Writing Advice Videos on YouTube

[SoftGameHunter]

On Claire's story Record Chaser we've gotten into a discussion of writing videos and it seems like this is a good general discussion topic. Plus I don't want to detract from Record Chaser itself, which is a great story. So I'll start with a recap of my final post there and see where it goes. I just skimmed down my list of subscriptions and pulled out the ones I recognized as writing-oriented. I certainly missed some, but I'm happy to add to this if anyone wants to follow. I encourage anyone to share their resources here.


Hello Future Me - this is one Claire mentioned. I've seen some of it and it seems good, albeit movie oriented.

The Cozy Creative is good and honest.

Bookfox has solid stuff.

Nonsense-Free Kristin is not entirely nonsense-free but has some engaging material.

Writer Brandon McNulty is a good engaging guy that keeps it direct and on-point and not too long.

JBat is a recent find and he's got lots of ideas on fantasy stuff (and my wife loves his hair).

Jed Herne is good for sci-fi stuff.

Bookborn is another solid sci-fi and fantasy.

Writing with Andrew is another recent find who is definitely an academic but still keeps it real.

Tale Foundry is a great one for philosophical ideas in story telling.

Writing with Jenna Moreci has a ton of stuff and if you can get past her snarky moralizing, she knows a lot (and rumor has it she ignores most of it in her own books, but I can't comment on that.)

The absolute queen of trope discussions is found in Overly Sarcastic Productions.

Abbie Emmons has good basics, but when she teams up with her sister they tend to drone on endlessly.

I know there are more but, some some reservations in some cases, I'd recommend all of these if you just want to dip your toes into discussions of the art and craft of writing fiction.

[Lucius]

ShaelinWrites seems able to delve deep into interesting details without overloading the listener; recommended. I'd say Moreci is just too, too superficial, and Emmons's mantra of desire-fear-misbelief grates on my nerves. Can't help myself

[SoftGameHunter]

ShaelinWrites seems able to delve deep into interesting details without overloading the listener; recommended. I'd say Moreci is just too, too superficial, and Emmons's mantra of desire-fear-misbelief grates on my nerves. Can't help myself

Full agreement here. Well, mostly agreement here. ShaelinWrites has good material all around, and she works in editing. She just doesn't post much these days. And Emmons sells it too hard on her having worked out the correct path to successful authorship. Like many Youtuber writing gurus, she's pushing towards a style of storytelling that increasingly homogenizes the literary world as if that's a good thing. But for breaking down character mind sets she still has a lot to offer. I'm not sure superficial is how I would describe Jenna Moreci. She's put a lot of detail in over the years, but she presents it in a comedic (to her) style of lecturing/hectoring that makes it very easy to laugh at her rather than with her, especially if you look at what people say about her own novels. I'm not going to be too strident about books I haven't read, but people make solid cases that blatantly subverts her own advice.

[Lucius]

... I'm not sure superficial is how I would describe Jenna Moreci. She's put a lot of detail in over the years, but she presents it in a comedic (to her) style of lecturing/hectoring...

I think I haven't watched her in a few years, so I'll give Jenna's later videos a go.