We tackle three tough questions today, two on dialogue and one on how to make more room for writing.
In the latest episode of Story Makers Show’s Quick Fix Q & A, we discuss the art and craft of dialog and subtext, adding “color” to historical fiction without crossing the line into fiction, and how to begin doing more creative writing in your life. Send us your questions at question at storymakersshow dot com and we’ll send you some answers by podcast.

Links Discussed:

Cornelia Nixon

Pilar Alessandra and On The Page Podcast

Denis Johnson

Brian Tracy

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.

We were thrilled to sit down with Book Writing World alum Gretchen Atwood to discuss her newly released book, Lost Champions: Four Men, Two Teams, and the Breaking of Pro Football's Color Line, and get some great tips about balancing research and writing, evaluating and choosing your sources, making use of research to create scene, and where the line between imagination and invention falls in nonfiction. Gretchen gave us a terrific breakdown of pulling details from a variety of sources to create a single, rich scene. She talked about writing a book proposal and finding an agent, about narrative structure and the ways that the research did and didn’t change the book from the way it was described in the proposal. She talked about working with a developmental editor, about various note-taking and color-coding strategies and their limitations, and about taking an emotional v. an analytical approach to building your book. We even got into the parallels between the structure of a ball game and the structure of a book.

Send us your questions about writing and the writing life to questions@storymakersshow.com

Buy Lost Champions

Links We Discussed:

Come see Elizabeth in conversation with author Gayle Forman: 

WSJ article on Lost Champions: 

Buy America's Game

Buy Goal Dust

Peanuts by Charles Schulz http://www.peanuts.com/

Buy All the Light We Cannont See

Buy History of Love

Buy How Champions Think

Buy The New Jim Crow

Buy Shock Doctrine

http://GretchenAtwood.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.

This week we started a new element in Story Makers Show. Interspersed with the in-depth interviews with authors, filmmakers and industry professionals, we are going to offer brief podcasts that answer your questions about writing. Yes, yours: write to us a @questions@storymakersshow.com or post them on the Story Makers Show page on Facebook or hit reply to this newsletter and ask away!

This episode we discuss finding readers who will be the best critics for your work, deciding if a project is fiction or non-fiction, and organizing your book when you have a lot of material and feel overwhelmed.

Links Discussed:

A Writer's Time

Scrivener
http://BookWritingWorld.com/classes

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 a deep background in both deadline journalism and mindfulness meditation, Jennifer Mattson teaches classes in getting unstuck that emphasize an acceptance of the cycle of getting stuck and unstuck. In our wonderful conversation she shares wisdom and practical tools for going through--and getting through--this process, as well as advice for pitching, an art she knows and discusses from the receiving and throwing end, and making a living as a freelance writer

Links:

Kripa Lu retreat center

Julia Cameron

Aaron Sorkin class

From Where You Dream

Jennifersmattson.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.