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Inside Creative Writing

Inside Creative Writing

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 Inside Creative Writing is your go-to podcast for mastering the art and craft of storytelling. Whether you're writing your first novel or refining your skills, this podcast delivers practical techniques, deep insights, and real-world strategies to help you craft immersive, authentic stories.

Hosted by Brad Reed, a writer, educator, and coach, Inside Creative Writing explores the techniques behind compelling fiction and creative nonfiction. Each episode dives into essential writing topics, from developing complex characters and crafting vivid scenes to structuring powerful narratives and revising with purpose.

What You’ll Discover in This Podcast:
Proven Writing Techniques – Learn practical methods used by successful authors to enhance your storytelling.
Deep Dives into Craft – Explore the nuances of characterization, voice, pacing, and immersive world-building.
Inspiration & Motivation – Break through writer’s block and stay committed to your creative journey.
Expert Insights – Gain valuable lessons from the best literary minds, with references to Hemingway, Tim O’Brien, Philip Pullman, and more.
Actionable Writing Exercises – Apply what you learn with hands-on challenges designed to sharpen your skills.

If you’ve struggled with getting started, pushing through the messy middle, or figuring out how to revise, Inside Creative Writing provides the tools and guidance you need.

Resources to Take Your Writing Further:
Website & Blog – Explore in-depth articles and resources at htps://InsideCreativeWriting.com and join today at https://insidecreativewriting.com/join
Join the conversation and start writing the stories you’ve always wanted to tell. Subscribe now and take your writing to the next level!Copyright 2026 Inside Creative Writing Art
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    • The Power of Little Mysteries

      The Power of Little Mysteries
      May 9 2025
      tHE POWER OF LITTLE MYSTERIES:How to Keep Readers Turning Pages — a podcast episode — How do you keep readers engaged in a novel without constant action or plot twists?One of the most effective ways to keep readers engaged is by incorporating “little mysteries,” unanswered questions or withheld information that prompt curiosity. These can be as simple as a character avoiding a topic, a strange behavior with no explanation, or a subtle line of foreshadowing. When done well, they create narrative tension and encourage readers to keep turning the pages to uncover the truth. Helping writers craft authentic, immersive stories.Find out more about us here. Inside Creative Writing Email this Page Share on Bluesky Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Threads Share on Facebook Table Of Contents Formatted and Edited Transcript What Are Little Mysteries? How to Build Little Mysteries in Any Genre When Mystery Backfires Little Mysteries by Genre Balancing Mystery and Clarity Use Your Beta Readers Prime Places to Add Mystery A Few More Examples Wise Words This Week’s Writing Challenge Wrap-UpTalk to Us! Share This Resource Why do some stories feel impossible to put down? It’s not always explosions, plot twists, or dramatic scenes. Sometimes, it’s something quieter and more powerful: little mysteries. In this episode of the Inside Creative Writing Podcast, we dive deep into how subtle, unanswered questions can create narrative tension that keeps readers engaged through every chapter. Whether you’re writing a thriller, romance, memoir, or sci-fi epic, understanding how to plant and resolve these small mysteries can transform your pacing and reader connection. You’ll learn: Why mystery doesn’t have to mean murderHow “withholding information” creates forward momentumFive specific techniques for embedding little mysteries in your storyMistakes to avoid when using mystery as a narrative toolHow different genres, from memoir to fantasy, use mystery to engageWhat beta readers can reveal about your use of mysteryHow ambiguity can help readers take ownership of your storyWant more insight on crafting page-turning stories? Check out the How to Write a Novel guide or listen to Episode 42: Plot Your Novel with Index Cards for practical structuring tools. Formatted and Edited Transcript Episode 45. What is it that keeps you turning pages in a book, makes you stay up all night until you finish it? Today we’re talking about little mysteries. Let’s dive in. Welcome back fellow writers. I hope your writing is going well this week. Today’s episode is about something that quietly powers almost every great story, regardless of genre. It’s not dialogue, it’s not description. It’s what we’re going to call little mysteries. Now we’ve hinted at this before in other episodes, but I really wanted to take a full episode and dive into it deeply because it’s so important and powerful. What Are Little Mysteries? So, little mysteries. I’m not talking about detective stories and dead bodies and who done it, although those are certainly fun too. I mean the kind of mystery that makes readers lean forward, flip the page, and kind of whisper, wait, what just happened, or oh, what’s going to happen? So let’s get into that. When we hear the word mystery, we tend to think of crime novels, right? Agatha Christie. Sherlock Holmes. That kind of stuff. Those stories are built around a central question. Who did it, right? One big mystery. And it’s great for your book to have one big mystery, one big question that drives people to the end of the book. Like my book Crossing Cascadia. The big question is, did her family survive this earthquake? Right? So that’s the question. That’s the through line that drives the entire book to the end. Did her family survive? Is she going to make it back to them? And will she survive? Great storytelling almost always relies on that kind of mystery, even when there’s no detective in sight. So think of it more broadly. Mystery is simply what the reader or the viewer—if you’re writing a screenplay or something like that—what they don’t know yet and what they’re desperate to figure out, or even just interested to figure out. Let’s take an example from what is possibly the greatest TV series ever made. Breaking Bad. You can argue with me in the comments if you want to recommend some other shows that might compete. But holy cow. Breaking Bad did a masterful job of writing. So let’s look at that opening scene and the way it works with mystery. If you’ve seen it, you probably remember it vividly. It comes straight back into your mind, right? That pair of khaki pants fluttering through the air, an RV crashing through the desert, a man in tighty whities and a gas mask just driving frantically, panicked. And there’s chaos. There’s sirens. There’s those bodies sliding around inside of the RV. And then he ...
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      32 min
    • What If You’re Not the Kind of Writer You Thought You’d Be?

