In this episode, we chat through different story structures and talk through how we approach these in our stories (especially as one of us is a panster and the other is a plotter!) and discuss different approaches for how we could do things.

If you’re a writer, what story structure do you use??

Intro and Outro Music is by Chasing West

https://www.instagram.com/chvsingwest/

http://www.youtube.com/@chasingwest

Link to the gigantic picture of allll structures: https://imgur.com/onltNgA

Save the Cat Beatsheet https://newbietonovelist.com/2020/09/23/save-the-cat-fifteen-beats-vs-the-seven-point-story-structure/

In this episode, we discuss our naming process for our own characters and some of our favorite within some popular books too. We found so much to talk about and honestly still have more surface to scratch but it was a really interesting and fun conversation. A lot of names are really instinctive but also need to resonate and can really make or break a story!

What are some of your favorite character names?

Intro and Outro Music is by Chasing West

https://www.instagram.com/chvsingwest/

http://www.youtube.com/@chasingwest

Chapters:

00:00–Cold open, intro song, and episode intro

00:51–Reading check-ins!

Sam read the third and fourth of the Beasts of the Briars series

Allie read ~200 pages of Outlander

5:34–Writing check-ins!

Allie didn’t write much after last week’s ep

Sam wrote 1400 words (and broke her writing slump!)

11:06–Main Discussion: Character names! Our own and general discussion of some famous popular romantasy names too

1:04:34–Poem of the Week! “This living hand” by John Keats! (Read it here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50375/this-living-hand-now-warm-and-capable )

1:15:21–Next week, closing & outro music

In this episode, we check in with each other in terms of our reading and writing this week and then we get into a writing exercise! We have a lot of fun with this one and both ending up reading what we wrote during the exercise!

Here’s the prompt:

Describe your character’s favorite place (that you haven’t yet described).

If you’re a writer, give this one a try! If you do, let us know how it went!

Intro and Outro Music is by Chasing West

https://www.instagram.com/chvsingwest/

http://www.youtube.com/@chasingwest

Chapters:

00:00–Cold open, intro song, and episode intro

00:42–Reading check-ins!

Sam read a couple chapters of Forged by Malice

Allie read two chapters of Outlander

4:31–Writing check-ins!

Sam hasn’t written but has is mentally writing, as you do

Allie wrote 2k words and a poem!

16:12–Writing exercise! We originally were going to do 2-3 but ended up just doing one of them since we actually took like 40 mins to do it instead of just 10 mins.

Here’s that prompt: Describe your character’s favorite place (that you haven’t yet described).

18:47–Initial reactions after the exercise

20:05–Allie reads what she wrote

26:35–Sam reads what she wrote

39:55–Next week, closing & outro music