Story Basics

Episode 149 – In the Middle of It All

Everyone knows famous first lines from classic novels. Everyone has their favorite endings to a long-running series. But people don’t share their favorite “middle scenes” near as often. The middle can be messy. It can be slow or rushed or just plain confusing. That’s why hosts Timothy Deal and Nick Hayden decide to analyze what…

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Episode 148 – Come On, Set Me Up, Man!

Many modern stories hit the ground running, throwing the reader or viewer into a whirlwind of names, places, situations, and conflicts. This can be exciting. No trudging through useless exposition, no waiting for the action to pick up. However, not all set-up is bad. As hosts Timothy Deal and Nick Hayden discuss, good, strategic story…

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Episode 102 – Character Developing, Please Wait…

A wise and weird man once said, “My, my, this here Anakin guy, May be Vader someday later, now he’s just a small fry.” Which raises the important question: How? How does the village coward become a brave knight? How does a fussy old Hobbit become an adven

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Episode 98 – Little Did He Know A Storm Was Coming

Of the many stories never mentioned on Derailed Trains of Thought (your premiere podcast on storytelling), one is The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover, where Grover tries to prevent the appearance of the monster at the e

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Episode 92 – More Than One Way to Craft a Story

The Hero’s Journey is essential to a good story, right? How about an epic climax? Five acts? Three? A witty sidekick? What does a story need and what do we modern Westerns think it needs? Many of our conventions of story telling are just that, conventions

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Episode 81 – Can You Picture That?

If you’re reading this, chances are you have eyes. And if you have eyes, I’ll wager you tend to see things, you know, things like images. And while words are fascinating and important (see episode 79), we would be remiss if we didn’t discuss the power of

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Episode 79 – A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

Words. Since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, you’ve been bombarded by them. Flash cards, spelling bees, Facebook comments from people who haven’t learned how to use gifs yet…they’re everywhere. Sometimes we take them for granted, and sometimes we t

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Episode 77 – Believe in Yourself = x, Solve For y

There are many different types of logic in the world. Logic states that 1+1=2. It also states that your ability to survive a cataclysmic disaster exponentially increases if you are a well-loved furry animal. In other words, some logic is, well, logical, w

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Episode 66 – Gentlemen, Start Your Story Engines!

People say there are only nine basic plots. They say stories can be broken down into tropes and stereotypes and MacGuffins. Well, Tim and Nick say, “That sounds like a good episode topic!” So listen in as they discuss the skeleton of a story, the primal p

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Episode 62 – ‘Tis the Setting

It’s that time of year, the time we’ve been waiting for for months. Yep, that’s right, it’s finally Christmas! (Also: Star Wars opening!) As you settle down to watch your favorite Christmas movie (also: space opera), one thing you’ll notice right away–th

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