Learning to write: helpful podcasts and videos

Sometimes I retain stuff I hear better than stuff I read. So, in addition to my posts of helpful lists and references and writing tools, here are some podcasts and video channels I find helpful:

Ellen Brock (Youtube) – So much awesome advice from a real live editor, often with great examples of each point.

Writing Excuses (podcast) – Short, useful tips on the mechanics of writing fiction by successful, experienced authors.

Writing with Jenna Moreci (Youtube) – Snarky and annoyingly high-pitched, but many entertaining and valuable insights for fiction, living the writer’s life and self-publishing.

Start with This (podcast) – The writer/creators of the popular Welcome to Nightvale podcast offer succinct tips for better writing and for being a writer. Slanted towards podcast fiction, but valuable episodes for any beginning writer.

Fiction Writing Made Easy (podcast) – Savannah Gilbo covers Save the Cat, scene writing, writer block and other performance problems, genre conventions and more. To-the-point tips from a developmental editor and book coach.

Death of 1000 Cuts (podcast) – Tim Clare. Tips, rants and interviews. Also take time to do his free Couch to 80k Writing Bootcamp or the newer and improved 100 Day Writing Challenge.

Helping Writers Become Authors (podcast) – K.M. Weiland. Snarky tips from a successful author who has also written writer’s guides such as Structuring your novel. The podcast is her reading her blog posts, so you can read along as she narrates if you like.

Start Writing (podcast) – Joseph Bendoski, author of the Ski Fall spy thriller series and others has a weekly discussion with fellow author J Washburn on basic and no-so-basic components of story writing like exposition and expanding a scene, plus tricks of the trade like using Patreon and growing a following. It’s a no bullshit, concise podcast with Washburn often playing the “I didn’t know that” straight man.

Story a Day (podcast) – Julie Duffy. Sometimes good advice. Check out her short story framework (free account required) and try the quick writing challenges on the site.

Chris Fox (Youtube) – Author of 5,000 Words Per Hour, Write to Market, and numerous science fiction, fantasy, and thriller novels. Short tips on fiction and living as a writer.

Have other podcasts and video channels you like? Let me know.

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

So you want to be a beta reader

Beta reader: a test reader of an unreleased work of literature or other writing, giving feedback with the angle of an average reader to the author about remaining issues. A beta-reader is a non-professional reader, so that an uncolored opinion of an average reader can be obtained.

Want early access to my filthy stories? Want to make them better? Mold them to your liking? Become a beta reader!

The Waif and the Wall Ch.02

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

“The Waif and the Wall Ch. 02” is now up on Literotica.

In the original story, I painted myself into a corner with the ending. I never had any intention of continuing the tale, and the “now she’ll want to join us” ending was just a lazy way to tantalize and make it seem like I had a plan.

Well, after a few readers pestered me for a sequel, I came up with a plausible backstory and finally wrote something. In it I tried to capture the fun of the first, but add more drama. Having explored a similar threesome in For Her Too, I tried to make this one different with a playful male dom element.

Hopefully what I came up with works. If it doesn’t, feel free to blast me. Serves me right.

Let’s play Count the Tropes™ for this story, courtesy of our friends at TVTropes.org:

• Beth is a Pint-sized Powerhouse with minor A-Cup angst
• Jonas is a either a Gentle Giant or Bruiser with a Soft Center, I think, and hopefully dispelling the myth that Bigger is Better in Bed.
• Amanda is an Everyone Loves Blondes and absolutely not Above the Influence when it came to hooking up with Jonas at the party.
• And of course we have Three Way Sex.