      What If You’re Not the Kind of Writer You Thought You’d Be?
      May 1 2025
      What If You’re Not the Kind of Writer You Thought You’d Be? — a podcast episode — What if I’m not the kind of writer I thought I’d be?Many writers start with a fixed idea of the kind of stories they’re supposed to write, but creative growth often reveals a different voice or genre that feels more authentic. Embracing this shift isn’t failure; it’s part of discovering your true identity as a writer. Helping writers craft authentic, immersive stories.Find out more about us here. Inside Creative Writing Email this Page Share on Bluesky Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Threads Share on Facebook Table Of Contents Formatted and Edited Transcript Expectations vs. Reality When Writing Takes a Turn Why Writing Takes So Long Writers Who Evolve The Trap of Early Success The Problem of the Platform Signs You Might Be Writing the Wrong Story Shiny Object Syndrome Wise Words Writing Challenge for the Week Talk to Us! Share This Resource What if the writer you thought you’d be isn’t the writer you actually are? This episode dives into one of the most important (but rarely discussed) challenges writers face: discovering that their creative voice may not match the genre, tone, or style they originally envisioned. Whether you’re feeling creatively stuck or wondering if a pivot is necessary, this conversation will help you listen to what your writing is trying to tell you. Key takeaways from this episode: How to recognize the difference between resistance and authentic redirectionWhy early success can trap you in a version of yourself that no longer fitsPractical tools to explore a shift in genre or voice without scrapping your workHow to use flow state and “guilty relief” to evaluate new story ideasEncouragement from authors like George Saunders, Margaret Atwood, and Franz Kafka, who reinvented their work mid-career You don’t have to be the writer you set out to be. In fact, discovering who you really are on the page might be the most exciting part of the journey. Ready to go deeper? Explore the How to Write a Novel page or try the Story Rescue Checklist to see if your current project needs a fresh look. Formatted and Edited Transcript When you started writing, you probably had a clear idea of the kind of writer you were going to be. But what if you were wrong? And what if that’s actually a good thing? Let’s dive in. Welcome back to the Inside Creative Writing podcast. This is Brad Reed. I’m thrilled to be here with you again today. I want to talk about something that almost every writer struggles with at some point, but we don’t often say it out loud. We don’t often talk about it. And that thing is the question, what if I’m not the kind of writer I thought I was going to be? Expectations vs. Reality When most of us start writing, we have this clear idea in our heads, right? We picture ourselves maybe writing sweeping fantasy sagas or gritty detective novels or maybe some deeply emotional literary fiction. We might even imagine ourselves sticking to a particular genre or a specific audience or a specific style. We tend to think we should be writing the type of work that we love to read, and sometimes that is the case, but not always. Sometimes that love of a specific type of story is only the thing we need to start writing in order to find what we’re truly meant to write. Now the same thing happens to musicians and singers all the time. Some start out aiming for pop stardom but find their voice in folk or blues. Others might dream of being country stars, but they realize once they get started that their passion actually lies in indie rock or jazz or something like that. Even huge names like Taylor Swift pivoted dramatically during her career, which is still ongoing and still pivoting, right? Moving from country to pop to indie folk, all sorts of stuff. Over time, artists often need that first step into a familiar genre just to get started, only to realize that their true sound lives somewhere entirely different. Alanis Morissette is another great example of this. She started out as kind of a teen pop singer. She had some level of success with that, not nearly the success that she had when she shocked the world with Jagged Little Pill, an album that is so far away from teen pop that I don’t think you could get much farther away. When Writing Takes a Turn So writers experience this same thing. We step into writing thinking we’re one thing and we’re writing one kind of story, but the deeper we go, the more something else starts to emerge. And then somewhere along the way, what actually comes out when we sit down to write doesn’t really match that picture we had going in. The stories we’re drawn to feel different. The voice feels different. Sometimes the whole process feels different, especially different than what we thought it would be. When this happens, it can be really confusing and off-putting. It can ...
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      43 min
    • When Characters Take Control: Writing and the Internal Family System

