Story Makers Show

Where does your novel start? How do you handle the parts that come before that start that feel relevant to the story? In this episode, we tackle these questions from a listener. We talk about the importance of finishing a draft before you’ll know where it really starts, about both planning and drafting as layers of the discovery process, about the difference between focused and diffuse work, about about wrong and right answers (does this binary exist?). Integrating backstory gets a look. We discuss how characters are conduits of backstory, consciously and unconsciously, through their thoughts, behavior and world view. We touch on backstory as revelation. You’ll also meet our rescue dog, Bandit, as we speculate about his back story, which we will never know.

Lauren Groff

"The Trip Treatment” by Michael Pollen in the New Yorker 2.9.15:

Tony Rock

Picasso’s total work

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The Design Process

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.

We’re back after a long hiatus, and diving in with a topic all writers have to face, the successful most of all: rejection. Elizabeth shares the ups and downs of her publishing trails, and talks about responding to feedback versus holding to your own authentic vision. We talk about the many iterations of revision and how you know you are done with a book. Submission and re-submission get a look, and we explore analogies including dating and sales for what they can and can’t offer us as we collect rejections on the path to success. Other topics include perfectionism, deadlines, buddies, and holding on to and letting go of your work.

Oh! And send your questions to: [email protected]

Matt Bird http://www.secretsofstory.com/

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Todd Henry: The Accidental Creative

Charles Duhigg, Smarter, Faster, Better

The Change Agent podcast:

Simplicity podcast Duhigg episode, season 3, episode one:

Lea Page episode:

The Pomodoro Technique:

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.

In this conversation with Molly Schulman, aa freelance editor who was the former in-house editor at a New York literary agency, we discuss what it’s like to edit authors such as Elizabeth Strout and Ruth Ozeki, as well as her own experiences as a poet and writer/ performer of a one-woman show now at work on a novel. We talk about trying to be a little bit scared, about taking risks, about what writers can learn from stand-up comics, including the inspiration of delusional confidence. Other topics include:

Molly Schulman

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Molly Schulman is a writer and an editor. She was born in California; she grew up in New York; she lived in Georgia for a nice while; now she lives in Texas. After receiving her B.A. in Creative Writing from The New School, she worked in publishing as an in-house editor at The Friedrich Agency where she worked with authors such as Elizabeth Strout, Jane Smiley, Laurie Frankel, and Ruth Ozeki. In October 2013, she left the agency to pursue her own writing, performing, and professional freelance editing and author consultation services. As an independent editor, she's worked with authors such as Imbolo Mbue, Heather Barbieri, and Will Heinrich. She has taught writing and publishing workshops in Austin, TX at The Writing Barn and TOMS Roasting CO., and in NYC, during the Brooklyn Book Festival. In September 2017, she will be the guest author and instructor at L’avventura Writing Residency at Villa Cantoni, in the Friuli region of Northeast Italy.

Molly debuted her one woman show, a poetry-based storytelling performance called One of Six—a story about growing up with many siblings, in many houses—at the City of Savannah Center for Cultural Affairs in May 2014. She has been published in literary journals such as Sink Review, Burningword, Eleven-and-Half, and Release, and she guest-edited the Summer 2015 issue of Five Quarterly. Most recently, she was a Winter 2016 Ragdale writer-in-residence where she worked on her novel-in-progress—a multi-generational tale of brothers, sisters, and show business—called HOW TO CRY ON CUE.

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.

Angie and Elizabeth regroup after Angie’s intensive film production and Elizabeth’s recently completed novel draft to talk about iterations of projects, what to do in between, how to juggle vision v. footage/ pages, and the importance of knowing what you are working towards when you edit. We also discuss concrete story goals--what they look like, why they matter, and what they allow in terms of resonance and larger themes. Other topics we touch on in this conversation include: releasing ownership, film v. prose, want v. need, mindset, and the level of risk we are willing to take.

Jill Soloway

Don't forget to send in your questions!

Please review us!

If you’re curious about how to leave a review on iTunes, here’s an article about how to do it!

And here’s our iTunes Page. 

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.

Our dear friend and talented writer Devi Laskar’s first poetry chapbook, Gas & Food, No Lodging, has just been published, and we celebrate with a far ranging converstaion about language v. narrative poetry, ad how story influences the organization of a collection, challenges and constraints, the “garbage disposal method of writing,” playing tennis with and without a net, revision, abandoning a work of art,  journalism, finding the story, the shadow poem, tackling long middles, daily practices, erasure poems, rogue sonnets, and the dramatic and terrible events that Devi and her family suffered, as recently described in The New York Times. We also talk about the dangers of political burnout and the necessity of taking time for art, as well as why it's more important than ever that we all represent ourselves through art so that we can't be erased.

Emily Dickinson

Citizen by Claudia Rankine

http://www.devislaskar.com/

Don't forget to send in your questions!

Devi S. Laskar is a native of Chapel Hill, NC. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Atlanta Review, The Squaw Valley Review, The North American Review, Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, among others. The Raleigh Review nominated “Untitled Western Country Song in Rubescent A Minor” for Meridian’s Best New Poets 2016. The Blue Heron Review nominated “Most Days a Passage” for Sundress’ Best of the Net Anthology 2016. Poet Jessica Piazza recently selected “Dissection” and “What Namaste Really Means” as the winning entries for the poetry prize at the 27th Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, and those poems are forthcoming in the next issue of Noyo River Review.

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.

In this episode we get into the books we loved in college. Ecstasy ensues as we revisit Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, Jeanette Winterson, June Jordan, Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovani and others who changed us, stretched us, challenged us, enraptured us. We suggest several writing exercises that have inspired us, touch on Shakespeare’s writing process, investigate revision, logistical constraints, types of focus, humanity’s resistance to losing rights we’ve gained as compared to our willingness to fight for rights we’ve never had, and finding a cohort of readers in middle age. It is #TryPod month--a time to explore new and unusual podcasts, and we recommend several, as well as discussing how we use podcasts to survive domesticity and overcome the limitations of our world. Other topics include: interiority, mystery, intuition v. planning, ambiguous endings and the uses of resonance in story.

Jeanette Winterson's The passion

Nikki Giovanni, Poet

Adrienne Rich, Dream of a Common Language

Audrey Lorde

June Jordan

Gloria Anzaldùa

Class:A Guide Through the American Status System

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

Meliza Beñales on StoryMakersShow

Don't forget to send in your questions!

Please review us!

If you’re curious about how to leave a review on iTunes, here’s an article about how to do it!

And here’s our iTunes Page. 

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.

Angie and Elizabeth discuss auditions, revision, our autobiographies in books part 2, balancing collaboration with your individual vision, getting feedback in film v. in prose, influence and the sharing of ideas, articulating your vision and trusting your gut as a practice, dialog and listening--pacing, pauses, action, gestures and description, and humor--what makes something funny?

Seth Godin

Bonjour, Tristesse

9-5

The Hardy Boys Mysteries

Hermann Hesse

East of Eden by Steinbeck

Alice Walker

Alex Buono

I'm On My Way Running

If you're curious about how to leave a review on iTunes, here's an article about how to do it!

And here's our iTunes Page. 

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.

Edgar first mystery nominee Heather Young, author of the wonderful novel THE LOST GIRLS, confesses, “I was a terrifically terrible fiction writer when I started.” Now, with her second book recently sold to a NYC big five publisher, we get Heather’s take on the difference between writing a book in graduate school and writing a book under professional deadline. We talk about revelation, clues, red herrings and blindly groping in the dark. The plague of self-doubt and ways to keep going; readers, and what we need from them when; alternating narratives; laborious revision processes; and sibling rivalry: tackled. Gain insight into taking something all the way to the darkest place you can go with it and the necessity of throwing rocks at the character you’ve fallen in love with. Where will that lead us but right to hope? Further, we ask ourselves, Is this a time when the terms of mystery and thriller are being very broadly apply to all kinds of books? This podcast investigates what being a lawyer taught Heather about the art of persuasion storytelling, how to make revelations feel earned, and the uses of spreadsheets, blizzards and luck in finding an agent.

Agatha Christie

Douglas Bauer

Sonoma County Writers Camp

After a decade practicing law and another raising kids, Heather decided to finally write the novel she’d always talked about writing. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Writers Workshop and the Tin House Writers Workshop, all of which helped her stop writing like a lawyer. She lives in Mill Valley, California, with her husband and two teenaged children. When she’s not writing she’s biking, hiking, neglecting potted plants, and reading books by other people that she wishes she’d written.

She is currently working on her second novel, Lovelock.

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.

This podcast asks, "What does it take to let your imagination be as free as it needs to be to create story?” We touch very briefly on some traditional means of accessing the imagination, such as drinking, drugs, and writing naked... Somehow this leads us into politics, redemption, magic and the books that most shaped us when we were children. Also rereading books you loved as a child with your own (or other people’s) children, film adaptations of these books, and the surprising role gender plays in these old favorites. We discuss world building, and the magic that is part of creating all memorable both worlds, even realistic ones. That leads to the relationship between character and setting. Finally, we dive into many aspects of starting, nurturing and getting the most out of a writing group, whether it’s generative, workshop or support!

Picaresque by the Decemberists with Infanta

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.

Best-selling author and fabulous writing teacher Ellen Sussman joins us to talk about conflict--why it matters, why it’s hard to go there on the page, and how to get there. Why do we resist creating conflict in our stories?

What are we afraid of? Vulnerability, danger, melodrama,? We investigate some of the ways in which women, especially, might be socialized to avoid conflict, and the way that impacts our stories. This is an episode about permission and courage. We discuss narrative questions and uncertainty, tension versus conflict--clarifying definitions and nuances and approaches to raising the stakes in your story. We look at the strong relationship between character and conflict, and the necessity of character arc or transformation. Ellen gives us a clear pantser’s perspective on finding your way to character and conflict. That leads us into the pleasures and process a first draft writing, "wallowing in it," and the long haul of revision, and why for some, it’s the other way around! Angie discusses switching hats from screenwriter to director, and what it teaches you about screenwriting. In the second part of the podcast, we discuss the benefits of writing retreats, and some suggestions for making them powerful, rejuvenating, productive and creative. We started the Sonoma County Writers Camp last year, and based on our experience, we give you some specific tips for making a writing retreat wonderful--and of course, you are invited to join us this May at ours!

Sonoma County Writers Camp

EllenSussman.com

Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaimen

Carol Wolf

Carol Lashoff

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth (book)

Trespasser by Tana French

Marissa Silver Critic’s Take in the New York Times Book Review 

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.