This is K.M. Wyland and you're listening to the 141st episode of the word play podcast.

Plot snarls were the name in the game this week.

I realized I had created quite a little conundrum for myself by placing two characters who

needed to be in the same scene on opposite sides of the country.

Whoops!

And then further realized that an important military maneuver in the subsequent chapters

was similarly hampered by geographical improbabilities.

So it was back to the drawing board, the map, and the calculators,

as I tried to devise routes that would get all the characters where they needed to be,

when they needed to be.

Looks like we'll have to add catographer and military strategists to the job titles of an author.

Do you know the two ingredients of a perfect ending?

The latest post in the video series on my blog talks about how

authors must magically combine inevitability and unexpectedness to give readers a satisfying

finale. You can watch the video on my blog at wordplay-K-M-Y-L-N-E-N-D dot blog spot.

New videos are posted every Wednesday.

And now I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast.

The Secrets of Story Structure Part 5,

The Inciting Event and the Key Event.

The first quarter of your story hinges upon two important

and irreversible moments, the inciting event and the key event. I've saved our discussion

of inciting and key events until this late in the series,

...