Shows / Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Welcome to the world of creative writing and story mastery with Maxwell Alexander Drake and Marie Mullany, your guides to Releasing Your Inner Dragon. This author podcast is a treasure trove of writing tips and advice, sparking inspiration and ah-ha moments for every stage of an author’s career. Drake, an award-winning novelist and creative writing teacher, brings his experience from the gaming world and beyond, while Mullany, author of the Sangwheel Chronicles and YouTuber, shares her…
Episodes
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
How to start a sentence and why it matters
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss the complexities of how to start a sentence, why you should vary how you start a sentence and various other…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Allegories, Symbology and Lamp shading
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they wander between the garden of tropes and the alluring wildlands that is an allegory for the imagination of the symbolic…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Getting Started with a novel - Magic Falls
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss starting a new book and world by using an example. Check out the process of world building and plot discovery…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
A look behind the curtain
Send a text Drake and Marie talk about Marie and Drake Join us as we discuss how we spend our days, what we do for inspiration and how we get better at the…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writer's Journey - The darkest hour: Self editing your work
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss editing your work and getting into shape without needing an external editor. We talk about word, macros…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
How to write magic in fantasy books
Send a text Following on from building magic, Drake and Marie discuss how to write magic in an engaging and showy way. Join the conversation as we discuss…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Building a Fantasy Magic System
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss building a fantasy magic system that works with your world and is impactful to your readers. Give us feedback…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writing Character Relationships
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss both romantic and platonic relationships, what they offer you as the storyteller and how to write them in a…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
How to write religion in fantasy
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss religion in fantasy, how to write it, what to show and where most authors go wrong. Also, another trope talk!…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Show Your World
Send a text So you've built this amazing world that just sings with glorious fantasy. But how do you show it to your readers without telling them all about it?…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writing Combat
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss the intricacies of writing a good fight scene, all the way from using your sense to the importance of verbs!…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writing Politics
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss writing the more fun kind of politics, the kind we find in epic fantasy books. Give us feedback at…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Practical Editing – Punctuation and Prose
Send a text Join Drake and Marie for another practical editing session as they dissect and critique a piece of prose sent in by a listener of the podcast. If…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Opening Lines
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss their opening lines for series, books and characters, why they chose the words they did and what they were trying to…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Sharing the Story
Send a text Join Drake and Marie in discussing how to make sure your characters get the story time they deserve. And also another trope talk! This time we…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Building Your Lore
Send a text Join Drake and Marie (occasionally argue) about world building cultures, societies and religions. Check out the video of the podcast here…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
The fall and rise of a reedeemed character
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss character corruption and redemption as story arcs. The Ducal Heir Launch!…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
The shrouded path to publishing
Send a text So you've finished your novel and now you want to get it out there. Join Drake and Marie in a frank discussion of the complicated, difficult and…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Alien Races and Focused Traits - Why do it?
Send a text Join Drake and Marie to discuss the advantage of exaggerated traits in non human races. And also plunge deeply into the five-man-band trope and…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writing great character growth arcs
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss character growth arcs, what makes them great and what makes them fail. The Ducal Heir Launch!…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Creating Great Characters
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss how to create great characters for stories, including flaws, foibles, and phobias! The Ducal Heir Launch!…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Spinning a Yarn: Story Structure
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss the three act play, the problem of flawless characters, the importance of the story having a theme rather than…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Six techniques to polish your prose
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss how to make average prose great! The Ducal Heir Launch!…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Love wisely, but not too well
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss telling the right story, killing your darlings and loving your own work. Give us feedback at…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Psychology of a character – Mental illness in speculative fiction
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss mental illness, villains, heroes and the impact of the story on the mental well being of your character. Give…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Split Timelines are Flashbacks
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss Point of View characters not being on the same timeline (looking at you Witcher Season 1), doing the same…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writer's Journey - Promises
Send a text As promised, we are back! And speaking of promises, Marie and Drake discuss the importance of keeping to your word to your audience. From promises…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Good Punctuation is Invisible
Send a text Join Drake and Marie in discussion on punctuation, why it’s important and how to use it to communicate with your reader. This will be our last…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writer's Journey - Trials and Tribulations - The Plot Diamond
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss the plot diamond. What it is, what to do if it’s too thin and how to stop it being an ever expanding giant…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Showing Emotion
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss how to write with emotion so that the reader doesn’t get told the character is feeling such and such an emotion, they feel…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Patterns in Prose
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss narrative, world building, character and inner monologue prose. Give us feedback at…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writing Action
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss how to write engaging, high stakes action scenes and what you can accomplish through writing of violence and combat. Give…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writer's Journey - Trials and Tribulations - Self-Doubt
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss dealing with self-doubt and fear of getting critiqued. They talk about the importance of getting critiqued and of…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Writing with non-malicious villains
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss how to use non-malicious villains or environmental conditions to provide conflict for your characters to overcome and grow…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Agony Aunt - Relationships in Fantasy Writing
Send a text Drake and Marie talk about fantasy relationships, why they're important even if romance is not your focus, how it shapes your characters and what…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Picking a Point of View
Send a text Drake & Marie discuss how to decide who should be a narrating character and when to introduce narrating characters. Give us feedback at…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Rethink Your Flashbacks
Send a text Drake and Marie speak about flashbacks and dreams and why they're not a good idea, especially early in your tale. Give us feedback at…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Practical Editing – Motivations & Openings
Send a text Marie and Drake crit a piece of text sent to them by a fan of a show. They cover establishing character motivations, how to create an opening…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
The Writer's Journey: The Everyman Writer
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss the early mistakes almost all writers make, the lack of confidence that makes more writers quit and first perilous steps on…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
How to End Things
Send a text Drake and Marie talk about how to write a good ending that leaves your reader fulfilled. They discuss the potential pitfalls involved in endings…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Narrators & POV & framing devices
Send a text First person, third person, the mythic second person. Omniscient vs limited. Using a framing device. Let's talk about how to pick a narrator and…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
A Practical Guide to Editing
Send a text Marie, Drake and guest author Conner Crenshaw line edit 3 paragraphs of action writing in detail, explaining the reasoning and how to behind every…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Set it up. Pay it off.
Send a text Drake and Marie explore how to set up or sign post events and pay off that sign post in such a way that your readers are left feeling fulfilled…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Complications vs Complexity
Send a text Marie and Drake explore how to apply the computer science single responsibility principle to prose. How to structure your sentences, paragraphs…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
How to avoid deus ex politics
Send a text Drake and Marie explore complex cultural structures, writing politics (fantasy not real) and how to use politics (and other cultural elements) to…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Fantastical Races and how to write them
Send a text How to describe fantastical races without falling into "everything through a human lens" trap. The damage caused to your theme by jamming in an…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Mentors & Motivations
Send a text Join Drake & Marie as they discuss how and why to use mentors and other secondary characters, how to make them believable, how to make the reader…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Scenes & Hooks
Send a text Drake & Marie talk about how to craft a scene that hooks your reader, how to use rising conflict and how to plot twist into unexpected jagged…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Redemption & Other Character Arcs
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss what makes a good redemption arc, what constitutes character growth and all the orphans in fantasy! Give us…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Hero's Journey - Conquest of Theme
Send a text Join Drake and Marie as they discuss the often used Hero's Journey. They cover the importance of grounding the reader with the everyman moments…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Magic, Conflict, Prophecy & Character Death
Send a text Drake and Marie discuss magic systems and items and conflict resolution, stretching from Tolkien through Harry Potter into Mistborn. Magic leads to…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Magical Items, Editing & Themes
Send a text Drake and Marie embark on a discussion of magical items. In this episode they discuss generic magical items versus artifact items and how these…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Everything affects Everything
Send a text In a continuation of immersive writing and world building, Drake and Marie discuss time and expressions thereof, courage in sticking to your…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Immersive Storytelling & Expressive World Building
Send a text Drake & Marie discuss how to use prose to connect with the reader, not just descriptively using show instead of tell, but also making things deeply…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Grammar, Point of View and Language
Send a text In the second episode of Releasing your inner Dragon, Drake & Marie talk about grammar, choosing a point of view and tense for your story, and how…
- Releasing Your Inner Dragon
Themes, Plotters and Pantsers
Send a text In the first episode of Releasing your inner Dragon, Drake & Marie talk about the importance of having a theme and how different writers develop…