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The Burnt Notebook

By: Ross Sutherland
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  • Summary

  • Inspirational hacks to transform expand your imagination and your creative writing.

    Writer and podcaster Ross Sutherland offers you a suite of writing techniques to get your creative juices flowing. This series is packed with tips gleaned from literature's finest writers, but don't worry - Ross isn't about to ask you to write a dense novel or an academic text. Through a series of playful exercises he's encouraging you to have fun, to experiment, to play and to fall in love with the written word.

    A Novel production for Audible Originals.

    This is an Audible Original Podcast. Free for members. You can download all 6 episodes to your Library now.
    ©2019 Audible, Ltd. (P)2019 Audible, Ltd.
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Episodes
  • Ep. 1: Anyone Can Form a Band

    Ep. 1: Anyone Can Form a Band
    Jan 2 2020

    Ross encourages us to harness the power of aliases. We learn about Frances Pessoa, a writer with 75 pseudonyms, and we found an imaginary band and populate their world.

    The Exercise:

    1. Imagine a fictional band and pick a name for them
    2. Give your band a desirable quality you admire but don’t have
    3. Sketch out a brief profile of the band referring to their desirable quality
    4. Name your fictional band’s first single and first EP or album
    5. Come up with the track titles for the songs on your imaginary band’s first album
    6. Take one of the song titles and write the lyrics to that song
    7. The end result is a brand new piece of writing you can use to spark new ideas
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    34 mins
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  • Ep. 2: Invisible People

    Ep. 2: Invisible People
    Jan 2 2020

    Ross heads out to do some serious people watching. We learn about the many ways the great authors observed the people around them and we try an exercise that uses strangers to spark our imagination.

    The Exercise:

    1. Find somewhere to sit - a public place with lots of people streaming past
    2. Start people watching and quickly scribble down as much as you can about what they’re wearing
    3. When they walk out of site just stop and pick another person
    4. Enjoy the feeling of just writing without needing to think about what to write
    5. You can use the little details you notice to form an army of potential characters to work into your creative writing
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    37 mins
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  • Ep. 3: Playtime

    Ep. 3: Playtime
    Jan 2 2020

    Ross teaches us to listen to words in a new way by forcing them into unusual formations. We discover a technique that automatically disrupts our writing, pushing us into exciting new territory.

    The Exercise:

    1. Grab a favourite book from your childhood
    2. Take the each word of the text, look each up in a dictionary or on dictionary.com
    3. Count seven words down in the dictionary
    4. Make a note of your new word and replace the original from the childhood book
    5. Don’t be afraid to break the rules - if the word seven words down doesn’t feel like a good fit, then scan the dictionary page for a more suitable word
    6. Doing this you’ll quickly end up with an all new, highly surreal story that contains echoes of the original
    7. The surreal sentences you’ll be left with are the perfect source material to spark fresh ideas
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    32 mins
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Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing
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What listeners say about The Burnt Notebook

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Profile Image for charlotte

Distracting music

It was hard to concentrate on the content. Although on the whole some good nuggets of advice but the annoying music in the background made it difficult to keep on track of what was being said. It didn't just play at the beginning and fade out, it continued all the way through. A shame really

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Profile Image for Erin M

Aaaaargh

The background noise makes this impossible to listen to. My head is hurting as the noises burrow deep into your mind. It's like some torture technique. Can't finish the series. Such a shame for Ross Sutherland who clearly has a lot of tips to offer but the production fails. As another reviewer said it is like a kid is practising his new keyboard. It reminded me of a scene from Ross in Friends when he plays the keyboard. Just awful series. Please sort it out Audible.

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Profile Image for clefairy

Not for those with sensory issues

I really wanted to listen to him speak but there's these high pitched chime noises, that I assume we're meant to be soothing, (along with other noises that felt like they were literally rattling my brain. Which is such a shame because I was genuinely intrigued in what was being said. I made it to episode 2 and couldn't handle it anymore. It might have just been me but those with issues like those on the spectrum go in carefully

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4 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for HappyLuckyAlix

Spoiled by AWFUL background music

Lots of well researched, interestingly put together writing advice and exercises here but two things really brought this down: first the weird, stilted delivery of a lot of it: Ross Sutherland sounds like a parody of a writer, particularly when reading his own compositions. Secondly and much worse, as others have said, the spoken content has the most horrible, ugly, irritating background behind it which distracts and diminishes everything good about it. A shame.

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Profile Image for miss o wilson

Struggled to finish

I struggled to finish this as all the sound effects and background music were really distracting and pointless.

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8 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for Praise_Gourd

Great show, ruined by sound effects

The infuriating sound design ruins what is otherwise a truly engaging and insightful show about writing.
Ross has a kind and disarming manner about him and that is the only reason that I toughed it out through the whole series.

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6 people found this helpful

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Profile Image for David Gillett

Irritating Music and Annoying Londoner Voice

As a person who loves writing and learning this podcast looked promising. The ideas were actually very inventive and you will surely get some great things from them. But the background music and the narrator's grating London accent (I personally detest that accent) left me with an aching jaw from clamping my teeth so tight. Please remaster this podcast without the annoying music and with a compitant narrator.

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Profile Image for Alix Fox

Those SFX = RIP my ears

Who the heck thought the constant front-and-centre sound effects on this show were a good idea?! They're intensely off-putting; at times make the narrator's voice hard to hear; and on occasion suddenly blast so loud that they make you yelp in pain if you're wearing headphones. Such a shame. If the soundtrack was more subtle this would be so much more pleasant to engage with.

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Profile Image for Amazon Customer

Had to give up listening

Sounded interesting but infuriating annoying soundtrack completely spoiled the narration, very frustrating. My ears began to bleed

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Profile Image for Kindle Customer

Horrendous monotone dinging noise

That dinging will haunt me in my dreams. Why would you do this? Please, why?

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