Writing Podcast Episode 612: Meet Petronella McGovern, author of ‘The Last Trace’, on how to build narrative tension and keep readers turning the page.
Meet Petronella McGovern, author of The Last Trace. Petronella shares her top 5 tips on creating narrative tension and so that readers keep turning the page. You'll discover techniques on character development, the challenges of editing, writing cliffhangers, ensuring you have internal and external conflicts and much more.
00:00 Introduction and welcome 00:18 TV series based on books 02:28 Nat Newman's writing tips on writing accents 10:46 WIN: Lies & Weddings by Kevin Kwan 13:51 Word of the week: Psephology 15:12 Interview with Petronella McGovern, author of The Last Trace 23:09 Introducing the multi-generational characters 23:46 Crafting emotional connections with characters 24:55 Narrative tension and point of view decisions 26:40 Internal and external conflicts 27:56 Writing realistic teenagers 30:41 Drip feeding secrets and foreshadowing 34:18 The importance of cliffhangers 35:15 The evolution of writing process 39:52 Balancing subplots and multiple POVs 42:25 Final thoughts and future projects 45:16 Conclusion and fun fact
Petronella McGovern is fascinated by what makes us tick, the lies we tell, and the secrets we keep. She is the best-selling author of Six Minutes, The Good Teacher, The Liars and The Last Trace. Her books have been nominated in the Ned Kelly Awards, the Davitt Awards and the Australian Independent Bookseller Awards. The Liars was selected in the Top 100 Big W/Better Reading list for 2023. Petronella has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and tutors in creative writing. She grew up on a farm in central west NSW and now lives with her family in Sydney on Gadigal Country. Among other adventures, she has worked on a summer camp in America and travelled in eastern Africa which inspired parts of her fourth novel, The Last Trace.
