The Taylor Stevens Show

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of cause and effect and delivers a useful rule for building scenes. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find […] The post TSS245: Cause and Effect as a Foundational Principle appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, we once again tackle chapter and scene openings, this time with an example that’s missing some of the critical elements we’ve discussed over the past few episodes. If you’re going to do our first-ever creative writing assignment, please email her at contact at […] The post TSS244: How not to write a chapter or scene opening appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, Steve asks the questions he didn’t have the time to ask over the course of the past three episodes about scene and chapter openings. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your […] The post TSS243: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene – The Q&A Show appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, Taylor shares some additional thoughts on the opening sequence of chapter one of The Innocent, book two in her Vanessa Michael Munroe series. In this episode, she uses a third framework to examine the opening sequence and shows how we can use the […] The post TSS242: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene (Part 3) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, Taylor shares some additional thoughts on the opening sequence of chapter one of The Innocent, book two in her Vanessa Michael Munroe series. In this episode, she uses two different frameworks to examine the opening sequence and shows how we can use the […] The post TSS241: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene (Part 2) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the opening sequence of chapter one of The Innocent, book two in her Vanessa Michael Munroe series. In this episode and the next, she uses three different frameworks to examine the opening sequence and shows how we can […] The post TSS240: Taylor’s Review of The Innocent’s Opening Scene (Part 1) appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on what readers (and for that matter authors) are willing to accept from protagonists. If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our […] The post TSS239: Can Your Protagonist be Too Evil for Readers? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week! In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the difference between organic storytelling and ticking things off a ‘story building’ checklist. We discuss the difference between the two and how to move beyond ticking off check boxes to improving our organic story building skills. If you […] The post TSS238: The Difference Between Ticking Boxes and Organic Storytelling appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor expands on the ideas she shared in episode 213 and explains how we can be sure our description serves the correct purpose in scenes. Taylor mentioned the following episodes at the beginning of the episode: 206 – Avoiding The Two Extremes when it Comes to Writing Description 211 – Avoiding Character […] The post TSS237: Every Scene Needs a Purpose – Part III appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor expands on the ideas she shared in episode 213 and explains how we can be sure our description serves the correct purpose in scenes. Taylor mentioned the following episodes at the beginning of the episode: 206 – Avoiding The Two Extremes when it Comes to Writing Description 211 – Avoiding Character […] The post TSS236: Every Scene Needs a Purpose – Part II appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor discusses the idea of using inner dialogue to build a framework around questions and to guide conversations. Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our […] The post TSS235: Using Inner Dialog to Guide Conversation appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor shares an example of how a small tweak to a scene ending can help to salvage the scene and keep the reader turning the page. Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can […] The post TSS234: How a Strong Ending Can Salvage a Weak Scene appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on Sidekicks and secondary characters, and the importance of the respect between main characters and sidekicks. Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or […] The post TSS233: Sidekicks and Secondary Characters appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this week’s episode, Taylor talks about the importance of treating your readers like the smart people they are by eliminating redundancy and unnecessary explaining in your stories. Here is a link to the Max Folsom except we discussed at the beginning of the show: https://www.bakersomerset.com/excerpt-1/ Thanks so much for joining us again this week! […] The post TSS232: Never State What Can Be Implied appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor shares her experience and evolving thoughts on the topic of profanity in fiction. We also mention Taylor’s article Oh Xxxx, Swearing! Click here to read the essay. Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. […] The post TSS231: The Pros and Cons of Using Profanity In Fiction appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor shares a laugh-out-loud funny story about parenting geese in bad weather. Then we discuss the use of callbacks in stories and review an example of when less is more from The Informationist. Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d […] The post TSS230: When Less Is More appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor discusses the value of negative feedback, and what it means when someone says “I don’t like the writing.” Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find […] The post TSS229: What does it mean when someone says they don’t like the writing? appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor shares the reasons why she recently read Julia Heaberlin’s upcoming book We Are All the Same in the Dark, and what kept her reading the book for eight straight hours. Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to […] The post TSS228: Taylor’s Experience In Reading A Book From Cover To Cover appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

In this episode, Taylor shares her thoughts on the importance of cause and effect in storytelling. Then she shares how the lack of a proper cause and effect relationship in her work in process caused a significant re-write. Thanks so much for joining us again this week! If you have questions or suggestions for future […] The post TSS227: The Importance of Cause and Effect to Keeping Your Story on Track appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.

We begin this week’s episode by discussing Taylor’s recent email / Patreon post about Covid-19. If you haven’t read it yet and wish to do so, it’s available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/break-from-34892965 If you’ve read her message, you’ll remember that she worked very hard to avoid including her worldview in the article, so we picked up on […] The post TSS226: Adding your Worldview to your Stories appeared first on The Taylor Stevens Show.