In this episode, Zena Dell Lowe unpacks one of the most important principles of storytelling, which is that true character revelation, in contrast or contradiction to characterization, is fundamental to all fine storytelling. Characters cannot be at heart what they seem to be at face.

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Your entire story hinges on character. There’s nothing more important in your story than that. In this episode, Zena Dell Lowe lists 5 ways in which characters are better than real.

1. Characters are compressed in time. Just try to fit a real person's life into a book or a movie. You can’t do it, it’s too much. If you’re having trouble in your story, it may be because your story is too big and you need to narrow down the scope.

2. Their lives are vetted for our entertainment. We have to compress our stories in time and deal with one particular event. But in order to do that, it means we have to select only those details that matter.

3.  Normal life does not have heightened, sustained conflict. If it did, we would die. But everything that happens in the story is either exciting or on the verge of being exciting, or temporarily coming down from a time that was just very exciting.

4.  We have extraordinary access to them. We know characters in a much deeper, much fuller way than we could ever know anyone in real life. And we know they will never change. Rick Blaine will always be Rick Blaine.

5. They have a consistency we can count on. That means that they have to be comprehensible and believable to us. Their actions need to ring true in accordance with who we’ve come to understand them to be. 

Join us next week as we dive even deeper into story.

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In this episode, Zena Dell Lowe stresses the importance of forging a bond between the audience and the main character. The key is to create a character that is likable, sympathetic, or intriguing, but how do you do that? Zena presents 5 techniques to help writers do just that. 

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Your main character needs to drive the action of the story by pursuing a goal relentlessly, but what happens when they hit obstacles that throw them off track? Learn the key story concepts and principles that will always enable you to keep your main character front and center in the action. 

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In this episode, Zena Dell Lowe shares 5 game-changing, easy to remember tips that will help writers learn how to reveal true character through action. It's show, don't tell storytelling at its finest, with tips that can help writers take their stories to the next level immediately. This is a must for fiction writers. 

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In this episode, Zena Dell Lowe breaks down the two pronged approach that most people use to evaluate art, and shares examples from her personal life to show that the underlying issue always comes down to Worldview. We are in a battle of ideas, How can we be sure that our ideas are the ones worth fighting for?

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In episode 3 of The Mission with Zena Dell Lowe, we explore one of the challenges that artists face in order to tell the truth about the world through their art. Namely, since past trauma and suffering distort one's perceptions of reality, the artist may not be able to accurately reflect the world as it really is. Instead, the artist may have adopted false beliefs about himself, others, God, and the world. If one of the major guiding principles for creating good art is to tell the truth, how can artists ensure that they know it?

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Why are we as a species so obsessed with story? Because in addition to our lizard brain (the lower part of our brain in charge of ensuring our survival in a hostile world), we also have a higher functioning brain, which has given us the capacity to reason. And with that ability comes a higher purpose: to make sense of the world we live in. 

This episode explores how story becomes the primary way for society and individuals to make sense of their lives. It's how we discover who we are, what we're here for, and what we were created to do. It's how we create order from chaos, and make life manageable. It's also why we have a responsibility to match the story with the truth. If we misrepresent reality, we will inevitably cause harm. Reality must be internally consistent in order to be true.

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The Mission, according to Zena Dell Lowe, is to change the world for the better through story, but this podcast is hardly just for writers. All artists are storytellers because art itself tells a story. No matter what the artist's particular area of discipline may be, art paints a picture - a story - which bridges the gap of isolation and connects the artist with others. 

This program is for storytellers of all types; writers, musicians, performers, painters, etc. It will explore the profound mysteries of what it means to be an artist, how to create meaningful art, how to face the various challenges unique to artistic personalities, and more. And why is it essential for artists to explore such matters? Because artists hold an extreme place of importance in society, arguably the most powerful role that exists. Such power ought to be wielded responsibly. 

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