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This was actually super helpful and I immediately subscribed.

This has helped me so so SO much. Thank you!!

One response that jumped out to me is about... dang it hat was it... that writing creatively is a challenge. It aint easy! It is fun , however, and very rewarding. Any Writers block that comes from it means you're unsure about a tough section. Definitely. Another is about character growth. Childrens books are about what you say, and YA is about fitting in.. or starting a revolution. Past that you have regular adulting - characters just doing things unusual in their normal day to day life. Those stories have super prime opportunity for emotional arcs. For grandiose themes and big moments. For personal growth or failure, more than YA books.

These questions and answers were great! I will be self-publishing my first book this month. Has it been easy? Nope!! Am I happy having full creative control? Yep!

Wonderfully insightful video, as always 😊 I will be self-publishing my sci-fi crime thriller series, because the plan is for thirty books, and there would be no guarantee that a traditional publisher would take on any more than the first one. 😊

14:43 Musically you can lead into a dramatic change using foreshadowing. You can set up an expectation that change is coming and then go in a different direction. Using the same themes (& characters) they can then react to the new setting. Music is still story, so it's very appropriate to draw parallels. That was helpful, I'd not considered zero drafting before and I'm stuck halfway through a novel, mostly because I need to develop my antagonist, but much their backstory needn't exist beyond a zero-draft. Thank you.

Thank you, this was good advice. Good job! 😉

Thanks for the video. I enjoyed the format.

Appreciate your intelligent, concise analysis of scene elements. I am learning to write and you have just filled in a large chunk. I am heading over to your page to sign up for your newsletter now.

I also enjoyed this vlog! Your dogs are so cute!!

Thanks, this is the exact type of reading list I was looking for.

I really enjoyed your vlog, Tara. I found it inspiring and encouraging. I was delightfully surprised to see you have a terrier! I think she's an Airedale or a Lakeland, I always get them mixed up. I've got two Kerry Blue Terriers. It was good to see you manage your day with such equanimity with 2 dogs in the house, you make is seem so easy! Looking forward to future content. Take care.

I really enjoyed this video format. It’s nice to mix craft lessons with vlogs. All the best. 😊

2:28 Cormac McCarthy would lol

Thank you for the description about the cover-the character taking some action or solving a problem.

This was a wonderful video and one that I will return to. I felt like I was back in college having a lively conversation with my professors. (That's meant as a compliment.) I hope you do more of these.

Great format. Enough info, yet digestible. Kudos for not dramatizing the craft/hobby. There´s so much do x, y, z, out there that stresses people I think. Better just read and write continuously and then you´ll start to learn how to find your path and what advice you need.

I enjoyed the video and format. Thanks for sharing your insights 😊

Loved this format. Love listening to you. You are very clear and concise, and what you say makes sense. Just off to look at your book suggestions, and I shall definitely be making my own dictionary.

Yay you posted a video!! It was a very interesting video and I will be downloading to listen to again while I'm driving.

That was a very interesting talk [subscribed]. I'm a retired high school English teacher (in the US), and I've been writing 1000+ words a day for...well, several years now. The problem I have is that I am extremely rankled by the idea of being edited. Call me thin-skinned, but the very idea of some ill-advised, self-appointed 'expert' telling ME how to use a comma repulses me to the degree that I don't push anything I've written along the traditional publishing avenues, which are dying a well deserved and long overdue death as far as I'm concerned.

I want to write a novel, but i fear that i may have no natural writing ability

It would be revealing and instructive to have several authors take just one scene or chapter from a given book and to see how they might rewrite it to their particular standards or preferences. Any takers out there for this project?

Did it help your first draft?

Before I close my laptop, I try to make sure I’ve outline the next scene/chapter. Bc if I don’t, it’s much easier for me to procrastinate and then suddenly it’s been three days and I haven’t written a thing… 😅 But like. It needs to be derailed. To the point it’s a zero draft of the next scene/chapter. So it’s an externa twenty, thirty minutes after the time I intended to stop writing. But at least I procrastinate less ☺️

FINALLY a video that actually tackles this. i've been watching advice after advice, asking my friends for help, but none of them seemed to actually understand what my problem was: i have the plot, i have the characters, i have the setting. i'm ready to write. except that *that's* what i'm stuck with. to actually write a damn scene.

What you call heat, I might call ommph!

"describe the unfamiliar and mention the familiar" (to give it context). Wow. Great way of putting it.

