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.

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.

Links in this episode:

Kenneth Atchity A Writer’s Time

Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea

Dotoesvsky Notes from the Underground

Jasmine Guillory The Proposal

Blake Snyder Save the Cat!

Silence of the Lambs film

Thom Hartman Adult ADHAD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer’s World 

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.

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.

Links in this episode:

Sir Ian McKellen on Dick Cavett

Michael Caine Masterclass

Nomadland the film

Oprah confronts James Frey

Karl Ove Knausgard 

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence 

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenidies

Ta-Nahesi Coates The Water Dancers

Colson Whitehead The Underground Railroad 

Ali Abdaal

Barbara Oakley A Mind for Numbers

Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown and others

Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea

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.