Latest / The Daily Writer / How to Start Writing Fiction | Jim Woods

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How to Start Writing Fiction | Jim Woods · The Daily Writer

0:09
SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me for this episode of our Summer Expert series.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: As human beings, we are wired to crave stories.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'll bet a day doesn't go by when you don't dive into stories in some fashion, whether it's movies, TV shows, novels, audiobooks, or even just talking to your family about the crazy things that happened to you this day.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how often do we go home at night or during the day and we'll say to somebody in our family, you'll never guess the crazy thing that happened to me today.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: It happens all the time.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: We crave stories so much that even at night, whenever we're asleep, our brain continues to concoct stories for us.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: And those are called dreams.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: Many writers give life and breadth to their storytelling by writing fiction.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: Whether you're a fiction veteran and you've published your own books, or whether you've always wanted to write fiction, but you weren't sure where to get started, you'll love my conversation today with Jim Woods.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Jim is a great friend who's been a creative inspiration to me for a long time.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't remember how we first met, but it was well over 10 years ago, probably more like 15, whenever we connected in some online writing circles, I think it was, and Jim has been a constant encourager of both me and lots and lots of other writers.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: He is also one of the most superb writers and storytellers that I know.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: And I say that with complete certainty.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, as sometimes people will say, oh, they're the this friend of mine, they're the best so-and-so that I know.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, sometimes people just say that and they're not really sincere about it.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: In this case, though, I am 100% sincere about it.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: Jim is one of those people who has such a superb writing gift and such a superb storytelling gift that I'm just excited to have him on the show today to dip into a little bit of his wisdom and help you to get to know his brain on storytelling a little bit more.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: Jim is a writing and story coach, and he's the author of many books, including his new Western series, which is amazing.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And that includes the titles Stand Off at Sundown, Red Rock Justice, and Red Rock Vengeance, which came out actually just a few days ago.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: In this conversation today, Jim and I talk at length about how to get started writing fiction.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: And the topics range from his process of writing a novel, his daily writing goals, his thoughts on story templates like The Hero's Journey and Save the Cat, and which of those should use, should you should use, if any, the purpose of scenes, the first steps in writing fiction, and a lot more.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: You can connect with Jim at his website, which is Jimwoodswrites.com, and I've got links to those novels that I just mentioned in the show notes.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: I certainly had a blast, as I always do when I connect with my very good friend Jim Woods.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: So here's my conversation with him.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jim, uh, you've been on the show a few times before.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: We were just talking about that before I hit record.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: So thanks for joining me again.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh appreciate your wisdom as always and your friendship.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you've been a great friend along this whole journey of writing, and we were friends before I went full time on my business along before that.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: And so uh thanks for being a great faithful friend and a great artist and a great writer.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, Kent.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Likewise.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: So we are here today to talk about how to get started writing fiction.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of joking a minute ago uh when I said, you know, these podcasts are kind of like my way to get free coaching from people.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm sort of joking, but there is a sense in which I always learn something from this, and I always try to be curious and ask questions that I think people would want to ask that guest, but they're also things that I want to know about.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: Um before we do that though, I'm curious if you can walk us through.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: So you've done a lot of different writing things in your in your career and your business over the years.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: And over the last few years, you've transitioned into doing more and more fiction.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious if you can kind of walk us through, like, I guess I would say the the business side of that or the career side of that.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: But what have other than like just creative interests maybe shifting more toward fiction?
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, how have you thought about that in terms of your career and making that shift?
4:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, honestly, Kent, I feel like I'm still making that shift in all in a total honesty.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I love the analogy of a train, and the train has an engine that pulls all the cars behind it, right?
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, I still do client work, I still do coaching, I still edit some books, I still do a little freelance writing here and there.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: And in all honesty, those are still my main business.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: But that being said, the more fiction I write, the bigger, you know, back catalog I have, the more ways I share my fiction with the world.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm just looking at it as hey, these are all steps in the right direction to making myself just really a fiction writer.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Will my coaching ever go away?
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: I love helping other writers.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Will I ever quit editing?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Probably not, because I love learning.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Editing sharpens your skills as a writer.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, here's a here's a trick totally behind the scenes.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: I love to work on projects where I learn like crazy.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
5:33
SPEAKER_00: If I can use any of that in my fiction, I am absolutely gonna use that.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of look at it as that train analogy.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Fiction has always been the driver.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And for me, it's really story too, is like right in there, you know, as the engine.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: To me, it's just a matter of like what's important, what's helping you make decisions, what's helping you, you know, guide yourself as you move along as a writer.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, Kent, too, truly putting out my first novel, that was like me putting my flag down and say, okay, I'm a fiction writer.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: I was scared to do it.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: I learned so much.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: It took a long time.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: And even my second book, it took me a lot longer than I than I wanted.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it took me like two years, three years of editing, revising, editing, revising, tweaking, and all that.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And it was literally in like the last year that I said, all right, all this it wasn't intentionally perfectionism, but you know, I really was trying to be the very, very, very, very best possible writer I can be.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And at a certain point, you're just delaying shipping, you're delaying sharing your gifts with the world.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's like it's a humbling fact when you look at you talk to other fiction writers who are, you know, just crushing it, you know, doing amazing.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: When you talk to them, it's like they are publishing fast, they are writing really fast.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Big trend now.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's it has been though for years and years, Ken.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And I I've I revisited a podcast I used to listen to, you know, back in like 2012, 2011, back then.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: And all these guys were like, yeah, you know, a book a month, a book a month.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, wow, is that doable?
7:30
SPEAKER_00: That sounds kind of crazy.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm not there at that kind of pace, but I can tell you right now, if you write ahead and if you have some books stacked, it's almost like back in the day when blogging was the thing, you'd want to have posts ready to go, you know, auto-scheduled in the queue.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the true secret.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: No one ever really tells you.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Those fiction writers that are, you know, writing really fast, you know, it still takes time to go through the editing process, to look over the proofs, to do the you know, the promotion, the launch, all these things.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, unless you have an entire team around you.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: So and some of those are just it just takes time.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it takes two weeks to get a batch of books from Amazon.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: So, as the author copies, that is.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: So I think if you want to write really fast, that's the secret, but to also you really have to build up a queue.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And uh, that's what most people are doing, or they're just publishing straight to ebook and they're like fooie on the paperbacks.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Kindle unlimited is the key, and that's another secret.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: No, not enough people talk about.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, I was I was talking to my friend just before hopping on with you.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, 80% of his revenue is Kindle Unlimited.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Another friends reader yesterday that really 70% is Kindle Unlimited.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, what was that?
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh that really blows me away.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: I I guess I'm always surprised at the, and maybe I shouldn't be, at the number of people, the number of fiction readers who read voraciously, like they read a book a day or two or three books a week.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it depends on genre, Kent.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the key equation, too.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, that being said, you know, some readers just you know they devour it like you know, like potato chips.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have another book ready for them to read, they're just gonna go find another author.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And it it feels a little cold to put it that bluntly, you know, to be honest with you, because it's like, but wait, what about like the Cormac McCarthy's who had put one out every however they however many times they wanted to, whenever they felt like it.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, even look at Stephen King, he's constantly publishing, constantly, all the time.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a couple books a year.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we're not talking about short books, and and by the way, he has constant promotion from all the movies and all the shows.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's been writing for 50 years, you know.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah, but it's but if you're just getting started writing fiction, I would say step one A, like the very beginning, you're probably gonna want to write something that you're really interested in reading or consuming yourself.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And so if you've never read a memoir and you're like, hey, I want to write a memoir, that that doesn't really it doesn't line up.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you can't do it.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe you've been journaling, maybe you've been, you know, just writing down thoughts, you know, on a in a notebook or in a blog or something or whatever.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: That's not really memoir.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: That's could be part of the memoir, but you probably need some help making that an actual memoir.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, again, find the thing that you love.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: I love to lean hard on genre.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: That's one thing I've learned over the years.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: It's like lean into it, learn the tropes, and just you know, be willing to plant your flag and say, hey, I'm a crime writer, I'm a I write westerns or you know, or I write thrillers or whatever.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, especially first time go around.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: I know it's harder.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't have to run a marathon, write a short story.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: And short stories don't get the respect that they probably deserve.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: But by the way, you know what?
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Ed Croan Poe never wrote a novel, he had an unfinished novel, he never published it.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: He's known for short poems and short stories, and he's still one of the greatest writers ever.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: So maybe, yep, you know, be willing to just try some things and experiment and don't worry about doing the nano-rhimo, you know, 50,000 words in a month kind of thing.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, write write a short story.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's it's pretty hard, I think, to really write a short, concise story with a beginning, a middle, and end that is exciting and makes you you, the reader, want to keep going.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's already a tall, tall order, frankly, even with a short story.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: So let's let me kind of back up a little bit.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: I'd I'd like for you to break down as much as you can your process of writing a novel.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's I'm gonna take for example, now I haven't finished this novel yet.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: So your your latest novel is called Standoff at Sundown.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a western, and this is the first in a series, correct?
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yes, when is the next one coming out, by the way?
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm looking at very likely April.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, that soon.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, yeah.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I I mean it's with the editor, I'm getting it back this week.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: So um, I mean it could be March, and I I mean, especially depending on the process, but I would say at least April.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: Um okay, and are you envisioning this as like a trilogy or just an ongoing series with no specific wrap-up, or how do you look at this?
13:06
SPEAKER_00: It's still kind of up in the air, honestly, Kent.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And I I think I'd like to keep it ongoing, but I also would like to have some different characters like like move the camera, if you will, and focus on different characters.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Because in um book two, I bring in a bounty hunter, and it's it would be interesting to write a book that's more of a standalone just for the bounty hunter.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, or you know what I mean?
