Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

James Thayer

Hosted by James Thayer, the podcast is a practical, step-by-step manual on how to craft a novel. It presents a set of tools for large issues such as story development and scene construction (Kirkus Reviews said Thayer's novels are "superbly crafted') and it also examines techniques that will make your sentence-by-sentence writing shine. The New York Times Book Review has said Thayer's "writing is smooth and clear. it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm only confident stylists achieve.

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Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

Episodes (206)

Feb 27th Episode 206 - How to get lots of plot ideas.
Feb 20th Episiode 205 - How to stop stalling and get going.
Feb 13th Episode 204 - Meaningless modifiers and what to cut.

Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

Feb 27, 2026
31½ minutes
21 MB

Novelist John D. McDonald said he had more plot ideas than time to write them. That's not the case for most of us writers. We usually are in chronic need of more plot, more story. Here are techniques for inventing plot from James Scott Bell and Lester Dent. Also: vivid character descriptions from Jean Shepherd, showing us how to create unforgettable characters. Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more. Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes. The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now...

Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

Episode 206 - How to get lots of plot ideas.

James Thayer

00:00 -30:33