Writing Roots
Episodes
Episodes of Writing Roots
Mark All
If your characters want someone dead, but want to stay at a distance, ranged weapons are what you'll need. There are many to choose from, including guns, bows and even less well-known projectile launchers like the atlatl. Listen for more on the
While hand-to-hand melee combat has not historically been used in terms of warfare, except in extreme circumstances, it is more common in personal fights. From blunt force trauma to grappling, there are many ways that hand-to-hand fights can be
Continuing from our last episode, we wanted to talk about other natural toxins that can be used in your story to kill a character. These are more likely to be accidental in some way, but can also be utilized by the right character as an intenti
One of the ways you might use to kill someone in your story is through poison. In this episode, we focus specifically on poison from heavy metals such as arsenic and cyanide. We look into what happens to the body, how these poisons are used, an
Welcome to spooky season! To celebrate, we will be digging into death. Across all genres, one common thread that connects many of them is the idea and fallout of death. Whether it's a character working through grief or on-page violence, you wil
Rebranding words - taking words that exist and making them mean something particular for your story - is a time-tested way to engage readers with your story. They offer almost an easter egg quality to your story progression. Listen for more on
Mystery is a friend to all writers, no matter the genre. Sometimes, what you leave out tells your reader a lot more about characters or the world than what you explain. In this episode, we talk about what you can leave out, tricks to knowing wh
Intentional or not, you are always making promises to your reader. Whether it's promises related to the genre or how you establish your first chapter, you're setting the reader's expectations. When you break those promises, it can guarantee bad
The topic of this episode ventures slightly into written communication, though not within the bounds of the text itself. There are lots of useful tools with formatting that can help your readers navigate your book and understand the full contex
The final formatting of a novel is a key part of connecting with your readers. From font size to chapter headers, it influences the reader's experience. In this episode, we talk about when font matters and basics of formatting chapters and scen
One of the questions we see often popping up in writing circles is "what is head hopping?" It's often confused with simply having multiple points of view, but they are two very different things. In this episode, we look at how to identify POV i
Another way to create a rhythm in storytelling is through the sentences themselves. From the length of each sentence to the choice of punctuation, you can direct how the reader interacts with each scene. In this episode, we discuss how to use t
Establishing a rhythm - not the kind used in poetry - in scenes can convey a message of its own to your reader. Within dialogue, it can help with pacing, direct focus to important pieces of information, and tell the reader a lot about the chara
The use of white space in your book is a subtle, yet powerful way you can communicate with your readers. Lots of white space with extremely short paragraphs pushes the reader through the pages faster. Long, dense paragraphs and pages with littl
There are a lot of ways to communicate to your readers, including ways that go beyond the words themselves. The reader's experience also involves elements such as pacing, epigraphs, and even how the words look on the page. Before we can talk ab
The reason we have spent the month looking at the structures of storytelling, characters and more is for one reason: to improve your own instincts for writing. When you become familiar with concepts like pacing, it is easier to include it in yo
Our final storytelling case study of the month is Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton. Signature to his style, this movie relies a lot on visual elements to convey the stark difference between the two stories being told within the film. Even then,
Stranger than Fiction is an interesting study for authors, and not just because of the meta nature of it. There is a lot to learn by studying this movie, from writing distinctive character voices to planning a woven plot where decisions influen
For this episode of our Case Studies series, we turn to a modern murder mystery that harkens back to the classics such as Agatha Christie. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery uses visual misdirection and the power of suggestion to weave an intric
If you're interested in writing a memoir, stories and movies based on true events are a great place to start. When deciding to write about your own experiences, finding where to start is one of your biggest challenges. Welcome to Marwen, our ca
Jaws has maintained a place in popular culture, despite being nearly 50 years old. It has memorable and distinct characters, and a monster interesting enough to haunt the nightmares of many for decades. In this episode, we break down the movie
Studio Ghibli is known for heartwarming and magical stories. They are a great source of inspiration for many writers, and often the perfect stories to study to learn about immersive storytelling. In this episode, our hosts review Kiki's Deliver
Another one of our favorite movies at Writing Roots is The Princess Bride. From amazing characters to an intricate story-in-a-story plot, this movie is a classic that has a lot to teach us about storytelling. In this episode, join us as we disc
If you're looking for good story and character structures to study, a great place to start is with Pixar movies. One of our favorites at Writing Roots is Up. Even the first 10 minutes is a perfectly encapsulated story structure that sets the vi
To begin our sixth year of Writing Roots, we wanted to equip you with the knowledge of how to break down stories that you consume so you can use them in your own writing. We've discussed before different tricks and ways to take influence from y
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