13:35
SPEAKER_00: So I I don't I'm not necessarily looking at just a trilogy.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Um I could probably see this becoming 10 books pretty pretty likely.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: So you're you're creating a universe basically where you could have spin-off books or a side character could become a main character, or or just whatever.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest, kind of this is and one thing I'll tell you like where what my inspirations are.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: I I don't pull any punches because like I think we have to learn from others.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I really looked at standoff at sundown like, hey, this is my Star Wars A New Hope.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: I am introducing a new character.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: I start the story with a freaking you know, enemy like Darth Vader opens a new hope.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: I was looking at it kind of like, hey, look at that.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And and by the way, nobody would know that until I tell you directly.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was thinking Darth Vader opens a new hope.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm gonna have my bad guy open in this standoff at sundown.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of what my mindset was.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And really well.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, you know, um, let's lean on the hero's journey, let's look at that a bit more.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I'm like Mr, you know, focused on every step and turn of the hero's journey, but I thought about it like intentionally and just laying a solid foundation.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: That was my mindset.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And I said, okay, it's a western.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And I was torn at first, you know, do I have a Han Solo character, a little bit of an anti-hero, or do I have more of a Luke Skywalker character that would be more the traditional hero?
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And it took me a little convincing.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: There were a few wrong turns here and there, which the nice thing about fiction, most wrong turns, you can use them somewhere else.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And I had like the you know, the man in black come into town, the man with no name, and I'm like, I think this is cool, it could work somewhere, but it's not gonna work in this book.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And as I was writing this book, I mean, there was quite a few different versions because I I do have that kind of make it up as you go story mindset, but I also like to plot out a bit too, and there's always a little bit of tension there.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Um again, the good the great thing is a lot of it can just end up in another book, you know.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: If if there's a a twist or a turn that just feels too aggressive or not not enough buildup for it, you I'm probably gonna see that in book two or three or four or wherever.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: But I was going in and just saying, hey, all right, what are the big story beats?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Where am I going?
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Um the the tension has to be there.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, what's my break into act two?
16:30
SPEAKER_00: What is going to be the big key moment where my hero has to get involved?
16:36
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's traditional storytelling, you know, stuff.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's Luke going to become a Jedi.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, that turn into act two, it's pretty universal.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: It's however you want to make it, you know, happen.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: I I'm always thinking about the midpoint, honestly, Kent, because of the Godfather.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm always torn on like, wow, a midpoint can totally reshape a whole story.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking a lot about that, and then I thought, okay, once I get that to that point, it's like, okay, we're really talking about that break into act three and then the ending.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And I had several, again, different variations, and I was just like, you know what?
17:21
SPEAKER_00: I like this, it's fun, it's exciting.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm always asking that question, Kent.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Is it fun?
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Is it exciting?
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Is it something you know I would want to read as a reader?
17:31
SPEAKER_00: And then, oh, you know what, though the hero got hurt.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that doesn't fit, not in book one.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: No, like it's like that's one thing I've learned over the years, Kent.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: It's like you don't want the hero out of action.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's it's like you suck the the wind right out of the hot air balloon, and there's just nothing there.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: If the hero's hurt, like really hurt, and like in bed or something, there's no action.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's not much going on there.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: And I've made I've made that mistake several times, Kent, as I'm telling you right now.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: It's just I think it's something about that, it's a redemption story, but you have to pace it right.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And I of course thought, hey, with a Western, you gotta have that standoff.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: That's part of the promise.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I have to have a great standoff shootout at the very end.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of like the cherry on the Sunday for me, Kent.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of my mindset, and I was also thinking, too, hey, this will be easy because the other books I've written are like more present day with cell phones, and there are no cell phones in the old west.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, this will be great, no technology, I don't have to worry about you know, triangulation with cell phone towers or you know, um, body cams or cameras on buildings.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And writing a western has its own challenges because I didn't know that much about horses, I was constantly asking questions, going, did this exist in 1871?
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, in Colorado, because you know, location matters and time matters.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, you know, constantly, you know, referring to lots of resources.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And I even drew like a little map of my town, like, here's the bank, here's the sheriff's office, here is the hotel.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: And it was it was a lot of learning.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: It was a it was so much learning behind the scenes.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And as writers, we know we have to go through that, but the readers, they they aren't thinking of any of that, so it's kind of like, you know, as long as the pie tastes good, whatever's in the pie, you shrug your shoulders.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: But as the writers, we have to do the research.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And I learned a lot about horses and you know, just you know, what edible things are there on the trail, and what trees and you know, stuff like that where I'm not thinking that at all in downtown Chicago in a crime novel.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes, very true.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, so it was just it was like I I thought in my mind, I was like, hey, this will be easy.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm setting myself up for smooth sailing.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And then I thought, oh wow, no, this is uh, you know, every every project has its challenges and you're gonna come across them.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was it was a lot of fun though, Ken.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: It was a blast, it was so different.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: So let me back up a little bit, and if you can walk us through, I'm really curious about your process of of writing.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Let's take this novel.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: Um you can use obviously any of your novels as an example.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: So you have in a novel, you have obviously a story arc that the main character goes on.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: You have characters who are interacting with the main character.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Yep, they're doing things, there's a break into act two, act three, yada yada.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: When you are thinking about that, are you planning out those scenes and then you're writing them?
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Do you know the ending beforehand?
20:54
SPEAKER_01: How how do you think about structure with this?
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Like, are basically are you a panther or a plotter when it comes to this?
21:01
SPEAKER_01: That's really what I think.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm so in the middle.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: I am so in the middle, Ken.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I'm I'm smack in the middle.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And I I know I know from word count, and I've broken it down now to a point where it's like, hey, if I know I'm writing a novel, like this one was shorter, it's 40k.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, if I'm doing 40, it's smoother for me because 10k in is my break into act two.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: So guess what?
21:34
SPEAKER_00: At 20k is my midpoint.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: At 30k, boom, there's my break into act three.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying I'm nailing those on the button because we don't have to.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: We're not making movies here.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere around there as well.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Ballpark estimate.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going in thinking that I do love my note cards.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I will write out a scene as much as I possibly can on note cards to make decisions.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: On my note cards.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And yes, I used one of those uh science project poster boards because it's perfectly divided into like four sections.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: I prefer the act one, act two A, midpoint, act two B, and then Act Three.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: So that helps keep me a little more, you know, focused on the midpoint.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm really thinking midpoint is all I'm truly thinking when I start the book because that's so huge to me.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's just not necessarily planning, planning out all the scenes in detail, and then you start writing.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't see like like you're like let's say, let's use a journey and a travel analogy.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: If I want to drive from St.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: Louis, where I live, to to LA, I know the midpoint is gonna be such and such town, and I don't even know what state that would be.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: But let's say Colorado.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: The midpoint is in Colorado, I don't know if it is, somebody will probably correct me.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: But then I kind of know I have these waypoints where I'm gonna be stopping, although I don't need to get on Google Maps and look at every single road along the way.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair analogy where I basically know the main points where I'm stopping?
23:09
SPEAKER_01: I have doesn't mind.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a good analogy.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: But then at some point you just got to get in the car and go and enjoy the journey.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: You know where you're going and the basic road you're getting there, but you don't have to know every detail of the whole journey before you get started.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair way of saying that?
23:23
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, and I think that's I think that's a really good way to describe it.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And I also though I'm like I'm willing to go off on a tangent, quote unquote, or go off the off the beaten path a little.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Because if there's something interesting you want to explain, yeah.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: If you don't, I feel like you're almost taking away the creativity, yes, for me.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Um that's what bothers me about the plot, like the heavy plotting that some obviously I'm not gonna name them, but right, right.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there's some really prominent writing teachers, I guess I would say that, who teach like this very granular plotting, and they've I'll call it out.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't like like story grid because it's like Excel and formulas, and I know they're actually changing it.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: And I have no, I mean, if it works for you, great, you know, but that doesn't work for me.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Where it's like analysis more so than story.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: It's like a science it's like a science project, it doesn't sound yeah, it's like a blueprint, right?
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like there's enough in there with like a hero's journey.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: I have my own approach that I use, I kind of call it the story builder um story building.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like a blend of uh you take the things that you like from like save the cat and the hero's journey, and and you kind of have your own way of looking at that.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: Is that what that is?
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, but it's also just a completely like clearer way for me.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And I really I look at it like it's a big note card, Kent.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: I view a story as a note card, and I I literally start at like the top corner is the beginning.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: As I make my way to the other corner on the note card, guess what?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: That's my turn into act two.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: In this case, it'd be act two A.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking at it.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I need my beginning, my inciting incident, my hook is gonna be in there as well because you got to start with a bang, otherwise, people aren't gonna want to read it.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, I need to have the conflict as the driver all throughout.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Once I once I hit that, you know, 10,000 word, 11, 12,000 word mark, it's gotta be a whole different kind of story, and it's gotta have more uh engines boosting it along.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just barreling to the midpoint, which is kind of that smack middle.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: I even draw like a line through my note card and say, that's the midpoint.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Everything before the midpoint is reactive, everything after the midpoint is proactive.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm just barreling, you know, to the other corner of my of my note card.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: The bottom, in this case, the bottom corner would be that's my turn into act three.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm just driving really hard toward the climax.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I don't map out everything because it's too hard when you're literally starting a story.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't know all the role, all the characters, even truly.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I cast them as I go.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: I hit the Enneagram pretty hard.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: I like say, hey, what kind of personality is this guy?
26:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I literally I had like pictures and like I cast my banker, I cast my sheriff, I cast, you know, the villain, I cast them all.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: And I want to have like a clear image in my head.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, does are they a big guy?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Are they a little guy?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Do they have a big mustache?
26:43
SPEAKER_00: Are they a blonde with no mustache or whatever?
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And if I don't do that, can't it get so blurry and I'm making my life way more difficult because I keep changing my mind.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I think it's easy to kind of do that as a writer and be like, uh did were they were they brown haired or black haired or white, white cowboy hat or black?
27:06
SPEAKER_00: I can't even remember, right?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: So I try to iron those out pretty fast.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: And then I just say, hey, let's bring these characters together.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: It's still always a morality tale of good versus evil.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you have your bad guys and your good guys, and also knowing too, and I it's it's sometimes harder in certain genres to really show it well, but you know, even the bad guy thinks he's right.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: You keep that in mind, and you say, Okay, yeah, the bad guy still thinks he's right, you know, no matter what they can justify it in their mind.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: It's like Thanos, yeah, yeah, that's a great example.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm doing the morally right thing, and that's why he's such a great character.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: It's like a lot of people sympathize with him, you know.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Wish he was coming back for the next Avengers movies.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he will.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: They're giving enough money, he might he's been dusted.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: He might he might be bringing enough money and they'll just change it somehow.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they'll they'll figure out a way, right?
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, that this is really interesting.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so what what are you actually working with when you sit down to write?
28:14
SPEAKER_01: So you have in terms of what do you actually have planned out?
28:18
SPEAKER_01: You've you know the midpoint of the story, you do you pretty much know where you're ending, right?
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Do you know the the ending?
28:24
SPEAKER_00: You've got to have an idea.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not saying you have it all ironed out, but like uh an image.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: I like that kind of calling it an image.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: I have an ending and image in mind.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: Um so you have that, and then do you have your scenes pretty much mapped out before you start writing?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Um not really.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Not really.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: I would say it's more of a where is their head at?
28:51
SPEAKER_00: And so the character, I just want to like kind of live vicariously through their character and say, hey, they're hungry.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're gonna go get some food at the saloon, or hey, they're um tired, maybe they'll take a nap at their at the sheriff's office, you know.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, hey, they're they're they're anxious or nervous.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, they might go to the saloon and get a drink.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's very much kind of an exercise.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, what would you do if you were in that situation, knowing what that character is.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: So it almost becomes a little bit like diehard in a sense, where it's like, oh, well, Cred, these bad guys are taking over.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: What do you do next?
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Because I love that character that's kind of trapped making decisions for the right reasons.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: There's something that's like extra, you know, stakes on it.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: So it just it has such an it's an exciting kind of vibe to it versus you know forced excitement.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, the bad guys are storming in here.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm one of I'm the last hope here.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm you know, I'm Luke Skywalker in this sense, and you know, the Empire's taking over.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: If I don't do this, nobody else will go, is kind of my mindset.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Um I've done that pretty much with most of my fiction because I feel like that's the most interesting angle, I think.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: The more I think about it, Kent.
30:24
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30:30
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31:07
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31:12
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31:17
SPEAKER_01: That's trivellum.com slash Kent.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Now let's get back to the conversation.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that that makes a lot of sense.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: So I've had I've talked to people before about writing novels, and I understand that every novelist, they sort of have their own process and approach.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: Just like every nonfiction author, you know, I can talk to other ghost writers as well, and everybody has their own way of doing things.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's the way it should be.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: However, what I what I think is not really helpful is when I talk to somebody who's much more of a panther, and they're basically like, hey, I start off with a scene and a character and a motivation or a problem or whatever it is, and I just start writing and I have no idea where the story is going.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: And that to me is like that sounds terrifying and frustrating to me.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: And so maybe part of this does depend on your personality and what you how you like to create.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would never sit down to write any book, you know.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: I write a lot of books, I would never ever do that without a super clear idea of here's who the audience is, here's the genre of the book, here's how long the book is, here are the chapter.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, I would never do that.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: And so I I just can't fathom the idea of sitting down and doing that with fiction.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: But but again, everybody has their own process, and maybe maybe that's what counts is you have to kind of find your way through this.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I think, and that's what I think I was doing early on.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: You're figuring it out, you're finding your way, you're figuring like pacing.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, Kent, every chapter has to have at least a little bit of a something, a push.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not gonna say cliffhanger, but something pushing that reader to turn the page.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And like that's something I'm I'm becoming more and more aware of.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like every chapter has to have that, and it's it's just like anything else, when you practice more, you get better at it.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, I could argue hard, Kent, that you could compile together a bunch of short stories and put them into a novel and just have some time gaps, and it still would work really well.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's a possibility where you could almost be like, I'm just gonna write this one short story, and guess what?
33:30
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a time gap, but it's still the same person.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Like that to me could be really fun, and it's like a different way of plotting out a novel without plotting it out and being like, This is this young man at age 15, this is the same young man at 18, this is the same guy at 22, and you could have those time gaps and it would totally like make sense and could be really compelling, and you could leave some, you know, some gaps in that would like be like, oh, well, what happened to this other character?
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they're not in there, and then you bring them back in, you know, a few chapters later or a few short stories later.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: I think that could be really cool.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: And it's fiction doesn't really have that many rules, and I think that's kind of a freedom that you can embrace.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And like I started writing some first person because everything I've done really thus far has been primarily third person, and I'm like, wow, this is wild, this is totally different.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: And I know for some folks, like it's so completely different.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: It's like, wow, I'm not going back to the third or whatever.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Like, I I love this, and I'm kind of like, you know, personally, I like first person some, but I find it a little bit exhausting because it's it's easy to like it's easier to pace a third person story in my mind right now because I have more practice doing it, but I'm still playing with it and I'm still working on it kind of as a side thing off in the corner.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, this could be really fun to you know one day it'll it'll become a whole whole novel on its own, but I don't even know if people will be able to realize it because of my voice.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna read, look, read and look and sound very different.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: But you know, what annoys me is is when I read fiction and it's written in the present tense, like instead of you know Jack walked over to the door and opened it.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: It's Jack walks over to the door and I mean I understand I think in flashbacks or other kinds of things it's great short term, but I I don't know why authors do that sometimes.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: I guess it's it's supposed to add a sense of immediacy or something.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's kind of uh yeah, I'm not sure either.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't enjoy it either because it I mean, I shouldn't say I don't enjoy it.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: I haven't enjoyed it as much in the past.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: You never know.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: You might pick up a book and be like, wow, this time it totally worked and I loved it.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: So um, I don't want to assume too much.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, exactly.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: And there's exceptions to every rule, of course.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: I guess too if it reads like it's awkward or maybe you get used to it, like with Cornwall McCarthy.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm McCarthy.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: Did I say McCarthy?
36:11
SPEAKER_01: McCarthy.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, you the idea that somebody would not use quotation marks for dialogue sounds odd, but it's surprising how fast you get used to it.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he's such a guy that writes so much scenery, like in the road, he doesn't even talk that much at all, other than the son and the boy.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: It's like it's it's a whole lot of description of the scenery, and I'm like, you know what?
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Hey, it worked for him.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: It does.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: No country for old men is one of the best novels I've ever read.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Really?
36:48
SPEAKER_01: And the movie's phenomenal.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: I love the movie too.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: There's not many times where you have a book and the novel that it's based on, I'm sorry, a movie and the novel that it's based on both are really, really good.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: That's super rare.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: No, you're totally right on that.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: You're totally right on that.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I think the only other the only other example I would say that's in that ballpark would be Fight Club, but even then or The Godfather might be another one.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: I love that novel.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I do and I don't.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: I want to trim down on the godfather sub.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: It needs some it needs some parts extra.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: He's a little tweaking better.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: A little tweaking, right?
37:22
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple subplots in there that are just yeah, exactly.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: Like, what is the deal with yeah, is it is it who's the with Johnny?
37:31
SPEAKER_01: Is that the singer in there?
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Johnny Fant Johnny Fantasy, yeah.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Johnny Fantasy.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the thing with him and his girlfriend, it's like yeah, there's what in the world.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: I feel like they were just filling it out, and I don't know.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what Mario Puzzo was on when he was writing those scenes, but it was something.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: So I'm something I want I wanted to mention going back to short stories for a second.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: So a friend of mine, give a friend of mine a shout out here.
37:57
SPEAKER_01: His name is Michael Rogers, he's actually a pastor.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: He came out with a book a few years ago called Passing Lincoln.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: And it was he wanted to do um a book, and I hope I'm getting the details of this right.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: So, Michael, if you hear this, sorry if I'm mucking up some of the details, but he wanted to do a book on the importance of giving, yeah, uh Lincoln meaning you know, money.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: Is it the five dollar bill that Lincoln is on?
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Yep, five bucks, yep.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, five dollars.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and so he did the series of short stories in this book, and it's all about the different people who are passing around the same five-dollar bill, like where it goes from person to person.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: And I've always thought that was a really compelling idea of basically you have the series of characters or situations that are not connected at all, except for an object that is passed from one to the next, and or they interact with it somehow, almost like an anthology kind of thing.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it almost sounds like I think there's something extra nostalgic about it too.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, the passing of time, going from generation to generation, or um, from person to person.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I think I think especially you get the right object, that's really uh it's a great connecting piece.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it weaves the story together just really quickly.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just think that's I mean, it would have to something like that has to be executed the correct way, but I think the idea of just people being linked by a specific object that to me is a really compelling idea.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: I think in most cases, Kent, you could argue that the physical location is that connecting piece in a story, like whether it's Chicago or a fictional town that I created in Colorado is a character in itself, yeah.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: And I I always love that because it's like that gives you the setting.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: And I I am such a sucker for setting like an interesting.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a weirdo in that, like, hey, that's a cool parking deck.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: Wow, there should be a shootout in it, is the way that my brain's thinking, like a movie director.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh my gosh, that's a great parking deck.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: Wow, or you know, like different locations, they really set the table.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think that locations and uh, you know, something even like a table in a cabin or um something in a household that could be really interesting, being like a connecting piece, um, something that people really care about is the key.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: Almost like a Garrison Keeler, Lake Well begone kind of a thing where he he writes all these books and has his radio short had or has.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: Is he still alive?
40:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't actually know.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Not sure.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, you know, for decades he had this Lake Well begone thing where it's all stories of people in this one small community that I thought was such an interesting way to link all these ideas and stories and themes just around one central place.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: I just think that's really interesting.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: I agree, I agree, and it's like, yeah, when when the setting becomes a character, the town, or whatever that's just really fun, and it's all of a sudden you can say, Wow, that's their own little world, and you could literally just move that camera around and be like, Okay, here's a story about the banker and the exact barber, and you know what I mean?
41:22
SPEAKER_00: It's like you can start just enjoying it more and savoring it more.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: So, um, a couple more questions here.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: And gosh, I just looked at the clock and I'm like, oh my gosh, we've been talking for like 45 minutes already almost.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Um talk for a second, if you would, about your daily writing goals when you're working on a novel.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, do you shoot for a certain word count?
41:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where do you write, and also what software do you write in?
41:50
SPEAKER_01: What are your tools?
41:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: I love my Alpha Smart Neo.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: I have like four of them next to me.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: It's hilarious.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is not a computer, it's just a keyboard with a little tiny screen that's like six inches long, wide by about three inches high, right?
42:08
SPEAKER_01: That's what I took to college in 1990.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: It is, yeah.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: It's it was totally used in schools, and I love it because no distractions.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: I won't be on Twitter, I won't be fact-checking, I won't be Googling any of that.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: And I usually work at a co-working space that is here in my local town.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to work at home as much as possible.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, when I'm really, really focused, I can, but 90, 90, 95% of the time, I want to physically move my body.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Again, if I'm big on locations with stories, not a shocker.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm big on locations in real life, too, where it's like, hey, if I can step away, you know, get my coffee.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm such a routine guy without being like forced routine, like get my coffee, my oatmeal with peanut butter in it.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: I really recommend it.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty awesome.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Peanut butter and honey.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: My oatmeal, I just go to town and I'll write typically my goal when I'm in drafting mode.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Literally, that's the term for it for me, drafting mode, because I want to make it clear that I'm not in editing mode or revision mode, big difference, but drafting mode.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: I want to aim for at least 2,000 words a day.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's like the minimum.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I'm going to do a great job and hit that goal in one writing session.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: Usually when I'm hitting my goals, I'm doing two to three writing sessions a day.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Because putting it all in like one session, say it's earlier in the morning, you know, from like seven to eight thirty or something like that.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm it's too much pressure.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Like it's I'll start fluffing the count up.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: I'll just start making my characters ramble for no reason, as opposed to writing a good Story.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that might be a Tarantino thing.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know again, but you know what I'm saying?
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to get my word count up and then just like start describing things that don't need describing, you know, just because I'm like, hey, I it's all about the word count, right?
44:13
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm all about the story more so than word count.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of thinking, hey, if I write 500 words, 800 words, whatever, even if it's say I stink it up, say I do get distracted, even though I have my Neo and I'm just a little stuck, then I'll break out some, you know, pen and paper, some note cards, the whiteboard, drawing my square shapes and trying to break it down more.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe I am just unclear still about some of the casting.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I, maybe I'm not sure.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, worst case scenario.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: If I'm really, really stuck, I'll pull out my phone and be like, okay, Ethan Hawk might be this character.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Good.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: There's my inspiration.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Because he's been in a few cowboy movies, and I literally have like a picture of him saved as like the inspiration for one of my characters.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, wow, that's great.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay, go back to it.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: And if I if I hit it, whatever I get, I get is kind of my thought.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: That early morning session.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, whatever.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: And then I'll come back to it.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: If I have client work, I'll do some of that.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: I'll work on those things.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: I'll come back to it though as soon as I can, pick up where I left off.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: More often than not, I mean, if I didn't hit it during the day, I would work on it at night because I want to hit that goal of at least 2,000 words.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Quite often, though, Kent, I found myself like hitting three.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's a lot for me.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Because I you know me for years, Kent.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: How often am I like, just wrote 3,000 words, Kent?
45:49
SPEAKER_00: That's not me.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm a slow writer.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: I will be first to tell you.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm also a minimalist, so it's like 3,000 words for me is probably like 6,000 words for some people, right?
46:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then I'm I'm spitting all those words out into Scrivener, and uh I don't think I've actually showed you my Scrivener, it's pretty interesting.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: And imagine this, it's like literally broken down act one, act two A, two B, three.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: But then I have the section for casting with characters, pictures.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, I love my map.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: That was one part that slowed me down early in the in the book.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Like I needed a map, like what building is freaking where, you know.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I drew a little map on the piece of paper and just said just real basic drawing.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was like really simple, but I referred to that map, I don't even when I know how many times, and then save my work, come back, come back, you know, pick up wherever I left off, you know, the next day.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: And once once you get further along, you know, I I will print out the whole manuscript.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: I did actually a lot of proofs, a lot of proofs, because it's way cheaper and more effective to print out the physical copy from Amazon, yeah, or whoever you want to use for self-publishing, because it's like a lot of money when you're printing out hundreds of pages and ink and all of that.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: So I would print out proofs and I have the bigger size of like six by nine, and I would go through and like read it and edit it.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: I use sticky notes and a pen, and then I would just go through page by page, was kind of part of my process.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, gotta enter in all those edits and revisions and tweaks, and that was kind of like the next logical step once I got my draft down, and a lot of the story didn't stay, like a good half, say 20,000 words.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Well, it's not bad, it just doesn't fit.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, save that for later, and just keep going through it, you know, go through it again, do another round with the proof.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's like four bucks in the mail for a whole book that you've made, and just edit that up.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, I was like, Okay, I'm shipping this off to my editor, I've taken this ball as far as I can possibly run with it, and then you know, get get the edits back, go with that from her.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: I did share it with my beta reader and chat with him, fix those problems.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it was probably about five different revisions, I would say, or five different drafts, you know, within reason.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: And then it probably took me about two-ish, three, almost three months, really.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: Two and a half, three months.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: But that was kind of the whole process in a nutshell, Kent.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: It was it was a lot quicker and smoother and faster, even though I had to rewrite half the thing, and that's saying something.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: And yes, some nights I was up till two in the morning hitting my you know, three thousand words.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: That's like my real, real goal, but I know it's not sustainable every day.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: But you know, as long as I hit around at least two thousand words, I'm like, I know I can do it.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: It there's no doubt.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's always reassuring to know if you're hitting over 16,000, if you do that over a month, you're gonna hit 50k.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I shortened it.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: I said, I want this to be a shorter novel that people actually really get through.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do 40,000 words, but give you, you know, 80,000 words of story if I possibly can.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, that was my mindset.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: And I think it was I think it's really helped me to kind of get a little more clear on what I'm doing and you know, leaning in on the genres hard, not not like letting it go too out there as far as the genres go.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: Because with like a crime thriller or a crime mystery, I feel like it was almost a little too easy to get really complicated.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: Whereas with a Western my most of my complications were facts about horses and names of things, if they existed or not, you know, like did dynamite exist and in 1871, right?
50:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, stuff like that.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was um, and I did use AI to ask a lot of questions because Google doesn't really answer some of these questions.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, um specifically, like I want to know the plant life, like what edible plants are there in Colorado that somebody would eat during you know, late fall, early winter.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, it was such a specific question.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure AI thinks I'm a cowboy or think I think I think I'm a cowboy.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: Because I was really honing in.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, like, how do you one how do you hook up a saddle?
50:55
SPEAKER_00: How do you hook up a wagon?
50:57
SPEAKER_00: How do you, you know, all those little things that you're like kind of taking for granted if you're not used to writing westerns.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is this is fantastic.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: I feel like you've given us like uh almost like a little master class here on writing fiction.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you taking time to to share all this.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: This is really good stuff, and I'm always thrilled.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: Um and I didn't realize that you use Scrivener.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I didn't know that.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean I use Scrivener every single day.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love that project bar, uh the the word count project bar.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: I love that because then you know where you're at, you know, it's great.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jim, thank you again.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, where can people find out more about uh your books, your writing, all the cool stuff that you're working on?
51:44
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm on Instagram, Jim Woods Rights.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm on there quite a bit.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: I started a Substack of all things, and that's something you should do too, Ken.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, Substack, I'm my I'm Jim Woods Rights there as well.
51:57
SPEAKER_00: My my uh Substack is actually called Bang Bang Pew Pew because I my kids thought it was funny, and I was like, okay, whatever, all right, whatever.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: And I I kind of like it because it brings me back to the action crime, you know, kind of thing.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: Um and when you're promoting a Western and you have the bang bang pew pew, it seems extra fitting.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, at jimwoodsrights.com is my other website.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm really excited because I think I think that we can do so much more now.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: Like we have so many cool tools and so many opportunities, and you know, just shifting things a little bit, like not writing a 55,000-word novel and aiming for 40 has been such a uplifting.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: Nobody cares, no one cares, and I love that.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm like placing rules on myself, Kent, that didn't really exist.
52:53
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm a slower writing writer in general, you know, that 55, you might be writing 70,000 words to get to your 50 or 55.
53:03
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, all of a sudden, I'm taking a lot of weight off my shoulders and exactly just kind of getting a little more hyper-focused and saying, Hey, what if this is just a fun crime genre?
53:14
SPEAKER_00: What if this is a fun western, you know, taking some pressure off is always a great thing when you're writing.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think hopefully the fun shows a little bit more um and just enjoying it more.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: No, you're doing a phenomenal job.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: And uh I love the new book.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: Can't wait for the next one.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I'm just excited to see all the all the cool things you have in store for fiction readers.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate you.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: Thank you again.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you being on the show.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks so much for joining me for another episode of The Profitable Writer.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: I had an absolute blast talking with Jim about all things storytelling, and I secretly wanted to ask him all those questions about writing fiction because I want to dive into fiction myself at some point.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna happen for a little bit because I've got a lot of other things on my plate right now, but I want to dip into it at some point.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: And as you know, one of the reasons that I do this podcast is so I can basically get coaching from people who are smarter than I am in a lot of different areas.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: And I know that when I ask all my questions about a certain topic related to writing, you benefit from that also.
54:18
SPEAKER_01: So I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I did.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: As you can see, Jim has a huge heart.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: He's brilliant when it comes to storytelling and just a really, really amazing human being.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: And I feel so blessed that I've gotten to know Jim uh for these last 10 or 15 or so years.
54:34
SPEAKER_01: And um I know that you can see immediately from this interview how much of a genius he is and how cool he is as a human being.
54:41
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm also looking forward to the next episode, which is gonna feature a conversation from our profitable writer community, in fact, with Mr.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: John David Mann on building a multifaceted writing career.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: So today's episode was really focused on fiction.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jim does other stuff as well, but this was just focused on fiction.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: On the next episode, we're gonna go kind of the opposite direction.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: And John David Mann, a very, very successful author in his own right, is gonna be talking about all the things that he has done to build a multifaceted writing career.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: And that conversation is gonna help you catch a bigger vision for your career as a writer.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: Lots and lots of good stuff there.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: You're really gonna enjoy that episode.
55:17
SPEAKER_01: So I will see you then.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: Before we go, I want to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, The Word Wizard.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: Now, you may have written a great book, but it's not ready for publication until it's been in the hands of a great editor.
55:28
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55:37
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55:50
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55:56
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56:00
SPEAKER_01: That's KarenHunsinger.com for a free sample edit.