This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 126 episode of the Word Play Podcast.

I'm always talking about the importance of learning and polishing the craft.

But I also can't emphasize enough the importance that gut instinct plays in a writer's creation process. I learned long ago to trust my inner story

since, and I've been relying on it quite a bit this week as I work through rewrites on my fantasy

Dreamlander. Whenever I find myself blocked on a particular story problem, it's almost always because I'm fighting my gut instinct.

I've been working on a scene that builds up to an important battle in the subsequent capture of the protagonist.

After trying to write the lead-up scene and the fight scene as one cohesive scene, and repeatedly smashing into that block,

I finally gave into what my inner story sense was saying, that I needed to stick a chapter break between

the two scenes.

And what do you know?

Wala, the problem was solved instantaneously.

The lesson learned here is that I should listen to my gut the first time it tells me what to do.

How much should you explain in a story's beginning?

The latest post in the video series on my blog reviews some of the pitfalls of info dumping in the first chapter and how to avoid them.

You can watch the video on my blog at wordplay-K-M-Yland, that's W-M-Y-L-N-D. blog spot.com.

New videos are posted every Wednesday.

And now I hope you'll enjoy this week's podcast.

25 under 2525 useful and whimsical gifts for

riders. With Christmas right around the corner we're all making our lists and

checking them twice. Writers are generally pretty easy folks to buy for.

Give us a book by our favorite author or an Amazon gift card,

and we're pretty much ready to dub the giver our favorite Christmas elf.

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