Explore Fiction Writer’s Toolshed episodes, with practical tools for story ideas, plotting, revision, and your writing process.
ep 033 | October 26, 2026
Free Fiction Writing Help: Let's Work Through Your Writing Problem
Ask Tim for free help with the fiction you’re working on. Learn how the Unstoppable Maker invitation works, what you’ll agree to share and how to start the conversation.
Read the episode pageep 032 | October 16, 2026
The Business of Screenwriting: Pitching Scripts and Building Relationships (with Doug Hall)
Doug Hall discusses researching buyers, staying flexible in a pitch, building reliable working relationships and writing a single-location script.
Read the episode pageep 031 | October 9, 2026
Writing the Ending First: How to Build a Satisfying Story (with Doug Hall)
Choose your story’s destination, then build character conflict, dialogue and a midpoint that earn it. Doug Hall shares how he writes toward an ending that can still change.
Listen to and read the episodeep 030 | October 2, 2026
How to Turn a Screenplay Into a Novel: A Working Approach (with Mathew Tekulsky)
Explore what prose can add to a script through interior thought, selective description, and a scene-by-scene approach to adaptation.
Listen to and read the episodeep 029 | September 25, 2026
How to Adapt a Novel into a Screenplay (with Mathew Tekulsky)
Explore choosing scenes, cutting characters, adding action, and leaving room for actors when adapting fiction for the screen.
Listen to and read the episodeep 028 | September 18, 2026
Kill Your Darlings: How to Know What to Cut From Your Story
Use three questions to test what a loved scene or passage does to the reader’s experience, then decide whether to cut, change, move, or keep it.
Listen to and read the episodeep 027 | September 11, 2026
What Conan the Barbarian Teaches Us About Writing Stories Out of Order (with Matt Click)
Explore self-contained adventures at different points in a character’s life, with shared continuity and room between stories.
Listen to and read the episodeep 026 | September 7, 2026
What Makes Your Writing Original? (Even If the Idea Isn’t)
Explore how influences become choices, then try a short exercise to find the fingerprints already present in your fiction.
Listen to and read the episodeep 025 | August 31, 2026
How to Write a Scene That Earns Its Place
Choose what meaningfully changes in a scene, then explore the difference between empty activity and deliberate stillness.
Listen to and read the episodeep 024 | August 24, 2026
Trey Parker & Matt Stone’s Writing Rule: How to Fix an ‘And Then’ Plot
Try the Causal Chain Audit to find where your story’s events need stronger connections.
Listen to and read the episodeep 023 | August 17, 2026
Writer’s Block and Flow State: Start Writing, Stay Focused (with Steven Puri)
Explore cold starts, midway distractions, and premature self-editing, with a disposable first line to help you enter the draft.
Listen to and read the episodeep 022 | August 10, 2026
How to Get Into Flow State While Writing (with Steven Puri)
Experiment with timing, workspace, and sound to find writing conditions that help you focus.
Listen to and read the episodeep 021 | August 3, 2026
Say it First: Drafting Your Fiction Out Loud
Try four ways to talk a scene, then choose from nine starting tactics to create rough material you can transcribe and revise.
Listen to and read the episodeep 020 | July 27, 2026
What Should You Write? A Creative Core Audit for Fiction Writers
Use a four-question audit to notice what fascinates you and what you might be filtering out of your story ideas.
Listen to and read the episodeep 019 | July 20, 2026
Write This Instead of a Multiverse (with Matt Click)
Explore how recognizable core elements can support separate fictional continuities, with Gundam and Batman as starting points for new creative choices.
Listen to and read the episodeep 018 | July 13, 2026
Writer’s Block Solution (That Actually Works)
Try setup + build = payoff as a way to inspect a blocked story, then write a version you can change and decide which part needs to change.
Listen to and read the episodeep 017 | July 6, 2026
Fiction Writing Free Dive… or Die
Notice when preparation starts replacing writing, then make something without waiting for the perfect setup or a place in a larger project.
