Thank you for all your hard work sharing your knowledge with us

This was such a useful and eye-opening analysis of the industry process, and the only way it could be done as clearly as it was by it being real life. Your sharing was generous to us as learners. Thank you.

Hey Bradley, enjoying the videos! Just a small suggestion, you may want to make the thumbnails (perhaps your pose or expression) a little more varied. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’ve already watched a video unless I look at the date you’ve posted it.

these videos are truly amazing. i cannot believe this kind of depth in content is free. thank you so much! I've written 3 manuscripts now, and made several full drafts of the first one, but still feel like I have so much to learn. getting into revision has been very difficult for me, but mostly the difficulties have been in the organization and keeping track of everything. I think, after what has been a LOT of time and effort, my first one is finally in an alright spot--good enough I've been able to send it out to some beta readers. and after writing more manuscripts and getting more familiar with revision and editing, i think I'm finally at a skill level where i'll be able to go back and make a final draft that I'm happy with this video has really given me a lot of perspective on what that process will look like. thank you again

I wish i would have had this video for my debut novel. What a stressful time. I had no idea what i was getting into and had only done loose edits with my agent before the book went out on submission. I hope writers realize just how valuable this video is!

I'm going through this right now. Can't believe what a great time it is for your upload. Thanj you. This deserves way more views! Also, if you have some channel-related spcials, I would love to connect & at least say hi and maybe collaborate in some way in the future (my channel is also small but we can groe together maybe).

But...can you recommend a world class lit fiction editors who works affordably? I'm looking through the classifieds...

Fantastic breakdown! Thank you for putting your work on the line for instructive purposes 🙏🏾

Love the videos and the use of the incredibles here. Very relatable to fiction. Keep em coming! Sharing with my two writing groups this month!

Thank you sir, have check out your other work.

Thank you for making such detailed advice that’s not behind a paywall! I just found your channel through this video (which is great) and I’m excited to work through the rest of your content :)

شكرا 😊thank you

Ive watched all of your videos!! So glad I found you! It’s all been incredibly helpful to me

The First Five Pages changed my writing and thought process about writing. I don't think I would have been traditionally published without what I learned from it.

pog

New subscriber here

Good list, thank you. One of my favourites is John Yorke's "Into the Woods."

Very helpful, thank you! I'm a new subscriber :) At 31:45, you mention a not so used point of view, but I did not catch what you said, neither did the captions. It sounded like omnition. Can you type the term, please?

Great video, I love this series❤ I only recently started my book, but I've been a huge fan of TTRPGs both as a player and a DM. As a Dungeon Master, I always love to creat my world, campaign's settings One question, that helped me a lot with world building: "What do I want and need to show my players(/readers) to move the story forward?" If I have an idea for later, I write it down in a few loose bulletpoints. With this I can focus on and flesh out those ideas which come up sooner, but have the freedom to change, add more if needed, the ones later down the line. This approach helped a lot with nearly every part of creating, telling a story.

(You have a typo in your video title - 'Wiriting')

Techniques of the Selling Writer is definitely one of my favorites for how comprehensive it is. Jack M. Bickham's books I feel build upon Swain's ideas (he lists Swain as a teacher and friend in Scene and Sequel) and great for focusing on a single element of writing. All the Elements of Fiction Writing books I've read have been great, as well as On Writing by Stephen King. It's fairly light on craft, but it shows that even the best of the best had to put in a ton of work to get where they are.

03:26 Writing the Breakout Novel - Donald Maass 04:25 Techniques of the Selling Writer - Dwight Swain 05:05 Beginnings, Middles & Ends - Nancy Kress 05:49 The First Five Pages - Noah Lukeman 06:59 Scene & Structure - Jack Bickham 07:20 Setting - Jack Bickham 08:44 Conflict, Action & Suspense - William Noble 09:18 The Elements of Style - William Strunk, William Strunk Junior, E. B. White 09:39 Woe is I. The Grammarphobes Guide to Better English in Plain English - Patricia T. O'Conner 11:04 Self-Editing for Fiction Writers - Renni Browne and Dave King; George Booth (ill)

I've read all of these except Woe is I, and coincidentally I'm currently reading Maass' The Emotional Craft of Writing, which is excellent. I'd also recommend anything by Sol Stein, who has books on both writing and being a novelist, which he treats as different disciplines.

