Writing Tips: Craft, Structure, and Voice With Kristen Tate
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Joanna Penn
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2025
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are you curious about the hidden structures that turn ordinary manuscripts into irresistible page-turning stories? Wondering how to shape your characters, scenes, and chapters so readers can’t put your book down? Kristen Tate shares her tips.
In the intro, key book publishing paths [Jane Friedman]; sub-rights and why it’s important to understand how many ways your book can make money [Renee Fountain]; the innovation of the indie author community and biggest changes in publishing with Michael Tamblyn [KWL Podcast];
Plus, 10 publishing trends for 2025 [Written Word Media]; Unveiling 2025: Indie authors gear up for AI innovations and craft renaissance [Indie Author Magazine]; How to Write Non-Fiction, Second Edition is out now; and join me for a live webinar: 7 steps to write your non-fiction book in 2025, 15 Jan.
Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna
This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Kristen Tate is an editor and founder of the Blue Garret, offering editing services and advice for authors. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University, focusing on novels and publishing history. Her latest book is Novel Study: Decoding the Secrets and Structures of Contemporary Fiction.
You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Show Notes
* Most common mistakes authors make with openings
* The differences between scenes and chapters
* How to plot a page-turner
* The continuous development of an author's writing process
* Balancing reading for pleasure and reading for research
* Inadvertent plagiarism and the boundaries of fair use
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, |
| 0:08.0 | bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing craft and creative business. |
| 0:14.7 | You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at the creative pen.com. And that's Pen with a |
| 0:23.7 | double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn. And this is episode number |
| 0:30.4 | 789 of the podcast, and it is Saturday the 4th of January 2025 as I record this. |
| 0:38.5 | In today's show, we are getting into Writing Craft with my editor and fiction expert Kristen |
| 0:45.4 | Tate. We discuss her new book, Novel Study, Decoding the Secrets and Structures of Contemporary |
| 0:52.6 | Fiction. Now, we do kind of split the episode into two. |
| 0:56.1 | We talk about aspects of fiction and what writers get wrong and how to improve. |
| 1:00.8 | And then we also talk about writing a non-fiction book, |
| 1:03.7 | because of course this is a non-fiction book about fiction |
| 1:06.0 | and how we can take our knowledge off the page into more of a community. |
| 1:11.2 | So that's coming up in the interview section. |
| 1:17.6 | In Writing and Publishing Things, Jane Friedman has just updated her key book publishing paths, |
| 1:25.0 | and it is a big update. |
| 1:26.4 | It is now a two-page overview of all the different |
| 1:29.3 | ways to get your book into the world. And I've been monitoring this and Jane has been updating |
| 1:34.5 | this for over a decade. And I've mentioned before the great splintering of business models and |
| 1:39.9 | social media and there are so many ways forward now. It is not just trad versus indie. And I remember back |
| 1:46.4 | when Jane's diagram just literally only had a couple of options on. Now there are many things. |
| 1:52.2 | She includes big five and mid-sized publishers, university and scholarly publishing, professional |
| 1:57.7 | and educational, small presses, what she calls no advance publishers, and there's |
... |
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