This topic of this podcast is audience–who you write for and how knowing that can help or hurt your efforts and your authenticity. But first, Angie is still excited about mindset and mathematics and what the artists and activists of us can learn from these ideas. And Elizabeth is once again waiting for response to her book(s). They start their conversation about audience by touching on corporate approaches to understanding audience, and how that can work and not work for artists. The belief in one’s own universality is born of privilege, but can you make it if you aren’t addressing the mainstream? What does it mean for a work of art to be accessible to a broader audience? If you are not in the dominant culture, you’ve learned to identify across differences, to engage with stories that are not “for you.” Can’t everyone do that? Also discussed: the truth and artificiality of narrative arc, what you leave in and what you take out,

Links in this Episode

SNL Wells for Boys

FitnessForward

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

The Parents’ Guide to Climate Revolution by Mary Democker

The Mario Effect

Feedback Study

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.