Fiction

TSS165: Everything (Almost) You Need to Know About Liars Paradox

October 16, 2018 by Stephen Leave a Comment

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In this week’s show, we discuss Taylor’s new book, Liars’ Paradox. We chat about the story behind the story, the process of selling the book to her publisher, and the process of working through multiple versions of the book.

You can pre-order your copy of the book wherever fine books are sold. This link will take you to your bookstore of choice.

Pre-Order Liars’ Paradox

Thanks so much for joining us again this week!

If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information on the Connect page.

Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.

You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.

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TSS113: Using Natural Disasters in Your Fiction – The Hurricane Edition

September 19, 2017 by Stephen Leave a Comment

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In this week’s abbreviated episode, we discuss the use of Natural Disaster’s in fiction as a way to drive tension, Taylor offers up a juicy hurricane-related plot, and we discuss the synopsis she’s preparing for book two in her new series.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week!

If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.

Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.

You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.

TSS097: Considerations for Developing your Next Series

May 30, 2017 by Stephen Leave a Comment

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If you’re going to write something that’s very normal…and I don’t mean that disparagingly, just something that readers are familiar with, then the importance of creating the world in which those characters inhabit, is not as critical, because it’s easier for the reader to suspend disbelief.

—– Taylor

Show Notes

This week’s show is all about writing a series. We discuss some of the mistakes Taylor made when planning her first series and how some of those will be corrected with the current series.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week!

Please consider supporting Taylor on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.

You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.

TSS090: How to Manage Non-Sequential Chronology in your Stories

April 11, 2017 by Stephen Leave a Comment

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You have a mostly chronological story, but the opening chapters are not the strongest or most interesting, but they are important, in which case a single chapter, or a couple of chapters in the beginning that are out of chronology and then moving on from there might be the best solution.

—- Taylor

Thanks to Scott for providing the question for this week’s show:

How do you manage non-sequential chronology? I’m wrapping up the second draft of my second novel, and I’m thinking that the strongest opening scene may not be the first chronological scene, yet the earlier scenes are not just exposition. They really do serve an important story purpose.

It’s a tricky problem, I realize, and it can smack of gimmickry if mishandled. I’d be interested in learning whether you’ve written in non-sequential form, and if so, what criteria you used to choose that structure, and also, how you handled the transitions.
If you’ve read Taylor’s books, you know that she opened THE MASK in much the way Scott describes. She walks us through that as an example, and we get into other chronology related topics.

If you’ve read Taylor’s books, you know that she opened THE MASK in much the way Scott describes. She walks us through that as an example and we get into other chronology related topics.

Thanks so much for joining us again this week!

If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.

You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.

TSS089: Going from Concept to Story – A real time example

April 4, 2017 by Stephen Leave a Comment

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… I got to the end and I realized oh, somethings missing and as an author, you can go back and rewrite history in a way that everything fits. So, if you need something like that, you have that ability to go back and put it in.

—- Taylor

This week’s episode begins with Taylor discussing Patreon, and explaining why she decided to take the leap and launch her own Patreon account. You can join Steve in becoming a Taylor Stevens’ patron here.

Then we get into this week’s topic, which is a doozie. Steve is writing a 5,000 – 10,000 short story for a thriller anthology so we’ve taken this opportunity to build the basic outline of a story from what begins as nothing more than an opening scene.

We’ll get into world building, the inciting incident, character development, the important of characters behaving rationally and outline several basic scenes, including the ending. The deadline for the story is June 1st, but March 31st was the deadline for the first 250 words. The first 250 words turned into 500 words and they’ve been submitted and accepted. Yay!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week!

If you want more from Taylor, please consider supporting her on Patreon for Patron only teaching and information.

You may also wish to join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.

TSS079: Do You Have a Manifesto for your Writing?

January 24, 2017 by Stephen 2 Comments

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I won’t do that to my readers, the cheap, easy way out. Everything has to make sense, everything has to tie together, everything has to have an emotional component and impact because that is what makes a book captivating.

— Taylor

In this week’s show, Taylor responds to a great question from author C.A. Newsome, who shares her own writing manifesto and asks if Taylor might have one as well. Taylor does not have a written manifesto, but she shares some thoughts on what it might look like if she did have one.

Here’s Carol’s original question, which includes the components of her own manifesto:

An earlier thread about JD Robb called to mind the decisions I made about what I wanted my books to be when I started writing. I never formalized it, but I do have a mental manifesto. Like I will make an ordinary nice guy a more satisfying leading man than a billionaire alpha male, I will not rely on magical fixes (such as ever so convenient informants) to move my plots along – etc.
I’d love for Taylor to share her manifesto. What are you dedicated to putting before the reading public?

Thanks to Carol for the question, and to you for joining us again this week!

If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.