Today’s episode informally kicks off a series where Angie and Elizabeth will be discussing scene, that key unit of storytelling across many formats and genres. As an overview, they present a number of elements of scene, including purpose, new information and forward movement of the story, character’s desire, and an acute focus on significant detail and action the two discuss. They are fans of scene and illuminate the power of scene, of moving from abstractions and generalizations to vivid action in your revisions. In addition, they discuss voting, videos, deadlines, focus and exploration, linearity v. simultaneity,  and pre-writing time--how much is enough?

Angie’s one-minute voting video 

Samantha Bee

Ann Napolitano Dear Edward

Brandon Taylor Real Life

Lily King Writers & Lovers

Adaptation film

Susan Orlean The Orchid Thief

Uta Hagen Respect for Acting

James Baldwin “Sonny’s Blues” in Going to Meet the Man 

John Gardner The Art of Fiction

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.