In this week's episode, we will be discussing character deaths. We talk about why you would want to kill a character, how to do it right, and also, how not to kill a character that will leave your readers angry, confused, or betrayed by your work. Meaningful deaths vs. meaningless deaths, and how to use both because both are useful techniques, you just need to know when to use them.

Also, the Goblin here is giving you the reassurance it's okay to kill the dog or the horse. Just make it mean something to the plot if you do.

Plus, here are the books we think handled the topic of death well.

Literature recs:

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Love, Ruby Lavender by Deborah Wiles

And whatever horse series Kate read that we still don't know the name of.

In this week's episode, we are recording at Authorpalooza in front of a live audience! So exciting. Authorpalooza is an event our public library hosts with local authors giving readers and local writers a chance to interact and talk with each other. Today we will be discussing how identify your unique writing ability and harness it to create, then we take questions from the audience and cover everything from marketing, audience expectations, and branding. We had a blast at Authorpalooza, and our live audience was a dream to speak in front of. Thank you to everyone at the event, and remember, keep writing!

The dreaded writers block. According to Wikipedia it is a nonmedical condition, primarily associated with writing. But it can be so much more than that. The three of us decide to tackle all our top tips and tricks in overcoming writers block, as well as having emotional epiphanies regarding why writers block can be a chronic problem as well.

On this week's episode, we discuss how each of us create characters. We explain what kind of writers we are and how that translates to the different ways each of us create compelling characters. Do we stay 100% on topic? Eh, debatable. But, we do delve into how our unique needs as Discovery, Architect, and Gardener writers who each have varying needs to craft characters from scratch and through hard rewrites, instinct, and fine-tuning, and not all in the same order. Take a peek into how you too can write characters you resonate with and will bring readers back for more. Does one type of writer resonate with you? Let us know!

(And thus shall the the Goblin Army arise! Don't tell the Architects...)

On this week's episode, we shall discuss our literary family trees and how writers are shaped through the media they consume and how it influences the way people create. We begin by waxing poetic about J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, because we believe in honoring our grandparents first before beginning the climb up through the branches that shaped our unique writing talents and perspectives, and we discuss why it's important to write what you are drawn to.

Welcome to Royalty Free : A Writing Podcast with your hosts Kaitlyn King, Ellie Lerum, and Melissa M. Rivers. On this week's episode, we introduce ourselves: two published authors and a passionate (unpublished) writer who reminisce on how we met, the importance of a writing community, and memories of just how much the goblin digs through drawers to turn puns into gold. We are excited to begin our journey with you all in discussing how to write, how to become a storyteller, and definitely not how we thought all of us were weird when we first met each other. We hope to get to know you just as well along the way.