary devices working on themes and their workhorses: symbolism and motifs. This week we’re looking at flashback and juxtaposition. Juxtaposition – is another theme workhorse so in the interest of continuity for our binge-listeners, we’ll start there. Juxtaposition What is juxtaposition and why should you use it? Not exclusively a literary term, juxtaposition means to put two or more things close together to demonstrate the contrasts between them. ...
Choose Your Weapon
October 08, 2022 07:00 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBLast week we worked personification and anthropomorphism. So this week we’re going to go through the list until we run out of time: Simile and Metaphor. We’ll work these two together like they do in English classes. What is a simile? A simile is a phrase or comparison to describe something. They’re spotted when you see the word “like” or “as” to create the comparison. Metaphors, on the other hand, are figures of speech that describe something through comparison without using “like” or “as...
Those Query Pages Suck
October 08, 2022 07:00 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBLast week we talked about rejection. We’ve all been there. Felt it. Had visceral emotional responses to it. We did not, repeat NOT email those who rejected us with stupid arrogant vitriol about how sorry they’d be someday. We didn’t trash them on social media or lose our fucking minds about their industry, practices, or personal hygeine. Be a grown up. No, we did what professionals do. We moved on. And revised the crappy out of our stories. What did that revision process look like? That’s t...
Learning How to Take Rejection
October 08, 2022 07:00 - 45 minutes - 41.2 MBOkay. Rejection. Got another one this past week. The journal is called The Rupture and they didn’t want my short story, So Close. Today we’re going to talk about all the ways writers get rejected and what you can do about it. My Submittable account has 88 declines in it dating all the way back to 2012. A bunch in 2013, a pair in 2014 and 2015, a few in 2016 and 2017, and the bulk of them in 2018 when I went on my submit-every-week tear and racked up 52 “no thanks yous.” Is that how you bui...
But what does it mean?
October 08, 2022 07:00 - 45 minutes - 42 MBLeaving aside that we’re both of the generation totally fu**ed by Alanis Morissette’s inaccurate read of “irony,” and that hyperbole is So.Everywhere. that we probably don’t need an episode on it, and directing you all to the other episodes we did on archetypes (Episode 181 The Fool, Episode 72 Feminine Archetypes, and Episode 45 Cliche Characters), this may very well be our last deep-dive literary devices episode. But who knows. We didn’t expect motifs to go into a second week. And yet her...
Dogs at the Poker Table
October 08, 2022 07:00 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBSo we’ve done some cool literary devices in the past but we’ve never done personification. It came up in my house this week because my mom’s dog, Clemson, has been staying with us and we’ve been speaking for her all week: “But, Kasie, I love walking in the neighborhood and sniffing everything and never peeing. Let’s do it again.” All the sarcasm, silliness, and fun of pretending we know what the animal thinks led Charlie to suggest this topic for the show. It made me think of books that hav...
The Work of Rewriting
September 06, 2022 19:46 - 45 minutes - 42 MBGot my manuscript back from the developmental editor and while a lot of what he had to say was great, one word stuck out: ReWrite. He may have even pluralized it. So what’s next? What do you do? How do you do it? This week we talk reasons and strategies for rewrites and build in some practical work for Kāsie during our conversation. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and do the real work of writing a great book. Get the full show notes out on the blog here.
Backstory Essentials
September 06, 2022 19:36 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBTwo weeks ago, we did an episode on lazy writing and came upon this blog talking about plot holes, character under-development and other story-level sins. It picks mostly on Wonder Woman 1984 and Star Wars Episode 7, two films I (Kasie) admittedly liked. But it’s not wrong and it actually makes me cringe to think about how right the author is and whether these scripts needed more work before they went into production. If so, what does that say about all the crap I’m publishing? Don’t we thi...
Multimedia Storytelling with Dr. Jones
September 06, 2022 19:28 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBWe’re visiting with Dr. Thaddeus Jones, filmmaker and entrepreneur. But above all, storyteller. Here’s some relevant links to learn more about Thad: His IMDB profile – you gotta know this impressed the hell out of my family News from the Augusts Chronicle – a homecoming of sorts for film camp Doko Film Festival includes Thad Link to The Harvest on FilmFreeway so you can see some of Thad’s work So let’s talk about where good story comes from. Here are the show notes on the blog.
Are you guilty of lazy writing?
September 06, 2022 15:54 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBThere are a few kinds of literary short cuts and usually your English teacher just called it lazy writing. But it’s not always lazy, sometimes it’s just a faster way to communicate a bigger idea to people who know what you mean. Today we break down the kinds of short cuts and justify or reject them. As usual, there are no hard rules in this. It all depends on the phrase and the context. Get the full show notes here.
What's Next?
September 06, 2022 15:45 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBAuthors are typically doing one of 5 things: Reading Writing Revising Querying Marketing / selling Each activity has its own positive impact on the writer’s work. And each one has its own tools and takes its own allocated time. Some can be done simultaneously. Get the full show notes here.
Tech Nerd or Savvy Author?
September 06, 2022 15:36 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBHere are a few things I think we can safely take on in a general “How does this affect authors” kind of way: Digital platform building and the insights we’re giving away Digital marketing tools like email lists Digital plagiarism Search engine optimization (SEO) Scrivener, Google Docs, Word and other tools writers use to create manuscripts Temi and other voice-to-text options Wattpad, Vella and other serialization platforms Digital submissions – via email or submittable Twitter and ...
How You Know You're Writing a Hero's Journey
March 12, 2022 18:53 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBFull show notes are out on the blog here. So let’s start with the basic outline of the Hero’s Journey and then we’ll do some examples and pick apart our favorite parts: The Call — being chosen to undertake the journey The Companions — who will accompany the hero? The journey itself — distance, obstacles, treachery Monsters Temptations Deadly opposites or opposing dangers — think colliding armies The underworld — death itself or a glimpse of the other side in the form of visions and i...
Character Arcs: The Moral Descent
March 12, 2022 18:38 - 42 minutes - 39 MBGet the full original show notes here. At the beginning of November, to help out our NaNoWriMo’ers, we did an episode on Character Arcs. In the third segment we briefly touched on the negative arc, or the moral descent. Here’s some notes from that episode: The disillusionment (or negative change) arc, the character also believes a lie, is confronted with the truth and is able to overcome the lie, but the new truth — existence after accepting the truth — is tragic. This is Michael Corleone...
Carolyn Hartley
March 12, 2022 18:22 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBComplete show notes and links to Carolyn's books here. You’ve met Carolyn Hartley before, she’s one of our Patrons and the owner of J. Merrill Press in Chapin, South Carolina. The vision for J. Merrill Press has always been to publish stories of courageous women and never is this more true than in Adele’s duet. The first book, Redemption: One Woman’s Dream to Overcome Oppression, Find Family, Love, and Forgivenessintroduced us to Adele. Born into wealth before her father died, Adele and he...