The Core of a Story with Roz Morris
Writer, writing teacher, ghost writer, and general literary icon Roz Morris joins Mary Kole for an interview on the Good Story Speaker Series. They dive into the mechanics of storytelling and discuss how to connect with your audience—whether you're writing someone else's story or your telling your own.
Writing Young Adult Books With Mindy McGinnis
Mindy McGinnis—mystery, suspense, thriller author and dog haver—joins the Good Story Podcast to talk about her upcoming work with James Patterson, book snobbery, and showing characters' humanity.
Building Fantasy Worlds with Jonathan Auxier
NYT Bestselling young adult and middle-grade author Jonathan Auxier joins Mary Kole to discuss visual writing, worldbuilding, and how different media use dialogue to create action.
Books That Teach Life Lessons
Books that teach life lessons are fine...as long as you don't clobber readers over the head with your theme. So how do you weave a message into your story without being too obvious?
How Many Characters to Include In a Novel
If you're wondering how many characters you should put in your novel, or how big your cast of characters should be (or how small), check out this video.
Brighten Even The Foggiest Story Idea
Story ideas don’t always come easily, but sometimes we get glimmers that turn into a list of foggy ideas. How do we decide which new idea to run with? And how do we take steps to make it shine?
Episode 6: Gail Carson Levine, Historical and Fantasy Author
Historical and fantasy author Gail Carson Levine interviews with Mary Kole. She shares thoughts on the writing process, world-building, and her latest book, A Ceiling Made of Eggshells.
Craft a Killer Fantasy Premise Using Good Versus Evil
A fantasy premise that doesn’t engage on any themes of good versus evil can feel empty, but when those lines are too stark, it can feel a bit thin. So how do you find the balance?
Story Mastermind: Novel Mini-Mastermind
Story Mastermind is a five-month small group workshop intensive. The deliverable is a fully workshopped novel draft and submission materials. We’ll give you a taste of how we discuss story in Novel Mastermind: from the premise, the elevator pitch, the logline; to theme, character objective, and stakes.
Novel Setting: Where’s It Gonna Be?
Your novel has to be somewhere. It can be anywhere! But setting is not an arbitrary detail: it can make all the difference.
Unconventional Writing
Publishing loves its buckets. In children's books, there are several buckets that you need to fit into, with word count guidelines and all of that. There are buckets and tropes in adult publishing as well. Books that don't lend themselves easily to categorization can be a really difficult sell.
Someone is Publishing My Idea!?
We've all heard people who claim that somebody took their idea and is now publishing it, or that somewhere somehow, another writer has come up with basically the same idea, sold it, and now, what does that mean for your idea?
Permission To Write
Writing invariably is a passion for a lot of people that I work with. And they just, for whatever reason, have not been able to sort of devote themselves to it until now. And that's usually when they come to me and I plug into their process.
How to Create A Story
This one's for all the people who are still casting around for an idea. How do you create a story? What matters to you, and what matters to readers?
Presenting the Premise
A series of things happening doesn’t make a story. Without a clear premise, readers have no idea what to expect from the story or why they should keep reading. Here's how to establish your premise from the start.
The Body and Soul of Story
Stories are like people. They have a body, and a soul. The body is the plot, the actions that happen. And the soul is the character, the protagonist, the key person (or persons) bound by the circumstances of the plot and forced into decisions.
How to Write
Here's an energizing pep talk on how to write, including the ingredients you need to get started and keep going.
Novel Series
Writing a novel series? Here are some valuable tips on planning and executing your series, as well as how to pitch it to publishers.
The Problem With Boy Books and Girl Books
“I’m looking for boy books.” When I worked as a librarian, I heard this statement often. A parent came into the children’s room, with or without their child in tow, and eagerly asked me for a “boy book.” They said it like I’d automatically know what they were talking about, like of course books about burping robots and trucks and alien invasions from outer space were for male readers alone.