Story from Scratch

This episode, Yale and Justin are all about twists: shocking reveals and last-minute turns-of-the-tide. Our co-hosts try to dig down to the root of what makes twists good. They talk about Rick and Mo…

This week, we answers questions sent in by you, the fans. We touch on how to ensure internal consistency when baking pancakes--er, make that when writing a novel; how to write characters who go beyon…

This episode, our friend K. M. McKenzie joins us to discuss and dissect the 2016 movie Star Trek Beyond. We gripe about soulless Hollywood blockbusters, over-reliance on CGI, and, of course, J. J. Ab…

In this episode, we discuss a previously hotly contested topic: the prologue. Our good friend K. M. McKenzie joins us and gives her strong opinion on the matter, and we debate over whether or not pro…

In this episode, we once again build a story from scratch, this time riffing off stories that feature mysterious settings like Lost, Cube, and The Maze Runner. 

We explore coming up with the question…

This episode, our lovely friend and wonderful writer K. M. McKenzie joins us to talk about her career and how we came to know each other. We also talk about her involvement with our partners, TdotSpe…

In this episode, we address the giant elephant in the room and how it has affected our productivity as creatives. That's right--this episode's all about how we're managing during the COVID-19 era.

We…

In this episode, we examine an episode of the popular animated sci-fi comedy show, Rick and Morty. The specific episode we watched and gave our thoughts on was Season 4, Episode 1. So, please go watc…

In this episode, we return to our long-honoured tradition of coming up with a story idea - from Scratch™! 

We "borrow" some ideas from the noble Sherlock Holmes stories once again (it's not stealing …

Welcome back to Story from Scratch!

After a long hiatus, Justin Dill and Yale Wang have returned to bring you a new season of Story from Scratch. That means that we'll be coming to you with weekly re…

In this long-awaited, highly-anticipated episode, Yale and Justin discuss the secret to GOOD ACTION, an element many stories fail to deliver in a compelling way. Justin gives his theory on how to mak…

This spooky episode, Yale and Justin discuss their love for the Halloween season and how they came to enjoy it so much. Yale tries to nail down what he thinks is scary. Justin explains his yearly tra…

This episode, Yale and Justin discuss the difficulties of writing, especially keeping a consistent vision, maintaining motivation, and how struggling with these difficulties makes writing worthwhile.…

This episode, Yale and Justin do some character work! Yale's favorite. He leads Justin down a path of abstractly defining the roles of each of the characters and together, they stumble upon each of t…

This episode, Yale and Justin buckle down and really make a lot of world-building decisions for STRANDED.

In doing so, our co-hosts stumble on some surprisingly appropriate motivations, as well as de…

This episode, Yale and Justin talk about how to balance writing two different projects at the same time. Yale also asks how he can feel more confident about his story ideas, worried that they might a…

This episode, Justin and Yale discuss the subject of 'Mary Sue' characters, or characters that meet some criteria of being a 'Mary Sue'. They begin by defining what the term means and examine just wh…

This episode, Yale and Justin discuss the merits of prologues (or lack thereof). Yale has never liked prologues, but Justin remains adamant that they are sometimes necessary. Our co-hosts end up on a…

This episode, Yale and Justin discuss the necessity of using weak verbs and why it's okay to not kill your darlings. Justin explains 'resting' words. Yale celebrates. There are lots of digressions.

I…

No Story from Scratch segment this week! We promise we'll return to STRANDED (from Scratch) next Monday. In the meantime, while we replenish our creative juices, Justin regales us with some new disco…