Last week we established that voice is the narrator's personality. This week, we look at all five elements that make up voice and see if your narrator is a real person or just you in disguise.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

• Amazon KDP finally does something self-publishers want.
• Eight million books lost in Ukraine.
• Arkansas criminalizes bookshelves.
• How to write a narrator that sounds unique.

Next episode: first person vs. third person. Is your close third narrator just the protagonist in a trench coat?

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• A single Russian attack destroyed one-third of Ukraine's annual book print volume
• 5 Psychological Pricing Tactics That Attract Customers
• Where does Arkansas rank on the 2026 Best States list?
• Least Educated States 2026
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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Welcome to Season 10 of Writing Break! This season is all about voice, which is the thing literary agents, publishers, and readers fall in love with. In this premiere, we're setting up our makeshift Overthinking Conference Room to nail down the vocabulary that will guide us through the entire season.

1. Why a whole season about voice?
2. Trying to sound like Hemingway is a waste of your time.
3. AI detectors: why they're flagging human writers as robots
4. The actual difference between style, tone, voice, and mood?
5. What agents mean when they say "the voice isn't working."
6. This season's preview: dialogue as voice, character as voice, voice in nonfiction and memoir, when to break the rules, and how to edit for voice.
7. ElevenLabs' Michael Caine narration of *The Odyssey
8. J.K. Rowling / Robert Galbraith pseudonym

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• 'The Odyssey': Alternative Audio Versions With Ian McKellen and More
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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Season 10 is on hold because the rules for literary agents just changed, and not necessarily in the author's favor. This episode tells you exactly what questions to ask before you sign (or pay for) anything.

The New Literary Agent Ethics Rules

1. What the Association of American Literary Agents changed and why.
2. Which paid services literary agents may now offer.
3. Why editorial work for represented clients must still remain free.
4. The safeguards built into the revised ethics code.
5. Potential conflicts of interest writers should understand.
6. Practical questions to ask before paying for editorial, marketing, or publicity services.
7. Why due diligence matters more than ever when querying agents.

Publishing News

1. Bloomsbury reveals how much it expects to receive from the Anthropic settlement.
2. ISBNdb sources physical books for AI companies, raising new questions about copyright, preservation, and transparency.
3. Hachette launches its Reading Is Golden public service campaign to encourage daily family reading.

• AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data
• AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data
• Raising Readers | Reading Is Golden
• Judge Gives Final Approval of $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement
• Major AALA Ethics Update Allows Agents to Offer Paid Editorial, Publicity Services
• Hachette’s Raising Readers Initiative Releases PSA
• AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

Host: Rosemi Mederos, America's Editor

Production: Allon Media

Website: writingbreak.com |

Contact: podcast@writingbreak.com

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We're closing the book on genre, two seasons, dozens of subgenres, and a lot of overthinking later. This week we revisit some highlights: novel architecture and the dreaded middle-of-the-book slump, why cross-genre mashups can backfire if you get too ambitious, the tension between writing what you love and writing what sells, adaptation lessons from film and video games, and how genres evolve to match whatever readers are actually afraid of right now.

Did I miss a genre you wanted covered? Let me know.

Next up: Season 10 is all about voice, including what it actually is and how to find yours. F

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• More Writing Tips

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Genres and subgenres are ever-evolving. This week, we trace one horror lineage from a crumbling 1764 castle all the way to today's femgore boom, dig into a detective fiction metamorphosis that spans three centuries and two continents, and sit with a publishing story that should unsettle every working writer, one where AI hijacked a fired journalist's own byline to keep publishing under his name.

Plus: this week's overthinking prompt, built to work whether you write genre fiction or literary fiction.

• An AI-generated review of Resident Evil Requiem written by a fake 'iGaming and sports betting analyst' briefly hit Metacritic | PC Gamer
• Fired Journalist Finds AI Publishing Under His Name
• What Is Femgore? | Book Riot
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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How much can you really accomplish in two minutes?

This week on Writing Break, I share a simple exercise I call The Two-Minute Wait, which can help you better understand your relationship with time and improve the way you manage it.

We also discuss this year's International Booker Prize news before exploring storytelling traditions from around the world, including Nordic noir, magical realism, Gothic horror fiction, wuxia, Japanese literary fiction, West African oral storytelling, and the art of translation.

Whether you're looking to become more productive or broaden your understanding of storytelling, this episode offers practical ideas you can apply immediately.

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• International Booker Prize Doubles Purse, Changes Name
• International Booker Prize winner
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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Everyone in your life thinks your book would make a great movie, play, or video game. But adaptation isn't a copy-paste job because every medium solves storytelling problems differently. This week, we put one scene through four different mediums to see what each one reveals about craft, whether or not you ever plan on adapting anything.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

1. Why "the book was better" misses the point of what adaptation actually does
2. The kitchen table scene: one moment, told four ways
3. What novels can do that film, TV, and stage cannot
4. The screenwriting habit every novelist should steal
5. What television teaches about sustaining relationship dynamics across a series
6. Why playwrights understand subtext better than novelists
7. What video games can teach you about giving your characters real choices
8. Environmental storytelling, and why your hostage scene needs more than a metal chair
9. This week's overthinking prompt: running one scene through four lenses

• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

Connect

Have a question you want overthought on a future episode? Email podcast@writingbreak.com or find us on Instagram at @writingbreakpodcast.

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AI continues reshaping publishing, and writers cannot afford to ignore what's happening. In this week's news episode, we explore the growing legal, ethical, and professional questions surrounding AI, authorship, copyright, and creative ownership.

Overthinking Couch Topics:

1. Publishing CEOs warning against an AI "witch hunt"
2. The increasingly complicated question of what counts as authorship
3. Copyright lawsuits against Meta over the training of its AI models
4. The latest legal actions involving pirate libraries, including Anna's Archive and WeLib
5. AI accessibility tools, speech-to-text software, and the debate over disclosure
6. The possibility of future human-authorship certification systems
7. Why proving you wrote your own work may become part of an author's professional life

We also take an in-depth look at a disturbing case involving author John Koenig and his project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, examining how AI-generated content, search optimization, and unauthorized websites can affect an author's reputation, visibility, and relationship with readers.

• Court Rules Against Anna’s Archive in Copyright Lawsuit
• Publishers Sue Pirate Site WeLib for Copyright Infringement
• Eminem Publisher Sues Meta
• Five major publishers are suing Meta over Llama
• Publishers and Authors Sue Meta
• Granta stops publishing short story award winners over AI controversy | Granta | The Guardian
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

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