path of the storyteller / blog

Everybody’s talking about Hemingway this week.

Well, maybe not everybody. But many of us who think deeply about writing have the new three-part PBS documentary about the life and work of influential 20th century American novelist, Ernest Hemingway, on the watch list.

Hemingway started out as a newspaperman, and his voice as a short story writer and novelist was noted for its punchy minimalism.

That makes this a good week to talk about brevity. Compression. The art of leaving stuff out.

Many writers know that “cutting” is part of revision, but it’s not always easy to know what to cut. Let’s discuss.

My weekly livestream happens on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

And subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

It’s been said that a story is only as good as its villain. Agree or disagree?

The truth is, our heroes need obstacles. Other characters in the tale may be instrumental in providing those obstacles. Why might they do this? Does being a “villain” equate to being “evil”?

More questions about villainy abound! How do we create “bad guys” without writing stale clichés? And how can we bring ourselves to write fully-imagined characters that we ourselves find unsavory?

Mwah-ha-ha! Clearly, the role of the “villain” is fraught with complexity. That’s what we dig into this week.

My weekly livestream happens on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

And subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

Remember Wilson the volleyball? What a performance! It turns out that even a story about a guy stranded alone on a desert island can have a cast of archetypal characters.

What do I mean by archetypal? That’s our topic this week. Some characters might populate the edges of a tale like extras in a movie, but archetypal characters help provide the energy that keeps your story humming along.

Story energy is a fascinating topic. It’s at the heart of how I think about good writing, and how I teach it in the Path of the Storyteller program, too. If you’ve ever wondered how to design and use your secondary cast of characters, I think you’ll like this episode!

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

Or subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

Editors love it, agents “know it when they see it,” but writers are often left wondering: What is voice? Do I have one? If not, where do I go to get one?

Voice is the number one thing editors look for, so why is it such a mystery? Possibly because people mistake “voice” as being something akin to “talent” – an intangible quality you are either born with, or not.

Not so, I say! In fact, my take on voice is this: Voice is not something you have. It’s something you do.

To find out what I mean, join me on this week’s livestream. Let’s unravel this topic and learn how to make your authorial “voice” something to crow about!

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

Or subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

By now you know the drill: A great story is a journey of meaningful change. Whose change? The hero’s! And, by extension, the larger world of the story.

But what about all those books that use multiple points of view?

Or that (gasp!) employ a true omniscient narrator that dives into the experience of many characters?

Who’s the hero now? Whose journey of change is it? What holds a tale like this together?

Many writers are drawn to these complex structures, but they’re not easy to pull off. This week I look at what makes them work—and what happens when they don’t.

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

Or subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

Hands up if you agree: A great story has a great ending.

It feels both surprising and inevitable.

It comes neither too soon, nor too late.

It’s a deeply satisfying conclusion, yet also suggests a fully-imagined future that extends beyond the final page.

Sounds easy, right? Just kidding! We all know it’s not.

Third acts are the most misunderstood piece in the story structure puzzle. In this live talk I unravel what goes into a truly satisfying ending, the difference between “open” and “closed” endings, and the two kinds of satisfaction your reader demands.

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

Or subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

This is one of my favorite livestreams to date. Listen in as I unpack my not-so-guilty pleasure of watching makeover videos on YouTube. If you want to apply a soothing facial mask while you watch, all the better!

But here’s what we learn from it all: Story means change. Not just on the outside, but on the inside, too. Call it a spiritual makeover!

We readers (or viewers) come for that transformation. The bigger the change is, the better we like it. 

And we we’ll always root hardest for a hero who’s in most desperate need of a shift. 

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

Or subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

Every story has a moment early on where the hero is presented with the chance to do something new and difficult. Let’s call it the adventure.

But adventures are scary and hard, and your hero may refuse—at least, temporarily.

The sudden appearance of outside obstacles is part of this powerful stage of storytelling, too. We call these archetypes the threshold guardians. 

All these inner and outer refusals are a good thing. Today we’ll discuss why the hero’s refusal is my favorite stage of the hero’s journey, and how using it skillfully can deepen your storytelling and your reader’s bond with the protagonist.

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

Or subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

We writers need to keep our readers awake and engaged. And guess what? In fiction as in life, nothing wakes us up like a ringing clock!

Speaking as someone who recently had a birthday, I can tell you that the passage of time is always a powerful tool for focusing our attention.

If there aren’t some high-stakes deadlines lending urgency to your story, maybe it’s time (see what I did?) to add some.

Today we talk about the ways time plays out in a narrative, and the ways time can be an invaluable tool for us writers to raise stakes, add urgency, and put ever more pressure on our hero. 

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live and ask questions, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

Or subscribe to the YouTube channel here. 

Few topics cause writers as much consternation as point of view. What is it, exactly? Which one should you use? How are they different? Do you have to pick only one? And why is it so easy to go so wrong?

To be fair, much of the confusion about point of view comes from writers being told a bunch of stuff about it that’s simply not true.  Point of view is not just about pronouns. It’s the magic carpet of consciousness that transports the story that’s in your head to its new, forever home inside your reader’s head.

Sound deep? It is! Join me for what I hope is an illuminating discussion of that most metaphysical of writing craft topics.

My weekly livestream is on Wednesdays at 1 PM Pacific. Come live and participate! Or catch the replays here on the blog.

To watch live, you can join the Path of the Storyteller Facebook group right here.

And subscribe to the YouTube channel here.