Getting your baby out into the world can be scary… So how do you make sure that you get the most out of the painful first feedback cycle? This week, we’re talking about our process for identifying readers and collecting feedback.

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You can create wonderful characters, build a vibrant setting, and engineer a shocking plot twist, but if you don’t stick the landing none of that matters.

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Sometimes you go through that first re-read, and something’s just off. Maybe its the sagging middle, a ending that doesn’t seem to fit, or something else, its important to look at the structure of the story before you start making the minor tweaks.

Also, Austin makes an impassioned plea for the Oxford Comma…

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People get hurt and need to be patched up every day, and the stories of healing and the road to recovery strike a cord with all of us. This week, Karl Kruger, Navy veteran, ER Nurse and author of Pajo and short stories such as “He had a Pulse,” joins us to enlighten us about some of the common on screen mistakes he sees, and how we can improve our works to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

We can’t promise you’ll get a medical degree if you listen to this episode, we had so much fun recording that we went a bit longer than normal. Hope you don’t mind and thanks for listening!

You can find Pajo on Amazon here.

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Its a wonderful feeling to write “the end,” but what comes next? We’ll talk about how you transition from the creation phase of a project to the editing phase.

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If I don’t care what a character says, or what they say is boring, have they really said anything? Dialog is a critical tool for any writer to establish a sense of character, keep the reader’s interest and drive the plot forward. We’ll talk about verbal sword fights and a few common mistakes to avoid.

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After a few technical delays, we’re back!

And while Austin was too scared to join us this week, Bill Bridges was happy to fill in as we make up the Genre episode we swapped out in July. We’ll talk about how the authors (and game designers) give readers that looming sense of dread that has become a hallmark for many works of nightmare.

Bill is a game designer and author who has been working in the industry for nearly 25 years and has worked on over 30 RPGs, video games and books in his career.

Hes also a member of the Broadleaf writers association and will be at the conference in Atlanta on Sept 23-24! You can find more information at http://broadleafwriters.com/category/2017-broadleaf-writers-conference/

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Wrapping up July with the genres where it all began for us: Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Give us a warp drive and a spell book and we’ll be good to good.

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We interrupt Genre July to talk about Brandon’s experience at the New York Pitch Conference he attended at the end of June. We’ll talk through the highs, the lows, and all the horrible mistakes he made so if you ever go to a conference, you will be better prepared.

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Sometimes you just need a good detective to figure out the world’s most dastardly crimes, like who stole Austin’s first edition boxed set of Twilight novels??? Thankfully, Romily Bernard is on the case to help us figure out how to lay clues, navigate the twists and turns of an investigation and figure out what makes a good mystery so hard to put down.

Romily is the author of the Find Me and Munchem Academy Series, and has a new stand alone novel, Never Apart, coming out on October 3rd.

When teen hacker and foster child Wick Tate finds a dead classmate’s diary on her front step, with a note reading “Find me,” she sets off on a perverse game of hide-and-seek to catch the killer. But things get even more personal as Wick’s deadbeat dad returns and the killer points to Wick’s sister Lily as the next target.

You can find sample chapters, interviews with Romily, and more information about her upcoming books on her website at www.romilybernard.com.

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