Master Fiction Writing

Set yourself up for a 2026 writing year that actually survives real life. In this episode, you’ll build a simple, motivating plan without hustle-culture guilt or impossible schedules.We’ll choose a one- to three-word theme to guide your decisions, pick three clear priorities (plus one powerful “not this year”), map your year by quarters, and set a weekly minimum that keeps you moving even when life gets loud.You’ll also learn how to put writing into your calendar for the next two weeks, create a few tiny systems that make showing up easier, and use a straightforward reset plan when you miss a week (because you will - and that’s normal).Grab a notebook and follow along: by the end, you’ll have a writing map you can trust, and a next step you can take today.

Is Legally Blonde secretly one of the best-plotted films of the 2000s? In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, host Stuart Wakefield performs a full story autopsy on Elle Woods’ journey from dumped sorority president to victorious Harvard lawyer.We dig into how the film builds a rock-solid causal chain (where every major beat grows logically from the last) and how Elle’s external quest (Harvard, the internship, the murder trial) welds perfectly to her internal arc from “choose me” to “I choose myself.” Along the way, we unpack the emotional climax after Callahan’s harassment, the perm-fuelled courtroom payoff, and why the Bend and Snap is the least important thing in this script.You’ll walk away with concrete questions and exercises you can apply to your own story, whether you’re writing novels, screenplays, or plays. Spoilers for Legally Blonde abound, but the craft lessons are evergreen.

If your opening goes boom but your hero can shrug and carry on, that’s fireworks, not story. In this episode I breaks down the real job of an inciting incident - to bind your protagonist to an obligation that costs something now and points the story arrow.Here's what you'll learn:What “binding” means in plain English and how to spot it fastThe five ways a moment can stick Bond, Irreversibility, New stakes, Direction, PressureA spoken mini-exercise you can even do while walking the dogA quick diagnostic to fix fake incidents that are loud but optionalA simple before and after that turns a limp delivery into a clock-ticking crisisWe'll also look at:Pride and Prejudice Darcy’s slight and Lizzy’s promise to herselfLegally Blonde Elle’s public vow to Harvard LawA Streetcar Named Desire Blanche’s choice to stay and concealWant help binding your own opening? Start here and visit ⁠⁠https://www.thebookcoach.co⁠⁠

And then” isn’t a plot, it’s a queue. In this craft-forward episode, we swap “and then” for the more muscular because / but / therefore and show how tight causality turns scenes into story. You’ll get a clear, jargon-free framework for chaining choices to consequences, plus two case studies that prove the point: a mini-autopsy of Pride & Prejudice and a contemporary comparison with Knives Out.In this episode you’ll learn:Why causality (not act labels) is the real backbone of structureHow to convert event beats into decision beats with costsThe Because/But/Therefore test to expose sagging “and then” sequencesA quick Coincidence Audit (allowed to enter a story, never to exit it)A repeatable Scene Ledger: Goal → Opposition → Outcome → New Problem → Forced Next Action

POV isn’t just a grammar choice - it’s the engine that controls intimacy, suspense, and what your reader knows when.In this craft-deep episode, we demystify point of view by breaking it into three practical dials (access, scope, and distance) then walk through the pros and cons of first person, third limited (close and deep), free indirect style, omniscient, objective, second person, epistolary, multiple-POV, and stream of consciousness.To make it real, we take a baseline scene (Edward at Inkerman hearing Pendleton’s voice) and rewrite it in each POV, showing exactly what changes on the page and how those changes shape reader experience, for better and for worse.You’ll learn how to pick the right lens for a scene, avoid head-hopping and tense drift, trim filter words for immediacy, and keep character voice aligned with era and education.Ideal for both first-time novelists and seasoned writers tuning their instrument!