I never thought that I would really get into writing serialized fiction, my wife still can’t understand how I do it. I’ve always been a plotter, writing detailed outlines and world building a lot for my stories. I even write detailed notes about chapters before I write them. Suffice it to say, very little is just made up as I go through writing a novel.

Podcasting has offered me that completely different path though. Because I really don’t spend much time plotting out these stories, they just evolve from week to week based on things that happened, and where they might lead from there. It has been a wonderful experience to me as a writer. My skill has increased drastically since this all began. My confidence has as well.

It’s something I think all you writers should try at some point.

It has taught me to edit – If you really want to see your mistakes, read your stories out loud. Every little mistake will scream at you when you hear it. If you really, really want to see, have someone else read it aloud. David has taught me not to send him bad drafts!

It has taught me to adapt – I can’t count the number of times I felt the story was trapped and had to find a way out.

It has shown me characters – It’s the characters that drive these stories every week. Never before have I felt so confident about getting into the mind of a protagonist.

It has shown me limits – One of the first rules we decided on for TNS was that no story would last more than 9 episodes. I’ve learned that each episode really has to drive toward that necessary conclusion, there aren’t episodes to waste.

Has anyone else had experience with this? What have you thought about it?

Tags: writing technique

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Writing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.