The Story Craft Cafe Podcast

Story Craft Cafe Episode 20 | Destiny Salter Character Development & Evolution Workshop

If you missed our live event this past Friday in the Story Craft Cafe, don't worry, we've got you covered! Join us as we recap this exciting Character Workshop with story coach Destiny Salter! This workshop specifically focused on how to push your characters to evolve. This is an episode you will want to listen to again and again. Enjoy!Destiny is the writing mastermind behind The Book Clinic and has been helping authors improve their novels for years. You can also check out this Character Creation Workshop she hosted for Dabble in December!
About Destiny:
I have had the rare experience of being on both sides of the publishing industry—I’ve worked under the top agents in New York City and I myself am a writer with extensive knowledge of my craft.
I'm a graduate of Princeton University, where I studied English and Creative Writing. At university, I studied under best-selling authors and award-winning creative writers. Leaders in their genres, they taught me the ins and outs of story structure and the craft of great fiction writing.
​I have experience in the publishing industry, having worked for literary agencies such as Sterling Lord Literistic, and keep my finger on the pulse of the current publishing market. Having apprenticed under some of the top literary agents in NYC, I know not only what makes a good, compelling story, but exactly what literary agents and publishing houses are looking for from submissions.
 
The knowledge I've gleaned and the secrets I've learned go far beyond what you can simply find on the internet and are helpful both for those seeking traditional publishing or self-publishing.
I’ve edited in fiction writing of all genres, including children's books, though I specialize in fantasy, romance, YA, and thriller/suspense.  I also have experience with non-fiction, particularly autobiographies, memoirs, and self-help. I’m a member of several professional editor organizations including ACES: The Society for Editing, Editorial Freelancers Association, Professional Editors Network and Editors of Color.
​I have three years of experience as a professional editor and proofreader, and in that time, I’ve edited scores of manuscripts, from children’s picture books to large-scale epic fantasy novels. Whether you're trying to identify your target demographic or are struggling to develop a good character motivation, I'm here to guide you on your journey to publishing. I strive to be detailed, concise, honest, and intuitive, highlighting your story's strengths and shoring up its weaknesses. My goal is to preserve your voice as the author while also bringing out the best in your work. I value consistent and speedy communication with my clients to ensure I'm meeting their needs and that they can be exceptionally proud of the final product.
If you're looking for an editing and storytelling expert who brings both value and experience to the table, I'm the one you're looking for.
 

Story Craft Cafe Episode 19 | Fiona Barton Talks Casting Mystery Characters

Fiona Barton's debut, The Widow, was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and has been published in 36 countries and optioned for television. Her second novel, The Child, was a Sunday Times bestseller. Born in Cambridge, Fiona currently lives in Sussex and south-west France.
Previously, she was a senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at the Mail on Sunday, where she won Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards.
While working as a journalist, Fiona reported on many high-profile criminal cases and she developed a fascination with watching those involved, their body language and verbal tics. Fiona interviewed people at the heart of these crimes, from the guilty to their families, as well as those on the periphery, and found it was those just outside the spotlight who interested her most.
Local Gone Missing
Detective Elise King investigates a man’s disappearance in a seaside town where the locals and weekenders are at odds in this rich and captivating new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow.Elise King is a successful and ambitious detective—or she was before a medical leave left her unsure if she'd ever return to work. She now spends most days watching the growing tensions in her small seaside town of Ebbing—the weekenders renovating old bungalows into luxury homes, and the locals resentful of the changes.  Elise can only guess what really happens behind closed doors. But Dee Eastwood, her house cleaner, often knows. She’s an invisible presence in many of the houses in town, but she sees and hears everything.  The conflicts boil over when a newcomer wants to put the town on the map with a weekend music festival, and two teenagers overdose on drugs. When a man disappears the first night of the festival, Elise starts digging for answers. Ebbing is a small town, but it's full of secrets and hidden connections that run deeper and darker than Elise could have ever imagined.  "Barton presents such an embarrassment of riches. . . .Layers and layers of unlovely revelations about people who seemed perfectly nice."         --Kirkus Reviews"A captivating read. A first-grade suspense novel and highly recommended." --MysteryTribune

Story Craft Cafe Episode 18 | David Koepp Talks About Bringing Visual Storytelling To Prose

David Koepp has written or co-written the screenplays for more than thirty films, including APARTMENT ZERO (1989), BAD INFLUENCE (1990), DEATH BECOMES HER (1992), CARLITO’S WAY (1993), JURASSIC PARK (1993), THE PAPER (1994), MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996), THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997), SNAKE EYES (1998), PANIC ROOM (2002), SPIDER-MAN (2002), WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005), INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008), ANGELS & DEMONS (2009), INFERNO (2016), and KIMI (2022).
As a director, his work includes the films THE TRIGGER EFFECT (1996), STIR OF ECHOES (1999), SECRET WINDOW (2004), GHOST TOWN (2007), PREMIUM RUSH (2012), and YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT (2020). GHOST TOWN and PREMIUM RUSH were co-written with the enigmatic John Kamps.
Koepp’s forthcoming novel, AURORA, will be published by HarperCollins on June 7th, 2022. His first novel, COLD STORAGE, was published in 2019. His story YARD WORK, narrated by Kevin Bacon, was released by Audible Originals in July 2020.
He was born in Pewaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from UCLA’s film school in 1986. He lives in New York City with his wife and children.

