Story Makers Show

In a robust conversation with the wonderful debut novelist Sanjena Sathian, [https://www.sanjena.com/] Angie and Elizabeth pick her brain about craft, including defaulting to chronology as a built-in plot structure, and the benefit to stabilizing one variable in an ambitious novel with a lot of moving parts. Other topics covered include: Head hopping to find a voice with range and inflection. Connecting to/ channeling voice. Writing a dominant identity from the position of a non-dominant identity. Giving parts of ourselves to each character. Privilege and blind spots. The negotiation of self and non-self. The age of a narrator v the age of the characters. What inspired her to write. What art does v what representational politics do. The vomit draft and the cut scenes. Groping in the dark, despairing, panic, and outline: a writer’s toolkit. Editing. Noticing v building. Research and discovery. Getting outside the text. The importance of throwing things away because you know you can do something better. And the power of moving sentences around. LINKS DISCUSSED: [http://www.jamesscottbell.com/styled-7/styled-47/index.html] [http://booksbywomen.org/authors-interview-characters-yang-huang/?fbclid=IwAR3_4mNUejK9DcgwIeyCZM0a4ZrualMXUKMXWiIeG6LEhoy-TOcTzBVapsU&utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork] @sanjenasathian [https://twitter.com/sanjenasathian] Green Apple Books [https://www.greenapplebooks.com/] A Capella Books [https://www.acappellabooks.com/] Gold Diggers [https://bookshop.org/books/gold-diggers-9780593401088/9781984882035] The Time Traveller’s Wife [https://bookshop.org/books/the-time-traveler-s-wife/9781476764832] Birds in the Sky [https://bookshop.org/books/all-the-birds-in-the-sky/9780765379955] Miranda July [https://www.mirandajuly.com/] Shirley Jackson [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Jackson] Haruki Murakami [https://www.harukimurakami.com/] Banana Yoshimoto [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Yoshimoto] The Shining: King [https://bookshop.org/books/the-shining-9780307743657/9780307743657]and Kubrick [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/] Mindy Khaling [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1411676/] Article about road supposedly named for native Hawaiian gold digger [https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/a-fight-over-jim-crow-road-divides-rural-northern-california-town/] Anne Fadiman [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Fadiman] Roget’s Thesaurus [https://bookshop.org/books/roget-s-international-thesaurus/9780061715211] Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood [https://bookshop.org/books/priestdaddy-a-memoir/9780399573262] [http://www.jamesscottbell.com/styled-7/styled-47/index.html]Don’t forget to send in your questions! [questions@storymakersshow.com] SANJENA SATHIAN [https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59206550f5e231d10666e8c8/1563719935379-9MHZ7UNLUU8GEESCER8R/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kDY20m_0yFKIExxMGiAYkll7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1Ub0_1p6IbO2Iyd1r0nR5yI-XxDWSRiICQOv5cYLUdmGvx6IdPzJJcGB8slK3sT2FBg/credit%2BTony%2BTulathimutte.jpg?format=1500w]SANJENA SATHIAN Sanjena Sathian was raised in Georgia by Indian immigrant parents. She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an alumna of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and a former Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow [https://www.pdsoros.org/meet-the-fellows/sanjena-sathian]. She has also worked as a journalist in San Francisco and in Mumbai. Her award winning short fiction [https://www.sanjena.com/short-fiction] appears or is forthcoming in Conjunctions, Boulevard, Joyland, Salt Hill, and The Master’s Review. She’s written nonfiction [https://www.sanjena.com/journalism] for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Food and Wine, The Boston Globe, The Juggernaut, The Millions, OZY, and more. 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 today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth interview author Yang Huang about her new novel, My Good Son. Ideas come to Yang as images first, which she sees as mysteries to be solved and as uncensorable. She wants to tell the truth—through fiction and in English. Topics of discussion include the free will of characters, parents’ control over and visions for their kids, rebellion and surprise, clean beautiful language, and the many, many drafts it takes to finish a novel. In the initial draft, Yang avoids an agenda and follows her curiosity. They delve into the mystery and advantage to a single point of view, the art of pacing, the time it can take to occupy another character, and China in the 1990s and today. LINKS DISCUSSED: [http://www.jamesscottbell.com/styled-7/styled-47/index.html] Yang