The Story Lab: How to Write 50,000 Words in a Month, Our Game Plan (Live) | SCC 290

Three weeks of brainstorming, characters, conflict, and subplots. It's a lot of moving parts! But this week we pull them all into one place before the writing month starts. (Enter Dabble's Plot Grid!) We're Hank and Abby, and we're co-writing a novel live as part of Dabble's 60-Day Novel Challenge. Week 4 is the last planning week, and it covers the why, the how, and the when of our book. Here's what we're working through, live and unscripted: Theme (the why, or as Abby calls it, the bumper sticker): The underlying message that makes a story stick with readers long after they finish it. We find ours through the truth that counters our protagonist's lie. Then we talk about working it into the story through plot, organic dialogue, and symbols, without getting preachy about it. The plot grid (the how): We show you how we use Dabble's plot grid to keep track of all those moving pieces. Plot lines for character arcs, subplots, and theme. Color-coded ribbons. Linked notes so we never have to go hunting for a character profile mid-sentence. Whether you're a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in between, there's a way to make it work for you. Goals and schedule (the when): Writing 50,000 words in a month means showing up consistently, not cramming it all into the final week. We block out writing time on the calendar, set our word count goals, and plan rewards for hitting our milestones.  Writing along with us? Tell us in the chat what you want readers to feel when they reach the end of your book. Next week, we write! Join the 60-Day Novel Challenge: https://bit.ly/4AqrUe3 Plan (and write) your novel in Dabble, free for 14 days: https://bit.ly/3VsWi7o #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #NovelWriting #60DayNovelChallenge #WritingSoftware #HowToWriteABook #WritingTips #Preptober

Two weeks ago we had zero ideas. Last week we filled our book with characters and gave them some emotional baggage. This week we make their lives much, much harder. We're Hank and Abby, and we're co-writing a novel live as part of Dabble's 60-Day Novel Challenge. Week 3 is about conflict and subplots, the engine that drives a story forward. At its bare bones, a story is a goal plus an obstacle. Without the obstacle, it's a textbook, and nobody's staying up past midnight to finish a textbook. Here's what we're working through, live and unscripted: External conflict: Character vs. character, society, nature, technology, the supernatural, or fate. We figure out which bucket our book's big, flashy, book-selling conflict falls into. Internal conflict: Moral, identity, philosophical, self-esteem, or relationship. It's rooted in our protagonist's big hurt and the lie they believe. It sounds less exciting than a horde of zombies, but it's what makes the zombies matter. Picking at the lie: How to aim outside obstacles straight at a character's flaws, so they glimpse the truth and then retreat back to safety. That intersection is where the good stuff lives. Subplots: We have 50,000 words, not 300,000, so every subplot has to earn its spot. We brainstorm subplots tied to our protagonist, the main conflict, and the theme. Then we keep the one or two that connect back to the main plot. Combining and refining: We pull three weeks of brainstorming, character profiles, and conflict maps into one place, so the story's bones are solid before the writing month starts. Writing along with us? Tell us in the chat which type of external conflict your book has! Join the 60-Day Novel Challenge: https://bit.ly/4AqrUe3 Plan (and write) your novel in Dabble, free for 14 days: https://bit.ly/3VsWi7o #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #NovelWriting #60DayNovelChallenge #WritingSoftware #HowToWriteABook #WritingTips #Preptober

What happens when the story you need to tell won’t fit the structure you planned? Amy Goldmacher joins me on the Story Craft Café to talk about her memoir, Terms and Conditions, and how a collection of personal fragments became a book organized alphabetically. Amy originally imagined a chronological memoir about her relationship with her father. But as she wrote about family, genetic testing, and the desire to know what the future might hold, the book began taking a different shape. We talk about the spreadsheet that helped her see a new structure, why she chose to write in second person, and how those choices gave her enough distance to write about difficult experiences. We also discuss the limits of memory, the difference between memoir and autobiography, and why some of our best writing happens while we’re nowhere near a keyboard. Along the way, Amy shares how she uses Dabble to collect fragments, move pieces around, and experiment until a story begins to hold together. If you’re gathering pieces of a book and wondering how they’ll ever fit, there’s a lot in this conversation for you. Find Amy and learn more about Terms and Conditions https://amygoldmacher.com Visit her publisher https://stanchionzine.com Amy Goldmacher’s creative work has appeared in The New York Times, Essay Daily, Monkeybicycle, and dozens of literary journals and anthologies. She won the 2022 AWP Kurt Brown Prize in Creative Nonfiction, and her experimental glossary-form memoir about letting go of the terms and conditions that no longer serve her, Terms & Conditions, published on October 6, 2026. She lives in South Florida. Subscribe for more conversations with authors about books, storytelling, and the work of writing. What helped you find the structure for your story? Tell us in the comments. #WritingCommunity #MemoirWriting #AuthorInterview Try out Dabble free for 14 days and see why it’s the best writing tool on the planet—no credit card required! Visit our website at www.dabblewriter.com to get started. Subscribe to our channel for more live events like author interviews, Writing Sprint Wednesdays, Feedback Fridays, and Fireside Chats. We're all about helping authors hone their craft with engaging, fun, and educational content. On top of all that, Dabble Premium members get access to exclusive content like Craft Q&A Office Hours, Wordsmith Workshops, Deep Dive articles, bonus resources, and guest speaker workshops. Happy writing!

