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We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, and concerns for us to address in future episodes. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode Transcript (by TK @_torkz) [Upbeat Ukulele Intro Music] This is We Make Books, a podcast about writing publishing and everything in between. Rekka is a published Science Fiction and Fantasy author, and Kaelyn is a professional genre fiction editor. Together, they'll tackle the things you never knew you never knew about getting a book from concept to finished product, with explanations, examples, and a lot of laughter. Get your moleskin notebook ready. It's time for We Make Books. We Make Books Ep. 62 Transcription After intro: [00:26] Kaelyn: We're talking today about reader tension and tense situations and managing these things. And you know getting the, kinda grabbing everyone and wanting to be like ‘this is important and there's peril and stakes here, and you should pay attention to this.' Rekka: This was another topic that was suggested to us by an uncredited listener, because I failed to write down all the people who suggested a very long list of topics that we will be going through. So I apologize, feel free to @ us on Twitter and take credit for the topic. But the original question posed was how to manage reader stress, and I assume they mean the tension and anxiety that our reader feels as they go through your plot. Because, as Kaelyn pointed out, you don't want to get so anxious and wound up over a plot that you can't finish the story and you need to protect yourself for self care reasons and back away. K: We're interpreting this question as not managing the external stress of readers. There's generally not a lot a book or an author can do about that, so please don't try. R: Although! A good book can really help you escape. K: Absolutely, yes. Maybe a book that's just full of pictures of puppies. R: Also good! K: Yeah. R: Yeah. So, the anxiety and tension that we're talking about is being cast upon the reader intentionally to draw them into your story. But how do you make sure you don't go too far, and how do you ramp up tension where you want it so that they aren't just kinda reading it and being like ‘I don't care about any of this.' K: Building tension is, it's difficult. For two reasons: one, it's a hard thing to do in writing, but then two, it's also very difficult to place it in a story. Let's qualify here depending on your genre, if you're writing a suspense thriller that's just going to be a tense situation [laughing] throughout the book. Most books, I would argue the majority of books, have some sort of conflict in them. There's going to be a point at which things come to a head. It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be, you know, strictly verbal confrontation. It could be characters that never actually meet but you know were seeing each other's perspectives as they, I dunno interact over the computer, they're both trying to hack the same database at the same time.  K:I have a friend who trains people in various business ventures, and one of the things she always says is “conflict is crucible.” And what she's kinda saying there is that when you're trying to solve a problem you have to resign yourself to some conflict, because conflict helps you get information, it helps you understand what you're looking at, it helps you understand the stakes. And I think that applies well to writing, because the conflict, first of all, builds richer characters, it builds a better storyline, it helps us understand motivations and actions better. But it's also really engaging. That's kinda what we're here for. R: Yeah, I would say that a story without conflict is going to be a very milquetoast kind of story. It doesn't matter what scale the conflict happens on, but - K: Mhm. R: - you want some kind of ‘what's going to happen' to linger, right up until the end of your story, you just want to kind of change like ‘ooh! Now that happened, what's going to happen now?' You know, it kind of elevates in stages. So every story is going to have conflict that's on a - that is proportional to the scale of the story being told. So, it doesn't always have to be end of the world scenarios; it can be ‘this person needs to sort their life out, and will they get that job they want, and will their roommate discover that they're actually a sorcerer?' K: I mean I hope so. R: Right? Those kinds of conflicts can be big or small; it's the stakes of the story. And you want your reader invested in the stakes of the story, so you want them to feel a little bit of anxiety about how the story's going to go. If they don't, then they can drift away from the book at any point and forget to pick it up ever again. K: I look back at things that I read as an adult, and things that I read as a kid, and the like really intense parts where you're like trying to keep yourself from skipping ahead on the page - R [overlapping]: [giggling] K: - and you know reading as fast as possible - R: Kaelyn that is cheating. K: I know! But like I - tell my brain. [laughing] R [overlapping]: [laughing] K: You know but where you're like ‘oh my god I gotta know what happens, I gotta know what happens!' And then sometimes - R: Just so everyone knows, as an editor Kaelyn wants to know the end - K [overlapping]: Yeah. R: Like as soon as the author knows it. So don't feel like she just skips to the end in books she picks up at the bookstore, no she wants the spoilers all the time. K: I need to know the end to a story. I'm not one of those people who waits ‘til a series comes out to read the books, because I can't wait that long - R [overlapping]: Mhm! K: - to be [???], I need a fix in there somewhere. But this is why I'm like weirdly into unsolved mystery kinda things, because I just need to know what happened, like [laughing] I always say if I could have a superpower, it's not that I want to time travel. I don't wanna like go back and interact and change things. R: Or go forward and get lottery numbers. K: Yeah I just wanna be able to like astral project or something so I can just, I just wanna see what happened. I just wanna know what actually happened, you know, who shot JFK? What'd they do with the aliens at Rosland? Did we land on the moon? I mean - R: Roswell. K: Roswell, yes. Why did I say Rosland? R: Maybe you know something we don't because you went back in time. K: It's possible. It's very possible. But yeah, I am someone who like feeds off of that tension. And I love intrigue, I love building the story, and by the way I just touched on another way you build tension here, which is not always necessarily conflict; sometimes it's mystery. Sometimes the stakes are trying to find something, or figure something out, or solve a puzzle, or learn someone's true identity. There was definitely a heyday for this sort of thing in the 90s and 2000s, especially with young adult literature, where a lot of the tension that was building in the book was people trying to get answers about a mysterious prophecy or an object or find a lost relic. R: Ohhh, I love a good lost relic. K: Ah, the best. Romantic tension is also a thing. R: You would have to imagine it is, because in the romance novels like that is - K [overlapping]: Yup. R: - the main plot of the book. So a will-they-won't-they is a ‘what's going to happen next?' K: Yeah, a will-they-won't-they, or how will they get through this, will they ever find each other again. So I think when we say like tension in the book we're picturing like a big Lord of the Rings style - R: Oh I'm imagining the boulder in Indiana Jones just hovering over everybody. K: Okay! Or that, you know we're thinking of like direct action and conflict. But tension can be built a lot of different ways. It's not always ‘I'm going to fight this knight now to free the dragon,' and yes in my scenario we free dragons, we don't slay them. R: Absolutely! K: Dragons are people too. R: Yeah. K: Creating tension for readers is part of what's compelling about a book. Now, sometimes these get a little out of hand. I'm gonna qualify that again, genre matters a lot here. If we're talking about like a spy thriller, if we're talking about a murder mystery, a suspense thriller, something like that. Yeah, you should go in expecting a lot of tension, you should know what you're getting out of that genre. Rekka, can you think of any books offhand that you had to like put down and walk away from? R: Because there was too much tension? K: Because the situation, the intensity of the situation was making you uncomfortable. R: Hmm. K: I can think of a couple. I'm not gonna say what they are, but I've definitely had that happen. R: So you're asking if that's happened? K: Yes. Has that ever happened to you? R: No. I've never put down a book because I was uncomfortable with high levels of tension; I've put down books because there was little tension and I wasn't grabbed. K: I've got a really thick skin when it comes to this stuff, there isn't a lot that bothers me. There's been two books that, one where it was just like the violence and the tension was just getting gratuitous. With that case it wasn't that it was making me uncomfortable. It was almost like coming full circle and getting pedantic. This is so ridiculous it's almost erased the tension, I'm no longer able to suspend my disbelief. R: Okay. So, what does that say about the author's ability to manage the tension? K: Not doing a great job. R: What was broken, if you wanna use that word, in that case? K: I think in this case, there was too much trying to shock people. Trying to shock the readers reading it. R: Okay, is that tension though? K: The scenario of the book was a group of people going through some kind of a building, I don't even remember what it was, and they're getting picked off by monsters and booby traps the whole time. It started out well, because it's dark, there's a lot of sounds and things and nobody's quite sure what's like, is that us, is it something else, is something following us, we know this place is full of danger okay we just have to get through here, and then what was happening was characters were dying. They were dying in horrible ways, and they were being very - described in great detail. And again, I have a really thick skin for this. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me. But what was happening was it was actually getting to the point that it was breaking the tension a little bit, because they were losing me there.  K: So I think the author's intention was to really up the scale and the stakes, because it wasn't just like ‘and a hole opened, and Jonathan fell through and we heard screams and then nothing.' Like first of all it was breaking the tension of the story stopping to describe all of this stuff. But beyond that, it was - I don't know. It was a very strange reaction, a very strange feeling, where it was kind of like I can't tell if this is making me nauseous or if I'm bored. R: Okay. This is making me think of the movie Thirteen Ghosts. K: Yes. R: Does this, is this ringing true for you? K: That is definitely ringing true for me. I had a similar experience with that movie. On the flip side, the other one that I had to put down and walk away had to do with sex. The tension that they were building with this couple that wasn't really a couple, and the dichotomy and the power struggles here, and the clear anxiety of one character vs not the other that I think was supposed to be building romantic tension, and ooh they're so into each other, it didn't at all. R: Okay. K: It was actually, I can't read this. As I've been talking through both of these you sort of pointed something out: was it the tension or was it things that writers were trying to use to create tension that weren't actually tension-building devices? R: Right. It sounds like people are trying to use some visuals and elements that are, let's say, flashes in the pan - K: Mhm. R: - in terms of the effect they have on the reader, versus something that's actually building a landscape over which the story is traveling. And it's the landscape I would argue that you want, because jumpscares are great for a horror movie, but once you've calmed down, that's all there is. Versus actually building, in that case, dread or fear. So things that have an intense effect but the effect is not lasting I don't think are going to be what you want to use when you're trying to control how the reader paces themself to get to the end of your book. K: I think in the example I used with the violence one, you know you have these characters, they're trying to get from point A to point B, and they're getting picked off or killed horribly one by one. And on some level I understand what the author was trying to do there. Instead of simply saying ‘and this person's dead now,' they're upping the intensity of the situation by showing that they're not dead, they're dying horribly. So you're getting the collective fear and horror built into the group of the remaining survivors so you're empathizing with them more. In that scenario, I see what they were doing. They were trying to use this gore and this violence to instill an intensity in you, but it got to the point that it was too much. R: So it wasn't flash in the pan, it was just overreaching? K: Overkill, if I can make that pun? [overlapping] A little bit, please? R [overlapping]: You cannot. I've checked with our producer and - K: [grunts] R: - they're shaking their head. K: Alright, fair. [chuckling] There can be times that you just take the device you're using too far, and it jumps the shark a little bit and becomes ridiculous. R: In the case of something getting to the point of ridiculosity, are they even employing the tools that would work and just overdoing it, are they overutilizing the tools, leaning on them too heavily, abusing them, or are they in the wrong toolbox entirely? K: Exactly, yeah. R: No, I'm asking you. [laughing] K: Oh. [laughing] Um no I was going to say those are all things to consider. I think that's something you have to work with an editor on, and I think that's something that you have to have readers give you feedback about, because this for a lot of writers becomes a can't see the trees for the forest scenario. You're so deep into this, you're not reading this for the first time like most readers will be, you wrote this. Rekka you tell me, when you're rereading things that you wrote, either for fun or doing revisions, does your heart beat a little faster when you get to these scenarios? R: If it's been long enough that I forget where I'm going with them. [laughing] K: Exactly, yeah. R: Because you know what you're trying to build to, and when you're trying to write it sometimes you can feel like you're being sooo hamfisted about it. K: Yeah. Writers need help for contextualizing this, I think. Because first of all you know what's gonna happen, hopefully. [laughing] Second, you've been through it so many times it doesn't have the same punch, the same meaning that it did. R: That's one of the frustrating things about being a writer, trying to know whether you're being effective. You burn through beta readers because you need somebody who hasn't read it before to tell you whether it's working. K: Yeah so circling back to is it too much, are you leaning into it, are you in the wrong toolbox entirely, that can be a really hard thing for writers to understand. I've definitely read books where I've felt like after a few revision paths, every time the author was going through and trying to up the scare factor or the intensity factor in everything, I think that's something where you need an editor or a very good friend to help you there. R: [laughing] K: It's a balancing act. You have to maintain believability. There is a difficult-to-track issue of understanding when a situation is intense and when it's not tense enough or too intense. I've definitely read books where important things have happened, and I didn't realize that was an important thing because the writing and the way the characters were behaving didn't indicate to me that that was a significant event. And if you're going ‘oh well, what does that have to do with it?', that's building intensity. R: I recently gave someone feedback that said like ‘hey, I think this moment needs to slow down for a second, and I know there's a lot of other stuff going on, but like if you don't linger on this, it's not going to have the impact you want. K: You don't wanna have to be in a position where you gotta insert a character in the story jumping up and down screaming at the reader that something that's happening is important, but if you can't signal to them in some way that it is, that's not great. R: You have to figure out how to signal it without really putting a wavy-armed balloon man in front of it. K [laughing]: Yes. Exactly. It's difficult, and there's a reason that authors that can do this well are very successful in writing, you know, murder mysteries and spy thrillers and suspense novels and stuff. Because there're people that eat that up. That's like what they live for. I can take it or leave it. But then there are people who avoid it like the plague. R: Like you said, genre has a lot to do with it. We're getting to a point which I think is good where people are starting to put content notes on books just like you would get at the beginning of a TV show. So you know this has depictions of graphic violence, sexuality - um, there's a difference between sexuality and nudity - endangerment of a child, trauma, stuff like that. And that helps people dial in, like ‘do I wanna read this book, is this the kind of intensity I'm looking for or not?' K: Now, and that said, there may be things that happen in the book that it never would've occurred to you to put a content warning about. R: And hopefully maybe your beta readers can highlight a couple things too. K: What I'm getting at is there's going to be things that happen - in books, in movies, in TV shows - that are upsetting for a specific person for a specific reason. R: Mhm. K: There's no way to predict all of these - R [overlapping]: Yeah. K: And try to compensate and notify for that. It sounds terrible to say stick to the obvious and take in the advice of others, but that is what I would say. And I'm not saying don't write these things. Be aware of what you're writing. R: Be aware of what you're writing and then be willing to take the responsibility for the people who are going to be upset by that and say like ‘yes, this is something I felt was necessary to the plot, but I promise you I gave it thought and hopefully the people who'd be extra upset by it will be warned by friends or somebody before they pick it up.' K: For anyone who's sitting at home going - and to be honest I don't think many of our listeners think this, but maybe who knows - ‘why do I have to bend over backwards to accommodate this?' You know what, honestly, you don't. R: It's a choice you make, yeah. [chuckles] K: But it's really shitty not to when it's so easy to do. And believe me, people who suffer from particular anxieties or trauma and everything, they're ultra-aware of this stuff. They're typically not going to go into a store, pick up a random book, and say ‘I'll just read this now' because, exactly for that reason: they don't wanna put themselves in a position where the intensity of the book is going to induce an anxiety spiral. And if you think that doesn't happen, I don't know what to tell you at this point because you're wrong. [laughing] So! R: And it's also not necessarily the intensity of the book, but the specific situations and the intensity of that person's personal experience laid over top of that. K: Yeah. Exactly. So, for readers who are saying “how do I keep myself safe from this kind of thing” so to speak, read content warnings. Read reviews online. Here's a thing: read the bad reviews, read the people who didn't like the book, because the ones who are complaining about things are gonna give you a little bit more insight probably, into areas that you might find distressing. R: And you can always just post a question on Twitter, like “hey - K [overlapping]: Yeah. R: “ - here's something that really bothers me in books; I'm thinking of picking up this one, anything you wanna warn me about, I'd appreciate.” K [overlapping]: Yeah. You know, I'm not saying this to put all of the onus upon the reader who's concerned about this, but, I mean do your research. If you know this is something that's important to you and something you need to manage and minimize as best you can, the best judge of character for that's gonna be you. R: For the writer, you know, sensitivity reads are not a bad idea. Like we said, we can't cover everything with a single sensitivity reader but they might be able to give you more insight. If your intensity of your plot is overlaid with a certain kind of life experience, I guarantee you can find a sensitivity reader for it. And if you don't, ask around and someone else will be able to help you. K: Yeah but I mean beyond that, content warnings do a lot. R: You can't cover everything and everyone, like - K [overlapping]: No. R: - Kaelyn was saying, you can give it a fair attempt. K: Listen, if your fair attempt is something along the lines of ‘contains violence, gore, and depictions of furries,' like, that's that's giving everyone at least a heads-up of what's in here. R: And a Venn diagram of figuring out where they fall in that. [chuckles] K: I will defend the writers a little bit here in saying that there's only so much you can do, to a certain point. [laughing] R: In order to indicate everything that happens in your book, you literally have already done that, you've written the book. You can be broad and you can welcome people to send you a note and ask you if they have a specific concern they're afraid of running into. K: I would call it a good faith gesture to do that. And, I think if there's parts in there where you're going ‘I wonder if I should explain this,' the answer is, maybe decide what it is and then just mention that that's a thing that's gonna happen in there. R: Okay, so this is managing the readers' stress literally, and kind of the external forces as we said we weren't going to cover. K: Well I mean I was joking about just like daily life stress. [laughing] R: Right, but I mean this is kind of tied to their personal experience. So, going back to considering it now a positive to build stress and anxiety, what would you say to an author who brought you their story, and it reads as a little flat. What would you tell them, how to increase anxiety in the reader, by which I mean tension in the story? K: I'm gonna flip that and ask has that ever happened to you? I know the answer to that is no because I read your writing [laughing], so! R: You know, I am really surprised by how many people have told me that my books are really tense. K: Yeah my blood pressure's definitely spiked a few times over the course of events. [laughing] R: Is it just because of Hankirk? Like is it just because he's infuriating? K: It's a lot of things, um - R [overlapping]: [laughing] K: And actually you've touched on something that I think is very interesting that you do in your writing - and this is another kind of tension that I think we don't really appreciate as a different kind of tension to build - is hopelessness. And despair. R: Aw, now I'm mad. I didn't mean to be hopeless! K: No, you weren't, but this sense of like ‘what are we going to do?' R: Mm. K: And things just like um, a sense of despair and despondency, and I'm not necessarily talking about - R [overlapping]: Look, my characters have to come back from like their lowest low, like I'm gonna make that low real fuckin' low. [laughing] K: Yeah, exactly, but that's a kind of intensity too. So yeah, you definitely do not suffer from not having well-built intensity. R: You're avoiding my question. You turned it back around on me, as though we needed to analyze me, but we've just clarified we don't need to analyze me - K [overlapping]: No, no. R: What do you say to an author who is not me, who needs a little dose of, I guess some me-ness? K: I'm very much into helping writers solve their own problems. R: Yeah you do that. K: Yeah. I find that authors frequently know there's a problem and at least have the inkling of an idea of how to fix it. I would write them back and ask them, first do you have an outline of your story? If you don't, well, depending on our timeline here, write one; if we don't have time for that, I want you to highlight for me what you think the most important points of the story are for the plot. And depending on what was going on, I might tell them I'm gonna do the same. And let's see if we match up. I like to do that one a lot. R: Yeah you do. K: I want them to highlight the most important parts of the plot, and then I'd want them to pull out some areas where maybe it's more introductory, more worldbuilding, more establishing, and compare how those are written versus the important plot points. And look at your language, look at the way you're communicating with this, because this is - and I won't go too far into the weeds on this because it's slightly off topic, but it is worth mentioning - your language changes when writing intense situations.  K: The way you describe things, the way characters communicate with each other, the way they take in their scenery, a lot of times you'll notice writers that do this well have short-clipped sentences that match the franticness of the situation. Minimal description, because they don't have time to stop and look and describe something. So I would say that you know look at this and if these very important points of the story, these parts where it should be intense where the reader should be concerned and involved and engaged, and you're writing it with the same tone and cadence that you do with the part where they're walking through a meadow - R [chuckles]: The meadow is full of velociraptors. K: Ugh. You're describing heaven. R [muffled]: Stay out of the long grass! K [laughing]: I'm just picturing them with flower crowns now. R: Ohhh, they're so happy. K: [laughing] R: Beautiful queens!  K: [with accent] “Don't go into the long grass!”  R: We really just need to admit that this is a Jurassic Park fancast. K: Yeah we do talk about it a lot. So, I would say that that's a good place to start. And in terms of like exercises you can do, read it out loud. Act it out! I stood in a room with a manuscript and like held in front of me and like done both parts of the characters and imitated how they would be yelling at each other or what have you, just to make sure that like it sounds okay and it's coming across the right way. Because if I'm doing this by like kinda like staging a play here,  then hopefully you're getting that across to the reader. I think also developing your characters and having a good idea of how they would react in intense situations. If they're acting the same across the book no matter what, well, I don't know, maybe they've got a really good valium prescription. R: [laughing] K: You should see changes in not just their actions but their body language, their speech. If Rekka and I were trying to diffuse a bomb right now, I wouldn't be telling “okay, so um cut the green wire, um,” okay and then like imitating the scene from Jurassic Park where John Hammond's giving Ellie instructions over the radio and he's like talking so calm and everything - but that's a good example because even though he's talking very calm and walking her through everything, his voice is very intense. R: And he's having an argument behind the scenes. [laughing] K [overlapping]: Yes. He's having an argument with Ian, but like his voice is very intense. And now granted, movies get to use music to help with this kind of thing. R: Yeah they cheat. K: Yeah but if I were having a conversation with Rekka and it was a genuinely tense situation where I'm trying to give her instructions on how to diffuse a bomb - now granted– Okay so we're getting a little sidetracked here but I just wanna point out Rekka says he's having a funny argument with Ian, part of the reason for that was the shock value of the next scene. R: Right. K: You're luring the reader into a false sense of security of going like, oh look it's fine, John and Ian are arguing, Ellie's got this, and I think - “Mr. Hammond I think we're back in business!” And then an arm falls on her. Oh no, wait first the raptor attacks her, then the arm falls on her. That's a good instance of diffusing a situation only to re-intensify it immediately. If I were talking to Rekka and I was talking even in the same tone that like we talk in this podcast, like ‘well you know I guess if you wanted, like, so think about the green wire, think about why the green wire is important to this bomb. And if you take the green wire out what's going to happen?' Like that, you know, that's not a good way to write that scene. R: Yeah ‘cause meanwhile Mr. Arnold's arm has fallen on my shoulder and I am flipping out. [chuckles] K: I always wondered why the velociraptor didn't eat that, or how that happened. Like - R: I assume it like got bit off and then went flying and got caught in that little corner - K: I guess, but like it seems - R: Look, they needed it to fall on Ellie's shoulder. K: I know, but like it seems like it was in like wires, and it's like how did that get there? Did the raptor go back and - R [overlapping]: This is, this is going back to the believability of the situation and is it going to suck your reader out of the moment and go, ‘wait, how?' K: I remember being 10 years old and watching that and going, ‘how did that get there?' R: I also had that thought but I didn't linger on it, because - K [overlapping]: Ah, no. R: Ellie was being chased by a raptor, dragging a big flashlight, and I was worried like the flashlight was gonna get stuck on something and she wouldn't be able to keep going. K: But yeah it's, that would be kind of where I would start. And if the problems are still persisting, if we still can't get to a place where I feel like okay I understand that something important is happening, I understand that there's peril here, I understand that these two characters have left very angry at each other, that sort of thing, then that's a different conversation. That's a conversation about writing style and technique. And, that's harder to fix. R: You can't just add six more raptors and fix it. K: Six more raptors fixes everything, Rekka. R: Okay. Back up. You can just add - K [overlapping]: [laughing] R: - six more raptors; there's your fix for everything. K: Yes. R: But you do have to exercise it with extreme care. K: More raptors! R: - because people will pick up if you just do it every time. K: Yeah. If your solution to everything is add more raptors - R: Get your own solution - K [overlapping]: [laughing] R: - my solution to everything is add more raptors. K: Yeah that's, that's fine. R: Yeah, I thought so. K: It solves multiple problems, not just intensity of the situation problems, so. R: Mhm! K [chuckles]: I think that's it. If it's something you're struggling with, I hate to say this, but like this is something you just kinda have to work on. It's one of those style and technique things that, I won't say can't be taught because absolutely you can take writing classes that would help you with this, but I think it's something that also just comes from practice and learning. R: And I would suggest doing it with short fiction, because that's a really great way to learn how to control the pedal. K: Absolutely. R: To adjust your pressure on your reader. And also to build it quickly, because in a short story you don't have a lot of room, so it's a boiled-down condensed version. And also being shorter you get more practice, ‘cause you get to write more of them. K: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, that's my final thoughts on managing intensity in books is: it's not easy. There's a reason people who do it well make a lot of money off of it. R: It's not like if you aren't making a ton of money off of it that you're no good at it. To that point, pick up a book and see how someone else is doing it. K: One of the best ways to get good at writing is reading a lot. R: Yep. And steal everyone else's tricks. Except mine; the raptors are mine. K: Only Rekka's raptors. Ahh, that's what we need, a book series called Rekka's Raptors! R: Vick's Vultures but - K: I know. R: But it's dinosaurs. K: I'm already unfolding it in my head, trust me. R: Oh yeah. K: [laughing] R: Send me the outline. [giggles] K: See this is the problem is, I have all of these ideas of books that I would love to exist in the world and I need someone to write them for me. [laughing] R: That's what I said, send me an outline, I work really well off an outline! K: Yeah. So I think that's, that's the end of the episode. Hopefully it wasn't too much for you. R: Even if it's not the end of the episode, we're done. [laughing] K: Yeah. I think that - R [overlapping]: The raptors got us. We're in the long grass. K [laughing]: Does he say ‘the long grass' or ‘the elephant grass?' R: You know what? I recently read an article about how we all remember lines differently - K [overlapping]: Yes. R: - because of the different aspects we're focused on. So let's just assume that anybody quoting Jurassic Park to the point where you get the quote, has said it right. K: Okay. That's fair. R: I think that's like a way to be kinder to other people. K: Tension! It's good. R: The right amount is good. The wrong amount is bad. K: Yes. I can't even say in moderation because sometimes it's not moderation that makes it a - R: Sometimes the whole point is not moderating it. Except moderating the effect that you want in terms of, ‘hey, I the author have control and am moderating how much I want,' there. That's - K: Yep. R: That's the moderation that we're talking about. [laughing] K: Exactly. R: We should stop. K: [laughing] R: This episode isn't going to have a nice end, it's just going to - K: Ooh, maybe it just cuts to black mid sentence. [laughing] R: Well that's not a great pressure valve on your tension. Yeah no, let us know how this episode needs to end. You can @ us on Twitter and Instagram @wmbcast, you can find us and all our old episodes at wmbcast.com. Please remember to subscribe, please remember especially to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and if you somehow just really wanna support my love of velociraptors, you can go to Patreon.com/wmbcast and send us some financial support, and I promise I will spend it on dinosaur plushies. K: Oh, I was gonna say velociraptor food. R: Well, I am the velociraptor food. K: Which now that I'm saying it I think is just goats, so. [laughing] R: No that's T. rexes, and it didn't work anyway. K: Yeah, they dropped the cow in the velociraptor. R: Yeah that's true - oh wait am I a velociraptor? Because I've been eating cow this week. K: You have, yeah. R: Hmm. K: Hmmmm. R: We'll have to investigate this in a future episode. K: Hey, because the mystery is building tension. R: Yeeeah, that's it. K [laughing]: Alright everyone, thanks very much for listening. R: For your indulgence. K: [laughing] R: Take care everyone!

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, and concerns for us to address in future episodes. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode Transcript (by TK @_torkz) [Upbeat Ukulele Intro Music] This is We Make Books, a podcast about writing publishing and everything in between. Rekka is a published Science Fiction and Fantasy author, and Kaelyn is a professional genre fiction editor. Together, they'll tackle the things you never knew you never knew about getting a book from concept to finished product, with explanations, examples, and a lot of laughter. Get your moleskin notebook ready. It's time for We Make Books. Kaelyn: So it’s funny you picked this when I was still studying history, that was something we always had to consider. Is this group, is this person part of determining where they fit into historical context as determining do they have agency? Can they act on their own behalf? Structure is what keeps someone in place; agency is what allows them to act freely. Rekka: Where would you put Odysseus, in this context? K: I would make Odysseus a failed attempt at agency. R: [laughing] K: Well, maybe failed agency isn’t the right--because he is displaying agency. He’s trying to do something, and he’s having to frequently overcome obstacles. That said, those obstacles are things that keep happening to him, rather than him directly engaging. R: Right. K: So it’s a little bit of a, uh. R: Weird example. K: No it was a good one, I liked it. R: No it’s a good example but it’s not a good role model for agency in your novels. K: Odysseus isn’t a good role model for a lot of reasons. R [laughing]: That’s just one of them. K: [laughing] R: Be the person who ties yourself to the mast, rather than give in to the sirens. Actually fuck it, give in to the sirens. It’s 2021, let’s just go for it. K [laughing]: That’s a very bad--I feel like 2020 was the year to give into the sirens. [laughing] R: Yeah, but what is 2021 but 2020 persevering? K: No, we’re slowly defeating it. We’re claiming some agency for ourselves. R: I am still in this room. K: [laughing] R: I have always been in this room. How are we defeating anything? K: I think I was born in this room. R: Kaelyn, have you and I met for smoked meats in a restaurant? K: We haven’t. R: Right. So, nothing has changed. K: Yeah. R: Have we hung out in a library with random strangers at the same table? K: No. Some of whom are handwriting books. R: Yeah, no. This is not happening. So today I called you here to talk about agency. K: So in that scenario do I have agency? Because I made the decision to join you. But-- R: But--are you allowing this topic to happen? Or are you actively engaging in the expression of our ideas? K: Oh both. R: [laughing] K: Definitely. R: Once you get past some of the other, like, identify your theme, and helpful advice for writing like that-- K: Strengthen this character arc, you know, the really nice vague feedback. R: The really helpful, helpful specific feedback. You might also end up hearing that your character needs more agency in a scene, or in the story overall. And as with the others, this can be really helpful advice. If you know what it means. K: Yeah um, it I think falls into the category of frustratingly vague advice that is absolutely rooted in important context. R: But it’s also really true. K: Yes, yeah. R: Which is just the worst part. There’s nothing worse than vague advice that is also correct. K: It is vague advice, but I think when you’re dealing with things like ‘work on your character’s agency,’ ‘strengthen this arc,’ ‘identify the themes in your story,’ those are big picture things. So. Definition—as always love to start off with that—uh, agency in general, the definition is “an action or intervention, especially as to produce a particular event.” Acting, essentially. Taking action. Doing something. Trying to influence the outcome. R: Not just action but pro-action. K: Yes. For characters in books, agency is basically when a character can make choices and act on their own behalf. R: What is it about agency that gets turned into a secret agency that acts against aliens, or whatever--I’m just playing around with etymology here-- K: [laughing] R: But how’s that word get turned into that meaning? K: The way I always took that was that an agency is meant to act on behalf of a group of people or towards a certain end. So, if we wanna take S.H.I.E.L.D. - R: Okay. K: So agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Their job, their directive, is to protect Earth from large-scale global threats. Everything they do, every action they take, is to further that outcome. Real world example: the CIA, Counter-Intelligence Agency. They have a very specific job. It’s to try and out-maneuver, out-intelligence if you will, foreign and domestic hostile powers. R: Okay so the word is not trans-mutated in any way, in the way that it’s applied to an organization. It still means taking proactive action toward a goal. K: Yeah, so I did look up the definition of agency in that regard: “a business or organization established to provide a particular service, typically one that involves organizing transactions between two other parties.” R: So like, a literary agent. K: There you go. Here’s a good example, the Environmental Protection Agency. R: Mhm. K: Their directive, their job is to protect the environment. What do they do? They organize, they create scenarios, be they either laws or policies or transactions even, that further their goal of protecting the environment. R: This is a group of people that are acting for one goal. In our writing, when we talk about agency, we’re generally referring to character agency. As in we have a main character, they are serving as our POV - point of view - and think of that term as the window through which you experience the story. Your viewpoint into this story and this world. So, everything that this character chooses to do is how you experience the story. So by acting on a desire, they create tension as to whether there will be an obstacle that they can overcome, whether they make a decision to do something that frightens them a lot, or whatever - you get to experience that tension. So if this character goes with the flow - K: [laughing] R: - how much tension do you get to experience? K: Yeah so what this means when you get this feedback, ‘I need you to work on your character’s agency here,’ is that it means the character is being very passive. They’re being more reactive than proactive. Oh I’ve got a good example: Twilight. R: Bella is a classic example and often referenced example of a character who doesn’t actually do much. And this is part of that Mary Sue criticism that gets used in the wrong places a lot, but in this case what we’re talking about is Bella is a bodysuit for you to crawl into, and see this world. K: Well Bella is almost worse than that. In some cases Bella is an object. She is sort of a MacGuffin that furthers this story. Something I always like to trot out is, if this character weren’t here, would things go that differently? R: [laughing] K: Now, in Twilight yes they would. Because a lot of conflict, a lot of the story, whatever, does center around Bella, but it is more just the fact that she exists than anything else. If she were a particularly tasty cow that all of the vampires also wanted to eat, well - that’d be a different story too. [laughing] R: Yeah, that’s a weird one. K: No, but if she were something like a magic ring that lets the vampires turn back into humans or something, you could possibly just sub her in with a magic ring. And a lot of those story elements could still happen. R: So is your character interchangeable with an inanimate object? K [laughing]: My favorite one, ever, that I promise I’ll stop on this side note - Indiana Jones. R: Mhm. K: - is completely irrelevant to the first movie. If he weren’t there, everything would go exactly the same way. That said, Indiana Jones has agency. R: He is trying. K: He’s trying. He’s not doing the best job, but he’s trying. Um so, you can have a character that maybe if they weren’t there things would progress as normal. My whole point is Indiana Jones, regardless of whether or not he not only shows up, exists, the storyline with Marion and getting the Ark of the Covenant, we still end up with the Nazis opening the Ark of the Covenant on a remote island. R: Just turns out it was a bad idea. [chuckles] K [laughing]: Just turns out you shouldn’t go poking around in these things. R: Yes. And that had more to do with Belloq being his agency to, as he put it, take whatever Indiana Jones had, and possess it himself. K [overlapping]: Yes. R: And then him not being able to resist looking in the Arc. Now, had the Arc made it to Hitler, would Hitler have known how to use it? I mean, he studied all this stuff. It’s very possible that he might’ve put it to more diabolical use, rather than just frying himself as Belloq did. K [overlapping]: Yeah. Yes. Um, you know, in Twilight, the character that has agency there is not Bella, it’s Edward. R [overlapping]: Mhm. K: He’s the one who’s making all the decisions, he’s the one who’s making the choices. He chose to stay and pursue Bella. He chose to let her know that he was a vampire. He chose to eventually make her a vampire. R: Mhm. K: Bella is a thing that all of this is happening to. R: The prize to be won. K: Yeah. Bella’s a very passive character, and there’s points in the story where she does make decisions, but the choices then are even things that are forced upon her. R: Here’s an example of not, apparently, including much agency in your character, and still having an incredibly successful book series. K: And movies. R: So as with all advice- K [overlapping]: [laughing] R: - feel free to break the rules and have a smashing success and good on you. K: There is an exception to every rule to be sure. But, as you kinda said right at the get-go, one of the biggest criticisms of Bella is that she is an empty skin suit for the reader to crawl into and make themselves feel as though they are the star of the story. People who have agency don’t feel like that. It’s part of character development. If Bella were making a lot of choices and decisions and stuff, you’d have readers going “Well that’s not what I’d do, why would she do that, that’s so ridiculous.” And then you distance yourself from that character because you’re establishing them as a fully realized person. R: Right. K: Rather than the empty skin suit slash object. R: Right. Now, Big Lebowski. K [laughing]: Oh God, that’s a good one, okay! Um, God I haven’t watched that movie in forever, I love that movie. R: So he starts out, he gets up, he goes to the grocery store, he gets the ingredients for his White Russian, he drinks half of it there, he goes home. K: “Where is the money Lebowski?” [laughing] R: This has happened to him so far. Somebody mistakes him because he shares a surname with a very rich person, and they walk into this very shabby home and somehow think that they’ve found the right place. Now he isn’t gonna do anything about it. K: Yeah. R: He goes on with his life. He just is kind of sad about it, but his friends convince him - K [overlapping]: Yeah. R: - that he needs to do something about it. K: Except the guy pees on the carpet. And that carpet really tied the room together. R: It really tied the room together! But he is not going to act until he’s convinced by his friends to act. K: This is another thing with agency. It’s okay for characters to be sort of passive and have things happen to them. That’s what starts the story- R [overlapping]: Mhm. K: - going. You don’t, don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of stories out there with someone going “I woke up this morning and decided to do this thing.” R: Mhm. K: Or they start out with a quest, or they come up with something on their own. [overlapping] R [overlapping]: You’re in media res, so you’ve already gotten to the point where they want something. K: Yeah. But typically even if we pick up within that point something had to happen to them a lot of times beforehand, for them to want to go get the magic ring that lets you turn back into a human. R: Yeah and often you find that the character starts off trying to do a thing that isn’t the thing they decide they need to do in the end. I mean that’s kind of part of the whole character arc, is deciding what it is they really want. The Dude really wants a nice comfy life with his White Russians - K: And his bathrobe. [laughing] R: And the rug that ties the room together. K: Yeah. R: So it bothers him enough to complain about it, but not enough to act on it. Then he is cajoled into acting upon it. And he goes and finds himself embroiled in a large plot, where things kind of continue to happen to him. K: With movies you can watch a series of strange events unfold, because there’s the visual component that - often these are comedies. It’s almost slapstick. We’re just watching this person who all he wants is to go bowling with his buddies, sit in his bathrobe, and drink White Russians. And he ends up getting pulled into this bizarre situation. R: Being sent to have a physical ‘cause turns out he’s gonna father a child, and also toes get cut off - K: You want a toe? I’ll get you a toe next week. [laughing] Lebowski is a rather passive character. He doesn’t have a ton of agency. That said, once he gets involved in this he does make decisions even if they’re just ‘I want to get out of this alive.’ R: Yes. And he observes clues and he starts to put things together that probably they expected him not to do. They really thought that he would just kinda take the fall for things, or just go along, get paid, go home, and return to his life. K: Yeah. By the time he gets to the end of the story, his motivation is something between ‘I need to figure this out’ and ‘I’m not letting this random guy who got me tied into all of this get away with it.’ Does the Dude have agency? Sometimes, a little bit, if he can get the energy and motivation together to feel like it, which is by the way very in line with his character. R: Yeah. K: It is very typical with books to start out with characters just living their life. People by nature are passive. But you ever notice that when someone says “I’ve decided to do this thing,” it’s usually an announcement. It’s usually like “I’ve decided to change jobs.” “I’ve decided to buy a house.” “I’ve decided to ask this person to marry me.” It’s a decision you make to take action. Whereas most of our lives are just kind of us living our life, yeah after I’m done here I’m gonna have some soup I made, I’m very excited about that. I’m deciding to have soup. Is that agency? I don’t think so. You know in your day-to-day lives, agency are things that you’re trying to act for your benefit. I’ve decided to buy this house, because I worked very hard and I think this is a good investment and I think I’ll be happy and comfortable here, and this will improve my life a measurable amount that I want it to. R: Mhm. K: When characters act with agency, you know a lot of times they’re in situations that are not normal day-to-day things. There aren’t a lot of books out there about someone’s decision to work really hard, save money, and buy a house. R: Well that’s the first 25% of a book, that 25%, that storyline is gonna go away, or be severely altered. K: That house is haunted as hell. [laughing] R [overlapping]: Mhm. K: For a character to have agency, they have to do three things. They have to be able to act in their environment, which means that if you said a character, let’s say a human being, and you put them on an alien planet where literally everything is made of gas, that character’s not gonna have any agency because they can’t do anything. R: Right. K: But not only is everything made of gas, but the lifeforms that live there physically cannot communicate with the human, or have no interest in doing so. R: Right. K: So that person can’t interact with their environment; they’re not gonna have any agency, they have to just sit there and wait for something to happen. R: Unless the plot of that story is ‘how do I get to the point where I can talk to these aliens?’ There have been many Star Trek episodes like this, where you can’t communicate with the other aliens and the plot is ‘how do we find common ground?’ So, the decision to do so is agency, but the human who says “Well, all these molecules are just too far apart, I guess I’ll just sit here.” K: [laughing] R: That character has no agency. K: So the second thing is a character has to be able to make meaningful decisions. So, in the case of our character sitting on the gas planet, they’ve gotta make the decision of ‘I’m gonna find a way to gather all of this gas and condense it into something solid that I can use to my benefit.’ R: Right. K: They have to have a way to work towards their own benefit. Even if it’s not working towards their own benefit they have to be presented with situations in which they can make a decision. Even if it’s ‘the army’s invading, there’s two sides of this city, we’re only gonna be able to fend them off from one, we have to evacuate the other.’ The character making the decision of ‘okay, we’re gonna evacuate the east end, move everybody into the west end, and here are the reasons that we’re doing this and that’s why it’ll give us a better advantage.’ That’s displaying agency. The third thing is the character’s ability to affect the story. And this is different from making decisions. This is where Indiana Jones fails. R: Right, right. K: Because he doesn’t actually affect the story really. Sure, he’s got some wacky hijinks, he shoots a guy who just wanted to have a nice sword fight - R: Cracks a whip. K: Cracks a whip, somehow hitches a ride on a submarine, you know, things happen. R: If it wasn’t for Sallah he wouldn’t have even made it halfway through the movie. K: Exactly. Is he entertaining? Absolutely. It’s a delight. But he doesn’t do anything that changes the outcome of what’s happening. So, this is different than making a decision. Because a character needs to have an impact on the story. If you erase them from the story and nothing changes, that’s not a good character. R: You have some characters who maybe aren’t the decision makers, but if they’re the person with the special skill, or you know they’re the person with the strength or the fortitude to go ahead with the story that the other character doesn’t have, and you end up with a nice balanced team-up of brains and brawn. Obviously if you take the brawn out of that story, it is going to affect the story. Now, take Indiana Jones out, and you definitely have a very different movie. K: Absolutely, yes. R: Sometimes the character is required for the tone. K: Like a swashbuckling adventurer. R: Think of Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China. K: Okay. R: He’s not actually the hero of the movie. At one point a big fight scene starts, and he shoots his gun in the air and ends up knocking himself out when the ceiling falls on him. And for the greater portion of this fight scene he is prone on the ground. He’s almost like the story’s style, but he’s not the story’s main active character. K: Yeah. R: You know there’s parts where yes, they need him because he’s tough and he can fight, but so can the other characters. There’s a lot of characters doing a lot of stuff in that movie, and Jack Burton - you would notice, if you saw it and they removed him and then you watched it again, you would definitely notice his absence. But does his absence change the story? Would his friend have not gone to rescue his girlfriend? He definitely would have. And he definitely would’ve done it without Jack, but he talked Jack into helping. It’s interesting how many stories we enjoy end up with characters who draw a lot of attention to themselves, like Indiana Jones, like Jack Burton, without actually making a huge difference in the plot of the film. Or, I’m saying film ‘cause we like to use movies as shortcuts. But um - K: [laughing] R: How does this work in a book? Let’s go back to our favorite, Gideon the Ninth. Gideon kinda doesn’t have a clue what’s going on! K: Gideon is a little bit of a passive character. R: Yeah! But it’s delightful [laughing], just like Indiana Jones and Jack Burton. K: She gets dragged along on this adventure, which we find out is basically one giant series of death traps. She doesn’t know why she’s there. She’s there to serve as a lens of the story for the reader, because the other main character that we’re introduced to here is of course Harrowhark. R: Harrowhark has a lot of agency, and it’s all off the page. K: Because Harrowhark can’t be bothered to tell anybody about it. And, if she did, if she was the point-of-view character in that first book, we would have no idea what was happening. We need all of this to be told to us through the lens of Gideon, who is more like us than, like, Harrowhark. R: Yeah. Right. K: Of course by the end of the book you know this changes; we’ve learned some things, we’ve solved some mysteries. But Gideon is sort of a passive observer. Yes, she’s poking around, she’s talking to people, she’s gathering information, but really she can’t do anything with it until Harrow tells her what’s going on. R: And she’s only there because Harrow has made her promise to go along on this venture and then she’ll get the thing she wanted in the beginning, which she was pretty close to succeeding except Harrow was the obstacle. So Harrow said, “Do this thing with me, and then I’ll give you what you want.” And so Gideon goes along specifically for that purpose, and how much more passive can you be than just being like ‘if I just tap my foot throughout this book, I’ll get to the thing I want.’ K: Yeah. She literally just wants me to sit in a room and do nothing. R: Harrowhark has even said “do not speak to anyone.” K: Yeah. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t do anything, stay in this room, be here when I get back. R: So of course, the plot happens because Gideon’s like uhh you don’t tell me what to do. K [laughing]: Yeah it’s not agency so much as annoyance. R: Two people who can’t stand each other so why would one do what the other one wants. K: Yeah. Exactly. R: That is kind of the plot of Gideon the Ninth, but in the most delightful way that I just made sound as flat as possible. K: You’re right, because Gideon serves the purpose of one: as I said providing the reader with context and perspective, but two: also, she’s awesome! R: Yeah. K: And we like watching her swing this giant sword around, and be muscle-y - R [overlapping]: Yeah, flex for the other people in the book. K [overlapping]: Yeah. R: And also like look at people and go “There’s something wrong with you” [laughing], you know? K: Yes. Yes. Um, be the perspective of ‘This is all really weird, how am I the only person who sees that this is all really weird?’ R: Mhm. K: So. Um, yeah, so that’s a good example of characters who are passive but are compelling. So if you’re thinking to yourself ‘well, if that’s a thing that’s allowed, why do I need to strengthen my character’s agency?’ Because it depends on the story you’re telling. And it depends on what you’re trying to do here. If you have a character who is supposed to be your main character, your protagonist, they’re supposed to be leading the charge, and what they’re doing is they’re tripping from event to happening back to other event, just sort of letting stuff happen to them rather than doing things themselves, that can get really boring to read.  K: The second and third book in the Ember in the Ashes series, there’s a character in there named Helene. And - I won’t ruin too much for anybody who hasn’t read these, and full disclosure I’m still finishing the fourth one - in the second and third books especially, Helene is running around putting out fires. She is desperately trying to manage an unmanageable situation. At the same time though, she’s trying to figure out ‘how do I solve this bigger problem that I’m trying to face? How do I mitigate these circumstances?’ I was so excited whenever it was one of her chapters, because that was the thing that I thought was most interesting, was watching her just get things heaped on her. Every time she turns around something else bad is happening, that is just one more thing she’s gotta deal with. So was she displaying agency? In the second book I would say not as much, by the third book we’re certainly getting there. But, it’s still compelling because the way she is acting on her own behalf is not necessarily for herself maybe, but for other people. R: Okay. K: Watching someone deal with and try to mitigate overwhelming circumstances, I would say, is a form of agency. Even if they are just running around putting out fires. R: Trying to survive - K [overlapping]: Yes. R: - this moment, as opposed to having a plan for the next two weeks to six months - K [overlapping]: Yeah. R: - toppling the empire, etc. It’s okay if they’re just trying to get back to normal. K: Yes. Or, just trying in the case of Helene, just trying to make sure her family’s safe. Let’s start there. That’s small step number one, I’ve gotta work on that. Okay small step number two, now I’ve got a deal with the residents of this city. Now I’ve gotta figure out how I’m gonna deal with this other maniac, and there’s all of these forces and factors that she can’t really do much about. But she can make decisions. R: Right, so in an earthquake, a character obviously isn’t going to defeat the earthquake. K: I defeated an earthquake last week, Rekka, I don’t know what you’re talking about. [laughing] R: Okay. In a typhoon, Kaelyn’s not gonna go punch a typhoon. K: No no, earthquakes are far more punchable than typhoons. R: Right. So you can trust that Kaelyn’s gonna go check on friends and family, uh, Kaelyn’s going to act in ways that clearly are important and have great meaning to her personally, even if they’re not going to fix the fact that there’s a typhoon, or the fact that you know FEMA’s gonna have to come in and that sort of thing. So what about characters with examples of great agency? Like the Quest plot. Is that agency or is that ‘this wizard told me I need to go do this thing’? K: Well okay so I will, we can talk about the Quest plot and then I’ll give you what I think is a good example of someone who has agency and, I’m going to put them into the same story, which I know we’ve been talking about this series a lot, Shadow and Bone and the Six of Crows. For those who haven’t read or watched it, hopefully you know that one is a trilogy, the other is a duology, they’re separate storylines but the Netflix series collapsed them both into one. R: So go read the books anyway, because Netflix made some choices. K: So the first trilogy Shadow and Bone, Alina Starkov is a very, a little bit of, especially for the first book, a passive character. You know she discovers she has this power, and she is tasked with solving this big problem because she has this power. She does start to display agency in the story but if things had just progressed along that sort of Quest storyline - you could argue that it even does a little bit because ultimately there is a problem that she is the only one that can solve. R: Mhm. K: So, is that agency? Well, the way she goes about handling it in the story, breaking away from the wizard character and trying to decide to do this her own way is certainly displaying agency. R: Right. K: Conversely, in the Six of Crows, we have the character Kaz, who is sort of your underworld rogue-type but not in a charming way. I would actually say he’s quite the opposite of charming. He’s very stoic, very serious, very no-nonsense. But Kaz makes a lot of decisions to try to accomplish goals and to better the lives of him and his friends. There’s some revenge scenarios here, but in the revenge scenarios it’s reclaiming things that were taken from him. R: Right. K: There’s friends to liberate, there’s people to try to help and better their lives, there’s people they encounter along the way that get into bad situations. He is a character with a lot of strong agency. Even before we meet him, we can see everything he’s done, everything he’s worked towards to build himself up to a point where one day he can maybe do this one thing he’s trying to get to. I would say he’s a great example of somebody with a lot of agency. R: Right from the start. K: Yeah. R: So he’s got a plan, and this plan is the focus of the story. K: Yes. Of course, wrenches get thrown into it, because - R: Just in terms of Luke Skywalker just wants to escape the farm life, that’s his desire at the start. But what he ends -- I mean he does get that, but it turns into a much bigger story. K: Katniss Everdeen from Hunger Games. Does she have agency? She is mostly reactive. She only volunteers because her sister got picked as tribute. R: But she’s volunteering to protect her family, which you might say is proactive decision. K: At the same time though, if Katniss had not volunteered, would any of the subsequent events in the story have happened? No. Her decisions are impacting the story. That said, she is very manipulated a lot through this entire story. R [overlapping]: Oh yeah. And I think that’s just the way that as a character, we express that just ‘cause you’re a hero doesn’t mean you can’t be fooled, you can’t be misguided, you can’t be manipulated as you said. I thought that was incredibly different from anything I’d read of an adventurer-hero story, because you realize a hero doesn’t always make the right decisions. K: Yeah. I have a lot of mixed feelings about that book series as we’ve discussed in this - R: I’m not saying I’m happy with the way it ended, but that definitely opened my eyes, and I think influenced me. As a result, my characters definitely made decisions that they thought were sound, or they thought were motivated correctly, or were the right thing to do or whatever, that end up making more of a mess. K: Yeah. Now that said, with Katniss one of the things I will say bothered me a lot in this, and this is I think a product of trying to shoehorn motivations into areas where it doesn’t already exist, Katniss is -- there’s a scene, it’s much more pronounced in the movie but it is in the book -- where they’re at District 13. And they’re all sitting in this bunker and it’s ‘let’s talk about a time Katniss has inspired you, she’s this symbol. She is the Mockingjay.’ I don’t know if this was on purpose, I don’t know if this was the intent, but I couldn’t come up with a better way to just be like this character is almost inconsequential to what they’re doing. They just need her to stand heroically in front of people. I really think that a 16-17 year old girl was probably not the sole motivation for overthrowing an entire super-oppressive government, but. [laughing] R: Again, I am not going to jump in front of a train for this book series - K [overlapping]: [laughing] R: But I could see the development of a character who stands up to the government on TV that the government requires everybody to watch. K: Yes. R: Like this is a program that the government is putting in front of people’s faces because they want people to know that people will pay for their past transgressions, until they deem that they’re done. And Katniss says, “No. It’s not gonna be one survivor, I’m not going to kill the person that I grew up with because I need to survive; we’re both going to survive” and that turns into a big moment- K [overlapping]: Yes, it did. R: Also she honors the person from the other district with whom she’s supposed to be competing, but they all see her treat Rue like a human being, which is not something that you get from this government. K: There’s these tiny acts of rebellion. But I would say that it’s all undone by the fact that she doesn’t actually want any part of this. She wants to go back to her life and be done. Now that’s, I would argue, not agency, because what she’s having to deal with is the fallout of decisions that she made for survival, rather than because she wanted to make a statement. R: No I understand that, but I’m saying again with the hero doesn’t always make the right decisions, also, person who makes a couple decisions where other people can see them suddenly find themself turned into this bigger than life character - K [overlapping]: Yup. R: I felt like that was part of the character arc, coming to terms with being this person everybody now expected her to be, and sometimes needed her to be, in order for them to go on. K: I found book Katniss a very grating character, I didn’t - R: You are not the only one, I have heard this plenty of times. K: I didn’t like her much but one thing I appreciated about her was how much she just wanted to be left alone. [laughing] R: Yeah! I mean, we can all relate to that. K [laughing]: We can all relate to that. It’s just like, I get it. I don’t really like you that much but I totally get it. She’s capable, as you said, she’s a fast thinker, but she’s not a leader. In fact in the second book they have a whole plot going on behind the scenes that she doesn’t know about until the very end, because everybody looked at her and went ‘I don’t think she’s gonna be helpful here.’ [laughing] R: Yeah. K: We would be better off just doing this on our own. R: Yeah. K: And I really appreciate the writer’s acknowledgment of that. [laughing] But again, in the second book she is reverted back to a very passive role, this stuff is just happening to her. Even more so than in the first one. R: And then it continues in the third book, where they take her on this SWAT team adventure, and she’s just like ‘what the fuck’s going on?’ K: Yeah ‘cause they’re gonna go shoot all of this war footage of her. But then, she does make the decision ‘I’m going with this because I wanna get us into the Capitol, so that I can go kill the president.’ R: Right, right. K: So there we do have Katniss with agency, with a plan. R: Mhm. K: How important do you think plans are to characters having agency? R: This is a really good question. We’ve just described a lot of main characters who don’t really have a plan. K: No, no. R: And who are all highly successful IPs. Sometimes I think figuring out the plan can be the character’s arc. They know they want something. They try and fail and try and fail, and it’s because they don’t know how to go about it, or there’s something that they need to let go of or gain in order to figure out the best way. You know like a heist movie. K: I swear I was just thinking of a heist movie. [laughing] R: The plan is happening all along. K: Yeah. R: And it’s the reader watching it, and being misled about things going wrong that it turns out were part of the plan anyway because there’s always that aspect of the heist that you don’t hear about ‘til the end, and you get to watch it again and go ‘Oh now I see!’ K: ‘Yeah that guy was in the background the whole time.’ R: Yeah so obviously in that case the plan is not the plot. The reveal is the plot. The red herrings are the adventure, I don’t know. Sometimes a character figuring out what they want is the plot. K: Mhm. R: The idea I think is that the character starts with a sense of the way things are right now are not good. K: I think there’s a lot of this in anime. I’m thinking of Inuyasha right now, did you watch that? R: No. You’re gonna have to talk Sailor Moon if you’re gonna keep me on your level. K: Okay, let’s talk Sailor Moon. Let’s talk the original anime run, where they really fleshed out a lot of the episodes, and remember at one point they’re trying to track down the seven rainbow crystals. You know Sailor Moon becomes Sailor Moon not by choice, she just is. R [overlapping]: Yup. K: And she’s got a talking cat that tells her to fight demons. R: And yells at her for not doing her homework. K: And at the same time, she’s not only gotta find these other sailor scouts, and identify them and get them to accept their fates and roles but because this is anime everyone’s like ‘Ah yes! This is what I was meant for the whole time!’ In the first season of the anime they’re tracking down these seven rainbow crystals. So they don’t necessarily know why they’re tracking them, and at one point Tuxedo Mask has one and they’re like that’s fine, he can just hang on to it. R: [laughing] K: They’re just like well we don’t want the bad guys to get these. We don’t know why. But then we find out, oh no wait, it turns out we actually need all of them. R [overlapping]: Yeah. K: Why? Well we’re not sure yet. Okay now we know why we need all of them. And, oh crap, there’s the princess! And why do we need the princess? Because the princess can wield this power that’s going to defeat Queen Beryl. The agency there I think is - well first of all accepting and embracing ‘hey this is something I have to do.’ But also then incremental goals. And sometimes your plan changes. Sometimes it turns out that Sailor Venus is not the princess. R [overlapping]: [laughing] Yeah. Yeah. K: It’s actually Sailor Moon. [laughing] R: Yeah, well, certainly couldn’t be her. Look at her. K: No, no, I mean she looks nothing like that other princess that she looked exactly like. [laughing] R: With the same hairstyle and everything. K [laughing]: Yes. R: The importance of grace in a person’s identity is apparently paramount. But yeah, the idea of a plan changing with new information I think is overlooked, because we like our stories in small parcels. K: Yes. R: But something like, for example a manga that’s gonna go on in theory indefinitely - K: [coughing]Naruto.[/coughing] Sorry. R: You’re going to have to introduce new information that’s going to change the course of the plot, and make the characters do something that maybe they wouldn’t have done before, or something they hadn’t considered, or just go off in a different direction because they need a new costume. K: And by the way this is why a lot of not just manga, but comic book series and even ongoing long-running television shows, have story arcs. R: Yeah. K: Manga especially you will see broken out into the such-and-such arc. R: Mhm. K: The this arc, they actually title them and they’re considered collections. R: Yeah. The introduction of new information can help pivot the story in a way that, like the characters might not have made that decision based on the way that they were starting out or proceeding at any given point in it. Having a plan is good, but maybe it doesn’t matter what it is. [laughing] K: But I think having a plan is a baseline that gives characters agency because they can make decisions to try to achieve the end results of that plan. R: Trying to stay on the track. K: Yeah. Again I’ll refer to the character of Kaz in Six of Crows. What’s so compelling about his character is he is a planner. He’s one of those guys who’s thinking of every possible contingency. He’s trying to stay two steps ahead of rivals and archnemesises - nemesii - R: Nemeses. K [overlapping]: Nemeses. I like nemesii. And that’s why we see him act so clearly with so much agency because then on top of that, we also learn that he is a person who’s very knowledgeable and very in control of things. You need a guy who can do this? He knows the guy who can do that who owes him a favor. He runs a casino, so all he’s doing is collecting information and favors and stuff to be traded in later. R: Okay. What about competence porn? K: Competency porn in general - if you’re not getting it from just saying, this is: somebody who’s always on top of things and always two steps ahead, and then it’s like all is lost, haha, no it’s not! See, I took the magic human ring from their pocket a long time ago, and now we can all - R [overlapping]: Going back to the heist kind of plot we described, like Danny Ocean - K: Yeah. R: - was an extremely competent person who was never out of control at any point. K: And even when we were left to think that he was out of control, that he was gonna derail this whole thing because of Tess, it turns out no, she was part of the plan the whole time. R: Yeah. K: So how do you have a character that has a lot of agency, can show forward thinking, without making them insufferable? R: We’ll start with casting George Clooney. K: Yes, yeah. All things are forgiven if it’s George Clooney. R: [laughing] K: Once you realize you can’t get George Clooney, what do you do? You have to make the character a person. Everyone works with somebody who, a situation will pop up and you know that no matter what you do, they are going to act irrationally because of something that happened prior. Everyone has a family member that won’t eat a certain thing, no matter how you prepare it, and the reasons that they won’t eat it are completely irrational. Everyone has the friend that just is constantly late, or changing plans last minute. These are X factors, these are things that make us human. And building a well-developed character who’s, even if they are hyper competent and they have planned everything out, still has to deal with base urges and moments of irrationality that are going to make them act in a way that maybe isn’t furthering the plan. But, they’re still showing agency when they do it. So for instance, you know the character standing at the thing and it’s like ‘okay I’m supposed to be following this guy who’s got the thing, but holy crap, there’s the guy who killed my brother! He’s walking that way, but I need to follow the guy who has the MacGuffin, because we need the MacGuffin, but this might be my only chance. He’s getting on a plane, I might never find this guy again.’ And decides to leave and go - it’s still agency, he’s still making a decision to his benefit, but at the cost of something else. R: Unless he figures out how to do both. So, as an editor, obviously you can’t name names - K: [laughing] R: - but what has been your experience with writers being told that they need to add agency to a story? K: Frequently confusion. R: Confusion because they don’t know what the heck that advice means, so they needed this episode. K: The thing is that if you have a completed book, a lot of times I think that you think your character is doing the best that your character can. I haven’t had to have that conversation a lot, but the times that I have weren’t the story as a whole, it was isolated to individual areas of the story. And a lot of times I framed it as ‘character So-and-so needs to make a decision. They need to do something. They need to stand up for themself. Or they have this thing that they know, they need to act on that, or they need to tell someone about it so that person can act on it. When I find areas where I’m like, I need this character to display a little more agency, is typically when - I’ll be honest with you, a lot of times it’s when the story stalled out a little bit. R: But is that a result of the character not behaving with agency? K: Well frequently when we get the character to act a little bit more on their behalf or make some decisions, it takes the storyline back up. R: Yeah. K: Weird, huh? [laughing] R: Funny how that happens. K: This all goes back to what we’re talking about here of going ‘why is it a big deal if my character’s passive?’ Because that can get boring. R: Yeah. And part of this is that we need the energy as a reader from that character’s desire to get from point A to point B, whether that’s an action or a target or an emotional state or whatever. That carries us along through the book and that makes the pages turn, versus the character just milling about with their hands in their pockets. K: I’ll leave us with this thought. I find a lot of times that characters who lack agency are typically not well-developed characters. And I’m not talking about in a certain scene, I’m not talking about the weird spot where the story’s stalling out a little bit, I’m talking about pervasive through the entirety of the story. A lack of agency is frequently coupled with a character that maybe isn’t that well-developed and whose arc, yes I’m tying in other vague advice to this, but whose character arc maybe isn’t that well fleshed out. Because if you have a well-developed character, you should know in your head what they would do in certain situations. You should know how they would act. If the character’s personality or development is ‘I will sit in this place, watch everything happen, and wait for it to be over,’ well, maybe that’s not a character you should be writing an entire book about. [laughing] All of this ties to everything else. All of this has to do with the other major things about books: themes, character arcs, plot, and place. Because characters who are well-developed shouldn’t need a lot of nudging to help themselves. R: Right, so if you have a character that knows what they want, sometimes this meandering comes out of the writer not quite sure how to get to the next thing, and might I suggest you just cut the scene and go to the next thing that is actually sometimes exactly what it needs. K: You brought up a very good point. I think a lot of times when, especially if it’s not pervasive if we’re dealing with an individual scene, it’s more a product of the writer struggling in that area. Either not knowing how to get us to the next place we need to be, be it physical or otherwise, or not having a good understanding of what’s gonna continue to happen in the story and either not wanting to write themselves into a corner, or not having a good way to continue. R: Yeah. And so then they get stuck in that character-introspective moment where they’re staring out the kitchen window, thinking about lots of stuff without acting in any way. K: It’s okay to have quote-unquote “downtime” for characters. It’s okay to give them some time where they need to think and regroup. I would say that is even displaying agency, that’s a planning portion. I’m not saying that every character at all times in your book must be active and must be doing things to further themselves to a goal. What I am saying, however, is that if they’re not doing anything through the course of the book, or if there are big chunks of it where we’re kinda going ‘whaaat’s going on here?’, that’s a larger problem. And one is easier to fix than the other. [laughing] Anyway, so, that’s agency, and that’s kinda what I have to say about it. That’s all I have to say about that. R: I doubt that very much. K: Well, that’s all I’ll say for now then. R: Yes, ‘cause we are over time. For me, if I get the feedback that my character’s lacking agency, I take a good look at what’s happening. And as Kaelyn said, if my character’s not a force that is causing things to happen in this story, or if there’s unnecessary downtime, or if there just isn’t a character arc, ‘cause sometimes I get this feedback for short stories. K: Mhm. R: And so that’s a good easy way to figure out like ‘oh, right, I don’t have a character arc. This character goes and observes a thing, and I’m trying to make commentary on the thing but I’m not actually having the character affect any change on the thing.’ Then it’s not really agency, it is the character observing the world around them and having an opinion about it, which isn’t the same as having a character arc. K: Yeah. R: If that happens in a novel, it’s more excruciating because it’s a lot more words that you’ve put time into. I rewrote SALVAGE, the first 60% that I rewrote, the first time I rewrote the first 60%, was because of an agency issue. K: Mhm. R: My characters start out the book; they’re stuck on the island, and all I did to change it was change the way they were planning their stuck-ness. K: [laughing] R: They’d been there the same amount of time, they were the same amount of frustrated, they were in the same amount of danger and having to make sure that nobody noticed them that shouldn’t notice them. But, in the second version, there’s a heist. Versus the first version where there’s a lot of watching the clock. And which one would you rather read? K: Exactly, yeah. There’s certainly an argument to make -- I think, a strong argument that I would say is borderline law -- that watching characters act with agency is far more engaging than watching them as passive observers. R: Yep. K: Unless it’s Twilight, and then you’re just gonna sell a billion copies of basically a weird choose-your-own-adventure, but not really. R: Yes. Well, not all our characters are as beautiful and attractive and wonderful and captivating as Bella, so we’re just gonna have to give them agency. K: She doesn’t know how beautiful - R [overlapping]: Right no of course not - K [overlapping]: No of course not, no - R: The plot is her finding out that people find her attractive. K: And she smells really good. [Both laughing] R: A fine vintage. Okay. K: Twilight is one of those things that like, I wonder if 150 years from now when we’re all dead, and they look back at this and go like ‘God, people in the earlier 2000s were weird.’ R: I mean, you could say that about most ages I think. K: That’s true. Yeah. R: There’s plenty of evidence throughout history of humans being just freakin’ weird. K: Context is everything, but. R: Yep. K: Yeah, so anyway, that’s agency. R: It is. Go get some, and give it to your characters. K: And always agency on your own behalf, you as a real life person always get to have. R: Yeah! I mean, especially when you’ve been locked inside for a year and a half. It’s about time to get some agency. K: Yup. R: So if you have questions or comments, or you still don’t know what agency is or what to do with it when someone tells you you need more, then you can @ us on Twitter and Instagram @wmbcast, or you can go back to some of the other episodes we talked about; they are all at wmbcast.com. We would love if you would leave a rating and review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts. And also we are super grateful to all our patrons at Patreon.com/wmbcast who support the costs involved in making these episodes for you. So if they are helpful, and you have the cash and the agency - K: [laughing] R: Please head on over there. K: I see what you did there. R: Oh yeah, you like that? Thanks. K: I did, I did. So thanks everyone, we’ll see you in two weeks!

