Story Makers Show

In a robust conversation with the wonderful debut novelist Sanjena Sathian, Angie and Elizabeth pick her brain about craft, including defaulting to chronology as a built-in plot structure, and the benefit to stabilizing one variable in an ambitious novel with a lot of moving parts. Other topics covered include: Head hopping to find a voice with range and inflection. Connecting to/ channeling voice. Writing a dominant identity from the position of a non-dominant identity. Giving parts of ourselves to each character. Privilege and blind spots. The negotiation of self and non-self. The age of a narrator v the age of the characters. What inspired her to write. What art does v what representational politics do. The vomit draft and the cut scenes. Groping in the dark, despairing, panic, and outline: a writer’s toolkit. Editing. Noticing v building. Research and discovery. Getting outside the text. The importance of throwing things away because you know you can do something better. And the power of moving sentences around.     Links Discussed: @sanjenasathian Green Apple Books A Capella Books Gold Diggers The Time Traveller’s Wife Birds in the Sky Miranda July Shirley Jackson Haruki Murakami Banana Yoshimoto The Shining: King and Kubrick  Mindy Khaling Article about road supposedly named for native Hawaiian gold digger Anne Fadiman Roget’s Thesaurus  Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood Don’t forget to send in your questions! SANJENA SATHIAN Sanjena Sathian was raised in Georgia by Indian immigrant parents. She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an alumna of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and a former Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. She has also worked as a journalist in San Francisco and in Mumbai. Her award winning short fiction appears or is forthcoming in Conjunctions, Boulevard, Joyland, Salt Hill, and The Master’s Review. She’s written nonfiction for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Food and Wine, The Boston Globe, The Juggernaut, The Millions, OZY, and more. Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

In today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth interview author Yang Huang about her new novel, The Good Son. Ideas come to Yang as images first, which she sees as mysteries to be solved and as uncensorable. She wants to tell the truth—through fiction and in English. Topics of discussion include the free will of characters, parents’ control over and visions for their kids, rebellion and surprise, clean beautiful language, and the many, many drafts it takes to finish a novel. In the initial draft, Yang avoids an agenda and follows her curiosity. They delve into the mystery and advantage to a single point of view, the art of pacing, the time it can take to occupy another character, and China in the 1990s and today.   Links Discussed: Yang Huang Interviews Feng. Link to NYT review of The Good Son, Yang’s book Henry James Patricia Highsmith Nina Schuyler  Lava Falls by Lucy Jane Bledsoe Yanghuang.com Upcoming events: June 7 Virtual Event at Folio Launch Party June 9, 6 pm, Booksmith SF Don’t forget to send in your questions! YANG HUANG Yang Huang grew up in Yangzhou, China and came to the U.S. to study computer science. While working as an engineer, she studied literature and pursued writing. Yang attended Boston College and earned an MFA from the University of Arizona. Read about her journey: Why I Write In English. Her novel My Good Son won the University of New Orleans Press Publishing Lab Prize. Her linked story collection, My Old Faithful, won the Juniper Prize for fiction, and her debut novel, Living Treasures, won the Nautilus Book Award silver medal in fiction. Her essays, stories, and screenplay have appeared in Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, The Margins, Asian Pacific American Journal, The Evansville Review, Futures, Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, Nuvein, and Stories for Film. Yang lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works for the University of California, Berkeley. Besides her day job and family life, she writes fiction and creates a more tolerant and hopeful world in stories. Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

In today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth talk with author Hari Ziyad about Hari’s new memoir, Black Boy Out of Time. Because Hari is also a screenwriter who has had interest from the worlds of film and television in adapting their memoir, the conversation touches on the opportunities and challenges of creating a series or movie out of a memoir written to a younger self, with some essayistic/ analytical threads. They discuss power of specific stories to resonate beyond their intended or imagined audiences, strategies for working with editors who may misunderstand your story, and how, as an editor, to open up the relationship as a dialogue… Other topics include: touring during the pandemic, pandemic as… metaphor/ appropriate setting in the book, humor and the art of weaving many elements and metaphors into a strong ending, and why we can’t worry art into the world…and how to stop running directly at the tennis ball… Finally we land on the importance of rest! Links in this episode: Hari Ziyad Essay about Hari’s mother’s passing Hari Ziyad Black Boy Out of Time Racebaitr  @hariziyad on social media  Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

The promise of knowledge management for the widely curious brain. Paper books and index cards and card catalogs and the art of tracking and linking your ideas. The act of writing is fundamental to thinking. Upended routines as in-person school begins in a small, irregular way. Speaking of nonlinear, how linear does plot need to be? Is chronology a friend to casualty? Is it necessary? The ways the backstory can circle back but acquire new meanings or trigger new understanding. Bringing causality and chronology into play. The consciousness of development matters, but the consciousness creating the story can be the reader’s. Alternate reasons to chronology for, what happens next? Memoir and the disconnect between character and events, which should join inform each other in service to story. The low-point, for example, will come from the character. Looking for the story scenes in life, as there is no shortage of redemption and failure in life. Geometry and patterns. Links in this episode: Notion, the app Roam Director position for our school Mortimer J. Adler How to Read a Book Ericsson and Pool Peek: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (10,000 hours) Brown et al, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning Sonke Ahrens How to Take Smart Notes Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad Devi S. Laskar The Atlas of Reds and Blues Rabid Alameddine I, the Divine Captain Marvel film Groundhog Day film Palm Springs film John Truby The Anatomy of Story Sherlock t.v. show  Sophie Hannah The Next to Die Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n This week, Elizabeth launches a new project, while Angie starts teaching in-person middle school math, thinking about individual learning strategies and styles. A listener asks, what is the secret to creating flawed characters that readers still want to invest in? The episode zeroes in on some answers. Notes from the conversation: Is self-reflection  a virtue? Do we prefer Clark Kent or Superman? Must readers like characters or is it only necessary that they can’t look away, as with a car crash? Maybe relate-ability is more important. Characters we like will not be liked by everyone. How secret is the secret to like-ability? Call on simpatico, grace, skill/ expertise… The conversation grapples with reliability in narrators, creating sympathy, building empathy, wish fulfillment, underestimated underdogs, antagonists, relatable human desires, owning your flaws, entitlement. Conclusion? Flaws are necessary for story. The wrap-up concerns systems and fighting systems.\r\n\n\r\n\n \n \n \n Links in this episode:\n\r\n\nKenneth Atchity A Writer’s Time\r\n\nIris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea\r\n\nDotoesvsky Notes from the Underground\r\n\nJasmine Guillory The Proposal\r\n\nBlake Snyder Save the Cat!\r\n\nSilence of the Lambs film\r\n\nThom Hartman Adult ADHAD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer’s World \r\n\n\r\nQuestions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com\r\n\n \n \n \n Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success.\r\n\r\nThe hosts:\r\n\r\nElizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\nAngie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n

\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n As Angie heads from Zoom into the classroom, she and Elizabeth discuss the switching of mediums, the differences between camera and stage. Body language. Elizabeth is working on deciding her next project. Then they dive into the differences and similarities between fictions and nonfiction, their strategies, their expectations, and even their definitions. Fictionalizing, omission, editing, exaggerating…what creates and what crosses the lines? What about auto-fiction, fiction based on life? They offer some tools to borrow from each genre for the other, including historical context, research, interviews, metaphors, vivid and specific detail, even fantasy… And gesture toward some problems with ideas of balance and objectivity. Wrapping up they talk about religion and central metaphors. Warning: excess punning occurs.\r\n\n\r\n\n \n \n \n Links in this episode:\n\r\n\nSir Ian McKellen on Dick Cavett\r\n\nMichael Caine Masterclass\r\n\nNomadland the film\r\n\nOprah confronts James Frey\r\n\nKarl Ove Knausgard \r\n\nThe Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence \r\n\nMiddlesex by Jeffrey Eugenidies\r\n\nTa-Nahesi Coates The Water Dancers\r\n\nColson Whitehead The Underground Railroad \r\n\nAli Abdaal\r\n\nBarbara Oakley A Mind for Numbers\r\n\nMake It Stick by Peter C. Brown and others\r\n\nIris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea\r\n\n\r\nQuestions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com \r\n\n\n \n \n \n Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success.\r\n\r\nThe hosts:\r\n\r\nElizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\nAngie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n

\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n In today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth report in their debut trailer camping experience, amd compare it to a creative process. Meanwhile,Angie is doing animation, and Elizabeth gives a submissions update. They turn them to answering a listener’s question about which project to choose, exploring the following approaches:\r\n\n\nGo pitch it to somebody (excitable).\r\n\nAsk yourself, Is it big enough to be a book?\r\n\nWrite a treatment, premise, longline, or outline/ scenelist.\r\n\nBe messy.\r\n\nExplore whether your multiple projects are in fact connected to each other.\r\n\nPut your notes on the wall. Look at them.\r\n\nBrainstorm scenes.\r\n\nSchedule table reads.\r\n\nRead aloud to someone or record yourself or ask someone else to read your work to you… even your computer…\r\n\nWork on multiple projects at once…(and the pros and cons of doing so)\r\n\nTake time off/ let it sit.\r\n\n\n \r\n\nWhat if, conversely, you have no ideas? Angie and Elizabeth argue about generating ideas by\r\n\nasking questions that inspire you or letting yourself be impacted by the world.\r\n\n \r\n\nRIP Beverly Cleary and Larry McMurtry\r\n\n \n \n \n Links in this episode:\n\r\n\nStockard Channing reading Ramona books audiobook collection\r\n\nNaNoWriMo\r\n\nCall My Agent show\r\n\nIsabel Huppert star\r\n\nThe Office show\r\n\nThe Arsonist’s City by Hala Alyan audiobook\r\n\nDear Girls by Ali Wong book\r\n\nAlways Be My Maybe film\r\n\n\r\nQuestions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com \r\n\n\n \n \n \n Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success.\r\n\r\nThe hosts:\r\n\r\nElizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\nAngie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n

\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n The episode kicks off with a glance at the trouble with deep work in a pandemic with kids before diving into emotion in story: Emotional arc and emotion as action trigger, emional as both key and causal. It is emotion that drives readers to read, based on desired mood and emotion. There are writer who avoid emotion and the converse trouble of only focusing on emotion, musing, feeling. The discussion affirms the need for both action and emtion, as it examines the challenges of  emotional logic. Other terms and topics include: Thin cuts. Character cuts. Tone. Simplification. Setting. What reveals character accurately. Small telling details reveal character. Focus. Relevance. Snap judgements. Emotion and dialogue. Hard-earned emotional breakthroughs. Fear of sentimentality. (Sentimentality is not the same as earned emotional response.) Drop dive into emotion on today’s show.\r\n\n \n \n \n Links in this episode:\n\r\n\nE.M. Forster Aspect of the Novel\r\n\nPilar Alessandra The Coffee Break Screenwriter\r\n\nMalcolm Gladwell Blink\r\n\nCarol Wolf \r\n\nJohn Gottman\r\n\nWandaVision\r\n\nJesmyn Ward essay\r\n\nGrace Paley “Wants” in Emormous Changes at the Last Minute\r\n\nShobha Rao Girls Burn Brighter\r\n\n“And then the murders began”\r\n\nVirginia Woolf Mrs. Dalloway\r\n\n\r\n\n \nQuestions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com \r\n\n\n \n \n \n Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success.\r\n\r\nThe hosts:\r\n\r\nElizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\nAngie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.\r\n\r\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n

Angie teaches math and daydreams a new film while Elizabeth gets a mammogram and considers character questions. In today’s episode, Elizabeth explores the epiphany she began to have on last week’s episode by asking Angie a lot of questions about balancing or toggling between chaos, intuition, planning, and structure. What is the relationship of character to action in a discovery draft and beyond? Is what we love about a discovery draft what means we can throw it away? Discovery v drafting. In responding, Angie explores her childhood boredom during chores that sparked her earliest fan fiction. They discuss how structure gives you a way to reapproach a vast and layered project like a book or screenplay. How to zero in on character and story. And the ways that list-making story development can create the magical discovery experience as well as blind drafting can. The planning process also brings in an element of focus that can be helpful to those who lack this. An outline can be incredibly vivid. Intuitive outlining can also get you through cliche ideas, dig deeper. They also touch on iterations in screenplays versus novels and the role the reader plays in co-creating a story. Angie talks about her experience translating a screenplay into a novel. Other topics include the value of time off between iterations, of simplifying and of fighting for windows of focus. Finally, Tony Robbins provides a window into emotional state when he cites a study that proves the power of sensate detail in creating emotion. Links in this episode: 36 Love Questions David Mamet’s 3 Scene Questions  Gill Dennis Questions  Matthew Salesses Craft in the Real World Lajos Egri The Craft of Dramatic Writing (premise) Cal Newport Deep Work Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

In this week’s episode, a listener asks a question about transitions and pacing, leading to a roving discussion of pacing, logistics, linearity, causality, and intentionality: what is significant—and how do you know? Creating the reader’s experience through character work in both writing and editing, and then trusting character to emerge through necessary scenes allows for the shaping of meaningful transition. Angie and Elizabeth compare and contrast their mothers’ carrot chopping methodologies to demonstrate how character comes through all actions. Other topics include scenes lists, transitions in screenplays versus prose, character expectations, jumpcuts, moments of change, grocery shopping, not working, and quantity versus quality in submissions as in all things, at certain times. Links in this episode: The Op-Ed Project Devi S Laskar on Story Makers Show: Taking It Day by Day  Katie Orenstein  Lily King Writers & Lovers AS Byatt Josh Spector’s notes on Seth Godwin’s book The Practice by Seth Godin Fried Green Tomatoes film Call My Agent The Danish Girl and The Nineteenth Wife by David Ebershoff Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

In this episode, Angie and Elizabeth answer a listener’s question about how to use poetic language to story’s advantage rather than distraction. This requires teasing apart what, exactly, poetic language entails–compression, metaphor, white space, senstae detail–and what prose writers can gain from the poetic. Focusing on poetry’s clarifying power rather than a sense of it as obscuring, they ask: what are your artistic goals, and can you go deeper to get clearer? They delve into story, character, and setting as metaphor , and emphasize the importance of letting your intentional choices as a writer guide your response to a note about, for example, the poetry in your language. By noticing that one of the thing art does sometimes is to shock and bother us, the conversation swings through a look at imagery in film and the history of different movements in film. In short: There is no book everyone likes. Find the people who understand what you are trying to do. Make sure you are one of them. Do what you love. And keep trying!   Links in this episode: Yu Yun-Li Ann Carson Bernardine Evaristo Girl, Woman, Other  Rachel Getting Married  Birdman Russian Ark  John Ashbery Julianna Spahr Jeanette Winterson The Passion Sundance Film: Coming Home in the Dark Books about Henry James: The Master by Colm Toibin Author, Author David Lodge Guy du Maurier Tim Ferriss books Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice and Tools of Titans   Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Happy New Year! Angie and Elizabeth follow their “what are you working on” opening into a deep dive into the art and systems of submitting your work to literary journals, as Elizabeth has begun to do. This includes learning the markets, curating your own backlog, rejection, and representing a writer who is not as good as you are now–the you who wrote your finished work. They touch on the importance of quantity over quality for certain goals. And in “Steal This,” Angie explains how we can use math explorations to open our minds to multiple ways of illustrating information, opening to all the tools possible for a given problem. Links in this episode: Tiny Love Story Submittable Rankings of 500 Lit Mags Lea Page podcast Stockard Channing reading the Ramona the Pest books Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

With Elizabeth fresh off virtual Sonoma County Writers Camp, she and Angie discuss the technological opportunities of this moment and how it will carry into the future. This evolves into a consideration of the advantages of dictation and whether typing will turn out to be a brief technological phase. Angie doesn’t fall in love easily with books and, though she teaches story development based on screenwriting, the books she is drawn to tend to be quirky. She particularly appreciates narrators who accept the strange terms of their world. And the metaphoric resonances of that strange element. After a detour into an appreciation for amazing audiobook narrators and public libraries, the discussion advances the “one unbelievable thing” theory of near realism, looking at why it works to break one–and only one–rule and make everything believable.   Links in this episode: Gil Dennis video Leonora Carrington The Hearing Trumpet  Kevin Wilson Nothing to See Here  Stockard Channing reading Ramona the Pest series  Ruth O. Saxton The Book of Old Ladies: Celebrating Women of a Certain Age in Fiction Jennifer March Soloway Muriel Sparks Momento Mori  Tana French The Searcher Meg LeFauve Martin Seligman Authentic Happiness Josh Spector For the Interested newsletter    Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Yay, you voted! And look, it worked. Now buy books from your local indie bookstore. In today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth talk about voice and POV, including the theatrical element of voice, leaning into voice, and when analysis should kick voice into gear. They also talk about the differences between who we hoped we’d be and who we are, the impact of the kids being home all the time, and whether and when self-compassion can be a winning or worthwhile strategy. A debate on self-compassion v. pushing and deadlines concludes with the question of whether deadlines might be a form of self-compassion. Other techniques to get and keep you going: excitement about the work itself, the effort and possibility of making the world a better place. Other topics include omniscient first person, white-guy eighties authors, “characterness,” the storyteller in voice, voice in film and film-equivalents to voice, shameful obsessions (that don’t hurt people) and letting yourself embrace your own shameful(but joy harmful) obsessions…and journeys.   Links in this episode:   Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Nick Flynn Writers on Writing Nick Flynn interview To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf  Remains of the Day, book and movie Thor: Love and Thunder 2022 Everything Tiaka Watiti including TED talk Hunt for the Wilderpeople Little Mutinies short Conviction by Denise Mina Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Today’s podcast mines for what we can learn about the moments we falter–as when Angie and Elizabeth stopped podcasting for a few weeks. The conversation wonders, Who has more free time right now? And briefly explores revision—how do you know what’s needed when you already know the story so well. But mostly this is an episode about connection, permission, productivity, isolation, and meaning. Writing as activism, and life as performance art. If you feel like you are walking through knee-deep mud, maybe holding your breath, we hope this chat will help. Links in this episode:   AnnieDillard Thich Nhat Hanh Pomodoro Zadie Smith essays  Robert Frost Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Today’s episode features an interview with scientist and debut novelist Carole Stivers, whose new book The Mother Code launches this week. The discussion ranges over climate science fiction, genetic engineering, military biological warfare, parenting, and lots of writing tips. We discuss the challenges of launching a dystopian near-future novel into a world utterly changed by pandemic (which initially delayed the book’s pub date) and how Carole retroactively connected to her characters in their somewhat parallel plight. The episode answers the question, does imagination prepare us for dramatic change? And touches on loving characters…and making them suffer… and avoiding evil bad guys. We delve into drafting and editing, from beat/ scene lists and planning to beta readers through the manuscript’s expanding and contracting, the uses of theme, the necessity of cutting characters and events, and integrating research. Carole’s advice? If you have a story to tell or a desire to write—get started!    Links in this episode:   Terminator (film) I am Mother (film) Robert McKee Save the Cat Writes a Novel Angie Kim episode Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (audiobook) Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy Song of the Sea (film) SFMOMA FB: Carole Stivers author CaroleStivers.com Green Apple Book event John Markoff (interviewing her) Litquake The Mother Code by Carole Stivers Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Angie and Elizabeth, car packed to flee amidst the smoke of the Lightening Complex Fires, tackle what is too much plot? What is the difference between significant escalation in a story and the heaping on of chaos and disaster in the real world? Create meaning via choices and understand the ways events press on a character in need of a story journey. The conversation touches on multiple universes, individual stakes v. larger issues, immediate v. long-term danger, consequences, intersectional identities and vampires, not to mention MacGuffins, Casablanca, and Humphrey Bogart. What does it mean to write in a time of chaos, and how and where should we focus? There is no right or single answer, but let’s discuss!  Links in this episode:   Explaining the Pandemic to My Past Self Link to Professor Crunk Jewelle Gomez The Gilda Stories One Tin Soldier–Link to song from my friend Danielle Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com  Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Angie is figuring out how to figure out what she’s working on, and Elizabeth is working on the external propeller of her novel while starting something new. They grapple with how character desire drives a story, and how a character’s limiting belief impacts that desire, and how both build the premise. Want versus need comes up, and much about story, character worldview, American expectations and desire regarding story, values in conflict, powerful stakes, dog love as a solution to all problems, and more!   Links in this episode: Less by Andrew Sean Greer Room by Emma Donoghue The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead Elf 30 Rock Oedipus Rex by Sophocles A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens The Distant Dead by Heather Young FREE Class Weds. Aug. 5, Writing in the Time of Covid-19 Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com   Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Angie is learning about teaching math and either making connections to learning and writing…or developing a unified theory of everything. Elizabeth is in diffuse, “what if” mode, exploring her real values. As they delve into conversation about premise–an expression of values in a story–and limiting belief–the thinking that needs changing in a character, Angie asserts that what can seem like a blunt tool in writing, can come across subtle, enriching ways in reading. They explore how to use these tools to brainstorm and tap into the unconscious, how to develop and understand the psychology behind a character’s behavior, and how structure might mirror premise. Links in this episode: Link to free class on Writing in the Time of Covid. Book in a Year Craft Class and Story Development  Dorothy Allison sorry about Shannon Pearl/ fire — is embedded in her novel Bastard Out of Carolina Lindsey Doran Tony Robbins NLP Lajos Egri The Art of Dramatic Writing Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol Heather Young The Distant Dead Story Makers Episode with Heather Young  NYT What’s Happenjng in this Graph? Pandemic Consumer Spending   Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.

Today’s episode brings the study of scene to a conclusion with a third scene, this one from Danzy Senna’s non-fiction Where Did You Sleep Last Night? A Personal History. Angie and Elizabeth look at the work an opening scene does in establishing vital information–here, establishing a relationship  dynamic, a core theme, and stakes. With deft details and action, Senna creates a strong cinematic scene while also allowing for a narrator grappling with the meaning and interpretation of a scene from the past, one of the strengths of narrative prose on the page. The discussion also covers action as dialog, the interweaving of researched history with personal history, and the power of ambiguity. The episode kids off with a look at the trials, tribulations, and pleasures of reviewing morning pages, and of completion-centric project planning, as well as learning, revision, and imperfection in writing and math. Links in this episode:   Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser Cal Newport completion-centric and Einstein theory The Einstein Principle: Accomplish More By Doing Less The Art of the Finish: How to Go From Busy to Accomplished Scott Young UltraLearning  Story Makers Show scene episodes: Scene It All: What Makes Scene Work? The Final Scene: Elizabeth Strout Establishing Scenes: Setting Up Desires, Character, Theme in Action in Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys Denzy Senna Where Did You Sleep Last Night? Danzy Senna New People     Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival–everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.