We’re keeping one eye on superheroes this week as Leslie hammers home some insights about the epic-style Action story in Thor: Ragnarok. This 2017 Marvel blockbuster was written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, and Christopher Yost, and directed by Taika Waititi.

When the villain goes low, we go high with the classic Status Admiration story, A Little Princess. This 1905 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett was most recently adapted to film in 1995 by screenwriter Richard La Gravenese and director Alfonso Cuaron.

Special Episode - Story Grid Masterwork Experiment: Can an experienced writer build a new and original story by copying a great masterwork? Author Anne Hawley accepts the challenge from Shawn Coyne. In the first episode, they introduce the masterwork and lay out the rules of the experiment.

Here’s a preview of the winning hand of stories the Roundtablers are getting ready to bring you in Season 5. Join us for Episode 0, where Anne, Kim, Valerie, Jarie and Leslie each reveal their first movie of the season and talk about why they chose it, and how they hope studying it will help them in their own writing.

It’s 20 minutes of deep insight this time as Valerie Francis brings you a bite-size episode on Value Shift.

It’s 20 minutes of deep insight this time as Kim Kessler bring you a bite-size episode on Vetting Your Book Idea.

What is exposition, and why should novelists be leery of it? Turns out there's brain science behind “Show Don't Tell.” Editor Anne Hawley lays it all out in this 20-minute Bite Size Edition.

This week, Kim and the other Roundtablers continue piecing together global internal genre stories with the 2018 independent film, Puzzle. The screenplay, an adaptation from a 2010 Argentinian film Rompecabezas, was written by Oren Moverman and directed by Marc Turtletaub.

It’s tradition versus change as Valerie and the Roundtablers examine dramatic irony in the British historical drama The Queen. This 2006 film examining events surrounding the death of Princess Diana was written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears.

Don’t call us stupid! Jarie and the team examine 1998’s A Fish Called Wanda for comedic dialogue. This heist comedy was directed by Charles Crichton from a screenplay by Charles Crichton and John Cleese.