Writing Roots

S40E1 – Accepting Imperfection

When you are getting a book ready for publishing, the first step is going to be accepting that the book will never be perfect. And then you need to accept that just because it’s imperfect doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take steps to making it better.
Perfection is a paralytic. Holding ourselves to high and unrealistic standards can keep us from achieving anything. Trying to make a manuscript perfect will lead to a dozen drafts of a book that will never be published. In this episode, Leigh and Ley discuss some of the best ways to accept imperfection in the process yet still achieve a product you can be proud of.
First aired February 2, 2023.
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S39E9 – Using Subtext in Dialogue

When we communicate with each other, most of what is relayed and understood has nothing to do with the words we actually say. When you’re dealing with a written format, conveying meaning with something like tone or body language is incredibly difficult. Yet it is absolutely essential. That is why we are taking this episode to look at subtext within dialogue specifically.
For a breakdown of what subtext is and how it can be used, you can listen to S16E3 – Between the Lines: Importance of Subtext. In this episode, we look at what it looks like in and around dialogue and the different tools to help you convey the meaning you intended.
First aired January 30, 2023.
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S39 Bonus – Giving Your Characters Choices

Choices are the crux of your character’s progression through a story. Those choices will paint the picture about who your character is and what is important to them. As the author, it is your duty to actually give your characters an opportunity to choose. Instead of forcing them in the direction that would be good for your story, you need to consider several things.
There are two types of choices you can throw at the character: big ones that impact the plot, and little ones that help define character. Each person is going to make choices based on what they need and want out of life. Consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If your character is in need of shelter, they’re not going to make a decision based on emotional fulfillment. Even then, what they choose should be in-character.
In our bonus episode, we break down how to give your characters choices in meaningful ways to both advance the plot and build the characters.
First aired January 28, 2022.
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S39E8 – Starting Sentences Without Using the MC’s Pronoun

If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you may have noticed a habit that is easy to fall into. From new to experienced writers, all of us have accidentally started sentences using the main character’s pronoun one too many times. There will be times, of course, where that is the best avenue. However, if you continue to use the same words and pattern to start each sentence, it begins to feel like a play-by-play rather than a detailed story.
Listen to this episode for tips and tricks on how to avoid starting each sentence with your MC’s name or pronoun.
First aired January 26, 2023.
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S39E7 – Understanding Psychic Distance for Your Writing

Psychic distance is a useful tool to understand in order to improve your writing in a way that will help the reader connect with the story. After all, that’s the basis of this concept.
According to John Gardner in his book The Art of Fiction, psychic distance is the “distance that the reader feels between [themselves] and the events of the story.” The closer the reader feels, the more invested they will be in the story’s ending. We break down psychic distance, how it relates to POV, and why it’s important to understand.
First aired January 23, 2023.
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S39E6 – Knowing How to Use Italics in Your Novel

Emphasis can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Too much emphasis and the sentence looses meaning entirely. That’s why knowing how and when to use italics in the formatting of your writing is so important. Using too many italics is is often a sign of a new author.
You can use italics for more than just emphasis, though. In this episode, we talk about when and where to use this formatting technique to help deliver the right kind of message to your audience.
First aired January 19, 2023.
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S39E5 – Going Outside Your Writing Comfort Zone

If you really want to improve your writing, you need to start pushing yourself. Try things you never would have considered before. Even if it turns out terribly, there is a lesson to be learned in the process of trying something else.
First aired January 16, 2022.
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S39E4 – Improving Your Writing Through Short Stories

Short stories take all of the nuances of crafting a novel and slam them into fewer than ten-thousand words. No, you won’t have a lot of sub-plots or side characters or even points of view. You will, however, need an entire beginning, middle, and end. Writing short stories is one of the best ways to learn the arc of storytelling quickly.
In this episode, we talk specifically about how short stories can help improve your skills. If you’d like more information about how to write a short story, visit our past episode on the topic. Here, we talk about the principles of keeping it simple and condensed, along with why it’s such a useful tool to write outside of your main work in progress.
First aired January 12, 2023.
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S39E3 – Learning to Critically Read

We’ve often said that reading is one of your best tools to learn how to write. It’s more than simply consuming the stories, though. To learn the art of writing through reading, you need to be able to read critically.
Critical reading is the process of analyzing not only the writing style, but your own thoughts and feelings toward the story. Writing is subjective. Not everyone is going to view a story in the same way. If you want to appeal to an audience like yourself, you need to know what about a story you find enticing or curious or compelling. You also need to identify what you specifically don’t like, so you can avoid it.
In this episode, we discuss the process of critical reading, some tricks we’ve learned to help in the process, and break down how it can help you.
First aired January 9, 2022.
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S39E2 – Giving and Getting Feedback

An important step in improving your writing is learning how to participate in the feedback process. It’s more than just learning how to to take criticism of your work. You need to learn how to give feedback to other authors in a constructive and analytical way.
Giving and getting feedback will help you figure out what works in your writing. We are often blind to our own works for various reasons. Most notably, we know what it should say, and we know what we meant. It’s difficult to read our own writing with the same eye as a reader. To get better, you simply need to start critically reading writing from other people.
Listen to this episode for more about the feedback process and how to improve your writing by being critical.
First aired January 5, 2023.
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