Korbin's Korner

NaNoWriMo is HERE! It's about getting your First Draft out and on paper for you to see, not rewrite it over and over again.    Honestly, Rewrites scare budding authors. We don't like the idea of redoing our work or messing with our masterpiece. But, rewriting is a chance for us to make our work better. Right now, however, is not the time for rewrites. Right now is about accepting that you are writing a first draft and being excited about that.   So, let's dive in!

Let's be honest, we judge every book by its cover...   Covers are how we market to our customers and they're the biggest marketing tools that we have at our disposal. How our books look will be the doorway for our readers into our world. So, where do you start? How do you get a book cover that works for your story?   Get the details here!

Have you bitten off more than you can chew?   There's no shame in it. Writers have ambitions that are often way too much for them to handle, especially when we're first starting out. This episode is dedicated to stop trying to save the world and start saving just one person. We're narrowing the scope on our ambitions to make a story that is lean, tight, and fierce.   It's time to start writing better stories, not larger ones!

Too many of us want to be Superman, but not enough of us realize that people need and want to see Clark Kent first... It doesn't matter what story we're telling ourselves, whether it's "I'm not interesting enough." "I'm not accomplished enough" or "I'm not talented enough." It doesn't matter. Learn to love your journey! Learn to realize that your story matters, even the rough beginning. If you're ready to start your journey of creating content, then listen in and let's awaken your story!

People need to know who you are... Right now, if you're not an established author, cultural icon, or social media savant; you're probably fairly obscure. If you're like me and want to start growing as a presence to be known and kept up on, then there's something we need to start doing. Put down the controller, phone, tablet, computer, or remote and start publishing content! Start publishing your face off!  So, how do you start putting out content that people want to look at, watch, read, or listen to? Well, tune in and find out!

Most writers know their books is crumbling... It happens around the Act points. They can feel it in their gut. They're lost. Things are boring. No one is going to read this. They're lost. What they lack is that One Thing. The Singular idea that tethers it all together, that anchors the grand and nebulous to the emotional and relatable. The seed that your story needed to grow from is gone, missing, because you never took the time to plant it.   All it takes is one sentence.   Find out how to narrow down that One Thing your story needs in this episode of Korbin's Korner.

In this episode, we're going to explore the unique relationship between art and business in the self publishing world. It is also a declaration and a line in the stand for my listeners and myself as I begin and extraordinary expedition to see just how far one writer can go in the self publishing world.   If you're ready to see what it takes to begin that journey, Season 2 starts out with a bang, showing you just where to start. With a simple, actionable step, we begin the snowball effect in writing with the most powerful tool in any business' arsenal: the Email List.   Listen in and find out where to begin and how to start leveraging this simple, basic, and easy tool to start making money!   For an Easy Example check out: www.KorbinVoss.com   

When it comes to writing a novel, there are so many of us that fall into a wooden category. Our stories come off boring or there's something missing, a soul, an essence of life. What you're missing is the injection of your voice. In this week's episode, we talk about what makes an author's book stand out and come to life. How you take your voice and put it on the page so that you are distinctly yours. It's what makes Stephen King stand out from HP Lovecraft and how Martin stands out from Pratchett. Your voice is the one thing that will make your readers identify with your story, bring life to your characters, and help them feel emotions that we as writers desperately crave to deliver.

There are numerous Antagonists that stick out in literature, movies, video games, and anywhere stories are told. They are part of the foundational characters in every story and whether you are coining Space and Nature as the villain of your story or a blood thirsty psychopath chasing them through the streets of San Fransisco, you need them to shine. After all, your Protagonist is only as powerful as the Antagonist forces them to be. If you want tips for making your Antagonist stand out in the halls of such juggernauts as Moby Dick, Randall Flagg, or the Joker, then take a listen and find out how you can start improving your Antagonist right now! If you're looking to sign up for the free writing webclass that I'm hosting, head over to korbinvoss.com

In every action scene, there's a lot going on. Arrows flying, fists punching, starships exploding, henchmen dying, and steel crashing on steel. Amidst all the fiery explosions, rainstorms of glass, and Wilhelm screams, every action scene boils down to four major elements and one continually changing spectrum that you, as the author, need to master if you're going to effectively tell an action scene that doesn't come off wooden and hollow. Want to know the secrets of making your readers feel the stakes and the emotion of a harrowing experience? Listen to find out.

For many writers out there, stories come to them in nebulous clouds that are large enough to feel daunting and impossible. How do you wrangle something as big and as vague as the story that has popped into my head?  Well, it's not easy if you're trying to work it out by yourself. Today, I'm going to give you some tools to break down this mountain of a story inside of you so that you can see it in manageable chunks. In fact, it'll probably help you see some of the places that are already proving to be a problem. So listen in and find out how you can get a bird's eye view of the project that you're undertaking and how you can compress your story into the smaller chunks that you'll one day need for blurbs, query letters, and pitches.

Dialogue is one of the main pillars of writing that seems to be crumbling and collapsing for many writers who just can't get it together and don't know why. Well, it's a lot of work and take it from someone who has always burned through dialogue like a wildfire through California, there are some natural tricks that you can start implementing right now to get your dialogue off the ground and raging. This is one of those episodes where I toss out pure gold that makes the whole thing worth it. 

When it comes to the writing community, so many people are either paying too much money and time for something that isn't properly equipping them with becoming a writer, or they're not paying anything to become a writer and they are baffled by their meager results. The difficult truth is that a writer must develop and hone their skills through one of two ways, spending copious amounts of time and dedication developing their skills through trial and error, or by paying for the wisdom and knowledge of those more progressed than they to help them develop their skills faster. If you are not paying to learn precious knowledge from others or spending immense amounts of time writing with a daily schedule, then you are sabotaging your success. Take a listen to find out how you can actively invest in your success through one of the two main sacrifices an author must make!

There are two aspects to a writer's life and that is the artistic side of the craft and the business side that helps them make money doing what they love. Today, we're going to talk about forging intentional relationships with people who are going to help you achieve your businesses goals. After all, every writer would love to make money doing what they love. So how do you find people that are going to help build you up, spot flaws in your business strategies, and help you find issues for complex problems that you're facing? Well, listen to find out how you can build your network of skilled individuals to help you achieve your goals!

Real characters are vital for helping our readers become invested and fans of our stories. One of the best ways to help readers slip into our world is to have characters that they can relate to and that means giving them flaws. A lot of new writers struggle with the concept of building flaws within their beloved protagonist and where you draw the line. After all, when does a flaw become something more? Something too much for our readers to relate to any longer?  Here are some tips that you can start implementing today to build up your characters and make them living and real Protagonists. 

You know that scene in Field of Dreams where it basically goes "If you build it, they will come."  That's a bunch of crap. If they know it's there and are already interested in it, then they'll come, especially if you're a writer. Today, we're going to talk about why you should be thinking about where your readers are, how you'll get them, and if what you've spent years on building, is actually going to be interesting to them.  

If you're brave enough to take a look at tropes anywhere online with communities, you'll find yourself barraged with a lot of opinions. Some people think that they are stale cliches that need to be torn down and reworked. Others think that tropes are staples and pillars of genres that should be respected and properly approached.  I feel like that's not really the right question, whether to use them or not. The right question is how do you approach them and why do they exist in the first place. Check out today's episode to find out more.

The difference between an Active Protagonist and a Passive Protagonist is night and day, but very few people actually acknowledge this when they start out writing. In fact, they don't even think about it to the point that they're fuzzy about what the difference is. This week, we're talking about what the differences between the two are and why you would implement either of them. Get juicy tips on how to make your story the right balance on a rather complex scale and more in this week's episode.   Starting March 1st, get Revenant free. It's my debut novel and I want all of my listeners to get their hands on it while it's FREE! Get yours here: https://www.amazon.com/Revenant-Book-One-Terror-Trennon-ebook/dp/B075244Q9D

Every student that has ever graced the halls of a creative writing class has undoubtedly heard the mantra of countless writing instructors: "Show! Don't tell." Every one of us has heard it, but I don't think that there has been a professor or teacher that I've had that truly took the time to explain this. In fact, it's something that we all struggle with consistently and will for a very long time as we travel the path to authorhood.  Which is why, I'm putting out this podcast episode to debunk the mantra's weighty shouts and give you a comprehensive breakdown of what that means and the tips you need to put it to good use!

Do you want to make money writing? Is there a skill inside of you that could also help make your life easier? If you're looking to make money writing, here are the three ways of making money outside becoming a copywriter or a blogger. These are the paths to financial freedom that so many writers are desperately looking for and you can start on that path TODAY.   Check out how!