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A listener asks about setting up expectations and then defying them in the use of scene. This leads to a deep dive into expectations–how turning them, upturning them, overturning them is what story is all about. Patterns and meaning. Why story relies on expectation, why we seek learning and when we seek novelty, what motivates us and our characters and our readers. Elizabeth and Angie touch on the difference between an action’s being out of character versus reflecting a character change. They also get into the art and suffering of submitting manuscripts, the professionalism of collecting rejections, the importance of getting feedback in a timely fashion–and the role of submission and rejection in that loop. Wrestling with the math around submissions and success, they decide to launch a contest between them–and open to Story Makers Show listeners–to complete and submit a short story by the next podcast. This episode also points to theme as a sandbox, creating parameters in which to play with and juxtapose ideas.
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.