Fable & The Verbivore

Fable and the Verbivore are focusing on all things Adventure during the month of September. So, today, we’re talking about some of the classic elements of adventure stories that make them so much fun to read and watch.

We view adventure as more of a trope or a set of story elements that really can be present within any genre of writing or film. Not all adventure narratives are the same, they can take place in a modern, fantasy, science fiction, or historical setting. It is more that you know the feeling of an adventure narrative when you see it rather than having rules that are set in stone, but in general they typically have:

A character that’s thrust into an unfamiliar world

A quest or journey

A fast pace and/or ticking clock

Macguffins and/or treasure hunts

High stakes and risks with real consequences

A strong villain or antagonist (though it could be supernatural or nature itself)

Humour and witty banter

Growth and character transformation

We also discuss how making the road difficult and the experience unfamiliar helps to engage the reader’s empathy for the protagonist. If things come too easily in the story, we tend to feel that it’s not very realistic.

Adventure stories help remind us that we don’t always want to play it safe, that we want to grow and change, and help us feel what it means to be truly alive.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Today, Fable and the Verbivore have the great pleasure of sharing our interview with award-winning playwright and author Joy McCullough.

Joy has written two historical fiction plays (Smoke & Dust, Blood/Water/Paint) that explore the lives of real women that challenged what was acceptable in their societies. She’s published two YA books (Blood Water Paint and We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire), two middle grade (A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Across the Pond), and a NYT-bestselling picture book (Champ & Major: First Dogs).

In this episode, Joy talks about the unique benefits that writing a novel in verse allows, finding stories that have been lost to time, and that history has lessons to teach if we listen for the echoes. She also generously tells her own journey to being published and the persistence that it took to sell her first book, and encourages all artists to start writing the next thing rather than sitting and waiting for something to sell.

Joy also touches on the books she has coming out in 2022. She co-authored a Little Women retelling set during WWII titled Great or Nothing, is releasing a middle grade called (Not) Starring Zadie Gonzalez, and wrote a historical fiction picture book titled Harriet’s Ruffled Feather’s.

Both Fable and the Verbivore greatly enjoyed reading Joy’s work and would highly recommend checking it out. We hope you enjoy this episode, we certainly enjoyed having this conversation!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and the Verbivore are thrilled to share our August book club episode!

This is our second episode where we invited a reader to join in our conversation. This month we asked the Verbivore’s sister Anne Stender to pick a book that meant something to her for us all to read and discuss together. Anne chose Australian author Sally Morgan’s novel in verse Sister Heart.

Sister Heart is a fictional story based on real events, written in the close perspective of a young Indigenous girl as she’s taken by the Australian government from her family who live in the outback and is sent to live at a state school far away in Southern Australia. In the days that follow her name, language, and hair is stripped from her. But, in the course of the story, a series of themes unfold within the heart-breaking reality – understanding that your spirit and identity can’t be taken from you and finding a way to hold on to your voice and to hope.

In this episode, we talk about the how the author uses straightforward, simple and yet powerful language. The verse form is boiled down and concise, but the narrative covers a lot of emotional ground and includes breath-taking visual imagery. It absolutely feels as if each word in the story pulls it’s weight.

We also discuss how the author takes care to write about trauma in an authentic and truthful way - showing how some healing must occur and trust established before new friendships can be made and someone can feel safe enough to be vulnerable and share parts of themselves. She also focuses on the power and importance of remembering and passing down the stories that are ours. And lastly, how healing getting back to the Earth, nature, and country can be.

We hope you enjoyed this episode, we sure enjoyed having this conversation! We feel this book was an important, poignant, and hopeful read - as well as an interesting study of what a novel in Verse can do. We’d highly recommend that you check it out.

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and the Verbivore discuss concepts from the writing craft book “The Creative Doer” by Anna Lovind.

We saw this book as a gently confronting look into some of the ways we neglect to prioritize our work, to take a step back and assess our lives, and to listen to ourselves and care after our health - as well as being a helpful guide for finding safe spaces for creating and paths forward to sharing our work. Her strategies and suggestions come from a place of transparency and understanding - which made it a relatable as well as motivating read.

Anna unpacks some of the more common challenges that women tend to face when transitioning from wanting to be creative to actively defining the work that’s theirs to do, taking that work seriously, and putting their voice out into the world. However, she also explores the nuances of the individual experience acknowledging that everyone doesn’t experience the same obstacles.

She calls forward the classic vision of the lone writer creating in his room and shows how that view of the work can be incomplete and not fully reflect the experience of a significant portion of the population. She also talks about acknowledging the way that society has been and is - recognizing how important it is for art and writing to reflect diverse ideas, voices, and experiences.

To that end, this book is filled with ideas and tools that can be used by anyone as they walk their personal path to creativity, towards taking up space and working to figure out what is for them.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and the Verbivore discuss writing while balancing other roles and responsibilities - specifically for us our roles as parents.

Both Bethany and Laura wear many different hats on a daily basis, so we dig into strengthening our ability to pivot when we need to and managing our internal messages. Reminding ourselves when we have to set our writing down to fulfill some of our other responsibilities, that the words will still be there waiting for us.

We also talk about sometimes letting our writing flow into the cracks or small spaces of time that we have in a day. Using the breaks between weightlifting reps or in the moments of waiting while making dinner to get some words in or ideas down. Realizing that if we can’t set aside a large block of time, maybe we can find small chunks in unexpected places.

