Fable & The Verbivore

Today is the first in our new mini-podcast Author Answers series! We have author Erica Wynters with us today answering the question, “How early do you share your work and what does that process look like for you?”

Erica Wynters is the author of the In the Desert series, a set of novellas following FBI profiler Alexandra Briggs as she hunts criminals, is stalked by a serial killer, and tries to manage her new relationship with Special Agent Henry Collins. The final installment in the series, Hunted in the Desert, releases in August 2020.

Erica lives in the Phoenix area with her husband and two kids. While she's not weaving tales of romance and suspense, she works as a Marriage and Family Therapist, helping clients find their own happily ever afters.

Thanks so much for joining us, Erica!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Music from: https://filmmusic.io’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Over the next few weeks, Fable and the Verbivore will be discussing Pixar storytelling. Today, we dive into the Pixar movie Inside Out and the details that the creators used to emotionally connect with their audience.

The Verbivore opens up the conversation, by digging into the thought that director Pete Docter had which led to the creation of this story, some of the brainstorming that went into the design phase of the project, and a walk that helped him figure out why the story wasn’t working.

The conversation turns to the unique dual character journey structure that flips back and fourth between Riley and Joy, elements that the storytellers use to invest the viewer within Riley and Joy’s journeys, and that they hide in plain sight the central conflicts for both of these characters within the movie’s dialogue.

Since this is film, we discuss elements of screenplay writing and how they visually show moments that emotionally resonate rather than telling it. We also discuss how subtle choices made by the voice actor Richard Kind help make some of Bing Bong’s moments feel authentic.

We hope that you enjoy this episode and that you are staying safe! Keep creating and putting your unique voice out there!

Into the woods,Fable & The Verbivore

Today, Fable and The Verbivore have far too much fun discussing the sinister, mystical, and complex world created by author Hafsah Faizal in her debut novel We Hunt the Flame.

We start by talking about the elements that were used by the author to pull the reader into the story – a intriguing epigraph that hints at the direction the story will go and a beautifully crafted map of the world with interesting little details that help inform the story as it unfolds.

In this episode, we discuss the precision that she used in the setup of character and story elements. Specifically - the introductions to the two main characters Zafira and Nasir are used to contrast each other developing tension before they even meet, Zafira and Nasir are also in conflict between themselves and the roles they need to fulfill which helps create tension around their choices, and establishing all of the character relationships early but also showing them in transition as their situations change brings interest and movement to the beginning of the story.  

We also mention that the author makes surprising choices that twists the story line and subverts expectations, creates interest by only giving the reader information from one person’s perspective and then swapping perspectives to fill in the other side of the story, and uses a concise and yet poetic style to keep momentum in the story while also creating something beautiful to read.  

This book was a delight to read and the epilogue sets up some additionally compelling questions going into the conclusion of this duology in We Free the Stars, which is set to release in January, 2021.

We hope that you are staying safe and finding time to practice self-care, whatever that looks like! Keep creating and putting your unique voice out there!

Into the woods,Fable & The Verbivore

Today we are thrilled to share our latest interview! In this episode, Fable and the Verbivore speak with actor, director, and storyteller Charissa Adams.

Charissa is the founder of Fractured Shakespeare, which reconstructs the lines of Shakespeare’s text into new artistic and dramatic creations. By breaking the words of the Bard free from their original written pieces, they are able to interweave them together to create a modern context for his words. Charissa discusses the path that led to her establishing this diverse group of creatives and performers that are dedicated to making pieces that connect with the human experience.

In this episode, we talk a lot about how the creative process requires just getting out there and trying things, how boundaries can improve creativity, and how seeking out the unique and different can lead you in exciting and unexpected directions. Charissa also shares her experiences in acting that have helped her focus in on the development of a truthful emotional journey for her characters, as well as the creation of believable and nuanced characters grounded in reality.

At one point in the episode, we discuss how several years ago Charissa created a monologue during the #100dayproject that she then developed under Fractured Shakespeare into the short film titled Was it Rape, Then? on the subject of consent. This artistic piece is available to watch on YouTube and boasts some powerful performances. It has also been featured in Huffington Post, Bustle, Stage Raw and Shakespeare Magazine. We highly recommend that you check out this thought provoking piece.

Fractured Shakespeare also has been sharing weekly socially-distanced permances on timely topics such as Not Alone, Thy Mother, Self Love, and Black Lives Matter on their Instagram channel @fracturedshakespeare over the last several months. These collaborative performances can be viewed on their story highlights.

