This week, Eva and Katryn dive deeper into plotters and pantsers, discussing what tools and tricks to best to tame your arcs, plot, and more during the drafting process. Eva regales us all with tales of her launch, and Katryn breaks down all of her drafts in the style of romance tropes.

Note: Katryn was having trouble with her mic (mostly, speaking into it properly) and some segments are unusually quiet. This should be fixed by episode 7!

Sources

• Check out the Masterclass on finding out which kind of writer you are!

• Jane Friedman has a great article on plotters and pantsers!

• Pacific northwesters, come see Eva at her final tour stop for a while in Seattle with Rachel Griffin!

• Subscribe to Wiser Than Me, Julie Louis-Dreyfus’s wonderful podcast

Watch Maxton Hall on Amazon Prime!

It’s a Write Where it Hurts Super Special! This week, Eva and Katryn discuss debut anxiety-- everything from the wounds it opens, to self-imposed stress, to developing early expectations around the “nebulous cloud that is publishing.” Eva discusses cutting herself off from reading reviews, and Katryn acts out a whole scene from Harry and the Hendersons and it somehow works as a metaphor.

NOTE: We are taking a break for Eva's debut (out on 5/21)! We'll be back in June!

*Content warnings: This week, we talk a lot about mental addictions. These are real and toxic to our mental health, but we mention them in no way to compare or dismiss physical and substance addiction--only to speak to our experiences with this kind of psychological addiction.

Sources

• Bookseller survey finds that over half of authors reported that debut authors said the experience negatively impacted their mental health
• What is a Super Special, you ask? THIS
• Listen to our Seducing the Creative Spirit playlist!
• Watch this Harry & the Hendersons clip and WEEP
• Pre-order I Wish You Would (Eva) and We Are Not Alone (Katryn)

This week, the topic on Write Where it Hurts is ‘writing flawed characters,’ and the craft talk gets real. Eva deftly connects The Tortured Poet’s Department to the theme, and talks giving all of her characters the full enneagram-meyers-briggs workup, while Katryn gets very salty about manic pixie dream girls (but not in the way you think). NOTE: If the audio sounds a bit choppy and Katryn’s voice sounds like sad, parched smacking, this is because our heroic Eva was forced to edit out roughly 79,000 coughs. Thanks, Spring!

Sources:

• Give your character a free enneagram test!
• I sued Masterclass’s site as a baseline in framing some of my own questions and thoughts!
• Pre-Order I Wish You Would and keep an eye on Eva’s IG or subscribe to her newsletter for upcoming tour info!
• Request Katryn’s next book, We Are Not Alone, on NetGalley and Edelweiss!