Listen to and read the episodeep 016 | June 29, 2026
Fiction Writer Help: 2 Keys on the Keyboard that Build a Bridge
Use bracketed notes to bridge gaps in a fiction draft, keep writing, and return deliberately to the details, scenes, and questions you’ve left open.
Listen to and read the episodeep 015 | June 15, 2026
You’re (STILL) Strangling Link, Wolverine, and Mario… Stop. (Diagnostic Follow Up)
Notice six ways perfectionism can stall your draft, then try working names, choices under pressure, worldbuilding that supports a scene, and writing ahead without revising earlier pages.
Listen to and read the episodeep 014 | May 11, 2026
You’re Strangling Link, Wolverine, and Mario… Stop.
Give an imperfect character or scene a chance to grow through writing, with Wolverine, Link and Mario as examples of ideas that developed over time.
Listen to and read the episodeep 013 | April 27, 2026
Ramona Ausubel on Getting Unstuck: A Writer’s Guide
Ramona Ausubel shares ways to begin a draft, write the scenes that interest you, and return to the work with more to build on.
Listen to and read the episodeep 012 | April 20, 2026
Writing a Novella Series with J.A. Merkel
J.A. Merkel shares how he connects novella-length stories, varies familiar elements, and revises early setups before releasing later books.
Listen to and read the episodeep 011 | April 6, 2026
The Creation Funnel, Part 2: What to Do When You’re Stuck
Find the stage your writing project is in, recognize what may be holding you up, and choose one practical tool to move forward.
Listen to and read the episodeep 010 | March 30, 2026
The Creation Funnel, Part 1: 8 Stages of Making Anything
Follow a creative project through eight stages, understand what each stage is for, and see why a difficult stretch doesn’t always mean you’re failing.
Listen to and read the episodeep 009 | March 23, 2026
How to Start Writing When You Don’t Feel Like It
Stop waiting to feel ready. Try a rough start and an eleven-minute fiction prompt to move an idea from your head onto the page.
Listen to and read the episodeep 008 | March 16, 2026
Why You Should Stop Writing Your Novel
Consider whether your novel is too much to learn on right now. Try a 5,000-word story to practice finishing, learn scope, and discover the forms you enjoy.
Listen to and read the episodeep 007 | March 9, 2026
3 Nutrients of Finished Fiction
Keep a novel going with small finished pieces. Explore closure, momentum and a finish line you can see, then try 200 words about a ghost ship.
Listen to and read the episodeep 006 | February 23, 2026
What Writers Lose on Accident
When every idea has to prove you’re improving, play can slip away. Explore Tim’s invitation to make something because it interests or amuses you.
Listen to and read the episodeep 005 | February 16, 2026
Fiction Farming vs. Fiction Cooking
Are you gathering ideas or shaping them into writing? Use Tim’s farming and cooking comparison to match the work to the moment and apply judgment where it helps.
Listen to and read the episodeep 004 | February 9, 2026
6 Elemental Pieces of Mastering Fiction Writing -- Part 2
Find signs that your craft, ideas, project design, process, sustainment or creative inputs need attention, then try an exercise for the area that fits.
Listen to and read the episodeep 003 | February 9, 2026
6 Elemental Pieces of Mastering Fiction Writing -- Part 1
Look beyond craft at six areas of your writing practice, and rate where you are now before continuing to Part 2.
Listen to and read the episodeep 002 | February 9, 2026
Choosing What to Write (The Mosaic Method)
Stuck choosing between story ideas? Try making small, finished pieces within your projects while you decide which larger work to focus on.
Listen to and read the episodeep 001 | January 30, 2026
If You Write Fiction This Podcast Is for You -- Here’s Why
Meet Tim Kearney and the two principles behind the show: adapting your current best approach and seeing how fiction gets made while the work is still messy.
Listen to and read the episodeAbout Fiction Writer’s Toolshed
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