I tell new writers that a scene is a micro-story with a beginning, middle, and an end. A protagonist with a goal and obstacle. It has its own inciting incident, etc. And ideally, the end links somehow to the next scene and, of course, the scene is necessary in some way to the larger story.

Your videos are incredibly helpful. Thank you! I'm glad to hear that about V.E. Schwab. Sentence-level writing is what I'm struggling the most with. I already have The Secret Life of Addie LaRue but haven't read it yet. So I was wondering if you've read that one, and if you think it would be just as good for sentence-level studying?

Love your first step!😂😊

Everr counted the ads shown in just one short video of yours? I can't handle the constant interruptions,

Yes, humans are good at getting out of things, ‘if only this and that’. With writing just write anywhere, anytime whenever you feel like it. No special conditions are required. Been writing all my life and never had a desire to go to a retreat, guaranteed NON writing holiday 😂

This is such a great concept for a video on writing, I think this is where most attempting writers fail. Discovered your channel today and I love it. Great clarity and no fuzz!

So my first draft is a zero draft 😅

I once had a beautiful Brown tabby named Annabelle Tara West. I might work her into a story idea . I don’t for a minute believe in reincarnation ( neither for moral reasons. It’s, with karma, racist and reactionary and reinforces the status quo.) Sorry had to get that out of the way😊 Anyway , it 2O yr later or so and the guy is now 40, and there’s a young woman about 20. Yes, a little risqué. And yes it’s her.

Very, very good points. Thanks.

"Working through creative challenges..." YES!!!

Good deeds giving bad consequences is interesting as tension. Like Robb Starks marriage to Jeyne in GoT resulting in the Red Wedding due to the Freys anger over him breaking his word to them. It was the honorable thing to do, but in hindsight a terrible decision.

Fantastic information, great video. I'm trying to do something new in a novel I'm working on. Third person limited, 6 povs, high fantasy. I'm comfortable writing multiple povs, but I'm struggling with one of them. The character has intense psychological trauma, so I really want to bring that inner voice to life. I want the character and the voice to be two unique entities that are constantly at odds with one another. Do you have any tips on how I can convey these internal conversations without it being jarring to the reader? I don't feel like presenting it as dialogue amongst physical characters is the right move

I found this video so helpful. The books she recommends are spot on. I just finished CRH's The Nothing Man and found the book within a book a little clunky, but still a good idea. Perhaps some chapter titles, i.e., Eve, Jim, Nothing Man, might have helped with the POV shifts. Sometimes, I read the book sections and thought I was getting Jiim's POV. The tension in the writing is quite good. I appreciated your comment that you thought this was the best crime novel you've ever read. I am a Dennis Lehane fan and consider Myster River the best crime thriller I've ever read. For giggles, I looked up the book on Goodreads and checked out the one-star reviews. Oh my god. Every writer should find their favorite book and read the one-stars. It is a great reminder that no one can write for everyone. Even if your favorite author is award-winning and saves kittens from trees, people will still hate their books. Moral, write first for yourself. Thanks for such a good recommendation. I am writing a story set in Alaska and have read many set in Australia as I think that is a good example of a setting that can help drive the story. Do you have any recommendations for writers or books that are exceptionally good at describing unusual settings?

Sorry

Thank you for your extremely practical info.

I would also say that, on your point regarding slowing a scene down/over describing at 2:45, it is perfectly acceptable to slow the scene down if something about the way he makes coffee is peculiar and reveals character information about him through action. The first example i thought of was say he's OCD, so he measures out the ingredients with a table spoon, carefully pours in the precise amount of milk, so on.

You should checkout my books. Great video and insights. Very educational. ❤

I just recently had the pleasure of discovering your channel! so orgive me if you've covered this in another video but I'm dying to hear more about the approach to actually getting words down into a book. My background is in screenwriting so I'm IN LOVE with storytelling but I'm so used to committing them to paper in the most sparse, direct way possible. I've always wanted to write a novel and I can outline/break a story just finr but the few times I've started to write it just feels so unnatural and I don't really feel like I know any guiding principals for writing prose. Do you happen to have or know of any resources that might help me unlock that way of thinking?

wrote my first book scene ever in a blizzard. It was so utterly beautiful that I wondered if I could capture it through words, since the camera on my phone did it no justice.

No for reals its not what they tell you. Because why is the doctor coming your house. And now he’s in you. 😭😭