In this episode, we talk about the challenges of doing the work while meeting constantly changing needs. But also what kids can teach us - the importance of play, following curiosity and acting on your instincts, and exploring all the possibilities with an unfettered imagination. We also discuss the importance of valuing the work for how you develop when you’re creating, in addition to the thing you create and put out into the world.   

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and the Verbivore dig into the Heroine’s Journey story structure.

A couple weeks ago, we covered the Hero’s Journey story structure, its prevalence in fiction and movies, and its limitations. We also loosely contrasted it with the Heroine’s Journey story form and promised to revisit it more thoroughly in a separate episode. And that day is today. :-)

Neither of these structures are mutually exclusive, a story can reflect beats from both or one or none of these arcs and still be a great narrative. These are not the only story structures. The Heroine’s journey also tends to focus on defining things by the masculine (external, active) and the feminine (internal, reflective) as aspects, but that’s not the same thing as gender. These stories are not binary and make the assumption that as human beings we each have elements of both the masculine and the feminine within us all.

In this episode, we admit that we’re beginning learners ourselves in this less common story structure. But like anything, we learn best by just starting and doing. The Heroine’s Journey is not as well known, because we don’t see it as often in the stories that are told in our world today. But, we feel that just means we should more actively seek them out.

That said, we cover several stories that you might already be familiar with that use elements of this structure. Here are a few of the movies and books mentioned:

Mulan (Animated)

Brave (Animated)

The Hunger Games Trilogy

The Matrix Trilogy

The Divergent Trilogy (Book)

Six of Crows Duology

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Today, Fable and the Verbivore celebrate their 100th episode!

We ask each other some pointed questions – exploring and unpacking our podcast journey so far. What was the hardest part? What was the most rewarding? What surprised us? What advice would we give someone else trying a new creative project?

Throughout this conversation we talk about showing up scared and leaning in to the things that intimidate us, giving up on perfection and aiming instead for authenticity, and finding opportunities to allow something new and unexpected to unfold. We both envision growth and even some innovation for the future – trying new things and asking the ever-important question “what if?”.

We also dig into the incredible rewards we found in interviewing and connecting with other authors and creatives. Both the obligation to attempt to create a safe space for someone to be able to share their voice and the great gift it’s been to participate in these conversations. We are infinitely grateful to each person that generously shared their process, wisdom gained through experience, and a glimpse into their creative lives!

And a huge thanks to you – our listeners - for sticking with us! We’re so grateful to have you here and are excited to continue forward together on this creative journey!

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and the Verbivore follow up our Star Wars two-part episodes with a look at the Hero’s Journey and the impact it has on past and present story structure.

George Lucas has said several times in interviews that without having read Joseph Campbell’s book A Hero with a Thousand Faces (basically a meta analysis of myths across the globe) he’d still be writing Star Wars. We can relate to the feeling that finding a structure that works for your given story can be like finding the missing piece to a puzzle.

Throughout our conversation, we dig into the contributions of Joseph Cambell, Christopher Vogler, and Blake Snyder’s to the Hero’s Journey story structure and how it has impacted many areas of storytelling from writing fiction, crafting TV series arcs, and screenwriting movie scripts. As part of this, we also explore some of the downside of having so many stories use similar general structures.

We also loosely contrast the more predominate Hero’s or Heroic Journey structure with the less widely used Heroine’s Journey story form(s) - with the intention that we’ll revisit this more rare story structure alternative in a future episode.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and the Verbivore follow up our Skywalker saga episode with a more general discussion of the Star Wars universe, creators, and storytelling.

As with any of our conversations, we acknowledge that our viewpoint is far from definitive and reflects our own preconceptions, emotional baggage, and preferences. Also, Spoiler Alert for the Skywalker saga and Rogue One.

We start off by breaking free the constructs of the Sith Vs. the Jedi conflict from the concept of the balance between the Light and Dark sides of the force. They’re not really the same thing and the stories are not necessarily a good Vs. evil parallel. In fact, the Jedi are described many times in the prequels as blind and stuck in the old ways. The point being that the history of the Jedi is complicated and nuanced, which we feel adds a lot of dimension and drama to the different beliefs and experiences of the force wielders within the stories.

In this episode, we touch on the importance of subtext in dialogue, how intriguing setups also need satisfying endings, and how by having characters redefine concepts across the stories we get a more layered view of this world. We believe that the best thing about Star Wars is it means so many different things to each individual person and there is never one absolute right explanation - which means we each leave it taking away something unique.

We also talk about what characters we’d like to see more of, what stories we hope are explored in the future, and touch briefly on new additions to the cannon such as The Mandalorian as well as the upcoming Cassian Andor and Ahsoka TV series on Disney Plus.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our adventure into the world of Star Wars and may the force by with you. Always!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Today, Fable and the Verbivore are thrilled to share part one of our Star Wars series.

In this episode, we cover the main story arc and themes within the Skywalker saga of films. Spoiler alert We break down these three trilogies as follows:

- Prequel Trilogy - Episodes 1-3: The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker

- Original Trilogy - Episodes 4-6: The Turn of Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) or Luke’s Hero’s Journey

- Sequel Trilogy - Episodes 7-9: The Redemption of Ben Solo

George Lucas has said that Star Wars is like poetry, it rhymes. So, throughout our conversation, we talk about the recurring themes of compassion, hope, and fear. We mention several visual cues that crop up throughout the films and dive into the meaning of all of those masks that different characters wear.

But most importantly we talk about unconditional love, having faith that someone can choose a different path, and a possible hidden meaning behind the “I will finish what you started” line from The Force Awakens.

We hope you enjoy this episode as we venture into a galaxy far, far away!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore