Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
My conversation with Angie Powers, co-host of Story Makers Show, began with the process and pleasure of telling yourself a story. We discussed what she did and did not get from her MFA program, including an understanding of structure and revision, which led us into the art of revision and the relationship between revision and planning or structure. There is a balance between finding the story as you go and outlining the story for yourself. We talked about finding that balance even within the process of outlining. Also discussed: the secret to writing and where not to look for it, the art of simplifying, the benefits of small, concrete work goals, specificity and subtext, and the questions, large and small, that keep your reader interested from one story turn to the next. Angie lays out a seven-step structure for story in a quick overview and explains why the seven steps are not a formula and what made Angie overcome her resistance and embrace them as a tool that helps her tell stories.
Links:
Royal Institute of Magic Series
Angie Powers
Where to begin? The story starts a long, long time ago, back when the first Dot Com bubble was building, and I had just graduated from college with one of the two least lucrative degrees one can get – History.
Armed with witty banter and a desire to live in San Francisco I promptly found a job at a gay home rental agency during one of the worst housing crunches in SF history. And while $11/hour was a step up from the fat bank of work-study, it wasn’t enough to keep me down on the farm.
So, I got a job at a puppet company. And while it might seem like an odd place to bloom, okay, bloom is a strong word for what actually happened, it was at this job I discovered my love of technology. I still remember the moment when I learned to send messages to users through the Novell network (this was back in the days of Windows 3.1 – actually, it was in the days of windows 98, but the people at this company weren’t rushing into upgrading) and brought our financial guy screaming out of his back office because he had no idea what had just happened to his computer. From there, I took apart computers and put cards in them, and then I discovered HTML.
Needless to say, I never looked back.
Since then, I’ve been very lucky to have jobs that let me do what I do best – learn and communicate. And since then, I’ve learned about php, css, javascript, FCP, shooting video, color correction, what the inside of a recording studio looks like and copywriting.
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.
Recent Comments