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Show don’t tell Writing Podcast: Episode #51 Q&A

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On Friday, June 20th, 2025, Suzy held an Open House for her Inner Circle membership program. In addition to a workshop, there was an open Q&A session. Tune in for a frank discussion of writers’ most burning questions, including: 

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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)

51. Inner Circle Q&ADownload

 Welcome to Show. Don’t Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step. We’re gonna explore writing techniques. I’m gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers’ careers that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

And I’m also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re drafting your first book, you’re editing, or you’re currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show’s gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn’t even know you needed, but you definitely do.

I’m so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, and you’re gonna also have some fun doing it. Let’s dive in. Good morning, good afternoon. Good evening everyone.

Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome. I am going to answer all these awesome questions that you guys have put in. Karen p. Hi, Karen. Okay. How do I decide on my book structure? I have many ideas for pieces of the book, but I haven’t settled on a structure and I continue to write the stories I think I want to include, so at least I feel like I’m making some progress.

Okay. Karen, that is a really good question. You are writing memoir, I believe. So when you’re writing memoir, the very first thing that I would do is go back to this takeaway exercise that we did today, because memoir, again, we’re not talking about. The very first moment that you breathe and then the very last moment that you breathe.

It’s not everything all the time. So what do you want your readers to take away? And then it sounds like you’ve already got some stories and you know what you want, right? So how do you put them into a structure? I. Well, the first thing that I would do is I would look at what is that journey that you are actually demonstrating of yourself?

You went from what to what? You went from wallflower to proactive. You went from richest rags. I don’t know what the journey is, but define that. That becomes your first scene and your last scene showing us those moments, right When you were rags. When you were riches Cinderella story, scrubbing the floors.

I’m at my wedding to the Prince, right? Like those are the moments, iconic moments. The first and last. And then map them in between. And what you’re looking for is how each one progresses to the next, okay. How each scene progresses to the next. I would even leave leading or trailing things at the end of each chapter leading us into the next one, right?

What, what can we expect next? So lay all of those stories out in a line also. I mean, usually the answer is. Chronological. It’s the easiest way to write a book. So when writers come to me with really complex structures, sometimes I’m like, guys, especially if it’s your first book, it’s really difficult to pull it off, right?

And it doesn’t always have the payoff unless you’re writing a thriller or a suspense novel where sometimes the structure is needed to like hide things. Most folks, the answer is basic chronological order. So lay it out that way. See if you can highlight all the things that will lead them to your takeaway and go from there.

Diana, if a big agent tells you he’s putting in a good word with one of his junior agents, is there a good possibility you’ll get signed? Yes, absolutely. Working hard to make the manuscript as strong as possible too. Okay, Diana, if you’ve gotten that, that’s amazing feedback. So put in a good word. So agencies work in different ways.

Ultimately, each agent gets to decide if they will. Typically, they get to decide if they want to represent you, but. A good word is always a good word. Okay. So depending on the agency, they probably will pass it on. It means that you can’t continue to query within that same agency until you’ve heard back.

But yeah, good luck. Let me know how it goes. Okay, Tony, what if it doesn’t fit your takeaway, but as part of your world building? Some things aren’t going to fit your takeaway. Yes. And you need it for the world building, but the world building, you can also put things in there, Tony. So if you’ve got, Tony’s got a, a fantasy novel, it has a really strong message.

So just like when you’re including things in world building, those should also somehow, I. Teach. Okay, so make sure I, I talk about this all the time. If you guys have heard me talk about this when I read a science fiction novel and they’re eating spaghetti, and I say, why are they eating spaghetti? And the answer is, because I had spaghetti for dinner the day that I was writing it.

Just make sure that it makes sense. Like if they’re, maybe they’re eating hydroponic vegetables, which could show us that they’re growing hydroponic vegetables somewhere else, right? So just make sure that everything that you include in your world building also is leading to that. You’re gonna find connections that you didn’t know were possible, right?

So your central sort of world building is around the storm and around those things. So your world building, if you’re including something about the storm, that storm is a metaphor for lots of things that are happening in your book and for your takeaway and for all of those other things. So everything should tie in.

Send me something that’s specific that you don’t think fits. I bet it does. Raven, my main protagonist has psychic visions. Oh, cool. My narrative shifts from first person point of view to third person point of view during her episodes. What ways can I convey the point of view shift from scene A to scene B and back to scene A without jarring the reader.

Okay. First person to third person during her episodes. Okay, so that’s a really specific choice. You can definitely do that. There’s lots of precedent for that in science fiction and fantasy where you switch the narrative. I would just say that whatever you’re doing when you’re doing these psychic visions, this comes up in many different ways in many different books, and I would just make sure that you’re making it big.

Then it’s weird. Make it big, make it weird. So if she’s having a psychic vision, is there a feeling in her body that happens that signals us that this is about to happen? Is there, is there a color? Is there a mist? Is there is? Does she actually, when she’s in the psychic visions, are you in her body experiencing it?

Or is she just sitting there in a chair while this is playing in her mind? Right? Like all of these decisions that you have to make about how it. How it works. I would make it big and make it really, really obvious. Okay. I would make it really, really obvious. And when you do these psychic visions and you switch into a different point of view, I would just do like a scene break.

Scene break, baby, and avoid italics. Please don’t put the entire psychic vision in italics. That’s very 20 years ago. So yeah, that’s some tips there. Anna, my original point of view is with the main character, I’m contemplating having a point of view, but only want them in some scenes. How many times do I need to include the second point of view?

Can the rule of three apply to this one? Okay. So Anna’s talking about the rule of three, which is three times, like two times. Actually establishes a pattern. So if you want your readers to get that, something happens all the time. You really only have to show them twice. They know it’s happening all the time.