We're Hank Garner and Abby Mathews from the education team at Dabble,  and we're about to co-write a novel. There's just one problem: we have nothing. No genre, no characters, no plot. Zero. Zilch. NADA. By the end of this livestream, we'll have a direction. This is the Week 1 live session for Dabble's 60-Day Novel Challenge: 30 days of planning, 30 days of writing, and 50,000 words by the end. It's not as unhinged as it sounds! Join us live as we work through the Week 1 lesson in real time, including the parts where we disagree: Genre and audience: We start broad and keep narrowing until we land on something specific. Not "fantasy" but dark fantasy. Not "romance" but a hockey rom-com with enemies to lovers and forced proximity. We also figure out who's going to read this thing. Plot brainstorming: A timer, a blank page, and two authors blurting out ideas. External vs. internal conflict: The external conflict is the flashy one that sells the book. The internal conflict is the one readers remember. The five major beats: Inciting incident, rising action, midpoint, climax, resolution. We rough out all five for our book. Worldbuilding (just a little): Only as much as our story needs. Worldbuilder's Disease is real, and we have a novel to write. Your Week 1 ideas don't have to be polished. They just have to be on the page. Doing the challenge with us? Drop your genre and subgenre in the chat. Let's see how specific you can get! Join the 60-Day Novel Challenge: https://bit.ly/4AqrUe3 Plan (and write) your novel in Dabble, free for 14 days: https://bit.ly/3VsWi7o #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #NovelWriting #60DayNovelChallenge #HowToWriteANovel #Plotting #Worldbuilding #WritingLive

andall Wright and Ward Wright join Hank Garner to talk about their new creative venture and the changing world of publishing. In this conversation, they discuss how web publishing is opening new doors for writers, artists, and storytellers who want to build direct relationships with readers. We talk about creative independence, the shift away from traditional gatekeepers, what it takes to launch a publishing project online, and why good storytelling still matters no matter how the delivery system changes. Randall and Ward also share what they’re building, why they’re excited about the possibilities of digital publishing, and how writers can think differently about reaching an audience in today’s world. Subscribe for more conversations with writers, artists, and creative people about storytelling, craft, publishing, and the business of making art. #WritingCommunity #Publishing #WebPublishing #Storytelling #AuthorInterview #IndiePublishing #CreativeEntrepreneur

Liv Constantine returns to the Story Craft Café to talk about the new psychological thriller Promise Me Never—and to pull back the curtain on how great suspense is actually built. Hank and Liv dig into the craft behind the twists readers have come to expect from a Liv Constantine novel: planting clues in plain sight, using red herrings without cheating the reader, creating characters who can be interpreted in completely different ways after the reveal, and deciding exactly how much information to give away—and when. Liv also shares the unusual inspiration behind Promise Me Never: the old Bluebeard idea of entering a marriage where everything is open to you except one locked door. What happens when curiosity takes over? And what might your spouse be hiding on the other side? The conversation explores the novel's dual timelines, the presence of Poppy throughout the story, questions of art and authenticity, and the increasingly complicated role of artificial intelligence in the creative world. They also get into one of the hardest parts of psychological suspense: creating charismatic, complicated antagonists who are convincing enough to fool intelligent characters—and readers—without hiding the truth from us unfairly. And for writers, Liv offers an important rule for writing page-turning fiction: End every chapter with the reader needing to know something else. Not necessarily a cliffhanger. Not necessarily someone hanging from a building. Just an unanswered question, a withheld piece of information, or a new discovery that makes putting the book down feel impossible. In This Episode Why writing psychological suspense may make you suspicious of everybody The Bluebeard-inspired idea that sparked Promise Me Never Why the mysterious locked room became such a powerful story engine Choosing POV characters and deciding when a story needs multiple timelines Using Poppy's timeline to avoid exposition and let her become a full character Artificial intelligence, art, plagiarism, commerce, and creative authenticity Why fiction can explore controversial questions without preaching an answer Keeping the author's opinions separate from a character's point of view How Liv Constantine constructs twists without lying to the reader Planting clues that become obvious only after you know the truth Why a great twist should make a book more rewarding on a reread Revising earlier chapters after you know exactly where the story is headed How red herrings exploit the assumptions readers bring to a story Why every strange detail eventually has to earn its place Working with editors to keep clues from revealing too much Creating charismatic, manipulative, and complicated antagonists Revealing cracks in a character before readers understand what those cracks mean Celebrity, obsession, and the unusual kind of fame novelists experience Writing protagonists who are vulnerable without becoming passive The differences between Savannah and Poppy and what drives each of them What happens when a character refuses to follow the author's original plan Liv's single most important piece of advice for aspiring suspense writers A tease about what's coming next in the Mrs. Parrish world About Promise Me Never At the center of Promise Me Never are secrets, ambition, art, marriage, celebrity, and the dangerous assumptions we make about the people closest to us. It's the kind of psychological suspense Liv Constantine has become known for: a story in which what you believe matters almost as much as what is actually true—and where the clues may have been sitting in front of you the entire time. Spoiler Note The conversation is largely spoiler-conscious regarding Promise Me Never. There is, however, a significant spoiler for Liv Constantine's earlier novel The Wife Stalker during the discussion of twist construction. Featured Book Promise Me Never by Liv Constantine If you love psychological suspense, unreliable perceptions, complicated characters, toxic relationships, red herrings, and twists that make you reconsider everything you've already read, add this one to your list. Story Craft Café Hosted by Hank Garner Conversations with writers about stories, storytelling, and the craft that keeps readers turning pages.