Story Craft Cafe Episode 17 | Hannah Mary McKinnon Discusses Making Likable Characters Out Of Unlikable Situations

"[A] highly entertaining, bone-chilling must read.”—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Overnight Guest"A diabolical tour de force."—P.J. Vernon, author of Bath Haus“Don’t miss this propulsive, hypnotic thrill ride.”—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Last Girl Ghosted  First comes love. Then comes murder.Lucas Forester didn’t hate his wife. Michelle was brilliant, sophisticated and beautiful. Sure, she had extravagant spending habits, that petty attitude, a total disregard for anyone below her status. But she also had a lot to offer. Most notably: wealth that only the one percent could comprehend.For years, Lucas has been honing a flawless plan to inherit Michelle’s fortune. Unfortunately, it involves taking a hit out on her.Every track is covered, no trace left behind, and now Lucas plays the grieving husband so well he deserves an award. But when a shocking photo and cryptic note show up on his doorstep, Lucas goes from hunter to prey. Someone is on to him. And they’re closing in.Told with dark wit and a sharply feminist sensibility, Never Coming Home is a terrifying tale of duplicity that will have you side-eyeing your spouse as you dash to the breathtaking end.
Hannah Mary McKinnon was born in the UK, grew up in Switzerland and moved to Canada in 2010. After a successful career in recruitment, she quit the corporate world in favour of writing. While her debut, TIME AFTER TIME, was a rom com, she transitioned to the dark side thereafter. Her suspense novels include THE NEIGHBORS, and bestsellers HER SECRET SON, SISTER DEAR, YOU WILL REMEMBER ME. Her sixth book is scheduled for spring 2022.
Hannah Mary lives in Oakville, Ontario, with her husband and three sons
Connect on Facebook and Instagram @hannahmarymckinnon, and on Twitter @HannahMMcKinnon. For more, visit www.hannahmarymckinnon.com

Story Craft Cafe Episode 16 | Christopher Moore Talks About Mixing Fantasy With Satire

Christopher Moore is an American writer of comic fantasy. 
An only child, Moore learned to amuse himself with his imagination. He loved reading and his father brought him plenty of books from the library every week. He started writing around the age of twelve and realized that this was his talent by the time he was 16, and he began to consider making it his career.
Moore's novels typically involve conflicted everyman characters struggling through supernatural or extraordinary circumstances. With the possible exceptions of Fool, The Serpent of Venice, Sacré Bleu, and Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel, all his books take place in the same universe and some characters recur from novel to novel.
According to his interview in the June 2007 issue of Writer's Digest, the film rights to Moore's first novel, Practical Demonkeeping (1992), were purchased by Disney even before the book had a publisher. In answer to repeated questions from fans over the years, Moore stated that all of his books have been optioned or sold for films, but that as yet "none of them are in any danger of being made into a movie."
Moore has named Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, John Steinbeck, Tom Robbins, Richard Brautigan, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and Ian Fleming as key influences on his writing.
Moore lives in San Francisco, after a few years on the island of Kauai, Hawaii.

Story Craft Cafe Episode 15 | Camille Pagán Weighs In On The Pantser Vs Plotter Debate

Camille Pagán is the Amazon Charts, Washington Post, and #1 Kindle bestselling author of "witty and delightful" novels (Library Journal) about life's what-ifs. Her books have been translated into twenty languages, and her second novel, Life and Other Near-Death Experiences, has been optioned for film by Jessica Chastain's Freckle Films. A journalist and former magazine editor, her work has appeared in Fast Company, Forbes, The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Parade, Real Simple, Time, and many others. Visit her at www.camillepagan.com.  

