This is K.M. Island and you're listening to the 281 episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

It never ceases to amaze me how different every book I write turns out to be. And I don't just mean the

stories, but the processes from book to book. When I wrote Storming two summers

ago, it was one of those special stories that just worked out right from the start.

The character's voice popped up right away.

Even the first chapter, which I inevitably labor over, turned out almost exactly right at the first pop.

Wayfarer, the historical superhero story I'm now working on,

is not surprisingly going its own way as well.

Its first chapters haven't been quite the breeze that Stormings were, but it's a delight to discover new characters and how they want to develop on the page.

It's like finally meeting someone with whom you've been

corresponding for a long time, you know a lot about them, and yet they're never

exactly what you expect. Yet another joy of being a writer. The latest post in the video

series on my blog is the single best trick for originality in your fiction.

It shares the most important question you can ask yourself about

originality in your fiction and how to access it in every single scene. To find the post, visit my site at helping writers become authors.com.

And now I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast entitled The Crucial Way to Figure Out

How Much Time Your Story Should Cover.

Do you know off the top of your head how much time your story should cover. If not you're

definitely not alone. This is a tough question for most authors to answer. I

keep track of the date and time of each scene in my story and I still couldn't tell you off the top of my head how much time my work and progress wayfarer covers.

I looked it was a month and a half but this is an important factor in any story. As such, let us now

take a moment to consider now how much time your story

...