What if the problem with your creativity is not that you need more freedom? What if you need a smaller box? In this Fireside Chat, Hank Garner and Abby Mathews talk about forced scarcity: the creative practice of putting restrictions on yourself so your imagination has something to push against. Page limits. Time limits. Genre limits. A tiny cast. One location. One point of view. One impossible problem. It sounds like a prison, but for writers, it can become a playground. When everything is possible, it is easy to freeze. But when you give yourself a boundary, your brain starts looking for doors, windows, trapdoors, and secret passages. Restrictions create pressure. Pressure creates movement. Movement creates story. In this conversation, Hank and Abby discuss: Why unlimited options can stall your writing How constraints can make stories sharper and more focused Why “putting yourself in a box” can unlock better ideas How genre expectations can become creative tools instead of cages Practical ways to use limits when brainstorming, drafting, and revising How to write your way out instead of waiting for inspiration to strike Whether you are stuck in the middle of a draft, overwhelmed by too many story choices, or trying to turn a vague idea into something with shape, this conversation will help you see limits differently. Sometimes the box is not the thing that traps you. Sometimes the box is the thing that finally gives you a story. Pull up a chair. Let’s talk writing. #WritingTips #CreativeWriting #NovelWriting #WritingCommunity #DabbleWriter #StoryCraft #AuthorLife

What do you do with a first draft once you finally type “The End”? You put it in a drawer. At least for a little while. In this Fireside Chat, Hank Garner and Abby Mathews talk about one of the hardest transitions in the writing process: moving from finishing a draft to actually being ready to revise it. When you’ve lived inside a manuscript for weeks, months, or even years, you’re too close to it to see it clearly. Every scene still carries the memory of what you meant to write. Every character sounds right because you already know them. Every missing connection gets filled in automatically by your own brain. That’s why sometimes the best thing you can do for your novel is close the document, walk away, and give the story—and yourself—a little room to breathe. In this conversation, we’ll talk about: - Why distance makes you a better editor - How long you should consider letting a manuscript rest - What to do while your first draft is “in the drawer” - The difference between drafting brain and revision brain - Why you shouldn’t start fixing every sentence the moment you finish - How to come back to your manuscript with fresh eyes - What you should actually look for on that first read-through - How to move from “I finished a book!” to “Now I know how to make it better.” And yes, we’ll also talk about that terrifying moment when you reopen the manuscript and discover that the brilliant novel you remember writing has apparently been replaced overnight by something written by a sleep-deprived stranger. That’s normal. The first draft’s job was never to be perfect. Its job was to exist. Now you get to find out what the story really wants to become. Grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and join us for another Dabble Fireside Chat. Hosted by Hank Garner and Abby Mathews #WritingCommunity #WritingTips #NovelWriting #FirstDraft #Revision #Editing #WritersLife #Dabble #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice

Some characters walk onto the page, do their job, and disappear. Others stay with us. In this Fireside Chat, Hank Garner and Abby Mathews talk about round, flat, and foil characters—and why each one matters more than writers often realize. Not every character needs a tragic backstory, a ten-page wound, and a fully mapped emotional arc. Some characters are meant to change. Some are meant to stay wonderfully, stubbornly the same. And some are there to hold up a mirror so we can finally see the hero clearly. We’ll talk about: What makes a character “round” Why “flat” does not mean boring How foil characters reveal truth, tension, and contrast When a side character needs more depth—and when they do not How to build a cast that feels alive without overcomplicating your story Whether you’re writing a novel, revising a messy draft, or trying to figure out why one of your characters feels thin on the page, this conversation will help you think more clearly about the people who populate your story world. Pull up a chair. Let’s talk characters. #WritingTips #CreativeWriting #NovelWriting #CharacterDevelopment #DabbleWriter #WritingCommunity

Kevin Tumlinson, the Wordslinger, is back on the StoryCraft Cafe. We both came up during the first Kindle wave, and lately we've both felt it: that scrappy, take-the-bull-by-the-horns indie spirit is back, and a lot of it is being driven by what's happening in traditional publishing right now. We talk about why authors are walking away from trad deals, why AI detectors are a scam with a subscription button, how the Claude watermark actually works, and Kevin's best advice for new authors: forget the world and go own your fifty-mile radius. In This Episode The indie spirit is back (00:00) — Hank on the early David-and-Goliath days, the hybrid years, and why that energy is brewing again. What Kevin's up to (03:00) — The Wordslinger Podcast every Thursday, Ten Shots, and the new Story Cuts, reviewing movies and shows from a novelist's point of view. Back to the Wild West (04:40) — Draft2Digital's new $20 onboarding fee, and how the AI witch hunt has circled indie publishing back to its earliest days. AI as a writer's room (06:00) — Hank uses a chatbot like a friend across the coffee table for ideation. Nobody clicks a button and gets 80,000 words. Kevin remembers the same panic over Photoshop and CGI. Guilty until proven innocent (11:40) — The $2.4 million deal an agent pulled over an AI accusation. One more gate, and no law behind it. Hundreds of Kevin's viewers have given up on trad because of it. AI detectors are a racket (14:50) — A clean manuscript flagged "100% AI," then an upsell to "humanize" it. How the Claude watermark works (16:55) — Statistical word choices that add up across a fully generated manuscript. It can flag AI text, but it can't name the user. And you shouldn't be generating your book anyway. Assistive technology isn't cheating (19:10) — Non-native speakers, writers with disabilities, and a quadriplegic author who dictates his books. Never submit what the machine spits out, but don't demonize the tool. Add a unicorn, blow up the spaceship (22:10) — Two pieces of get-unstuck advice that still hold after fifteen years. Own your fifty miles (23:45) — A thousand true fans will support a career, so why hunt them worldwide? Kevin set out to be Austin's thriller writer: every bookstore, every farmers market, local ads. Then expand twenty-five miles at a time. How to become unavoidable (29:30) — Copies in every county library, friends at every bookshop, signings at coffee shops. You can't do that nationally on $500 a month, but you can at home. Hank's rural county has 100,000 people. Direct sales and the Amazon basket (32:30) — Build your store early but don't push it as the only way to buy. Let retailers do discovery, keep the email list growing, and have the storefront ready for the day Amazon shuts you off. School visits and Paolini (36:25) — Kevin's hundred talks at Houston schools moved a few thousand copies in three months. Eragon got found the same way. Trad math doesn't work (43:15) — Smaller advances, higher expectations, spine-out shelving, and no backup when accusations come. Kevin's direct store pays 97%. If you're the engine anyway, keep the money. Where publishing is headed (46:30) — The most divided Kevin has seen the industry since the early days. In five years the labels stop mattering. Indie and trad are merging, and the future is bright. Links Kevin's hub for books, Substack, and podcasts: kevintumlinson.com The Wordslinger Podcast, Ten Shots, and Story Cuts on YouTube The Writers, Ink podcast Draft2Digital Kevin Kelly, "1,000 True Fans" "If you can just dominate local, you will make a living." — Kevin Tumlinson Try out Dabble free for 14 days and see why it’s the best writing tool on the planet—no credit card required! Visit our website at www.dabblewriter.com to get started. Subscribe to our channel for more live events like author interviews, Writing Sprint Wednesdays, Feedback Fridays, and Fireside Chats. We're all about helping authors hone their craft with engaging, fun, and educational content. On top of all that, Dabble Premium members get access to exclusive content like Craft Q&A Office Hours, Wordsmith Workshops, Deep Dive articles, bonus resources, and guest speaker workshops. Happy writing! #IndiePublishing #SelfPublishing  #AuthorTube #KevinTumlinson #StoryCraftCafe #Wordslinger #WritingCommunity #WritingTips #WritingAdvice #AIandWriting #AIDetection #Draft2Digital #BookMarketing #DirectSales #1000TrueFans