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Thank you, Lisa, Danielle, and Saurin, for the questions you presented to JP! Thank you, JP, for your teaching. A light bulb went off in my head as to one reason I have a tendency to write the end of the story (character growth-wise) more so at the beginning than at the end. Your explanation of story structure, envisioned through the writing of the characters' resistance to change in the book's first half and saving the deep work of the character's change arc for the second part of the book, made sense to me. Up until now, I've had difficulty 'getting' the notion of the refusal of the call concept, but as I continue to write, listen to the Dialogue Doctor Podcasts, and think of how I can apply the concepts you present in your book, Story Hypothesis, tying in the aforementioned knowledge to how you described structure in terms of the first and second half of writing a book, greatly helped me. While I've considered myself, to this point, as more of a discovery writer than a planner, I now have a clearer understanding of the structure of a story. Writing the first half of a story as the characters' resistance to change will motivate me to plan more and strive to stay within the boundaries of the resistance I'm writing rather than to write its conclusion. I believe this will help me slow down and not reveal too much, too fast, placing the end of characters' growth arcs and plot (sub-plots) where they belong-the second half of the book. It will take practice! JP, I went back and re-read the first chapter of your book, Mandrake Manor, to revisit the example you gave between your two characters, reflecting the technique of hinting that something isn't right by how one character responds to the utterance of the first character as if everything is quite fine and natural. This lets the reader know something's afoot without giving up the information. I suspect this is a skill that takes some time to master. Thank you for sharing it with us. There were other very helpful points you offered. The ones I mentioned are the ones that jumped out, helping me immediately. 🌞

Gosh, listening to you, Dillon and Jeff on this topic was such great timing! As I listened, I re-assessed the short story I'm editing, making notes on how to adjust. The entire lecture (and I do consider this a lecture) was phenomenal. I learned so much! Dillon, thank you so much for sharing your piece with us! My challenge with segments is deciding when there is a change in topic. So often, I seem to think a topic continues when others might not. I find that a topic change is not as evident as, say, an emotional change. Jeff, it was interesting to learn that deciding how much prose in relation to dialogue one writes is part of one’s author’s voice. Fascinating. Discussing how the mystery for the reader is about answering the question, "Does the character get what they want?" made me revisit how I coined the initial question for the reader in the short story I'm editing and re-assess whether the story answers that question. Again, another aspect of the podcast that I found very helpful. I also appreciated how you helped us see that one, two, or even three sentences are enough to reflect on dialogue rather than paragraphs. I tend to forget that just a few reflective sentences of prose might be all that's needed to enhance a reader's enjoyment. Additionally, the way you demonstrated extending-not adding-content through the placement of beats was especially helpful. I'm going to practice this. Jeff, what I've mentioned are only a few of the very helpful pointers you offered throughout your instruction. Thank you. Dillon, again, it was very nice having the opportunity to learn through your sharing of your chapter. My very best to you!

Hi Carol. It was great seeing and hearing a little of your story. It sounds fascinating! Thank you for sharing it with us. Jeff, it's always a treat to watch you glide your way in and out of a story detailing various ways for us to write and shape our stories using dialogue and prose creatively. Thank you. I laughed out loud when you said, "defend not cutting." I could relate. 😄

Hi JP and Jeff, excellent, excellent discussion! You’ve given me a lot to think about-thank you!

Hi Laura and Dennis, I enjoyed your discussion! Dennis, thank you for sharing your work, and Laura, thank you for your excellent teaching on how to write a story by separating beats, in this case, emotional beats. Laura, I also appreciated you showing us the flow of the emotional intensity throughout Dennis's story. Thank you, as always, for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us!

Hi Honoree. I enjoyed the pizzazz of your presentation and applaud you and the work you are doing to help others. I especially enjoyed your take on how important it is to cheer ourselves and others on as writers. Jeff, in addition to affirming myself as a writer, I pull validation and strength from your Patreon Weekly Bonus episodes as well as from participants in the Dialogue Doctor Support Group. I hope you continue these venues to provide us with refreshing insights and strategies on how to continually appreciate ourselves as writers! Great discussion! Thank you, Jeff and Honoree, for sharing your passion of wanting writers to be happy as well as successful. Wishing you continued success and happiness!

Hi Payton, It was so special having the opportunity to listen to you as you talked through your story plot process. It sounds intriguing! Please let us know how it's going and when it will be published. Wishing you my best! Hi JP, Once again, throughout the discussion of your book, Story Hypothesis (The Missing Piece of Your Fiction Puzzle), I paused the podcast to check myself on the writing I'm currently doing, making sure that my needs coincide with character arcs and plot. Thank you, JP, for sharing your time, knowledge, and experience with us-the discussion was great!

Hi Lindsey, Your energy is infectious! I loved the light-hearted, joyful enthusiasm you brought to the discussion. I’ll definitely benefit from all the insights you shared. First on my agenda is to work on my "cocktail pitch." I, too, prefer this term over "elevator pitch." I’d like to share two recent personal reflections on confidence as a writer: Recently, I told my niece about a story I’m developing and was taken aback by her enthusiastic response. Then, at a recent book club discussion, I casually mentioned that I’m a writer, and I was blown away by how interested and excited everyone was. So, Lindsey, at least in my case, your experience rang true: we writers tend to keep a lid on what we do. Jeff, thank you so much for offering this fantastic learning experience! Lindsey, I look forward to following your work! My best to you both!

Hi JP. Because of what you shared and your suggestions throughout the podcast, I’m going to pay much more attention to opportunities I may be missing to write the character's internal voice as dialogue, as well as to add more movement to scenes as ways to create tension. Thank you! Farriz, thank you for sharing your work with us. Your story sounds very interesting; I don’t recall ever reading a flash-forward first chapter. Please keep us posted on when you publish. I read one of your short stories, 'On the Rails.' The story was quite moving! Wishing you continued success.

Thank you so much, Michele, for sharing your experiences with us! Congratulations on your Anthology, Doll Seed! Jeff, great discussion! I'm looking forward to becoming acquainted with Walter Mosley's works.

Hi Phil, I enjoyed hearing about your story. Your writing style of conveying historical facts, especially in your action scenes, reminded me of author Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series. Child weaves factual information beautifully into his stories. Jeff, you reminded me how important it is to ground the reader whenever a change in setting occurs. What was new to me was when you shared that if the emotional state of the character changes and we don't note it, the reader automatically assumes the character remains in the same emotional state as before. This makes a lot of sense, as it seems like an additional way to decrease the potential burden on the reader. It was also very helpful to be reminded that after an action, we need a response from the character, whether through verbalization, body language, or internal thought. Additionally, you mentioned that if internal thought follows the action, it builds anticipation. The discussion was very helpful. Jeff, thank you for providing these podcasts. The information, knowledge, and experience you and your guests share continue to help me hone the skills I want to develop, to become a writer whose stories people enjoy reading. Phil, I wish you well. Please let us know when your book is published!

It is! Thanks, Jeff!

Signed Up for the Dash!!!!

Hi Mendi, I had such fun listening to how excited you are about your cast of characters. Your story sounds lovely. Thank you for sharing the challenges you face with when and where to inject emotion and exposition throughout the story, as well as how to build a distinct character voice-issues I deal with, too. Jeff, your detailed explanation of positioning exposition between segments and reminding us of its purpose-how, in addition to giving readers a rest, we can use exposition to ground the reader in where they are, who is with them, and what is happening, while also providing an avenue for reflection through internal voice, all from the vehicle character's perspective-were great reminders for me. Thank you. It was also helpful that, when explaining exposition, you used examples from Mendi's story and shared your own style of integrating exposition into the narrative.