Huang Interviews Feng [http://booksbywomen.org/authors-interview-characters-yang-huang/?fbclid=IwAR3_4mNUejK9DcgwIeyCZM0a4ZrualMXUKMXWiIeG6LEhoy-TOcTzBVapsU&utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork]. Link to NYT review of MyGood Son, Yang’s book [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/books/review/my-good-son-yang-huang.html] Henry James [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James] Patricia Highsmith [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Highsmith] Nina Schuyler [http://ninaschuyler.com/] Lava Falls by Lucy Jane Bledsoe [https://bookshop.org/books/lava-falls-9780299318543/9780299318543] Yanghuang.com [https://www.yanghuang.com/] Upcoming events: [https://www.yanghuang.com/events] June 7 Virtual Event at Folio [https://www.yanghuang.com/events/2021/5/13/odd-monday-reading-series] Launch Party June 9, 6 pm, Booksmith SF [https://www.booksmith.com/event/yang-huang] [http://www.jamesscottbell.com/styled-7/styled-47/index.html]Don’t forget to send in your questions! [questions@storymakersshow.com] YANG HUANG [https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/538a7f70e4b0c6c0c34b2bbd/1490227574927-GOHR9BDQYBUFC8GW2D10/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kIKYfqbg1vKWfRUEzPyjcJZ7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1UTazJmxQNuqFnqDbDEP8nIQuWCiBPmjnhZbzof93XXuR00jgFqy60717KqmODON3og/YangHuang.jpg?format=1500w]YANG HUANG Yang Huang grew up in Yangzhou, China and came to the U.S. to study computer science. While working as an engineer, she studied literature and pursued writing. Yang attended Boston College and earned an MFA from the University of Arizona. Read about her journey: Why I Write In English [https://aaww.org/why-i-write-in-english/]. Her novel My Good Son [https://www.yanghuang.com/goodson] won the University of New Orleans Press Publishing Lab Prize. Her linked story collection, My Old Faithful [https://www.yanghuang.com/faithful], won the Juniper Prize for fiction, and her debut novel, Living Treasures [https://www.yanghuang.com/treasures], won the Nautilus Book Award silver medal in fiction. Her essays, stories, and screenplay have appeared in Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, The Margins, Asian Pacific American Journal, The Evansville Review, Futures, Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, Nuvein, and Stories for Film. Yang lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works for the University of California, Berkeley. Besides her day job and family life, she writes fiction and creates a more tolerant and hopeful world in stories. 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.

[http://www.storymakersshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Ziyad-Black-Boy-Out-of-Time-Cover-200x300.jpg] [http://www.storymakersshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Ziyad-Black-Boy-Out-of-Time-Cover.jpg] In today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth talk with author Hari Ziyad about Hari’s new memoir, Black Boy Out of Time. Because Hari is also a screenwriter who has had interest from the worlds of film and television in adapting their memoir, the conversation touches on the opportunities and challenges of creating a series or movie out of a memoir written to a younger self, with some essayistic/ analytical threads. They discuss power of specific stories to resonate beyond their intended or imagined audiences, strategies for working with editors who may misunderstand your story, and how, as an editor, to open up the relationship as a dialogue… Other topics include: touring during the pandemic, pandemic as… metaphor/ appropriate setting in the book, humor and the art of weaving many elements and metaphors into a strong ending, and why we can’t worry art into the world…and how to stop running directly at the tennis ball… Finally we land on the importance of rest! [http://www.storymakersshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Ziyad-Black-Boy-Out-of-Time-Cover.jpg] [http://www.storymakersshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Ziyad-Black-Boy-Out-of-Time-Cover.jpg] LINKS IN THIS EPISODE: [HTTPS://BOOKSHOP.ORG/BOOKS/ASPECTS-OF-THE-NOVEL/9780156091800] Hari Ziyad [https://www.hariziyad.com] Essay about Hari’s mother’s passing [https://blackyouthproject.com/african-traditional-religions-prepared-me-to-grieve-my-mother/?fbclid=IwAR2VUq2ihjYpU_zHZb7bLmGZ7nxLuSRWU6e0pDIwVXKCwJXElvGFlwAsYYs] Hari Ziyad Black Boy Out of Time [https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2020?ref=gca2020_eb] Racebaitr [https://racebaitr.com] @hariziyad on social media Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com [http://www.yiyunli.com/] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzOlVLDMLAQ] 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.

