Today we are answering a listener question about making ordinary actions significant in a story--the moments such as having dinner v. the moments of jumping off a bridge to save your own life. What makes readers care? What makes readers pay attention? We dig the importance of character: character change, character reaction to the given events, and the breaking of a character’s cardinal rules. We examine the roles stakes and history play in making a moment matter. Cliche, expectation and subtext feature as factors. And we muck about in Elizabeth Strout’s brilliant short story “The Sign,” from her linked collection/ novel ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. Angie asks, How do you chose the detail that signifies?

Other topics include:

the courage to make/ let a lot happen on the page.

ways to fill the well, including artist dates, inspiring websites, and shaking up your own routine

Links Discussed:

Elizabeth Strout Anything is Possible

The Artist’s Way

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

A listener asks how we teach thesis/ antithesis/ synthesis and we tackle that from many angles, beginning with Elizabeth’s Marxist/ Stalinist grandmother, her one-time boyfriend John Howard Lawson, author of Theory and Technique of Playwrighting, and on through Laos Egri, Pilar Alessandra, Sarah Manguso and more. We discuss the difference between using these techniques for drafting and using them for revision, and touch briefly on the role of oppositional ideas in both politics and creativity, including the fight for gay marriage. From character through dialog and on to theme, we dig into thesis/ antithesis/ synthesis.

Links Discussed:

Little Man Tate

Black-ish

Sarah Manguso 300 Arguments

Columbine by Dave Cullen

Julia Cameron

Laos Egri

Pilar Alessandra

John Howard Lawson

Ted Olsen

Angie and Elizabeth look at how the busy person (and who isn’t?) makes time, finds time, steals time for writing. How to have your writer’s toolbelt stocked and ready at all times, walking and dictating with app advice, writing while asleep, writing before you speak, writing in short sprints, in small windows, letting go, setting expectations and intentions, and giving up perfection--of circumstance and of product. We also touch on the infinite and mutable self, inspired free writing, creating complexity through meaningful contradictions, and stealing our idols’ approaches and attitudes. If you struggle to squeeze writing into your life, this is the episode for you.

Links Discussed:

Robert Olen Butler
The Coen Brothers

Steven Soderbergh

Ira Glass

Ariel Gore

Pilar Alexandra The Coffee Break Screenwriter

Peter Coyote

Jennifer Egan

Ann Patchett

Carol Wolf

Janis Cooke Newman on Story Makers Show

Creative Caffeine Daily

Dragon Anywhere

Just Press Record

Thrillingly, we talked with one of Elizabeth’s favorite story gurus (who would probably reject the title and certainly any authoritarian implications that might attend it), Matt Bird, the author of The Secrets of Story. We talk Game of Thrones and ask and answer the question, What makes a story good enough to pull in even unconvinced readers? Warm language, intimacy, hope--this doesn’t sound like masochism, does it? But we get into the right way to be antagonistic with your reader, the importance and limitations of irony, the value of finding your story and ways to do so, and how to use a checklist (specifically, Matt’s 122 item checklist) without inhibiting your creativity. Other topics include unreliable narrators, upsetting rather than merely defying the reader’s expectations, breaking your own rules and writing what you don’t know. We dig into what stories teach us about solving problems and what solving problems teaches us about story. And much more.

Links Discussed:

Matt’s blog Secretsofstory.com

The Secrets of Story by Matt Bird

Narrative Breakdown podcast

How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely

The Fighter (film)

Lisa Cron Wired for Story

Lisa Cron Story Genius

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

Author Sere Prince Halverson

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy