When your story feels stuck, it's tempting to keep adding things: another scene, more backstory, a new subplot. But often the answer isn't to add more. It's to reconnect with why you're writing this story in the first place.

In this episode, you'll get three questions that lead you back to that reason, and you'll see why it's what keeps you writing from first draft to finished book. Whether you're working from notes, a partial draft, or your fifth revision, what you need to get moving again is already in your pages.

Stuck in your draft? Join my free live masterclass, From Stuck to Story, and find the structure that's already in what you've written.

Sessions start Tuesday, October 13, and seats are limited. Save yours here:
https://mylivemasterclass.com

Most writers can describe their plot in detail: what happens, in what order, how it ends. Far fewer can describe what their character actually gains, loses, or finally understands by the time the story's over.

In this episode, I walk through how plot and character work together: what to ask about a plot event before you decide it belongs, how to tell if your character has changed, and how to find your next plot step by following your character's response, instead of inventing one out of thin air.

RESOURCE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your support helps more writers find the show, strengthen their craft, and finish the stories they want to tell.

Thanks for tuning in to Writer Unleashed. See you next week!

Stuck in your draft? Join my free live masterclass, From Stuck to Story, and find the structure that's already in what you've written. Save your seat: https://mylivemasterclass.com

You've revised your first chapter so many times you could recite it, and it still isn't pulling a reader in. After years of reading first chapters, here's what I've learned: when one works, it's rarely because of the prose. It's because of what's happening underneath it. Today, I walk you through the three things a reader needs from your first chapter, and how to tell whether yours delivers.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why your first chapter doesn't have to be perfect before you write the rest of your story
• The difference between exposition that stalls a chapter and exposition that reveals character
• The question to ask before any piece of backstory goes into your opening
• Why the strongest first chapters are built around one event, and how to find yours
• The difference between your character's big story goal and what they want right now
• Three questions to ask when your first chapter still isn't working after another round of revision

RESOURCE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your support helps more writers find the show, strengthen their craft, and finish the stories they want to tell.

Thanks for tuning in to Writer Unleashed. See you next week!

Structure your story with this FREE 3-Act Worksheet. Go beyond outlining and write a story that keeps readers hooked from beginning to end. Grab your FREE Worksheet here.

You've written the scenes. Your characters are doing things. So why does the middle of your story still feel like quicksand? If your first instinct is to add more, hold that thought. In this episode, I share what actually creates momentum in the middle of a draft, and why the answer may already be on your pages.

You’ll learn the questions to ask when your middle starts to feel too big, too slow, or too difficult to navigate, so you can find the through line that’s already there.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your support helps more writers find the show, strengthen their craft, and finish the stories they want to tell.

Thanks for tuning in to Writer Unleashed. See you next week!

Structure your story with this FREE 3-Act Worksheet. Go beyond outlining and write a story that keeps readers hooked from beginning to end. Grab your FREE Worksheet here.

You’ve read the craft books, tried the frameworks, written hundreds of pages, and you still can’t quite see what your story needs.

In this episode, I’m talking about what changes when your story finally starts to come into focus, when you can tell what belongs, recognize why something isn’t working, and make decisions without knowing every scene in advance.

Because clarity doesn’t mean you’ll never get stuck. It means you know how to find your way forward.

Structure your story with this FREE 3-Act Worksheet. Go beyond outlining and write a story that keeps readers hooked from beginning to end. Grab your FREE Worksheet here.

You can Google anything about writing. Ask AI. Read every craft book on the shelf. And still sit down to your own pages and feel exactly as stuck as before.

It's not a lack of talent. Or motivation. It's the gap between having a story you're desperate to write and knowing how to write it.

This episode is about why that gap is so easy to miss, why the excitement of a new project always seems to run out at the same point, and why more information isn't necessarily what you need to get unstuck.

Structure your story with this FREE 3-Act Worksheet. Go beyond outlining and write a story that keeps readers hooked from beginning to end. Grab your FREE Worksheet here.

There's no shortage of writing advice out there. Outline everything before you start. Don't outline, you'll kill the magic. Follow a beat sheet. Trust your instincts instead. Structure will flatten your story. Structure will save it.

No wonder so many writers second-guess every choice they make.

Some writing advice gets handed down as gospel when really it may only apply to certain writers, certain stories, or certain stages in the process. And when you take it on as an absolute, it can lead to hesitation, self-doubt, and the nagging sense that there’s a “right” way to write a book that everyone else understands and you somehow missed.

In this episode, I'm taking on four common writing myths about structure, plot, planning, and the "right" way to write, and giving you something more useful to believe instead.

Because the goal isn't to follow someone else's process. It's to understand your story well enough to trust yourself inside it.

Structure your story with this FREE 3-Act Worksheet. Go beyond outlining and write a story that keeps readers hooked from beginning to end. Grab your FREE Worksheet here.

Is the middle of your story really the problem, or is something else going on?

If you've ever stared at word forty thousand wondering how you lost your way, you're in the right place. In this episode, I'm sharing why the muddy, messy middle usually isn't where the real trouble starts. It's just where it becomes impossible to ignore.

You'll learn the difference between chronicling events and building a story, plus a simple three-chapter exercise you can use right now to see where your story's breakdown is really happening.

If your middle feels stuck in the murk, this episode will show you exactly where to look.

Stuck in your draft? Join my free live masterclass, From Stuck to Story, and find the structure that's already in what you've written.

Sessions start Tuesday, October 13, and seats are limited. Save yours here:
https://mylivemasterclass.com