Laura, thank you, for the exemplary teaching session. I always learn so much by listening to your podcasts. Hi Jules, Danielle, and Lisa, I enjoyed listening to how you presented your questions to Laura, seeking guidance, suggestions, and feedback. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and challenges with us so that we could benefit and learn from your discussion.

A fun podcast! I’m excited to keep learning how to write and build cast scenes. Jeff, I enjoyed seeing and hearing how you developed characters in your Mencken and The Monsters book series. I especially liked how you discussed various ways to combine characters based on their personality traits and the roles they play in the story to provide readers with a variety of enriching experiences. It was fascinating to hear how a writer’s creativity can shine throughout a series by using combinations of anchors, engines, and hazards to build character growth and change. It reminds me of the art of dancing-understanding how all the steps synchronize within the unique type of dance one is performing. Jeff, your teaching was very helpful. Thank you. Hi Victoria, I’m thrilled for your success as a cozy mystery author and wish you the very best in writing your next cozy mystery series. Thank you for sharing your experiences and for asking questions that helped enrich the discussion.

Thanks for showing us how to mine for emotional gold. We can learn to spot this in out writing and flesh it out ro refine that gold in a dynamic scene.

😂😂

Jeff, I found this discussion very insightful and helpful as a discovery writer myself, like Liz. I loved the metaphor of Times Square and the Ferry to highlight the distinction between dialogue and exposition, along with teaching us how to identify places in our story to pull scenes from for writing. Thank you. Liz, I wish you the very best in writing your adventurous historical fiction novel. It sounds like you are crafting a deeply moving, heart-tugging story.

I'm writing a book and was recommended your blog by chatgpt, I will explore and give feedback.

Hi Laura, The Office Hour format was phenomenal. It felt like sitting through an entire course with four authors expressing themselves-and beautifully, I might add-as they posed questions for you to address. With six pages of notes, there are just too many aspects of this learning experience to cover effectively. If I had to choose one topic from the many your guests and you discussed that helped me think more clearly, it would be author and character voice. While I’ve heard instructors speak about an author’s voice before, your correlation to artists and their different works throughout their lives made something click for me in a way it hadn’t before. Thank you so much for offering this fantastic learning experience, and a huge thank you to the authors who contributed to the discussion.

Excellent review, Jeff! The wheels are turning as I prepare for the upcoming Dash Event. It was a great experience to be able to immediately apply the points you stressed to the story I'll be drafting. Thank you!

I really enjoyed the conversation you had with Claire! I listen to her podcast "What if for Writers" regularly! I use the enneagram to craft my characters, because I found all my cast sounding and acting like me. That's not good! Claire does great work, and I recommend her to all my writer friends.

Grest book but hard to find a copy now. Seems like the thiught police agree with you and speech patterns and sentiments in this book are perhaps too much for modern fragile sensibilities.

Hi Jeff, I enjoyed your discussion with Claire Taylor. The information on the Enneagram as a tool to help people ease their pain by becoming aware of and acknowledging their fears, thereby understanding what drives their motivations, was excellent. It was also insightful to learn how, as authors, we can use this awareness, gained through understanding the Enneagram, to craft and develop our characters, particularly to ensure that the endings our characters have in the story match who they’ve grown to become. Claire, I enjoyed your first book, Reclaim Your Author Career, and found it very helpful. I look forward to reading your second. Thank you both for sharing your time, knowledge, and expertise with us!"

Oh my gosh, JP, I don’t know where to begin because you’ve given us such fantastic thoughts on writing throughout your discussion with Author, AG Bowman. I especially appreciated your comments on expanding and contrasting our writing using internal thoughts, dialogue, and body language, as well as the questions you recommend we ask ourselves while writing and editing each scene. It was great. Thank you, JP! I’m excited to hear your thoughts on the story hypothesis for my draft opening pages for the upcoming mini-course, Edit Yourself Like The Dialogue Doctor, on September 4. AG Bowman, your book sounds fantastic and chilling! Thank you for sharing your work with us. Please keep us posted on when you publish!

Hi JP Thank you for inviting Ann Garvin to discuss the necessity of fully integrating (merging) character needs and plot throughout the story, a process Ann so beautifully described: “beginning with the sentence, flowing down into the paragraph, then onto the page, the chapter, and continuing throughout the entire book.” JP, as Ann shared her teaching and author experiences about the need for character and plot to merge, I was reminded of your teachings on the importance of choreography within a scene as both character and plot development occur. Ann, congratulations on all that you and the 36 members of the Tall Poppy Writers Organization-which you created-have accomplished to help authors. I agree with you that the way members have supported each other within the group for the past twelve years has helped many authors, both directly and through the ripple effects created, reaching far beyond its members. Ann, it was a distinct pleasure listening to you express your passion for the craft and art of storytelling. JP, your discussion questions were very helpful. Also, thank you for mentioning Ann’s workbook-I’m going to take a look.

Hi, Laura. Your teaching and discussion of this scene were incredibly helpful to me on many levels. I am currently in the midst of one process you discussed. When re-reading a short story (The Scent of Sandalwood Cologne) I wrote over a year ago, I initially decided to scrap it and rewrite it from another character's perspective, as it wasn't working. However, I hated the result. This led me to re-read the original piece while reflecting on what you, Jeff, and JP taught in a mini-conference. I realized that the issue was with the build-up-it wasn’t connecting as it needed to with the trigger and payoff. This is one reason I’m so excited about attending your upcoming conference in September, where I hope to learn how to edit more like a Dialogue Doctor! Dixie, your story sounds fantastic! Thank you for sharing this scene with us. I look forward to hearing more about your story.

Hi, Jeff and Tom. Listening to you discuss books, TV shows, and writing craft topics is always great. Jeff, I'm glad you and Tom discussed that the expectation writers set up for readers in the opening of a story needs to carry through the entire piece, giving the reader a payoff experience that correlates directly back to the opening chapter. I will also keep your recommendation in mind about going back to the beginning of my story to make things worse for a character whenever I encounter an impasse in writing content about that character. Thank you both for sharing your knowledge and experiences with us.

JP and Jeff, everything you discussed-empowerment through valuing people as they are and recognizing and respecting the power differences created by certain knowledge, skills, and resources-I believe the three Dialogue Doctors practice. This is what makes the Dialogue Doctor Community very special and why I'm happy, excited, and honored to participate! I was able to get the book from my library and am looking forward to reading it

Hi Laura, The discussion between you and Mara gave me much insight into writing mystery stories. Thanks for sharing your views on the differences between plot twists and surprise reveals, as well as the two approaches writers can take to create and work through their storylines. I will re-watch National Treasure and The Mummy with your insights in mind. Mara, it was very nice to learn about the story you’re telling. Your enthusiasm for the work you are doing really stood out. Nice! As a fellow former officer (Army) who is also beginning her writing journey, I wish you the best and look forward to hearing more about your story.

Jeff, your questions were great, and the discussion was fantastic! I learned so much. I hope someday to have the opportunity to attend a writing day conference-once I complete a polished novel. Thank you, Chuck, for sharing your experience and wisdom with us!

Hi Laura, I enjoyed hearing how, by moving portions of what we write to other areas of the story, we can enhance the reader's experience without jeopardizing our style of writing and our poetic (literary) voice. Your comment about the word "just" adding more weight (burden) to an already troubling situation was very helpful and something I will strive to keep in mind. Thank you. Erica, thank you for sharing your work. Your story sounds fascinating (intriguing). The topic of your story is very important, and I'm sure many people will be interested in reading it. I look forward to hearing more about it.

This is satire, right?

I was hoping this was satire. A wealth of bad ideas here.

Heya! Glad to be the first one to comment haha. No I'm not 12- referring to this statement being more something a GenZ would say- but is that being ageist? I love my Millenial and GenZ Girls but statements ĺike that create a divide. I don't like workshops either or in person book clubs. People are so friggin annoying 😅 Love your podcast. It's been extraordinarily helpful with my writing which is why I know I'll learn loads today.