If there is not a sequel following a scene, is there always a transition? I realize 'always' sounds ridgid, but is there 'usually' at least a transition between scenes?

I like the sword

Fiction-Writing Modes: Eleven Essential Tools for Bringing Your Story to Life by Mike Klaassen

Awesome video series Brad thanks for all you do!

Excellent video, Bradley. I'm writing epic fantasy and definitely plot out my story scenes as much as Brandon Sanderson and co.. It's lovely to get into the creative zone with the security of knowing where all the story beats need to go for multiple character arcs. Thank you for all your wonderful insights. ❤

Thank you for this video, I've been looking at Scrivener for some time now, I use word and Hemingway currently but they're not great. I do all my research, character sketch and notes/outlines on separate files. I was wondering, does Srivener save everything locally or do you need a cloud style account? is it a one time purchase?

cool

I've been using Scrivener on PC for about 10 years and it still doesn't seem as slick as on your Mac! But it's getting there. What I do is plot each scene quite heavily and put that in a left-hand pane, linked to a series of chapter outlines in the Binder. So the Binder has two long lists: Outline 1, Outline 2 etc - clicking on this opens the relevant textual outline in the left hand pane. Below is the standard Chapter list with scenes collected in them. These show in the right hand pane. So I always have my outline visible (I narrow the pane to maintain a larger writing area in pane 2) and can then write the actual scene by referring to its outline. Another thing I find useful is the two sets of arrows above each pane - one set moves up and down your list of chapters and scenes; the other goes back and forth through recently visited documents, like the back button on an internet browser.

I've found outline view and custom metadata highly useful for plotting.

How would you treat an anthology in Scrivener? I'm writing an anthology of short fiction where each story is a about a different character but there is one character that is a thread through all? Each character/chapter has several scene beats. I hope it's okay to share your channel with my group members. TYI Joel

The keyboard shortcuts are awesome! Been using Scriv for years and somehow never picked them up. Thanks!

LOL I'm not sure, but I think I found your video minutes after you posted it! Thanks YT-Algorithm gods!

Excellent video. I've been using Scriv for a decade now, and wish I could say I learned lots of new stuff. Regardless, it was great to confirm some of my usage, and tweak a couple of processes to make them more streamlined. Always love to hear about the shortcuts--keyboard or otherwise. Can't wait to see the other vids, I'm now a new subscriber!

Man, the hunger games plot is so painfully dumb, it's too distracting to pay attention to your points

Thank you for each video! As a designer who started working on her story idea in 2025, I had so many questions about how storytelling works - your explanations and your own experience sooth my soul! I wonder what your MBTI type is, I would structure these videos in the same exact way if I had your knowledge, I'm amazed by your presentations

As an aspiring writer, these videos have been quite the blessing, miles better than many other content creators. Can't wait for the next one! Cheers

I recently wrote a scene in a rough draft that includes an info dump. As I wrote, I knew it was an info dump, but it helped me see a new element that I hadn't considered before. In this case the info dump is for me. I'll pull it out in edits, scatter relevant details around the manuscript as necessary, and keep the rest as background info for myself. I think my point here is that in the initial drafts, an info dump can be super useful. Writing into a discovery is a ton of fun, and this was invaluable to me as I discovered a new element.

Love your breakdowns and advice and how to build an engaging story. Heads and shoulders above most of what I find on KZbin.

Love these videos! So much great information for unpublished writers like myself. Glad you took the criticism as constructive. The engagement with fans of your work and people that just stumble on your videos is really rare and dare I say, cool. Keep making these because they are making a difference in my writing.

Thank you so much. I can't wait for your next video. One lesson I haven't found anyone teach yet, which I think would be helpful for writers, is an exhaustive list of plot devices(?). Tricks like Chekhovs gun, Red Herring, Ticking Clock, Crystal ball, etc. These devices can add a lot to a story, and I know there's more, but I don't know them all. Thank you in advance for any video you put out because it will be gold, but if you make this one, double thank you.

very instructive, on my first draft i found i was doing a lot of that locomotive story telling, on my second draft ive been able to condense entire chapters into a few paragraphs instead