This is K.M. Wyland, and you are listening to the 481st episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

As I'm transcribing a notebooks worth of notes from my ongoing outline for the third book in my Dreamlander trilogy.

I'm reminded of how awesome the writer-centric word processing software

Scrivener is.

I love Scrivener when drafting, but I really really love it when I'm neck deep in a swarm of totally nonlinear, half-baked

outline notes.

Scrivener makes it so easy to organize folders and files so that I can see at a glance where the pieces are going to start fitting together. Writers who are new to Scribner sometimes find the program overwhelming, but once you understand the basics of how it works, it is far less overwhelming

than all the craziness spewing out of our writer brains at any given moment.

I'm still looking forward to Scriveners's supposedly imminent release of version 3 for PC later this year,

but even as it is, it is easily one of, if not the most important tools I use.

And now I hope you enjoy this week's podcast a challenge to write life-changing fiction. Stories have intentions.

That wonderful idea was just one of many nuggets I found myself highlighting in what has so

far turned out to be my surprise read of the year. Noted literary agent Donald Moss's The Emotional

Craft of Fiction. Like many of you, I cut my teeth on Moss's now classic writing the breakout novel but for whatever reason never followed up with

any of his many other writing guides even though they're all on my t-b-b-r list.

Fast forward 16 years to earlier this year when I caught emotional craft of fiction as part of a Kindle

sale.

I started reading it about a month ago, fully expecting a smart but conventional tone of

tips for drawing dimension into characters. I got that, but what I wasn't expecting was that

non-fiction though it is, this would be one of those books with intentions.

Just as the best of all writing advice should, the wisdom found in this book applies to so much

more than just writing.

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