This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 175 episode episode of the word play podcast.

I've been digging into the next rewrite of my historical The Deepest Brath.

I've been putting it off for a while both to let other projects wind down and to sort of catch my second wind

for another go at it.

I took the time to chart the arc of every scene, both to identify characters' goals and the conflict impeding them from achieving those

goals too easily.

It was totally worth it.

It helped me spot some weak points that were niggling at me without really telling me what was wrong.

And another thing I did was to go over my big reveals, the moments in which crucial information

was revealed both to the characters and the readers.

Then I went back and made certain I wasn't playing my hand too

soon or hinting too broadly in earlier scenes. So now I'm finally ready to dive into the

rewrite itself.

Pour on the conflict.

The latest post in the video series on my blog reveals the varied layers of conflict we can choose to include in our stories

and why we want as many of those layers as possible.

To watch it, visit my website at helping writers become authors.com.

New videos are posted every Wednesday.

And while you're there, be sure to check out the fun post 15 degrees of inspiration for

Dreamlander which went live last Friday and now I hope you enjoyed this

week's podcast the third in the series what I learned writing Dreamlander

this installment is titled why non-writers give the best critiques. What qualifies someone as a beta reader? The term itself tells us this person is someone who reads an early draft of the story, but there's so much more than just that. I like to think of

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