How to Write Good

How to Write Good

The writing podcast that isn't about how to write. Looking at writing, creativity, and other artforms through a philosophical and lighthearted lens.

Episodes

November 24, 2020 • 9 mins
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November 20, 2020 • 6 mins
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November 19, 2020 • 7 mins
Yesterday, we talked about words that we didn't like to use. Each writer has words he dislikes, but sometimes those words are exactly what is needed. As writers, it can also be tempting to use words that mean a very specific thing. Now, I am not opposed to this at certain times, especially if the writer uses this words naturally in speech, but big words can be something that obscures rather than clarifies for the reader.

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November 17, 2020 • 7 mins
Some words sound gross (gross!). Some words are annoying. They don't roll off the tongue. They are overused, etc. . . There are a lot of reasons why a writer might want to disregard some words. Some of these reasons are better than others. In this episode of How to Write Good, we are going to be talk about words you dislike that you might not want to blacklist forever. Every part of language is useful, and I think we need to rememb...
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November 16, 2020 • 17 mins
When you first start writing, I think your goal should be clarity. Can a regular person understand what you are writing. It is more complex than it seems. If you can't write clearly, the purpose of your writing (being understood) has been stymied. One of the next goals I have when writing is making my writing easy to read. But this does not mean I am making my writing simple or childish. Maybe a better way to express this second go...
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November 13, 2020 • 16 mins
A lot of writers are perfectionists. Personally, I think this is funny because the big authors I have run into who are perfectionists seem to not be that great of writers (Great sentence construction there, am I right?). Now, I am against perfectionism, but that is for another podcast episode (or maybe I've posted one about that already. Who knows). Today we are going to talk about something that writers forget when they writer: th...
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November 12, 2020 • 12 mins
For whatever reason, celebrities think they should be listened to. And it works. People see that someone has a following whether because they are an actor or an influencer on instagram (like me, lol, SAD), but it is generally the case that these people don't know what the heck they are talking about. On this episodes of How to Write Good, we are going to talk about how you should stop listening to celebrities. We are also going to ...
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November 11, 2020 • 10 mins
Tim Ferris of 4 Hour Work Week fame, talks about an enticing idea in his book (He has a lot of enticing ideas in his book). It isn't about working only four hours a week. It isn't about setting up a muse business. It is about the way he approaches goals. He works in 6 month stints. I think that this is a great thing to adopt for any writer. This is what we are going to talk about on this week's episode of How to Write Good.

My Book:...
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November 10, 2020 • 8 mins
Writers block is a real thing. I think it is a thing that can be avoided, but is is a real thing. What we typically think of writers block is sitting at a blank page and not even knowing how to start writing. Another type of writers block exists though. Have you ever been writing and you suddenly get to a word you cannot remember. You have written that words perhaps thousands of times, but it has slipped your mind today. On today's...
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November 9, 2020 • 13 mins
If you do some research on working as a writer, you will find one piece of advice that comes up in relation to marketing. That advice is to stick to one genre. This advice makes marketing sense. If you write in the same genre, the people who enjoy your books will enjoy all your books. If you are going to write westerns, and you build an audience that enjoys your westerns, they are less likely to enjoy the scifi you write. You are t...
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November 6, 2020 • 12 mins
The first thing you should know before anything else is that you should not listen to me. You shouldn't listen to me. You shouldn't listen to other writers telling you what to do. What you need to do is figure out your own way of writing. But I don't think that setting out on your own trail is the way most writers decide to go. Most writers are reading or listening to other writing advice. The reason why people usually don't want t...
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November 5, 2020 • 13 mins
The publishing industry has been around for quite some time. Nowadays, the advent of self-publishing pushes against traditional publishing, but indie publishing has only created a tiny dent. We still live in a world that is dominated by the traditional publishing industry. I think there is a good reason for that at this time. But I have issues with the publishing industry (one major one, in fact), and I think that self-publishing c...
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November 4, 2020 • 8 mins
Some writers are elitists. Some writers want to write the next great American novel (or English novel or Australian (if they read down there)). And writing for regular people is something that is left for bad writers. I think this is stupid (because I think a lot of things are stupid). Instead of writing for a small group of elites, consider writing for regular people. Just think of how much larger your impact could be.

My Book:
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November 3, 2020 • 7 mins
Why do we write? That is is common question I ask when thinking about writing. Some people think that writing is only to make words sound good together, but I think this misses the point of the writing completely.

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I have a theory about most writers. I think most writers function with a higher level of anxiety than the rest of society. Maybe I am wrong about this. Maybe only I have this problem, but I doubt it. When I look around, I see a lot of writers you obsess over little and big things within there writing to an unhealthy degree. I don't think this is wholly a negative. I think this can be really helpful if you can direct it the correct ...
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October 30, 2020 • 10 mins
Some people dismiss fantasy fiction. They see it as something that is not serious. It is not considered high literature. High literature does not deal with things that aren't real, or high literature carries around specific ideas. But fantasy is a very unique type of story. It allows us to go into a different world, and that new world as so many different possibilities. I think that looking at what fantasy is can be extremely usefu...
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October 29, 2020 • 16 mins
Politics in annoying. Politics is the worst. I am not a fan of politics at all. Unfortunately, politics invades other spaces. Because politics involves others spaces, we need to talk about how we should approach politics in fiction. Should politics in fiction? Should we put politics in our work? What is the purpose of fiction? On today's episode of How to Write Good, we are going to talk about this joyous topic.

My Book:
https://amz...
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October 28, 2020 • 11 mins
I have a writing rule. I think it is one of my first writing rules. That rule is that writing follows language, which means that writing follows the sound of language. More recently, I have run into some information about music that has challenged my conceptions about the art-form. Now, I am not a musician, but as I look how language manifests itself across the world, it seems that my writing rule can be adapted so that it is appli...
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October 27, 2020 • 17 mins
You have probably heard the idea of theme within a story, and you probably have specific ideas of what a theme is. First, I think you are probably wrong about what a theme is because any deviation of what I think about theme is incorrect, so I am going to set you straight on that. But I am also going to be talking about something else, something I like to call a through-line that runs through your whole story, and I think that it i...
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