The Alignment Show

Donn King
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  1. 7h ago

    Seeing Like a Writer

    What happens when we pay attention differently? Note: for folks who prefer to read instead of watch or listen, an article version is at the end of this. If you’re watching or listening on a podcatcher, you can find the original article at DonnKing.com/113. I went looking for a bench and came home with a question about how we experience the world. I hadn’t been to Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville for years. But I’m writing a novel that includes a scene along the Tennessee River, and I wanted to get the details right. I remembered a bench beside the boardwalk, but I couldn’t find a photograph or description that confirmed it was there. So I decided to go see for myself. I’ve spent years looking at places through a photographer’s eyes. This time, though, I wasn’t trying to make beautiful photographs. I was taking pictures of stairs, narrow trails, changes in the landscape, and details that might help me reconstruct the experience later. I was looking at Ijams like a writer. That got me thinking about the ways writers observe everyday life: the interesting phrases we overhear, the facial expressions we notice, the small details we collect without knowing whether we’ll ever use them. But why should writers have all the fun? In this episode, I explore what might happen if any of us deliberately paid closer attention to the world around us. Maybe the world wouldn’t change much. But our experience of it might. And that could make a difference in how we live. The Big Takeaway The way we pay attention shapes the way we experience the world. Noticing something doesn’t necessarily change the thing we’re observing. But it can change our relationship with it. And that change may influence how we understand other people, recognize what matters to us, and engage with everyday life. In This Episode * The search for a bench. Why I returned to Ijams Nature Center to research a scene for my current novel, and why getting real-world details right can help make fiction believable. * A photographer’s eye versus a writer’s eye. How my years as a professional photographer shaped the way I see places, and why I found myself taking very different kinds of pictures this time. * Externalizing memory. Why I recorded photographs, videos, and spoken observations along the trail, and how tools such as Obsidian help me preserve thoughts that might otherwise disappear. * The habits of a writer. Listening for interesting language, noticing gestures and expressions, and asking “What if?” about ordinary experiences. * How observation changes experience. Why paying attention to a river, a conversation, or a facial expression may not change the thing itself, but can change our relationship with it. * An invitation to notice. What anyone, writer or not, might discover by approaching familiar people and places with a little more curiosity. A Few Things to Try I’m not suggesting we turn this into another project. Most of us have enough things on our to-do lists already. But here are a few ways to experiment with seeing like a writer. 1. Visit a familiar place as though you’ve never seen it. Imagine you’re going to describe it to somebody who has never been there. What would you need to notice? What details have you been overlooking? 2. Listen to how people say things. Pay attention to word choices, expressions, and gestures. Sometimes the way someone says something tells you as much as the words themselves. Respect people’s privacy, of course. 3. Make a note of something that catches your attention. A phrase, an observation, an interesting question. You don’t need a complicated system. Just somewhere to capture a thought before it wanders off. 4. Notice what you notice. What draws your attention? What makes you curious? What do you tend to overlook? You might discover something about your own values and interests. 5. Ask yourself, “What if?” It’s a question writers use all the time. It might also help you see new possibilities in situations you’ve begun to take for granted. The point isn’t to collect more information. It’s to experience more fully the life you’re already living. Quote to Ponder “The world may not have changed because I was paying attention, but my relationship with it has. That in turn changes the world at least a little.” That’s a thought I’ve been turning over since my walk. How much of our experience is shaped by what we choose to notice? And what might change if we became a little more intentional about that choice? Resources and Links * Ijams Nature Center — The Knoxville nature center that prompted this episode, and the setting for a scene in my current novel. * Obsidian — The note-taking and knowledge-management software I’m learning to use to externalize my memory and creative process. * Google Earth — One of the tools I use, along with Google Maps, when researching real-world settings for fiction. * Devon Marin — My fiction-writing alter ego. Follow along if you’re curious about the novel that sent me looking for that bench. One Question for You Whether you’re a writer or not, what would change if you started looking at the world as though you might someday need to tell its story? I’d love to hear what you notice. If you get value from the show, consider supporting us in one of the following ways. You can make a one-time contribution or sign up for regular support through Buy Me a Coffee. You can also subscribe on Substack for free OR upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support helps me continue helping you and others, and thank you in advance! Article version I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to see the world like a writer. I didn’t really set out to think about that. I set out to find a bench. Let me explain. I went out to Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville today. Ijams has been one of my favorite places for years, although I hadn’t actually been out there in quite a while. Part of the reason is that, as I’ve gotten older, it’s become harder for me to get around. Some of those trails aren’t quite as easy for me to navigate as they used to be. But I’m working on a novel under my pen name, Devon Marin, and I’ve decided to set part of the story at Ijams, specifically, along one of the trails beside the Tennessee River. Now, I could do a lot of the research from home. There are plenty of pictures online. You can look at maps, read descriptions, and get a pretty good sense of the place without ever leaving your chair. If I’m writing about a city or a town, Google Maps and Google Earth can give me almost everything I need. But when it’s a tree-covered area far from a road, you have basically two options: photographs and videos other people have taken, and direct observation. There’s something you can’t quite get from a photograph. For instance, I remembered there being a bench along the boardwalk, next to the river. That bench might be useful for the scene I’m writing. The problem was, I couldn’t find a picture that confirmed whether the bench was actually there. I couldn’t even find other people’s descriptions. I could have just made one up. After all, I’m writing fiction, not a documentary. But I like to get as many of the details right as I reasonably can. Partly, that’s because I think accurate details help establish a sense of reality. There’s a word for that: verisimilitude. It’s one of those words writers like to use when we’re trying to sound as though we know what we’re doing. Basically, it means making something feels true. The interesting thing about fiction is that when you get enough of the real details right, readers are often more willing to follow you when you need to bend reality a little. Plus, if somebody happens to know the location, there’s an added pleasure in recognizing it. A little Easter egg. A moment of thinking, “Hey, I’ve been there! I know that bench!” Besides, the weather has finally started feeling like October around here, and I figured some outdoor time would do me good. So off I went to Ijams, camera in hand, on a mission to find a bench. Somewhere along the way, I noticed something else. I was looking at the place differently. I spent years working as a professional photographer before moving to the Knoxville area. Even after leaving that work, I still tended to look at scenery with a photographer’s eye. If I’d gone out there primarily to make photographs, I would have been looking for interesting compositions, good light, unusual angles, that sort of thing. But that’s not what I was doing. I took a bunch of pictures that probably wouldn’t win any photography contests. In fact, some of them wouldn’t even qualify as particularly good snapshots. And that’s fine, because I wasn’t trying to create photographs. I was trying to create a record. I wanted to remember where the trail narrowed, where it widened, where the stairs appeared, how the boardwalk related to the river, what you could see from one point and what you couldn’t see until you got a little farther along. There were stairs I didn’t remember being there at all. I shot several short videos as I walked, sometimes narrating what I was seeing and experiencing, not for me to publish, but for me. I wanted to be able to, in essence, come back later when I was sitting at my computer writing the scene, and remember not only what I saw, but what I was thinking and experiencing as I walked. In other words, I was externalizing my memory. That’s when I started thinking about how writers experience the world. You see, I don’t just do that when I’m researching a scene. I do it all the time. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m a writer because I think that way, or if I think that way because I’m a writer. But I’m not sure if everyone does it. Maybe they do. I’ll hear somebody use an interesting phrase, and I’ll make a mental note of it. Sometimes an actual note. I just went throu

  2. Oct 2

    Kevin on Kraft: Writing Characters Who Aren’t You

    [Note: this post contains the podcast and its show notes along with the article version. Enjoy whichever one connects with you best. If you’re listening on a podcatcher and want the article version, head over to DonnKing.com/112.] One of the things I enjoy about talking with Kevin Tumlinson is that I can start with a question I think I understand and discover that I was actually asking something bigger. That happened again in this third installment of Kevin on Kraft. “Kevin on Kraft?” you ask. If you don’t know about it, here are the first two episodes in this special series on The Alignment Show. Last time, Kevin made an almost offhand comment that some of his characters are smarter than he is. That stuck with me. Because how exactly do you write a mind you don’t possess? You can research what a physicist knows, for instance, but knowing facts and thinking like that person aren’t quite the same thing. From there, we wandered into something broader: writing people who aren’t like us. Different backgrounds. Different genders. Different experiences. Even people whose choices we find reprehensible. And eventually we landed on what may be the real question underneath all of it: What makes a character feel like a human being rather than something the author constructed? As usual, Kevin and I found a few side roads along the way. We talked about villains, Thanos, Batman, Jack Reacher, Star Trek, watery tuna salad, and why a writer might want access to a time machine. You know. Craft. Big Takeaway A believable character doesn’t have to be like the writer, but the writer has to understand the character well enough to see the world from inside that character’s logic. That includes villains. It includes characters whose lives and backgrounds differ radically from our own. And it even includes recurring characters who need to grow without changing so much that readers no longer recognize the person they came back to see. Perhaps most interestingly, Kevin suggested that character growth doesn’t stop at the edge of the page. Sometimes the person who changes over the course of a story… is the reader. What We Talked About * How to write someone smarter than you are. Kevin points out that his character Dan Kotler has an advantage Kevin doesn’t: Kevin can stop, research, revise, and return to an earlier scene. The character gets to benefit from the author’s hindsight. * Writing across differences without reducing people to categories. We talk about characters of different races, cultures, and genders, and the danger of trying so hard to portray a category that we stop portraying a person. * Why the craft should disappear. Kevin compares good writing to sculpture: if we’re staring at the chisel marks, we’re not seeing the statue. The same principle applies to voice, characterization, and even book design. * Why villains need an internal logic. People generally don’t experience themselves as “the bad guy,” even the ones we perceive as the bad guy. A compelling antagonist sees reasons for doing what they do. Understanding those reasons doesn’t mean agreeing with them, but it keeps them from being cardboard. * How series characters can change without becoming different characters. Kevin distinguishes between a protagonist who changes and one who serves as a catalyst for change. Jack Reacher, Batman, and the crew of the Enterprise help us explore why some characters need to return largely to baseline while the people and world around them change. * The reader has a character arc, too. Stories don’t simply happen to fictional people. We bring ourselves to them, make meaning from them, and sometimes finish a book seeing something differently than we did when we began. Practical Tips When you’re writing someone unlike yourself, start with the person before the category. Research matters, and sometimes talking with people who actually have the experience you’re portraying matters enormously. But research shouldn’t become a substitute for creating an individual human being. Give yourself permission to make a character smarter than you. Drafting and revision give you something your character doesn’t have: time. Research the answer. Think for three days about the insight your brilliant character produces in three seconds. Then let them have the credit. For recurring characters, ask what is core and what can change. Relationships, experiences, scars, knowledge, and circumstances can accumulate without replacing the qualities that made readers care about the character in the first place. When writing an antagonist, try asking not, “Why is this person evil?” but, “Why does this choice make sense from where this person is standing?” You don’t have to approve of the answer. You just need to understand it. Finally, don’t force the theme too early. Kevin argues that theme often emerges from the story itself. Write honestly enough and you may discover meaning you didn’t consciously put there. Once you see it, you can strengthen it in revision. Note: we might dig into theme next time. Quote to Ponder “Don’t downplay your role in the story. You are a character in this story as well.”— Kevin Tumlinson Resources Kevin Tumlinson / The WordslingerKevin and I share these Kevin on Kraft conversations with both of our audiences. Check out The Wordslinger for Kevin’s ongoing conversations about writing, publishing, and the writing life. Kevin Tumlinson’s booksKevin has written soooooo many books. I especially like his Dan Kotler books and his Alex Kane books. He can keep you reading for months. Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of WritingKevin mentioned that he’s currently reading Bradbury’s collection of essays on writing and recommends it. Amazon or Bookshop Paulo Coelho, The AlchemistKevin used The Alchemist as an example of a book he can reread and find himself changed by the experience. Amazon or Bookshop The Chemistry Between Us by Devon MarinI also mention my new STEM romantic comedy during the conversation. You can find it at DonnKing.com/Devon. Article Version Writing People Who Aren’t You How do you write a character who is smarter than you are? That question sounds almost like a paradox. If I’m not capable of thinking at the level my character does, how am I supposed to write what that character thinks? Kevin Tumlinson has a wonderfully practical answer: cheat. Not really, of course. But a fictional character has an enormous advantage over a real human being. The character has an author who can travel through time. Kevin’s Dan Kotler is considerably smarter than Kevin claims to be. Kotler can make connections quickly. He can retrieve obscure information at exactly the moment he needs it. He can reach conclusions that might take the rest of us considerably longer. But Kotler doesn’t actually have to do any of that in real time. Kevin can write the scene, discover that something is wrong, research it, think about it, and come back later. He can spend hours figuring out something Kotler appears to figure out in seconds. The character gets the benefit of the author’s hindsight. That led us to a related question: What happens when the difference between writer and character isn’t intelligence? What if the character comes from a different culture? A different racial background? A different gender? A life experience the author has never had? Research certainly matters. I mentioned a character I’m currently writing who owns a kayaking business. I happen to know someone who owns a kayaking business, so I interviewed her. She also has a Native American background, which gives me another reason to listen rather than assume. But Kevin made an important distinction. When he writes a character whose background differs from his own, he tries first to write the person. That sounds obvious until you consider how easily writers can do the opposite. We can become so concerned with writing “a woman” or “a Black character” or “a scientist” that the category begins doing the work the character should be doing. The result can become stereotype even when the writer was specifically trying to avoid stereotype. Kevin is particularly cautious about things like dialect for that reason. A little may help establish voice or place. Too much can make the author’s hand painfully visible. That connected with something we had already stumbled across earlier in the conversation. Good craft tends to disappear. We had been talking about book layout. When a book is designed well, readers generally don’t stop and admire the typesetting. The design gets out of the way and lets them read. Kevin suggested that authorial voice can work the same way. If readers are noticing the writer showing off on every page, they may not be noticing the character or the story. He compared it to sculpture. We should see the statue, not the chisel marks. What about characters we don’t want to identify with? Villains create an interesting problem because an antagonist who wakes up every morning thinking, “Mwuhahaha! What evil can I accomplish today?” usually isn’t particularly convincing. People tend to experience themselves as the central character in their own lives/stories. While other people may be evil or stupid, they have reasons for their choices. They justify themselves. They believe what they’re doing makes sense. That doesn’t make their actions right. It makes them human. We wound up talking about Thanos from the Marvel movies. His solution to the universe’s problems is monstrous, but the story gives him a rationale for it, including his own background of deprivation. More importantly, it gives that rationale enough internal coherence that an audience can understand how he sees himself. It doesn’t excuse evil. But understanding why a character believes something is not the same as agreeing with the character. In fact, that ability to understand without agreeing may be one of

  3. Sep 18

    Discovering What Comes Next

    Lately, I’ve been looking forward to getting to my desk. That may sound like an ordinary thing for a writer to say. But after struggling with anhedonia, the absence of pleasure even in things I knew were worthwhile, that eagerness means something to me. Writing fiction has been bringing it back. I want to find out what my characters will do next, even though I’m supposedly the person in charge. Apparently, nobody has explained that arrangement to them. In this solo episode, I explore discovery writing, the feeling of being absorbed in creative work, and the possibility of returning to something you love with all your life experience behind you. I also talk about why I’m likely to write out these solo episodes before recording them. Some of the discovery happens while I’m figuring out what I want to say. The big takeaway My eagerness to return to storytelling is something I want to pay attention to. It tells me something about what belongs in my life. Your curiosity may offer something worth noticing, too. In this episode * I describe how writing fiction has renewed my enjoyment, while keeping that experience distinct from anyone else’s experience of depression. * I consider how creative absorption may overlap with flow, drawing on the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Martin Seligman. * I explain why “discovery writer” fits the way I work, even when I have a destination in mind. * I connect the pleasure of discovering characters with everyday discoveries, from a new restaurant to a solution for a stubborn problem. * I reflect on Bruce Robert Coffin’s return to writing after nearly three decades in law enforcement. * I share why scripting solo episodes feels like a return to my own writing roots. Something to try Ask yourself: What am I curious enough to come back to? It might be a story, a skill, an unanswered question, or something you once loved. Give yourself a little room to explore it without requiring yourself to know where it will lead. And when you notice that small lift of discovery, pay attention. I’m learning to take my own eagerness seriously. A thought to carry with you “Being excited to get to the desk is something I want to pay attention to. It tells me something about what belongs in my life.” Mentioned in this episode * Flow and engagement: The University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center explains engagement within Martin Seligman’s PERMA framework and its connection to Csikszentmihalyi’s work on flow. * Bruce Robert Coffin on The Indy Author Podcast: Matty Dalrymple’s conversation, “Writing the Stories Only Life Can Teach You.” * The Sparklight Chronicles, my fictional parables exploring nonfiction principles. * The Chemistry Between Us and The Signal Between Us, the first two books in the series I’m writing as Devon Marin. * Kevin on Kraft, my ongoing conversations with Kevin Tumlinson about writing, creativity, and making things. With thanks to this episode’s sponsors Butterfly Copywriting: Val Roskens Tews helps take the stress out of creating LinkedIn content and sharing your message. The Chemistry Between Us, by Devon Marin: Meet Riley, a behavioral scientist, and Leo, a science communicator with ADHD, in the first book of a planned STEM romantic-comedy trilogy. Through September 30, sample two chapters through Diversity is Mainstream, a promotion featuring nearly fifty writers whose stories include neurodiverse characters. After the promotion ends, the excerpt will remain available at DonnKing.com/Devon. What have you been discovering lately—or what are you ready to come back to? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Article Version Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world, welcome once again to The Alignment Show, where we talk about where what matters meets real life. I’m your host, Donn King… And today, I want to talk about the pleasure of finding out what happens next. Which is a slightly odd thing to say when I’ve written this episode out before recording it. Presumably, I should know what happens next. It’s right there on the page. But writing the page is where some of the discovery happens. Lately, that discovery has been doing something for me that I haven’t felt in quite this way for a long time. I’ve been looking forward to getting to my desk. If that sounds like a small thing, stay with me. There’s a little more behind it. I don’t want every solo episode to become a progress report on the STEM romantic comedy I’m writing under the Devon Marin pen name. You have your own life. You don’t need a standing appointment with my imaginary people. Although they are pretty good company. But most of my recent writing experience has happened there, and something about that experience seems worth sharing even if you never read a romance novel, never write a book, and would prefer that imaginary people make their own coffee. There are moments when the writing feels as though it’s coming through me instead of from me. I’m still doing the work. I’m choosing words, figuring out what fits, and eventually going back to fix things that seemed brilliant at the time. But while I’m in it, I’m often following something that feels as though it’s already moving. That may overlap with what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called flow. Martin Seligman includes that kind of deep engagement in his work on well-being, too. You become absorbed in something that stretches your abilities, and the doing becomes rewarding in itself. I’m not sure every moment I’m describing qualifies as flow. Some of it may simply be curiosity. But I recognize that feeling of being caught up in the work, with less attention left over for watching myself do it. The ancient Romans had an idea that gives me a useful image for this. A person could have a genius: an accompanying spirit. That’s a different use of the word from the way we call somebody a genius today. The Greeks had related ideas about spirits and inspiration, although the traditions weren’t identical. I even harnessed the idea of Muses for my parable series, The Sparklight Chronicles. I don’t think a helpful little spirit has moved into my office and started dictating dialogue. If one has, I’d appreciate some help with proofreading. Still, I understand the appeal of the image. It captures how surprising creativity can feel from the inside. I put the words down, and sometimes I’m also the first person surprised by them. Longtime listeners and readers of several of my books have heard me talk about a realization I had years ago. I thought I wasn’t writing because I was depressed. In my case, I came to recognize that I was depressed because I wasn’t writing. I was leaving out something important to the way I live and make sense of life. While that realization mattered, it also didn’t resolve everything. Even afterward, I struggled with anhedonia, a loss of the ability to experience pleasure. It’s a frequent part of depression. For me, the defining feeling wasn’t sadness so much as the absence of enjoyment. Things could be worthwhile, and I could intellectually know they were worthwhile, without feeling much pleasure in them. I’m describing my experience here. I wouldn’t assume someone else’s depression has the same cause, or that writing would do for them what it has done for me. But I began to feel some of that pleasure again while writing The Sparklight Chronicles. Those books use fictional parables to explore nonfiction principles. I got to tell stories, get to know people I’d invented, and watch what happened when those people ran into the kinds of problems the books were exploring. Since I started writing pure fiction this year, that eagerness has become much stronger. I find myself wanting to get back to the desk. I want to find out what these people are going to do. A romantic comedy gives me a setting and a set of possibilities. But the storytelling itself seems to be what’s waking up my excitement: people with things they want, things they’re afraid of, and a remarkable capacity to complicate their own lives. You know. People. With The Chemistry Between Us, I had an endpoint in mind. I knew something about where I wanted the story to arrive. But knowing the destination still left a lot to discover along the way. How would these two people respond in this situation? What would one of them say that the other would misunderstand? What might they finally admit after spending a considerable amount of energy avoiding it? I could get excited about following them around even when I knew where we were headed. Now I’ve started the second book, The Signal Between Us. Its main characters were supporting characters in the first book, so I already know them to some degree. I know the starting setup. Beyond that, I have no idea where it’s going. That is either an exciting creative process or an alarming business plan. Possibly both. I know who the main characters will be in the third book, too. I know how they meet. That’s about all I know so far. Writers sometimes describe this as the difference between plotters and pantsers. Plotters work out the story ahead of time. Pantsers fly by the seat of their pants. A more polite pair of terms is outliners and discovery writers. Most writers probably fall somewhere along a spectrum (and, really, most humans approach life along a similar spectrum), and I lean strongly toward discovery writing. That word, discovery, has been sticking with me. I know that pleasure in other parts of life, too. Discovering a new restaurant, or maybe a new dish at a familiar restaurant. Finding a way to do something that has been annoying me for years. Finally seeing the solution to a problem that kept refusing to cooperate. Finding a cool little neighborhood off the beaten path. Even watching one of those “I was today years old when I found out…” videos and realizing I’ve be

  4. Sep 13

    Connection Costs Energy. It’s Still Worth It.

    Note: I realized that since I’m making all material available to all subscribers, free and paid, it makes sense to just include the article version in the “show notes.” If you’d rather read than watch a video or listen to audio, the Article Version is below the Resources. This one is a little different. I recorded most of this episode in the car while Janet and I were on our way to The Morning Cup Toastmasters 10th Anniversary Summit. (Janet was driving. I promise.) It had been one of those weeks when everything seemed to happen at once. I’d finished a book draft, written a prequel while the manuscript was with an editor, helped prepare for the Summit, and gotten ready to lead both a session on story structure and an ecumenical worship service. And somewhere in there, Friday arrived without a regular episode ready to go. So, inspired partly by my friend Mark Leslie Lefebvre and his remarkable streak of showing up every Friday with Stark Reflections for (at this writing) close to 500 episodes, I decided to hit Record anyway. The audio isn’t great. There’s road noise I couldn’t completely remove. The episode is short. But it led me into something I’ve thought about for years: being an introvert doesn’t mean I don’t need or enjoy people. In fact, sometimes the things that drain us can also be things that matter deeply to us. The Big Takeaway Introversion and human connection aren’t opposites. I can look forward to spending a weekend with friends, speaking, teaching, laughing, and connecting with people while also knowing that, when it’s over, I’m going to need some serious quiet time. Understanding that about myself helps me make room for both. In This Episode * Why introversion and shyness aren’t the same thing * The two characteristics I find especially useful for understanding introverts and extroverts * Why an introvert can be perfectly comfortable speaking in front of a crowd * Why the hardest part of speaking, for me, often comes before and after the speech * How social interaction can be both enjoyable and draining * Why Janet and I sometimes build an extra quiet day into trips involving lots of people * Why our need for solitude doesn’t eliminate our need for human connection * And why sometimes showing up imperfectly is better than not showing up at all Something to Try Pay attention to what gives you energy and what uses it. If connecting with people matters to you but also drains you, don’t assume there’s something contradictory about that. You may simply need to plan for both connection and recovery. Give yourself permission to enjoy the gathering and the quiet afterward. Quote to Ponder “Even though I might be an introvert, we still need human connection.” Resources Toastmasters International — If you’d like a place to practice speaking and communication in a supportive environment, Toastmasters has been an important part of my own journey. Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing — Mark Leslie’s podcast, and his commitment to consistently showing up, provided a little of the inspiration for this particular episode. Article Version: Connection Costs Energy. It’s Still Worth It. I’m an introvert. That sometimes surprises people because I’ve spent a good portion of my life speaking in front of groups. I taught communication for years. I speak professionally. I’m a pastor. Put me in front of a room full of people with something to talk about, and I’m perfectly comfortable. Put me in the room before or after the speech, when everybody is milling around and talking? That’s different. We often treat introversion and shyness as though they’re the same thing. They aren’t. Shyness involves fear of judgment. Introversion has more to do with how we form our thoughts and restore our energy. An introvert tends to recover through time alone. An extrovert tends to recover through interaction with other people. Introverts prefer to form their thoughts before they speak. Extroverts tend to form their thoughts by speaking. Neither is better. They’re simply different ways of operating. That helps explain why public speaking itself doesn’t particularly bother me. When I’m giving a speech, I’ve had time to prepare. I know what I want to say. There’s structure. The unscripted interaction around it takes more energy. I enjoy that interaction, I just have to take steps to recover. That’s the interesting tension. As I recorded this, Janet and I were traveling to a weekend conference I had genuinely been looking forward to. I knew I would see friends. I’d meet people. I’d teach a session. I’d lead a worship service. There would be conversations and laughter and all sorts of things I value. I also knew I’d be tired afterward. In fact, when we take trips like this, we sometimes stay an extra night simply so we don’t have to rush from an intensely social experience straight back into everything waiting at home. We make room for quiet. Those two things don’t contradict each other. Human beings need connection. Introverts need it, too. The key is learning what connection costs us and making room to replenish what it uses. Extroverts tend to go to conferences anyway. Introverted friends, I recomment you also go to a conference. Meet the friend for coffee. Join the Zoom call. Have the conversation. Plan for the impact, but go. And if you need to go sit quietly somewhere afterward, do that too. Pay attention to what matters. If you get value from the show, consider supporting us in one of the following ways. You can make a one-time contribution or sign up for regular support through Buy Me a Coffee. You can also subscribe on Substack for free OR upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support helps me continue helping you and others, and thank you in advance! All subscribers now receive the following: * The “Big Takeaway” * A bulleted summary of the episode * Practical tips from the episode * A quote to ponder * Prefer text? We turn each podcast into an article. Plus, Founding Members receive ebook copies of all my books as well as a sponsorship message on the podcast at least once a month. That’s our way for saying “thanks for the support!” Here at King’s Chronicles, we explore books, creativity, storytelling, and the complicated work of being human. If you enjoy thoughtful conversations and encouraging resources for difficult seasons, I’d love for you to subscribe and join the community. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kingschronicles.substack.com/subscribe

  5. Sep 4

    Kevin on Kraft: When Your Characters Stop Following Instructions

    I missed an episode last week. I could offer excuses, but the truth is more interesting: I’ve been writing. A lot. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been almost embarrassingly absorbed in The Chemistry Between Us, the first romance novel I’ll publish as Devon Marin. Riley and Leo, the two people at the center of the story, have been carrying on conversations in my head while I’m trying to do other things. I’ve forgotten to eat. I’ve awakened early because I needed to capture something they were saying. I’ve even found myself mildly annoyed that the human body insists on bathroom breaks. Before Kevin and I got into our conversation, I talked a little about that experience and why I think it belongs on The Alignment Show. This isn’t primarily a show about writing. It’s about pursuing what matters to you. Writing happens to be one of the things that matter deeply to me. Whatever your thing is, I think there’s something worth noticing about those moments when you become so engaged with meaningful work that you’re no longer merely being productive. You’re curious. Engaged. Alive. Speaking of curious, if you happen to be curious about The Chemistry Between Us, you can read an excerpt and sign up for a chance to receive an early copy before publication at DonnKing.com/Chemistry. It costs you nothing to check it out. And all of that turned out to be a pretty good setup for this week’s conversation with Kevin Tumlinson, another entry in the “Kevin on Kraft” series. Big Takeaway Characters become interesting when we stop treating them as collections of information and start understanding how they behave. Kevin and I talked about the strange experience writers sometimes have when characters begin making choices we hadn’t planned. But we also got very practical about what creates that illusion of life on the page: consistency, meaningful details, leaving room for the reader’s imagination, and being willing to discover things during the writing process, and then go back and plant what the story needs. Maybe the larger creative lesson is that discovery and craft aren’t opposites. Sometimes discovery gives us the raw material, and craft lets us go back and make it look as though we knew what we were doing all along. In This Conversation * Kevin talks about writing Dan Kotler, the main character in one of his series, and how quickly the character began directing choices and taking stories in unexpected directions. * We compare discovery writing with more structured approaches and talk about what happens when an outline meets characters who have other ideas. * We explore the peculiar experience of “hearing” or experiencing fictional characters as distinct people while still knowing perfectly well where they came from. * Kevin explains why he often avoids detailed physical descriptions and instead lets readers supply much of the picture themselves. * We talk about using a few meaningful details to reveal character rather than stopping the story for a physical inventory. * Kevin reveals one of discovery writing’s useful secrets: when something becomes important in Chapter 19, you’re allowed to go back to Chapter 3 and make it look as though you planned it all along. * We talk about maintaining character continuity across a long series, including the reader who caught Kevin contradicting Dan Kotler’s middle-name history. * And just as we were trying to wrap up, Kevin opened two questions we couldn’t possibly squeeze into the remaining minutes: How do you write someone smarter than you are? And how do you write convincingly characteristics and experiences that differ from your own? Those will help launch our next conversation about character arcs. Practical Tips Give readers the details that matter. A character’s eye color may not matter. A pair of glasses that come off whenever things get serious may tell us something. Let the reader participate. Kevin makes a strong case that readers have enormously powerful imaginations. You don’t necessarily need to describe everything you can see in your own head. Use revision as part of creation. Discovery writers don’t have to foresee every setup and payoff. If the story discovers something important later, go back and “prepare” for it earlier. Track continuity, especially across a series. Small facts become surprisingly difficult to remember after multiple novels, novellas, short stories, and crossovers. And don’t confuse consistency with stagnation. That question became important enough that we deliberately stopped before tackling it. How does a character remain recognizably the same person while still changing? That’s where we’re headed next. Quote to Ponder “You don’t want the plotting to get in the way of the storytelling.” — Kevin Tumlinson I like that because Kevin isn’t arguing that plot doesn’t matter. Quite the opposite. He’s saying that the reader should eventually experience a coherent story, even if the writer discovered that story in a much messier order. Resources Sample of The Chemistry Between Us: DonnKing.com/Chemistry The current BookFunnel promotion (September 2026): Diversity is Mainstream, by Las Olas Press, where their mission is to make diversity mainstream through strong, beautiful main characters and inclusive stories. Check it out for dozens of free books and excerpts! Kevin Tumlinson / Wordslinger Podcast: kevintumlinson.substack.com/s/the-wordslinger-podcast Writers, Ink Podcast: WritersInkPodcast.com Kevin’s Dan Kotler books: Dan Kotler Reading Order Mentioned in the conversation: * On Writing by Stephen King; * The concept of Chekhov’s gun; * Jaws as an example of letting the audience’s imagination do some of the work; * Jack Reacher; * Indiana Jones; * and the storytelling possibilities of a disturbingly old toothbrush. If you get value from the show, consider supporting us in one of the following ways. You can make a one-time contribution or sign up for regular support through Buy Me a Coffee. You can also subscribe on Substack for free OR upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support helps me continue helping you and others, and thank you in advance! All subscribers now receive the following: * The “Big Takeaway” * A bulleted summary of the episode * Practical tips from the episode * A quote to ponder * Prefer text? We turn each podcast into an article. Plus, Founding Members receive ebook copies of all my books as well as a sponsorship message on the podcast at least once a month. That’s our way for saying “thanks for the support!” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kingschronicles.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Aug 21

    What Are We Amplifying?

    What Are We Amplifying? Note: read the article version of this podcast at DonnKing.com/108Art. I use tools to externalize parts of my brain. That sounds more dramatic than it is. A grocery list does it. So does an address book, a mind map, a voice memo, or a conversation with a friend. They let me move something outside my head so I can remember it, examine it, rearrange it, or think about it differently. Artificial intelligence can do that, too. These days, that raises all sorts of questions about creativity, writing, and what remains distinctly human when machines can do things we once thought belonged exclusively to us. In this episode, I’m less interested in deciding whether AI is inherently good or bad than in asking a question I find much more useful: What are we amplifying? The Big Takeaway Human beings have always extended themselves through tools. The important question isn’t simply whether we use them. It’s what we’re using them to extend. Do we become more human, or less? A tool can amplify creativity, judgment, curiosity, and clear thinking. It can also amplify carelessness, dishonesty, and bad judgment. Yes, the technology matters (and that’s not yet another AI-ism; it’s just true). But the human using it remains the one essential element in the outcome. In This Episode * Why Plato’s ancient concern about writing and memory sounds surprisingly familiar today. * How grocery lists, mind maps, notebooks, and conversations externalize parts of our thinking. * Why I think AI may work more like an amplifier than a replacement for human creativity. * What the current anxiety about AI in publishing means for the choices I’m making as a writer. * Why I care more about the value of a finished book than the particular tools used to create it. * What Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1882 experiment with an early typewriter can teach us about how our tools shape our thinking. * Why supposedly “AI-ish” writing habits such as antithesis and em dashes aren’t exactly new inventions. * The questions I think matter more than simply asking whether a particular technology is good or bad. A Few Practical Questions When I’m deciding whether any tool belongs in my work or life, these are the questions I want to ask: * Does this help me think more deeply? * Does it help me communicate more clearly? * Does it help me create something worth creating? * Does it help me treat other people with greater dignity and respect? * Does it help me become more fully the person I actually want to be? Those questions apply whether the tool is a notebook, an iPhone, a calculator, a mind map, or artificial intelligence. Quote to Ponder “We’ve always extended ourselves through our tools. We don’t need to stop doing that. We just need to make sure that what we’re extending is worth amplifying.” Resources and People Mentioned * Plato’s Phaedrus — the ancient dialogue containing Socrates’ account of concerns that writing would weaken memory * Joanna Penn — writer and publishing entrepreneur who encourages creatives to “double down on being human” in the age of AI * Marshall McLuhan — communication theorist associated with the phrase “the medium is the message.” The original book’s title is actually a little different: The Medium Is the Massage. This is a rare instance where an ebook would absolutely not communicate the author’s intent. You can get the print book directly from the publisher. You might also want to read Marshall McLuhan Explained. * Friedrich Nietzsche — philosopher who began using the Malling-Hansen Writing Ball in 1882 when problems with his eyesight made handwriting difficult * My books — which might support you in your own creative journey. I write books that mentor from the shadows, blending storytelling, humor, and humanity to help readers grow, serve others well, and stay human in a complicated world. The point isn’t that every use of every tool is good. Tools can be used carelessly, dishonestly, destructively, or lazily. But we’ve been extending our minds through tools for thousands of years. The question I want to keep asking is what we’re choosing to amplify. If you get value from the show, consider supporting us in one of the following ways. You can make a one-time contribution or sign up for regular support through Buy Me a Coffee. You can also subscribe on Substack for free OR upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support helps me continue helping you and others, and thank you in advance! All subscribers now receive the following: * The “Big Takeaway” * A bulleted summary of the episode * Practical tips from the episode * A quote to ponder * Prefer text? We turn each podcast into an article. Plus, Founding Members receive ebook copies of all my books as well as a sponsorship message on the podcast at least once a month. That’s our way for saying “thanks for the support!” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kingschronicles.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Aug 14

    Kevin on Kraft: You Don’t Have to Know Where You’re Going

    [Note: if you would rather read an article instead of watching or listening, you can read such here.] Sometimes the best conversations start because somebody says something almost in passing. I was listening to Kevin Tumlinson on The Word Slinger Podcast when he mentioned that, for all the talking he does about writing and publishing, he doesn’t get to talk about the actual craft of writing as often as you might expect. Maybe, he suggested, he just needed somebody to ask him questions. Well, I can ask questions. That led to an email, a bad pun about “Kevin on Kraft” (yes, we know it’s cheesy—maybe we’ll make it “Kevin on Craft”), and eventually this conversation. Kevin and I decided to borrow an idea from Rachael Herron and Sacha Black, who periodically record a conversation together and then each use it on their respective podcasts. So you may encounter this conversation here on The Alignment Show, over on The Word Slinger Podcast, or, knowing Kevin, possibly on the back of a cereal box. What started as a conversation about writing craft quickly became something broader: creativity, discovery, getting unstuck, allowing imperfect work to exist, and recognizing that the creative process rarely follows the neat categories we use when we talk about it. The Big Takeaway One idea kept resurfacing for me: you don’t have to know everything before you begin. Kevin often starts a novel with little more than a title and an interesting possibility. The characters emerge as he writes. The plot develops alongside them. And when he gets stuck, he doesn’t necessarily take that as evidence that something has gone wrong. Sometimes he loops back through what he has already written. Sometimes he throws something ridiculous into the story just to see what happens. As Kevin put it, writing gives us an advantage real life doesn’t: “The laws of physics do not apply. So you can, in fact, travel through time and alter the past.” You can discover in chapter six that you needed something in chapter three, then go back and put it there. That sounds obvious once you say it. But it’s remarkably easy to forget when you’re staring at a draft and trying to get everything right the first time. In This Conversation Kevin and I talk about: * Why this experiment in shared podcasting started in the first place, and where “Kevin on Kraft (not cheese)” might go from here. * Kevin’s unusual habit of beginning many of his books with the title, then asking what interesting or ironic idea might be hiding inside it. * Why separating “plot” from “character” can be useful for studying craft even though they’re deeply intertwined when we actually write. * Discovery writing versus outlining, and why most writers probably fall somewhere along a spectrum rather than neatly into one camp. * Why trying to produce a perfect first draft can make finishing the book much harder. * Kevin’s “looping” technique for getting unstuck: going back through earlier material, reading and revising until he regains momentum. * What happens when looping doesn’t work, including the surprisingly useful strategy of throwing something absurd into the story and seeing what it reveals. * Kevin’s “ash bin,” where deleted scenes and discarded material can live instead of disappearing forever. * Why originality usually doesn’t mean inventing something nobody has ever seen before. As Kevin says, the goal is often “the same, but different.” * Why creativity isn’t limited to people who call themselves writers, artists, or creators. Problem solving itself is creative work. Something to Try If you’re working on something creative and you’re stuck, Kevin offers two approaches worth trying. First, loop back. Read what you already have. Make small adjustments as you go. See whether returning to the material gives you enough momentum to move through the place where you stopped. If that doesn’t work, try something unreasonable. Blow up the spaceship. You don’t have to keep it. The point is to break whatever assumptions have trapped you and force yourself to ask new questions. The absurd choice may disappear in revision, or it may reveal the direction the story needed all along. And remember: nothing you’ve already written is sacred simply because you wrote it. You can add something earlier, remove something that no longer belongs, or save good material for another day. Quote to Ponder “All the notes are the same. You’re not inventing new notes. It’s all in how you arrange them. And that’s what makes the music.” — Kevin Tumlinson That applies to considerably more than writing. About Kevin Tumlinson Kevin Tumlinson is an author with more than 70 published books, a longtime independent publishing advocate, and the host of The Word Slinger Podcast. He previously served as Director of Marketing and PR at Draft2Digital and is also one of the co-hosts of Writers, Ink. Kevin Tumlinson website The Word Slinger Podcast Kevin’s YouTube channel Resources Mentioned * Kevin Tumlinson * The Word Slinger Podcast — YouTube and Substack * Kevin’s YouTube channel * Writers, Ink * Rachael Herron / Ink in Your Veins * Sacha Black / The Rebel Author Podcast * Joanna Penn / The Creative Penn Podcast * On Writing by Stephen King — Amazon or Bookshop.org * 20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them — Amazon or Bookshop.org * Scrivener * The Alignment Show Join the Conversation This is something of an experiment for Kevin and me, and we’d genuinely like to know how it lands. Would you like to hear more conversations like this? Are there aspects of writing craft you’d particularly like me to ask Kevin about? And even if you’re not a writer, did you find something in the conversation that applies to your own creative work? Leave a comment here on Substack, or join the conversation on Kevin’s YouTube channel. We already have more things we could talk about. Whether “Kevin on Kraft” becomes a regular thing remains to be seen. But I suspect we’re not finished talking. If you get value from the show, consider supporting us in one of the following ways. You can make a one-time contribution or sign up for regular support through Buy Me a Coffee. You can also subscribe on Substack for free OR upgrade to a paid subscription. Your support helps me continue helping you and others, and thank you in advance! All subscribers now receive the following: * The “Big Takeaway” * A bulleted summary of the episode * Practical tips from the episode * A quote to ponder * Prefer text? We turn each podcast into an article. Plus, Founding Members receive ebook copies of all my books as well as a sponsorship message on the podcast at least once a month. That’s our way for saying “thanks for the support!” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kingschronicles.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Aug 10

    The Alignment Show Is Back—and We’re Starting with a Conversation

    Hi, friends. It’s been a while since we’ve had an episode of The Alignment Show, but we’re starting it back up again. We’ve been on hiatus for a few months as we experimented with different ways of connecting. While Substack Live is a perfectly viable channel, it just wasn’t working well for me. So we’re coming back to our usual format, and we’re starting off really well, I think. This coming Friday, what we intend to do is have a conversation between me and one of our “Stars in Alignment,” Kevin Tumlinson. Kevin has been on The Alignment Show several times, and we decided we would sit down and simply have a conversation. It’s not so much me hosting or him hosting. These episodes will be on both of our channels. We had a conversation that is the beginning of a series of conversations I think you’ll find interesting, whether you’re a writer or not. All of us are creative in one way or another, and there’s going to be material here that will be useful for you. So watch for that releasing this Friday on all your favorite channels. We’ll have it on Substack. We’ll have it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and all the usual outlets. I’ll look forward to sitting down with you then, here on The Alignment Show. If you just want written posts and don’t want to get notified about our podcasts, you can adjust what you receive from us here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kingschronicles.substack.com/subscribe

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About

kingschronicles.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Donn King
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    115
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Donn King
  • Show Website
    The Alignment Show

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