Episide 12 - The Joanna Penn interview

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Alan talks about his Write The Fight Right short ebook he’s working on.

Dave talks about his work on the next Dane Maddock book.

Then we have a guest: Joanna Penn.

Jo talks about her new book, Pentecost, which she describes as like a cross between Dan Brown and Lara Croft.

Jo talks about moving from her non-fiction success to writing fiction.

We go on to discuss Jo’s influences, her fascination with theology (she has a Masters degree in it!) and what drives her to write the things she does.

We discuss Jo’s female protagonist and what’s masculine or just cool.

Which leads to a discussion of female writers putting out thrillers, a traditionally male dominated genre.

Jo talks about future projects and the next Morgan Sierra books.

We discuss Jo’s previous name as a non-fiction writer and how her online presence has helped with the launch of her first novel.

You can find Jo’s novel here: http://www.pentecostnovel.com

Jo’s website is: http://www.thecreativepenn.com

Or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/thecreativepenn

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Episode 11 - The Description episode

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We are aware there was a problem with the episode cutting off early. We've re-uploaded the file, and the direct link is now working. Not sure how ling it will take for iTunes to pick up the corrected episode. Sorry for the error. 

We talk briefly about the Gryphonwood Press ebook for Halloween, with short stories from both David and Alan (a bit late to promote this one, but the book is still available for a dollar from Smashwords and Kindle).

We talk about getting back to our favourite novel characters in short stories for The Game anthology from Seven Realms Publishing.

David asked Alan to post the location of his Isiah short story, Stand Off, in the show notes (published by Wily Writers). You can find that story here: http://www.wilywriters.com/blog/?p=928

Alan talks about hearing his first short story podcast by a voice actor.

We talk about novels to movies as a process and how a movie can spoil an author’s vision.

We cite examples like:

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy
Richard Matheson’s I am Legend
Clive Cussler’s Sahara.
Alan Moore’s Watchmen, V For Vendetta, From Hell
Constantine/Hellblazer

From there we talk about movie actors potentially spoiling a reader’s vision of a character from a book.

We talk about too much description in a book which can also spoil the reader’s immersive experience, and subsequently what kind of descriptive writing does work well.

We discuss the difference in character development between a book and a movie.

We discuss the need for worldbuilding in speculative fiction and how that can potentially slow down the pace of a spec fic thriller.

Alan cites Peter Watt’s Starfish as an example of excellent worldbuilding in a spec fic thriller.

David cites William Dietrich’s historical adventure thrillers.

We talk about the authenticity of worldbuilding in fiction and making sure the writer knows what he’s talking about.

We finish up talking about what we think is essential description and what’s unnecessary.

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