      When Characters Take Control: Writing and the Internal Family System
      Apr 23 2025
      WHEN CHARACTERS TAKE CONTROL:Writing and the Internal Family System — a podcast episode — Why do some characters take control of your story?Some characters seem to “take over” your story because they may represent parts of your own mind. According to Internal Family Systems (IFS) theory, the human psyche is made up of different internal parts—each with its own voice, perspective, and motivation. When writing, these parts can emerge as characters, expressing thoughts or emotions you might not consciously recognize. Letting characters lead can reveal deeper truths and add emotional depth to your story. Helping writers craft authentic, immersive stories.Find out more about us here. Inside Creative Writing Email this Page Share on Bluesky Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Threads Share on Facebook Table Of Contents Formatted and Edited Transcript When Characters Take Over What Is Internal Family Systems? What If Your Characters Are Parts of You? How to Work with These Character-Parts Two Ways to Talk to These Parts When a Character Takes Over Wise Words Weekly Challenge Talk to Us! Share This Resource Why do our characters sometimes refuse to do what we planned? In this episode of Inside Creative Writing, Brad dives deep into the phenomenon of characters “talking back,” saying things we didn’t expect, steering the story in new directions, or developing voices of their own. It turns out, there might be a psychological explanation. Drawing from Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic model that sees the mind as a system of parts, Brad explores what might be happening when characters come alive on the page. Are they just echoes of other stories? Or could they be voices from within ourselves, trying to speak through our fiction? Whether you’re a skeptic, a believer, or somewhere in between, this episode offers practical techniques and surprising insights to help you tap into character voice, deepen emotional authenticity, and maybe even understand yourself a little better. Includes: A quick intro to IFS theoryHow to “interview” your characters like internal partsWhen to let characters lead—and when to pull back Formatted and Edited Transcript Episode 43. Today we get weird. What exactly is happening when our characters seem to start taking control of the story we’re writing? Doing and saying things we didn’t expect? Let’s dive in. Almost every writer has had the experience of a character who keeps doing things you didn’t plan for. Or maybe they say something that makes you kind of blink and ask, wait, where did that come from? It’s a strange moment, for sure, but what exactly is happening? You’re not alone in this. Today we’re talking about what might be happening when those characters start surprising us, and what that might have to do with a therapeutic model of the mind called Internal Family Systems. So we’re really living up to the name Inside Creative Writing today, because we’re going deep inside the creative writing mind. The episode might get a little weird, but in the best way. When Characters Take Over So we’ve all heard the stories, right? If they haven’t happened to us ourselves. An author says their characters “took over” the story. Or they didn’t intend for a plot twist, but a character insisted that it happened. Maybe you’re writing along and suddenly a side character starts just dominating the story. Or your protagonist refuses to follow your outline. What is going on here? Now, I’ve been curious about this for years. And for years I chalked it up to cliché, like maybe the words come easy because we’ve just heard them before, not because they’re especially meaningful. But lately I’ve been exploring something new. A different way of understanding how the human mind works, and it’s shed a whole new light on what I think might actually be going on in those moments, and how we can use them to our story’s benefit. So today I want to suggest that the experience of characters developing their own voices might be less mystical than it seems, and also way more personal. I’m going to introduce you to an idea from psychology called Internal Family Systems, often shortened just to IFS. And show you how this model might explain exactly why your characters seem so alive, and what to do with them once they come alive in that way. What Is Internal Family Systems? So let’s start with a short definition here. Internal Family Systems is a therapy model developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz back in the 1980s, and it’s based on a simple but pretty radical idea, that the mind isn’t one unified voice. It’s a system of parts. At first, this might sound a little bit out there. But before we jump to dismissing it, think about how we talk about our minds. When you faced a big decision, have you ever caught yourself saying things like, “Part of me wants to do X, but I really want to do Y”? ...
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      24 min
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