Kathryn Comstock

@audrey-caylin Yeah, I think it pretty much comes in the job description that authors need to enjoy putting themselves in their characters’ shoes. 😉 People watching is a great way of analyzing how people react in different situations. And I’m going to take a bet that @kate-flournoy is going to be joining you in the Myers-Briggs boat of delving…[Read more]

@Ethryndal That sounds like a great theme with a lot of potential! Sounds like your book is on the right track there, and I love that message. Thrilled to hear how impactful the lesson was for you as well!

@dragon-snapper ^What Daeus said. Another thing to mention is that a lot of stories with multiple themes will distinguish between major themes (which the story focuses on) and minor themes (which are present but aren’t the focus so much). Depending on what you define as a minor theme, most stories arguably have a fair number of minor themes. My…[Read more]

@faithdk Glad to hear your excitement! Definitely understand the school constraint; we’ll be opening the course up again sometime toward the summer, so maybe you’ll be able to join us then. 🙂

@leumeister Haha; no worries about the confusion! And yes, when we have the proper tech skills, we will definitely try to implement this. Feel free to keep shooting us any additional ideas you have for site improvements. 🙂

@leumeister Thanks for the feedback! Like Daeus said, are you saying that it will delay your post for several hours, or just that when you’re posting during the day, it’s in the middle of the night for people in the US?

The time zone is currently linked to our web server’s timezone, which is EST. I love the idea of giving users the option to…[Read more]

@kate-flournoy I personally don’t see a huge distinction between personal and universal themes since it seems to me like several themes, like love or mercy, could really fit into either category depending on what kind of story it is. I really like your point about how much of a difference POV makes to a story’s theme, though. I wonder if this ties…[Read more]

@ethryndal Yep; I’m totally with you. That’s what tends to frustrate me the most about much of contemporary fiction. There’s a lot of popular novels out there that are entertaining stories, but not much more than that. =P

@kate-flournoy That’s awesome! And yes–that’s definitely a really important aspect of making a strong theme. We’ll be…[Read more]

@audrey-caylin That’s awesome! Glad to hear that the lesson helped you so much!

One thing you could do with your story’s message is to expand it by offering a reason for hope (e.g. “There’s always a reason to hope because _______________”). It somewhat depends on what type of story you’re trying to write, as a reason isn’t strictly necessary,…[Read more]

@audrey-caylin Awesome! Glad to hear that the lesson sparked some creative juices! 😀 I haven’t read A Time to Die yet (it is so high on my reading list, but time keeps alluding me…), but that seems like a good analysis of the book. The message doesn’t seem too broad to me (though to be fair I haven’t read the book yet), but it could be a bit…[Read more]

@ethryndal Awesome; those are great goals to have! Explaining how all story aspects can tie into a story’s theme was one of the goals I had in making the course, so it should definitely help you learn how to do that.

@sleepwalkingmk You’re welcome! If we weren’t trying to constantly outdo ourselves, us Jedi masters may be out of a job pretty quickly. 😉

@dragon-snapper Great goal! Like Daeus said, we’ll definitely be answering that and unpacking how to approach a theme from several different angles by using the power of story.

@audrey-caylin That’s great! Writing about things you’ve experienced can create the most powerful themes in storytelling, so that’s a great place to start, and I’ll be talking some in the next video about that aspect of theme development.

@ethryndal Glad to have you on board. 😀 Essentially what we’ll be doing for the final version is going through the course and updating all the lessons with the polished videos. So you will have full access to the polished version once it’s completed.

@kate-flournoy Hmm… a vague poetical answer. We’ll see if we can deliver on your poetical desires. 😉

@audrey-caylin Awesome! Those sound like great goals to have. Definitely keep those in mind going through the course, and at the end I’ll be asking how much the course helped you to achieve those goals.

@gretald Haha, it is an important skill to know when you need to say no to something. 😉 Definitely understand!

@anna-brie Like Daeus said, as long as all viewers are part of the same family, we have no problem with them all using the same account.

@greta Haha, it is an important skill to know when you need to say no to something. 😉 Definitely understand!

@anna-brie Like Daeus said, as long as all viewers are part of the same family, we have no problem with them all using the same account.

@overcomer Awesome! Glad to hear that you’re excited and have previous course testing experience. 🙂 Looking forward to having you in the beta group.

@sarah-h Thanks! Glad to hear it sounded appealing, and definitely understand your present circumstances. 🙂

@audrey-caylin Great to have you aboard! Glad to hear that you’re so excited for it. 😀