We talked with Charissa for over an hour and it was difficult to cut this conversation down close to the length of our typical episodes. If you want to hear the full discussion, you can find it on our Patreon page. For just $5 a month you can support this podcast and get full author interviews each month.

We hope that you are staying safe and finding time to practice self-care! Keep creating and putting your unique voice out there! The world needs it!

Into the woods,Fable & The Verbivore

As a follow-up to last week’s episode on writing diverse characters, Fable and the Verbivore discuss the importance of reading widely and stepping outside of our reading comfort zones. Reading a variety of works and voices expands our understanding and empathy as human beings as well as opens our minds to possibilities and helps make our stories more reflective of the diverse world we live in.

In this episode, we focus mostly on BIPOC authors with an emphasis on Black voices. We did this merely to keep the scope of our conversation manageable. Our intention was not to exclude any type of writers or works.

By reading widely, we mean:

·        The breadth of the works that we choose to read across book categories and subcategories such as: fiction and non-fiction, genre, writing style, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and unique voice

·        The depth of works that we choose to read within a given category such as: multiple works written by an author, multiple books within a category or subcategories, and reading both popular and potentially overlooked books   

Beth and Laura start by openly discussing our own experiences reading widely, and ways in which we would like to be more purposeful in pushing the boundaries of who and what we read. We acknowledge the lack of diversity as we read growing up and in our literature classes in high school and many in college that tended to focus on white, Eurocentric, masculine voices. We also touch on the overarching lack of diversity in the books that are published and marketed today. Because of those and other issues, we feel it takes conscious and consistent effort to seek after and engage with diverse voices.

That said, there are many resources out there to help find new reads and diverse voices. Some ideas are to connect with authors and find book recommendations on social media platforms such as Instagram, seeking recommendations from readers you know or through a community of readers, and looking up “best of” lists on websites like Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and independent book enthusiasts.

We hope that you are staying safe and finding time to practice self-care, as well as finding ways to grow and challenge yourself! Keep creating, putting your unique voice out there, and read widely!

Into the woods,Fable & The Verbivore

Today, Fable and the Verbivore get personal in our discussion about approaching writing characters from diverse backgrounds, and making sure that we do the work to ensure they are authentic and believable. This topic came up during a podcast planning meeting, and we just hit record as we discussed it in real time.

There are several times in this episode we discuss doing the needed research. It’s always a good general practice in writing to research well, but we also feel that when we are writing about individual characters (voices) from a culture that is not our own we owe it to ourselves and the world to ensure that our stories are truthful representations and that they don’t fall into propagating stereotypes.

Here are some specific ideas:

If you are writing about a specific location, look up demographic information to ensure you reflect the population

Seek out information about the culture, language, and history that you are looking to write about

Identify areas where there are specific words, customs, and experiences that should be treated with care, respect, and sensitivity

Read stories written from that perspective or voice

If possible, interview individuals who could give some personal or in-depth knowledge

Remember that your character is a representation of a person. As such, they should have depth and layers just like any other characters in your work. For instance, there may be times that they clash against their culture, so make diliberate choices and ensure that they are an individual within their society.

We also discuss the need for sensitivity reviews as you are developing your stories and characters, and beta readers who can view it from a cultural sensitivity lens once the book is in draft form. But in addition to that, we acknowledge that its important to have as much diversity in your beta readers as well so that your pool of readers is as reflective of society as possible. Also, we recommend clearly directing your beta readers as to what areas you would like them to focus on as they read your work.

We hope that you are staying safe and finding time to practice self-care! Keep creating and putting your unique voice out there! The world needs it!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

For May’s book club episode, Fable and The Verbivore review and compare two vastly different novels both inspired by classic fairytales. Uprooted by author Naomi Novik reads like an eerie and dark mythological version of Beauty and the Beast. And the genre bending Cinder by Marissa Meyer, feels part Sci-Fi and part Fantasy in a story where Cinderella is a cyborg and everyday people fear magic.

We start by talking about some of the elements shared by both novels that were well conceived and stood in contrast to each other, from the unique world building, magic systems, and the author’s choices for the narrative voice. Also, we compare the book genres as Uprooted is an adult high fantasy novel with more violence and overt romance, and Cinder has some dark elements but falls within the YA novel category.

Specifically for Uprooted, we dive into the dynamics of the two main characters who clash over how magic should be practiced, discuss the well-grounded depiction of a close and complicated friendship, and look at the depth of theme that seems to underpin many of the author’s choices.

During our discussion of Cinder, we touch on how the author shifts the Cinderella paradigm into previously unexplored group, uses an android companion with a faulty personality chip to act as a foil to the protagonist, and allows the reader to get a glimpse at the thoughts and motivations of this prince charming.

We hope you enjoy this episode, we sure had a lot of fun reading and talking about these books! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

In today’s installment of Fable and the Verbivore, Fable (Bethany) came to our recording session with a lie that she’d struggled with during the week and wanted to unpack, regarding what constitutes good writing. So we made a spur of the moment decision to scrap our planned discussion in favor of exploring this topic on the fly.  

We both grew up with fantastic English teachers that taught us a lot about literature and helped cultivate within us a love for authors we may not have chosen to read on our own, but they also had definite ideas about what authors and genres should and should not be considered good and worthwhile reading material.

During this discussion, we challenge that belief and posit that all writing has its strong points and weak points. No writing is perfect and each genre has something unique it brings to the table, and every work we read can teach us about the craft if we are willing to approach it with an open mind. We also argue that though writing is a craft it is also an artform, and we tend to form subjective opinions of the works we read based on whether it connects with us and think that they’re objective judgements.

Our goal was to help free ourselves both as we read and write from buying into this lie. As we continue to take part in the #100dayproject, we are reminding ourselves that, though each thing we write may connect with ourselves or others to varying degrees, there are not words that our definitively worthwhile and others that aren’t. They are all worth creating.

Check out our daily words on our personal Instagram accounts under #imitatelikeawriter. Also, feel free to join us by sharing your own words.

We hope that you are staying safe and finding time to practice self-care! Keep creating and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Today we are thrilled to share our interview with writer and podcaster Shawn Smucker! Shawn has written and released four books with Revell Publishing House including the thrilling and thought provoking “Light From Distant Stars”. His fifth book entitled "These Nameless Things” is set to release on June 30th, 2020 and has been described as “reminiscent of both Dante's Inferno and Lost”. After listening to Shawn’s description of this book, we can’t wait to read it!

In this episode, Shawn generously shares experience and advice discovered on his writing journey. We talk about how other creative works influence our writing, and he describes the importance of setting clear goals, as well as the personal commitment he made to write 10 books in 10 years. He also shares his experience with self-publishing and traditional publishing, along with things he learned about himself through those experiences. But mostly he focuses on the importance of remembering to love and value the work.

Shawn also co-hosts the sublime podcast The Stories Between Us which features transparent and funny conversations with his wife, writer Maile Silva, focused on the reality of their writing life. They also have some fantastic author interview episodes, such as with Yangsze Choo author of “The Ghost Bride” and “The Night Tiger”. Their conversations are filled with relatable experiences and encouragement for anyone who is working to create something new!

We talked with Shawn for well over an hour and it was difficult to cut this conversation down to the length of our typical episodes. If you want to hear the full discussion, you can find it on our Patreon page. For just $5 a month you can support this podcast and get full author interviews each month.

We hope you enjoy listening to this week’s episode, we walked away from it feeling encouraged and unpacking some of Shawn’s sage advice! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

In this week’s episode, Fable and the Verbivore share some of their methods and tools for brainstorming writing ideas and storing those ideas for future projects.

We start out by exploring how we use the website Pinterest as a way to capture inspiration images that represent visual design elements, spark certain emotions, or express in shorthand the feel of a project in a way that would be more complicated to capture in a written format.

As part of our discussion, the Verbivore describes how she developed ideas for her Kid’s book WIP using life experiences, emotions, or conversations to hone in on what fit within that project in a way that resonated with the overall idea. One practical tool, was color psychology charts that she used to help determine what each book would look like from a visual design perspective and reflect the personality of the child who inspired each book.

We talk about a variety of ways that help move projects forward when you hit a roadblock, such as:

- Creating space and silence for the ideas to arrive

- Pushing through and writing the scene poorly, so that you can better understand what is wrong with it

- Arts begets art. Reading books, writing parallel to your project, watching tv shows, watching movies, watching plays, and listening to musicals and music of all sorts that resonate with what you’re exploring may spark ideas

- Researching and moving forward other elements of your project (worldbuilding, character development, historical research, etc.) while you go through the gestation period with your WIP

- Writing in a journal words/phrases that come to mind or free writing (without judgement)

We also chat about the different ways we each tend to prefer to work and how we have emraced going against those preferences to see what we create. The Verbivore discusses how she had to realize that she tends to write better in a non-linear fashion, which is the oppposite of how Fable prefers to write.

Each way a writer works and brainstorms is unique and has merit, and there is no right way to do it. But sometimes going at it another way can also teach you and foster inspiration.

We hope that you are staying safe and finding time to practice self-care! Keep creating and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore