The Seventh Draft |

The Seventh Draft |


Latest Episodes

Vacation Announcement
July 26, 2017

Juliet and Jon are going on a summer vacation. They'll be back in September.

Messages and Metamessages
July 04, 2017

Sometimes you mean what you say. Sometimes you don't. - Jon and Juliet discuss messages and metamessages and some of the ideas from Deborah Tannen's That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. (Amazon link) -

Like What To Do With Too Many Likes
June 20, 2017

From our twitter account: -   - This show is our answer. If you have a question, tweet us. Email us. Send us a voice-memo. - The simile examples came from this site. -  

Gender Verbs
June 07, 2017

Juliet and Jon talk about some recent research into Gender Verbs. What they are. What they aren't. How to have some fun with them. - From the Variance Explained blog, David Robinson examined Gender and verbs across 100,000 stories. -

Delicious Books from Childhood
May 16, 2017

Juliet and Jon fire up the time machine, (or is it the nostalgia machine?) and each read from one of their favorite books from their childhood. Our selections couldn't have been more different. - For Juliet,

Longline of My Dreams
May 02, 2017

Loglines are usually associated with TV and movies but as an ever-resourceful writer, but they can be quite useful for novelists. - Juliet and Jon define, dissect, and discuss loglines. Jon shares one that he's working on and with for a current writin...

It’s Not a Cemetery. It’s a Garden of Names.
April 19, 2017

Naming characters. Should be easy. Bob. Alice. Ted. And Alice. Done. - Jon and Juliet discuss naming characters. Dos. Do nots. And they consider an interesting post by J Warren Piece, who covers such naming topics as: - A) Alliteration -

What the F?
April 04, 2017

A warning: We say several profane words. Including tabernacle! - Jon and Juliet talk about Benjamin K. Bergen's book What the F? What Swearing Reveals about Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves. In our Profanity or Amateurfanity?

What’s Always Wrong With Books (And Movies)?
March 21, 2017

She got off the phone with just a single goodbye. The security guard put up a hell of a fight. After being knocked out cold in each the last five chapters, the protagonist feels pretty good. - Juliet and Jon talk about those things that movies and b...

Hi. I’m a writer. I have an ellipsis problem…
February 21, 2017

Sometimes a writer will repeat a comfortable device... Again... And again... And again... What is happening and why? - Juliet and Jon examine a trap that Jon recently fell into—the dreaded ellipsis. Why would that happen?