Fiction is a lie. Hopefully a good, fun lie.

CONSUME: “Small Triumph Big Speech” podcast by Dylan Marron

CREATE: Write a 200-word story about something mundane you did today (made toast, brushed your teeth, exercised for 30 minutes). But exaggerate the details. How did your toast change your day, your life, the world even? Put dramatic significance on your workout. What were you training for? Raise the stakes beyond just making a breakfast snack or personal health.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you need to set the scene?

CONSUME: "Anthropocene Reviewed" podcast by John Green

CREATE: Write a 200 word story about a child. Give it a beginning, middle and an end. Something happened to this child. Maybe it was good. Maybe it was bad. But whatever it is clearly changes the child in the end of your story. Now write a 200-word story about that child as an adult. This adult is involved in a bank robbery. Maybe they’re the robber, or the cops, or a witness, or a get away driver, or a bank teller. Remember your first story when you write the second, but concentrate only on the bank robbery story.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Perfection is a target, not a goal.

CONSUME: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

CREATE: Spend 58 minutes brainstorming and refining the title of your Perfect Work, the one you someday want to make. The title that you think will draw people in, maybe has a secret meaning or relates to the very core of the work. Now spend 2 minutes to come up with two more names. Make them as good as you can in two minutes. Share all three titles of your great masterpiece, but don’t indicate which one is the one you think is perfect.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We experience more than what we see.

CONSUME: “How to Meet and Dance with Your Death” by Larissa Shmailo (http://larissashmailo.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-to-meet-and-dance-with-your-death.html)

CREATE: Write 200-400 words about a meal. It can be eating the meal, preparing the meal, talking about the meal, cleaning up after the meal. Use each sense: taste, texture, smell, sound and sight.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you sound like, as a writer?

CONSUME: “Exercises in Style” by Raymond Queneau (excerpt: https://monoskop.org/images/4/49/Queneau_Raymond_Exercises_in_Style_pp_1-26.pdf)

CREATE: Find a piece of writing you like. Sit with that work and think about what grabs you. Find the DNA of that work and what it is that you identify with. Now write a 200-400 story in the style of that piece of writing.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You write in the here and now.

CONSUME: “Girls, at Play” by Celeste Ng https://blr.med.nyu.edu/content/archive/2010/fall/girlsatplay

CREATE: Write a 200-400 word story about a chase. Your last line is a cliffhanger, a tease for the next part of this chase. Use only active voice and present tense. 

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You are intrigued by second person narratives.

CONSUME: GirlsArePretty.com

CREATE: Write a 200-400 word story in Second Person POV that begins with “You knew it was a bad idea, but you did it anyway.” And ends with “You still have 20 more to go.”

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's there that's not there?

CONSUME: “Dear Committee Members” by Julie Schumaker

CREATE: Set a timer for 15 minutes. Create a character (a person, a place or a thing, really. Doesn’t have to be a human being.) And write a list of everything they do not have, everything they do not want, everything they are not, everything they cannot or will not do. Ignore story structure and just focus on the things that your central character is not. Keep writing until time is up. Save your story and come back to it later.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the shape of your narrative?

CONSUME: “17776 Football” by Jon Bois https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football

CREATE: Write a 100 word story with a beginning, middle and end. Write another 100 word story with completely different characters and completely different action. But take one character, place, or idea from the first story and incorporate it in here.Write one more 100 word story using an entirely different character and place and action. But bring that connective tissue from the first two stories into this one, something that connects all three together.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How are you doing?

CONSUME: The podcast Our Plague Year https://ourplagueyear.libsyn.com/

and the webcomic Valley Ghouls https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/valley-ghouls/list?title_no=330059&page=1

CREATE: Think of a true story from your past. One that does not seem to have anything to do with the present moment. Tell that story, in as little or as many words as you need. But do so while thinking about it through the lens of this moment in your life.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at [email protected] or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices