Episode 141: Interview with Taryn Frazier

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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are thrilled to share our conversation with contemporary and speculative fiction and short story author T. R. (Taryn Rose) Frazier.

Taryn is an author who shares copy editing tips on Instagram at #diycopyediting to help writers refresh or learn grammar and punctuation concepts in a fun, clear, and easy to use format. She has two short stories that have recently been purchased for publication in online magazines Daily Science Fiction and @CosmicRootszine. She has also written two works of fiction, has recently queried a contemporary novel, and is currently working on outlining a speculative fiction novel that’s a loose retelling of Homer’s Odyssey. She regularly shares short stories on #flashfictionmagic , posted poems on #posttopoet with @the.authoress.life, and is a candid and encouraging presence within the Instagram writing community.

In this episode, Taryn talks about the lessons she learned through writing short stories and how they’ve helped with the craft of writing. Such as:

  • Specificity - “When you only have 300 words, don’t pick the boring word. Choose the most specific or the one that will make people stop, rather than a generic one.”

  • Writing with Restrictions - “Form can be freeing.”

  • Help Reframe Rejection - “Short stories remind you there’s always another idea.”

Throughout this episode, Taryn gives a lot of great reminders. That learning the craft of writing doesn’t have to be expensive. Take advantage of the free resources that are readily available. Also, to remember that writing doesn’t mean you have to be at a computer. You can be capturing notes while out running errands or thinking about plot points while doing dishes.

She ends this conversation with a reminder to keep your ideal reader in mind as you go through the writing process. Shifting your mindset from solely what you think and feel to what your reader’s want and what they need. Connect back in with who matters to you and who this is for, balancing that with your vision for the project.

We hope you enjoy this episode. It was a conversation filled with nuggets of wisdom and we were delighted to be a part of it!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Taryn is an author who shares copy editing tips on Instagram at #diycopyediting to help writers refresh or learn grammar and punctuation concepts in a fun, clear, and easy to use format. She has two short stories that have recently been purchased for publication in online magazines Daily Science Fiction and @CosmicRootszine. She has also written two works of fiction, has recently queried a contemporary novel, and is currently working on outlining a speculative fiction novel that’s a loose retelling of Homer’s Odyssey. She regularly shares short stories on #flashfictionmagic , posted poems on #posttopoet with @the.authoress.life, and is a candid and encouraging presence within the Instagram writing community.

Taryn’s personal website is https://tarynfrazier.com/ . Her site contains several links to her short stories that are in print. You can connect with her on Instagram @tarynrose.writes and on Twitter @tarynrosewriter.

Her work can be found at the following locations:

Taryn mentioned author Brandon Sanderson’s fantastic writing lectures that are available for free on YouTube. Those can be found at Brandon Sanderson - 2020 Creative Writing Lectures at BYU. She specifically recommends “Lecture #7: Short Stories — With Special Guest Instructor Mary Robinette Kowal”.

Taryn talked about several resources that she uses to identify places that are accepting short stories for publication. Those are:

Books and Movies Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

interviewBethany Stedman