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.