The Writers’ Gym Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

If you’re listening to a podcast about writing, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced how a book you love has added to your life: how valuable that relationship with the words of a stranger, that tour of a world created by a mind other than your own, can be. Yet when it’s time to pay it forward, we can be blocked by questions like ‘What if it’s too weird?’ or ‘What if it’s too boring?’ In this episode, Rachel Knightley invites you to play Excuses Bingo, an original and favourite Writers’ Gym exercise, so you can move through fear and aim to be interested instead of interesting. The result? Paying it forward as a writer to your own readers.

“But don’t you HAVE to wait for inspiration?”

Every writing voice is unique — but how we stand in our way can be a lot less so. Inspired (see what we did there?) by a question Dr Rachel Knightley was asked in two workshops and one pub in the same week, this episode at the Writers’ Gym explores how to blend inspiration and perspiration to build healthy writing habits. We go back to Rachel’s key image of the writer’s artist palette: how our unique imagination, memory, observations and questions blend to even more unique results, when we create for ourselves (and with a little help from our writing workouts) the permission to use them.

Join our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com or get in touch at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

In this final episode of season 3, Dr Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen chat about memory and flashback and the ways in which authors can use them to add colour, realism and plot twists to their work.   Harking back to our episode about unreliable narrators, we look at the ways in which our memory can play tricks upon us and we examine memory-loss as a plot device.  As always we end with a writing exercise from Rachel. 

Rachel, Emily and Chris would like to thank everyone who has listened to season 3.  Listen out for a new series coming up in 2025. 

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media:

https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK

https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/

https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Whether it be ensuring the correct amount of nourishment for your body, exercise, a good sleep or combinations of aspiration and fear, writers tend to need to look after themselves in order to produce their best work.  In this episode Dr Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen look at fuel for writing.  And coffee...lots of coffee.

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media:

https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK

https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/

https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

In this episode Dr Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen discuss prologues and epilogues and how writers can use them to create intriguing openings and satisfying endings for their fiction.  As usual we range from novels to TV, film, and audio drama looking at good and not-so-good examples. 

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media:

https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK

https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/

https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

In this episode we look at the role of narrators in fiction and discuss when, how and whether to deploy them.  As usual Dr Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen bring examples from their own writing and from the wider worlds of literature and drama. 

Rachel would like to point out that it was Arthur Dent's upper arm that was bruised and not his elbow.

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media:

https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK

https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/

https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

In this episode we look at reading and how it can help to fire creativity and inspire imagination for authors.  As usual, Emily and Rachel bring plenty of stories and anecdotes about ways in which books have inspired them.  We end with a look at books about writing. 

Books mentioned in this podcast include 

Ursula Le Guin: Steering the Craft and Conversations on Writing

Stephen King: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Rachel Knightley: Your Creative Writing Toolkit Margaret Atwood: Negotiating with the Dead David Lynch: Catching the Big Fish John Cleese: Creativity: a short and cheerful guide

Sandra Newman & Howard Mittelmark: How Not to Write a Novel

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media:

https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK

https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/

https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

In this episode we explore viewpoint and perspective in fiction.   Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen discuss the different types of perspective and the ways in which a writers' instinct might dictate the best approach to telling their particular story. 

In the discussion Rachel references “Point of View: the thing that makes all other things more doable” which you can find on YouTube here 

https://youtu.be/GgB7_I37efM?si=bVCVYAxNTsrWZ0OU

It is presented by Rachel Knightley and produced by Simret Cheema-Innis

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media:

https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK

https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/

https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

In this episode Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen talk about scriptwriting and offer advice to writers wishing to get started in writing for stage, screen or audio drama.  

You can listen to Rachel Knightley's audio drama "Winter Spring" here https://open.spotify.com/episode/2gBu6Bqmc7CiC8zwXTYIPZ?si=b2c423862aaf4438

Emily's drama serial "The Dex Legacy" can be heard here  https://open.spotify.com/show/1aphgDiefw4FdO8EN5LJxy?si=2908e95681354b81

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media:

https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK

https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/

https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

In this episode Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen discuss pace and structure in fiction.  They ask whether pace comes from structure or can be added at the editing stage and ponder examples of well structured stories on page and screen.

Join the Writers’ Gym and book your next writing workout at https://www.rachelknightley.com/the-writers-gym/

The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alternative Stories production for The Writers' Gym.

Find out more about The Writers' Gym and Rachel Knightley by going to: https://www.rachelknightley.com/

Find out more about Emily Inkpen and her work by going to: https://www.emilyinkpen.com/

Learn more about Chris Gregory and Alternative Stories here https://alternativestories.com/

Follow the Writers’ Gym and contact us on Social Media: https://x.com/TheWritersGymRK https://www.instagram.com/jointhewritersgym/ https://www.facebook.com/JoinTheWritersGym/

Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.

Contact us by email at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com

Join us next week for the third episode of season three in which we'll be talking about scriptwriting.