Story Craft Cafe Episode 14 | Dervla McTiernan Shares The Rules For Writing Murder

Internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed writer, Dervla McTiernan is the author of The Ruin, The Scholar and The Good Turn. The Ruin was published in 2018 and is the first in the detective Cormac Reilly series. The Ruin was a top ten bestseller and an Amazon Best Book of July 2018. Dervla was a New Blood Panellist at Harrogate Festival. The Scholar was published in 2019 and was a top five bestseller. The Good Turn will be published in 2020. The Ruin has been optioned for TV by Hopscotch Features.
Shortlisted:Barry AwardsKate O’Brien AwardAustralian Book Industry AwardsIrish Book AwardsWestern Australian Premier Book Awards
Dervla spent twelve years working as a lawyer. Following the global financial crisis, she moved from Ireland to Australia and turned her hand to writing. Dervla is a member of the Sisters in Crime and Crime Writers Association, and lives in Perth, Australia, with her husband and two children.

Story Craft Cafe Episode 13 | Linwood Barclay Talks About Writing Fiction That Takes Your Breath Away

Today's guest in the Story Craft Cafe is New York Times bestselling author with twenty novels to his credit, Linwood Barclay. Linwood joins us today to share his story and to talk about writing spooky fiction.
Linwood Barclay, a New York Times bestselling author with twenty novels to his credit, spent three decades in newspapers before turning full time to writing thrillers. His books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, sold millions of copies, and he counts Stephen King among his fans. Many of his books have been optioned for film and TV, a series has been made in France, and he wrote the screenplay for the film based on his novel Never Saw it Coming. Born in the US, his parents moved to Canada just as he was turning four, and he’s lived there ever since. He lives near Toronto with his wife, Neetha. They have two grown children.
MORE ABOUT LINWOOD
Linwood Barclay is the #1 internationally bestselling author of twenty novels for adults, including No Time for Goodbye, Trust Your Eyes and, most recently, A Noise Downstairs. He has also written two novels for children and screenplays.
Three of those twenty novels comprise the epic Promise Falls trilogy: Broken Promise, Far From True, and The Twenty-Three. His two novels for children – Chase and Escape – star a computer-enhanced dog named Chipper who’s on the run from the evil organization that turned him into a super-pup.
Barclay’s 2011 thriller, The Accident, has been turned into the six-part television series L’Accident in France, and he adapted his novel Never Saw It Coming for the movie, directed by Gail Harvey and starring Eric Roberts and Emily Hampshire. Several of his other books either have been, or still are, in development for TV and film, including the Promise Falls trilogy.
After spending his formative years helping run a cottage resort and trailer park after his father died when he was 16, Barclay got his first newspaper job at the Peterborough Examiner, a small Ontario daily. In 1981, he joined the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper.
He held such positions as assistant city editor, chief copy editor, news editor, and Life section editor, before becoming the paper’s humour columnist in 1993. He was one of the paper’s most popular columnists before retiring from the position in 2006 to work exclusively on books.
In 2004, he launched his mystery series about an anxiety-ridden, know-it-all, pain-in-the-butt father by the name of Zack Walker. Bad Move, the first book, was followed by three more Zack Walker thrillers: Bad Guys, Lone Wolf, and Stone Rain. (The last two were published in the UK under the titles Bad Luck and Bad News.)
His first standalone thriller, No Time for Goodbye, was published in 2007 to critical acclaim and great international success. The following year, it was a Richard and Judy Summer Read selection in the UK, and did seven straight weeks at #1 on the UK bestseller list, and finished 2008 as the top selling novel of the year there. The book has since been sold around the world and been translated into nearly thirty languages.
Barclay was born in the United States but moved to Canada just before turning four years old when his father, a commercial artist whose illustrations of cars appeared in Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post (before photography took over), accepted a position with an advertising agency north of the border. Barclay, who graduated with an English literature degree from Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario, was fortunate to have some very fine mentors; in particular, the celebrated Canadian author Margaret Laurence, whom Linwood first met when she served as writer-in-residence at Trent, and Kenneth Millar, who, under the name Ross Macdonald, wrote the acclaimed series of mystery novels featuring detective Lew Archer. It was at Trent that he met Neetha, the woman who would become his wife. They have two grown children, Spencer and Paige.

Story Craft Cafe Episode 12 | Beverly Jenkins Explains Why Reading Romance Will Help You Up Your Story Telling Game

Romance Author Legend Beverly Jenkins joins us in the Story Craft Cafe today to talk about why anyone interested in telling stories NEEDS to read romance. In this episode we talk about Beverly's journey from her lifelong dream of working in a library to becoming someone that creates the stories that fill those shelves. This is a "must listen" for anyone interested in forging your own path in writing and publishing. 

Story Craft Cafe Episode 11 | The Dabblers Talk About The Magic Of Community

To help close out our final Friday of launch month, the Dabblers congregated in the Story Craft Cafe to talk about what motivates them as story tellers, how Dabble has helped them embrace their creativity, and the conversation inevitably turns to the topic of pantsing vs plotting and why one way is way better than the other.
Or is it?