This is K.M. Wyland, and you are listening to the 42nd episode of the Wordplay

podcast. I'm not quite halfway through to the which is a skin away from my minimum goal of 30,000

and almost halfway to my pipe dream goal of 50,000.

Yep, I'm a very happy duck.

I'm a huge fan of lengthy fiction.

I love bringing home huge weighty volumes of 800 pages or more, but I am not a fan of bloated

a rambling unnecessary writing.

If a book didn't need every single word, every single one of those 800 pages, my delight is likely to turn to boredom and frustration,

which of course is why I'm weighing my every word in dreamers come, and surprising myself

by how many unnecessary words I'm able to cut. The prose feels much leaner, much

fitter, and the story already feels much faster and more energetic, more like a track star than

a sumo wrestler. Here's hoping the second half of the book is as much fun to edit as the first.

Fiction gimmicks that work, the latest post in the video series on my blog,

uses Orson Scott Card's acclaimeder series to show how contrived story

techniques can actually bring a whole new depth to your storytelling, but only if you use

them correctly. You can watch the video on my blog at wordplay dash k-m-Yland that's W-E-I-L-A-N-D dot blog spot.

New videos are posted every Wednesday.

Meanwhile enjoy this week's podcast. What a mouse can teach you about Story Arc.

Who knew furry little rodents were such experts on Story Arc. To get the full benefit of this

post you'll have to make a detour by my blog at wordplay dash kam-wyland dot blog spot

com and take a look at the featured video to see the foundational art of the three-act structure acted out to perfection.

This charming little story features almost all of the important tenets of a story arc,

...