The promise of knowledge management for the widely curious brain. Paper books and index cards and card catalogs and the art of tracking and linking your ideas. The act of writing is fundamental to thinking. Upended routines as in-person school begins in a small, irregular way. Speaking of nonlinear, how linear does plot need to be? Is chronology a friend to casualty? Is it necessary? The ways the backstory can circle back but acquire new meanings or trigger new understanding. Bringing causality and chronology into play. The consciousness of development matters, but the consciousness creating the story can be the reader’s. Alternate reasons to chronology for, what happens next? Memoir and the disconnect between character and events, which should join inform each other in service to story. The low-point, for example, will come from the character. Looking for the story scenes in life, as there is no shortage of redemption and failure in life. Geometry and patterns. LINKS IN THIS EPISODE: [HTTPS://BOOKSHOP.ORG/BOOKS/ASPECTS-OF-THE-NOVEL/9780156091800] [http://www.yiyunli.com/] [https://bookshop.org/books/a-writer-s-time-making-the-time-to-write-revised/9780393312638] Notion, the app [https://roamresearch.com/] Roam [https://roamresearch.com/] Director position for our school [https://www.edjoin.org/Home/DistrictJobPosting/1392853] Mortimer J. Adler How to Read a Book [https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-read-a-book-revised-and-updated/9780671212094] Ericsson and Pool Peek: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (10,000 hours) [https://bookshop.org/books/peak-secrets-from-the-new-science-of-expertise-9780544947221/9780544947221] Brown et al, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning [https://bookshop.org/books/make-it-stick-the-science-of-successful-learning/9780674729018] Sonke Ahrens How to Take Smart Notes [https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-take-smart-notes-one-simple-technique-to-boost-writing-learning-and-thinking-for-students-academics-and-nonfiction-book-writers/9781542866507] Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad [https://bookshop.org/books/a-visit-from-the-goon-squad/9780307477477] Devi S. Laskar The Atlas of Reds and Blues [https://bookshop.org/books/the-atlas-of-reds-and-blues/9781640091535] Rabid Alameddine I, the Divine [https://bookshop.org/books/i-the-divine-a-novel-in-first-chapters/9780393323566] Captain Marvel film [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154664/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1] Groundhog Day film [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1] Palm Springs film [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9484998/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1] John Truby The Anatomy of Story [https://bookshop.org/books/the-anatomy-of-story-22-steps-to-becoming-a-master-storyteller/9780865479937] Sherlock t.v. show [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1475582/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0] Sophie Hannah The Next to Die [https://bookshop.org/books/the-next-to-die-9780062388353/9780062388360] Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com [http://www.yiyunli.com/] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzOlVLDMLAQ] 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 week, Elizabeth launches a new project, while Angie starts teaching in-person middle school math, thinking about individual learning strategies and styles. A listener asks, what is the secret to creating flawed characters that readers still want to invest in? The episode zeroes in on some answers. Notes from the conversation: Is self-reflection  a virtue? Do we prefer Clark Kent or Superman? Must readers like characters or is it only necessary that they can’t look away, as with a car crash? Maybe relate-ability is more important. Characters we like will not be liked by everyone. How secret is the secret to like-ability? Call on simpatico, grace, skill/ expertise… The conversation grapples with reliability in narrators, creating sympathy, building empathy, wish fulfillment, underestimated underdogs, antagonists, relatable human desires, owning your flaws, entitlement. Conclusion? Flaws are necessary for story. The wrap-up concerns systems and fighting systems. LINKS IN THIS EPISODE: [HTTPS://BOOKSHOP.ORG/BOOKS/ASPECTS-OF-THE-NOVEL/9780156091800] [http://www.yiyunli.com/] Kenneth Atchity A Writer’s Time [https://bookshop.org/books/a-writer-s-time-making-the-time-to-write-revised/9780393312638] Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea [https://bookshop.org/books/the-sea-the-sea/9780141186160] Dotoesvsky Notes from the Underground [https://bookshop.org/books/notes-from-underground-9781513266190/9780679734529] Jasmine Guillory The Proposal [https://bookshop.org/books/the-proposal-9780399587689/9780399587689] Blake Snyder Save the Cat! [https://bookshop.org/books/save-the-cat-the-last-book-on-screenwriting-you-ll-ever-need-9781932907001/9781932907001] Silence of the Lambs film [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/] Thom Hartman Adult ADHAD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer’s World [https://bookshop.org/books/adult-adhd-how-to-succeed-as-a-hunter-in-a-farmer-s-world/9781620555750] [https://bookshop.org/books/aspects-of-the-novel/9780156091800]Questions? Email questions at storymakersshow.com [http://www.yiyunli.com/] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzOlVLDMLAQ] 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.