Jeff, your discussion with Leslye Penelope was delightful! Thank you. Leslye, congratulations on your successful career and thank you for sharing your process of creating with us. I look forward to reading your work.

Jeff and Joan, I enjoyed listening to the discussion. Jeff, I'm glad you spent a lot of time talking about the effectiveness of pairing a character's physical response with inner monologue. It was also very helpful to hear how you integrated the timing of utterances and internal thoughts of both characters participating in the build-up dance to romance. The discussion has inspired me to re-listen to your The Language of Love Masterclass. Joan, thank you for sharing your work!

Hi Laura and Jeff. Great questions, great discussion, and responses. Thank you! I learned a lot-as usual! I now understand how to determine characters' baseline voice; the importance of describing characters where I start them off in the story instead of how I want them to be at the end; that the way to write an otherwise bland, run-of-the-mill story steeped in reality is to emotionally sharpen what’s happening using dialogue; and that including transition lines for readers as a character moves from one location to another or between lapses of time may not be needed, if letting the reader know is not relevant to the story. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, experience, and time. Oh, and Jeff, I like the dodgeball angle of your upcoming story. And Laura, I can tell you are excited to edit it! A fun podcast! 😊

Hi JP and Lisa. The discussion was very helpful! In particular, your mentions of reframing how we can think of anchors, the many possibilities for questioning and conflict in our scenes when the developing need is Identity, elaborating on the differences between the mid-point and the dark night of the soul moments and how the mid-point sets up what transpires in the dark night scene, were very insightful. JP, using Lisa’s writing as examples to identify the type of scenes we are writing was very helpful! Thank you. Lisa, thank you for sharing your work. I am in awe of the amount of work you are doing. Your story sounds great! I look forward to hearing more!

Let's hear it for an 'explosion of the rainbow'! lol

OOH, I love the words, cadence, pacing, body language chart--that's a great aid!

When to time your edit, and how to color code your emotions in scenes--great idea, but yet another thing to track makes me anxious about the order of editing passes... great food for thought!

Thank you, JP, for inviting Daniel David Wallace to speak to us on the Dialogue Doctor Podcast. I've had the opportunity to participate in Daniel David's Summits and the "Read a Book with Me Program." Both experiences have been fantastic! It was very helpful for me to listen to his views on the Show Don't Tell and Mirror Moment concepts. You asked great questions, JP!

A great presentation and discussion. Thank you, Jeff and Catherine. Each recommendation of adding conversation throughout the story to enhance readers' ability to bond and prolong their agony before, during, and after the tragic event was extremely helpful! Jeff, I will remember the phrase you used to define a solid short story: "Punch me, punch, punch, punch me, and punch again with escalating swings throughout the story." Very nice! Catherine, I look forward to reading your book. Please keep us posted!

Jeff, thank you for discussing how to write flashbacks and where to place reflective prose. I also appreciated the reminder that the vehicle character (POV) needs to make an active choice whenever a turning point occurs in the scene. Conflict, choice, and consequence-the three essentials of story creation-once again leaped foremost in my mind. Lisa, thanks for sharing your story. It sounds lovely. I look forward to hearing more. Please keep us posted on your progress.

Hi Laura. Thank you for offering an incredible teaching session, as usual! I have decided to color-code my notes on the topics you discuss, from which I continue to learn so much by listening to you. Pink for the usage of vocalization to deter 'telling,' purple for steps to take to ensure that our readers experience the emotional connections between our characters as real, and green for distinct tells or markers indicative of different ages in children. I also appreciate you reminding us that if the reader is thinking about what is happening, they are not feeling what is happening. Again, a great presentation. Thank you, Laura. MZ, I loved hearing about your story. Please keep us posted on its development. Thank you for sharing it with us. Your characters sound delightful!