And then the third time is usually like a punchline or a something that you deliver. Yeah. You could use the rule of three. It depends is the answer. I like to say that unless your character is, you know, you don’t wanna just have a singular scene in a different point of view. That’s. It’s really hard on the reader.

You have to learn something. You’re never gonna be able to develop that character in one scene. So typically three would be, you know, probably the minimum. I like to say 20%, especially if you’ve got 80% as the other character. Typically in a today’s books, you have a max of four or five point of view characters.

I was just speaking with a very prominent writer. His next book, he’s got 11. Um, but that’s a challenge, right? That he’s taken on in it’s book 35 in his career, so he can do it. But I would say, you know, when you’re first starting out, keeping it simple and keeping the number of point of view characters as succinct as you can is a really good idea.

So yeah, try three scenes and see what happens, but make sure that in those three scenes that there’s some growth of that character and that their storyline gets wrapped up and all those threads that you kind of open. Also wrapped up so that it’s satisfying for your reader. Awesome. Another point of view is an awesome idea.

I like just, I like to have the points of view be really clean and be at the chapter break, but you can do just a scene break as well, especially if you know that’s really common in say, when you have dual points of view in a romance, it’s really common to just have a scene break, but it’s easier to do a chapter break and cleaner for your reader.

So up to you. Okay, Lynn, I’m writing commercial rather than literary fiction. I have three important characters and thus arc and subplots. How do I know if it’s too complicated and how I might look sit? Okay, so when Glen’s talking about commercial rather than literary commercial tends to be more plot focused and a little bit less character driven.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have awesome and amazing character arcs. In fact, you should, and it will help your writing stand out. So the plot, both the plot arc and the character arc can kind of work together and they can push and mirror and contrast and do all those things that we’ve been talking about throughout, which is awesome.

How do I know if it’s too complicated? I mean, you’ve got three important characters, Lynn. What I would say is this, take one as your main character. Okay. And the way that you can pick that one is who do you want your readers to care about the most, and who do you want them to connect with? And make sure that you’re opening with that character’s story.

Okay? When you’ve got multiple points of view, make sure that you’re opening with that character’s story and that we, we connect with them the most. Now, writers, as will fight beyond this and say, you know, it’s not only one person’s story, it’s all three are important, okay? Pick one anyway. Pick one anyway, to map out your, your book structure as the spine, and then the other characters can kind of weave and contrast.

So what you want is to have your one character arc and then to have the other characters mirroring, contrasting, sounding familiar, mirroring, contrasting. We’re pushing your character to make choices, right? So if you think of it that way, you can simplify it a lot. You can simplify it a lot. Pick who the one, one person is that you want your readers to identify them with the most, and then let the others kind of flow.

And when they hit those moments at the same time or, or they kind of crush together where they’re doing different things, those are those really sweet spots that make multiple points of view really exciting. Okay. How are you? You know, is it complicated? I don’t know. One of the biggest things you can do is make things as chronological as you can to simplify, but it just depends on your story.

Okay. I look forward to hearing more about it. Okay. Most coaches will reveal their successes. I’d love to see a coach mention the reasons writers didn’t stay or finish or publish. Yeah. Really valid point. And I think I mentioned at the beginning, I’m not sure if you were here. At the very beginning, but I did talk about the fail points and where writers often fail and where they fail is really feeling overwhelmed in the writing process or feeling overwhelmed in and and not finishing.

’cause they just don’t realize that it’s gonna take as long as it takes. Or they tend to get the writing and editing really meshed together. They feel like they’re not making progress, but they are. ’cause new writing is one thing and then revisions is another. And so there’s lots of times that they fail.

I’ve also worked with several, particularly in nonfiction writers that don’t finish for lots of reasons, and I, I’m still cheering them on and they’re really good reasons in their life. But sometimes writers, especially writing memoir, once they get it all down and they realize like, and they look at the promotion and everything else, they realize maybe it wasn’t their story to tell or maybe maybe they just.

Really wanted to share that with their friends and family. So not all writers publish their memoirs. I find that, and even though they really found it cathartic. The other thing I think that where writers don’t, I wouldn’t say they don’t finish ’cause coached, writers finish. Generally writers that I work with, they finish their books.

They do. They don’t always publish them. So if you get really stuck on, you know, really wanting traditional publishing and yet not building in. All the way along, keeping your reader in mind, keeping the categories that publishers are looking for in mind, and you realize that you wrote something that’s really awesome.

I know at least one writer is still here today that this has happened to you, where they wrote something that they knew didn’t fit into any category, and then they realize they’re getting these warm rejections where agents are literally saying, I love your book, but I don’t know how to sell it. But yeah, I don’t know how to sell it.

And now when they’re working on book two, they are paying more attention to what the readers are looking for and what the publishers are looking for. Now, if that writer wants to take that book and independently publish it, that’d be great. But, but that writer in particular wants to work with traditional publishing.

So if your goal is to publish traditionally, you have to pay even more attention to what the market is doing. To what readers are looking for, because otherwise you might have written an amazing book that doesn’t have a home. Now, once that writer writes book two and figures out their place in the world, the hope is that that very first book will come out, and I think that’s what’s gonna happen for her.

I hope that this has been super helpful. Thank you guys for sticking with me the first time I’ve ever given a two hour workshop, but I love that it gave you guys the time and the space to write and to have some time to write. I’m super excited for all of you who are joining the Inner Circle, and it all gets kicked off in July.

I can’t wait to work with so many writers all the way along the way and to see this real progress that you’ve made. I hope to talk to you all soon. Bye everyone. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to show. No. Tell Writing With me, Suzy Vadori, help me continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening. Also visit suzyvadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you’ll stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community.

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