Social justice and reconciling the racial divide between the black and Asian communities, ending white supremacy, voting laws in Georgia, Derrick Jaxn and the bonnet, Lil’ Nas X and the Satan shoes, and more! We do not own the rights to the music in this episode. I’m Paid | Lil’ Baby Glory | John Legend and Common Lockdown | Anderson .Paak Fight for You | H.E.R What’s Free | Meek Mill (feat. Rick Ross & Jay-Z) Song 33 | Noname Mercy | Anthony Hamilton (feat. Tamika Mallory) Let Go | D Smoke & SiR Black Magic Hour | Jidenna & Bullish This is America | Childish Gambino The People (Remix) | Jim Jones & Harry Fraud (feat. Conway the Machine & Marc Scibilia) Sue Me | Wale (feat. Kelly Price) #ChangeRightNow | MAJOR. (feat. Amber Riley) They Don’t Care About Us | Michael Jackson ROCKSTAR (BLM Remix) | DaBaby (feat. Roddy Rich) Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) | James Brown What’s Going On | Marvin Gaye Everything is Everything | Lauryn Hill F.U.B.U | Solange (feat. Cops Shot the Kid | Was (feat. Kanye West) Salary Keep | Wale June 5th / QueenZnGodZ | Wale We The People | A Tribe Called Quest Can’t Put it in the Hands of Fate | Stevie Wonder (feat. Rapsody, Cordae, Chika, and Busta Rhymes) Hustle Pray Repeat - The Podcast Web: hustleprayrepeat.com Email: hustleprayrepeat@gmail.com Twitter: @HPRpod

Thought Row Episode 7: Art Community, Family & Friends    R: And here we are… motivating you to live more creatively. I’m Rod Jones    I: And I’m Inci Jones…  Welcome to the Thought Row podcast. Let’s start with a motivational quote.   R: What do you have for us today Inci?    Quote: There … Continue reading Thought Row Episode 7: Art Community, Family & Friends →

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and tell us your favorite novel covers! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Episode 44: Theme and Character Arcs transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00] R: Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about publishing—and writing. And sometimes going backward and revising. Whoops. I’m Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.   K: And I’m acquisitions editor, I, Kaelyn Considine, at Parvus Press.   R: How dare you.   [Both laugh]   K: It’s the heat. It’s the heat and then quarantine.   R: The heat is definitely getting to us. We have to turn off the AC to record these, folks, so pity us.   K: Hi, everyone! No, today we actually have, I think, an interesting episode. We are going based off a Twitter question we got from one of our listeners, Ashley Graham, about themes and character arcs and how to manage them and make them good in your story.   R: And by good, we mean strong or tight or—   K: Pervasive, efficient—   R: Pervasive. [giggles]   K: What are some other words we use to describe them here? Lots of very positive adjectives, to be sure.   R: Mhm, yeah.   K: You want your character arcs tight and your themes pervasive.   R: Yup.  K: It’s kind of what we’re left with here. Anyway, we had a lot of fun talking about this because it’s something that I really enjoy working with authors on.   R: Yeah, when Kaelyn gets a novel manuscripts, this is what she dives in and gets to.   K: It is, yeah. This is at the very developmental level and I think anybody who’s a writer that’s listening to this and has submitted and gotten rejections has probably, at some point, gotten a note to “work on their themes or character arcs.”   R: Mhm.   K: Which is just so helpful and specific.   R: That’s why they call them form rejections.   K: Yes. So, we spent a lot of time in this talking about, first of all, what are these themes and character arcs? And how do you work on them? A lot of fun examples in movies and shows and, you know, like I said this is one of my favorite things about editing, is working on these parts of the book.   R: See, Kaelyn thought that she could ask me to restrain her, but the fact is I also love these, so we did go on a little bit. But I think we’ve had longer episodes. We’re fine.   K: Definitely, yeah. We were like kids in a candy shop for this, to be sure.   R: That’s true.   K: Anyway, so take a listen. We hope this is helpful, if this is something you’ve been struggling with in your writing process, and we’ll see you on the other side of the music.   [intro music plays]   K: I don’t know what I could’ve hit. That’s upsetting. Anyway! So, if my elbow hit something is that a character arc or is that a theme?   R: I think that’s a theme. Or it might be a story element…   K: It could be a plotline. Is the elbow a character?   R: Is the elbow haunted?   K: I mean, I assume so. It’s mine, yes. Anyway, today we’re talking about—one of our listeners, Ashley Graham, sent us a question about, I don’t know. Do we wanna read the question?   R: I’m gonna summarize it. Basically, Ashley was working on a short fiction piece and was suggested to, by an editor, that the theme and character arc could use some clarification. So, what the heck does that mean? That’s feedback that people will see.   K: That’s very common feedback, actually. Probably, I think, a lot of people listening to this who have submitted something either to an agent or an editor, probably got feedback that may have specifically said character arc and theme.   R: Yeah. And I think this one might have been for a publication, so short fiction market. And you’re gonna get that kind of stuff a lot because their second-tier response is going to be, “Your story almost made it, you could’ve tightened this up,” you know?   K: Yeah, and also, especially with short fiction, you’re gonna see that more because you have to do a lot in a short amount of time.   R: Yeah.   K: Now that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, to indicate that you won’t see this with long-form fiction because, believe me, you will. I’ve said it multiple times myself—   R: It might be easier to go astray with a long novel.   K: It’s very true. So, why is it these two things, a lot, that you hear? Because they’re a little, especially in the case of themes, they’re a little nebulous and not as easy to pin down. A plot is, I think, a lot of times easier because it’s the story. When you sit down to write an outline, what you’re outlining is usually the plot.    R: It’s concrete, it’s easy to point at and go, “That is part of the plot. That is a thing that happens and it happens in an order and if that order goes awry then it’s not a plot anymore.”   K: That’s exactly what I was gonna say, was that when you’re outlining something and it’s the plot, it’s an order of actions happening in sequence, or maybe out of sequence, depending on how you’re writing, but in how they’re going to be presented in the final book or short story, or what have you.   So, before we get started, let’s kinda define some things here. So a plot, obviously, we know what a plot is. That is not a character arc, it is not a theme. A plot is the elements of a story that take place and happen to the characters. That is a very broad definition, obviously, but plots are sequences on actions and things that happen.   R: Yeah, I’ve even heard it defined as a sequence of actions, reactions, and complicating factors.   K: Yes, that’s a really good way to describe it. Themes and character arcs, and it’s funny because character arcs and plots get confused together and then themes and morals get confused together. A theme is not a moral, a moral is, we’re talking strictly in terms of terms in literature. A moral is a lesson that is learned. A moral is the kid sticks his hand in the cookie jar when he’s not supposed to, it gets stuck, he breaks the cookie jar and has cuts on his hand and his mom finds out he was doing all of this anyway.    So what has he learned? He has learned to listen to his mother because maybe it’s not just that she doesn’t want him to eat cookies when he shouldn’t, maybe it’s that he could get hurt. That is a moral. That is actions and the plot leading up to a character changing themselves because they learned something. That is not a theme.So, now that we have—   R: It’s a character arc though.   K: It certainly could be.   R: Yeah.   K: And so that’s why I’m saying, plots and character arcs and themes and morals can get confused. So now that we’ve established what we’re not talking about, let’s talk about what we are talking about.   And let’s start with themes because that one is a little more nebulous, I think. A theme in a story is, at its basis level, an underlying message. It’s a big idea.   R: Mhm.   K: It is conceptual. It’s things that do not physically, tangibly exist in the world. If you are saying, “Yes, the theme is this,” and a lot of times, if it’s something you can actually touch, that’s probably not actually a theme.   R: So my theme is not coffee?   K: Your theme might be coffee, Rekka.   R: I was gonna say! You’re speaking in universals here, but I just don’t feel like I can relate to what you’re saying.   K: Your—your theme might be coffee. [laughs] Now, somebody might—you might come in and say, “What about the ocean? What if the theme of this story is the ocean?” Well, my answer to that is that the theme of the story is probably not the ocean.   The theme of the story might be travel or man versus nature or the horror of the unknown, and the ocean just happens to embody that.   R: Yup.   K: Again, these are Big Ideas. These are things that you cannot touch, feel, or hold. So things like love, death, good versus evil, a lot of coming of age stories. Stories of rebellion and overthrowing corrupt systems of government. Survival. These are themes. And those are big themes. You can have smaller ones like… family. Finding things that are lost.   R: Appreciating what you had all along, kind of thing,   K: Exactly, yes. Realizing that home was really where you wanted to be this whole time.   R: Yeah. Adventure was the friends you made along the way.      K: Exactly, yes. The other thing that I always tell people when trying to identify themes in their story and bring them forward a little more, is what do you want the reader to walk away thinking, feeling, or knowing? If the theme of your story is: the adventure was the friends you made along the way, then you want the reader to go, “You know what? I really need to go spend some more time with my friends and do something fun with them.”   R: Mhm.   [09:55]   K: Or “ I need to go out and make some new friends,” or “I’m gonna go have an adventure and see if I make any new friends.”   R: Yeah.   K: Your—if, you know, the theme is something like death and loss, maybe you want the reader to leave feeling really sad and depressed and hopeless, staring into the void of existence.   R: You monster.   K: Hey, I mean we’ve all read a book like that.   R, laughing: Yes. In high school. They were required reading.    K: Ohh, oh yeah.   R: So, another way to phrase this or to think about it is to—say, your example of the ocean and say, “Okay, but that’s still a noun.” If you were to remove the noun, what’s left? What’s underneath that? If the setting and the characters are the carpet and you pull up the carpet, what’s underneath it? What is the most fundamental, base human relatable thing that you’re communicating with this story?   K: And that’s what makes themes so difficult to manage and to bring forward in stories, is that they are intangible. You can’t—There’s a frequently said thing that editors use which is, “Show me, don’t tell me.” R: Right.   K: And that is—   R: We should have an episode on that.   K, laughs: Yeah. But that is themes. You can’t put a sentence in there saying, “And the theme is: love.” No, you need—it’s something that has to be woven through your story for the reader to pick up on their own. You shouldn’t have to tell the reader what the theme of this story is.    So, now, before we go too far down that line, let’s kinda talk about character arcs and what is a character arc? They’re definitely a little more tangible, if you will, than themes. You can sit down—and I encourage people to sit down and write out a character arc. Rekka, you’ve done this a few times.   R: A few...yes. Just a couple.    K: Just a few. But a character arc is partially, mostly, a lot of times, an inner journey. It’s a transforma—   R: It’s a transformation. Ah, there we go.   K: It’s a transformation of the character over the course of the story. We’re seeing them start out a certain way, the plot affects them, and they have to change and adapt accordingly. And some definitions of this will say it must be a permanent change. I don’t buy into that because I don’t think that everything needs to be a fundamental personality shift.   R: Well, sometimes you just really wanna write a really long series and that character’s gonna have to learn that lesson more than once.   K: Yeah… Hey, nobody said these characters have to be smart!   R: Yeah, they don’t have to grow ever upward.   K: No, character arc is something. Theme has been what it is for a long time. Character arc is something that, I think, the standards and definitions of it have shifted a little bit over time. In fiction, especially, if you go back to when literature was first being really defined and written about and studied, you’ll find a lot of stuff that says, “Well, a character arc must have these elements: the character must start here; they must encounter or create a problem for themselves; they must come up with a way to overcome that problem, or get the thing that they need; they must suffer a setback; they must recover from the setback; they must resolve the storyline.”   R: And usually in a Three Act, there’s a second setback that’s extra bad.   K: Yeah, yes. I don’t agree with this. I think that there’s no such thing as a formulaic character arc.   R: Right. And, for one, that’s a very Western oriented, Western-centric character arc. You’re going to travel outside Western stories, you’re going to see different character arcs.   K: I would make the argument that character arcs that are a very Western thing that can be applied to a lot of stories because the nature of stories has character arcs, but—   R: Well, I would argue that the nature of Western civilization is colonialism and that sure is going in and applying new rules to other people’s stuff, so. [laughs]   K: Absolutely.    R: So burn down character arcs, got it.   K: Yeah. No, no. And, look, what makes stories interesting is seeing the people in them grow and change. The degree to which that happens varies wildly across all genres and all cultures and how—I’ve had literature professors that said, “If your character is not X amount different by the end of the story, then that’s not a successful character arc,” and I think that’s bullshit.   Because character arcs, which are obviously very tied to character development, do not necessarily need to be a fundamental shift in personality.   R: So, why don’t we start talking a little bit examples. We named one off the air, before we started recording, which was basically any character that Harrison Ford plays.   K, laughing: Yeah!   R: Do any of those characters fundamentally change across the time spent on screen?   K: Well, let’s scale it down a bit to characters Harrison Ford plays that appear in multiple movies. Franchise Harrison Ford characters.    R: Okay, so we’re talking Indiana Jones, Han Solo, and then Jack Ryan.    K: Okay, well I don’t know anything about Jack Ryan, so I’m not gonna be able to help there.   [15:57]      R: Basically, he’s—once again, we’re talking about uber-competent male action heroes, basically.   K: I am going to focus primarily on Indiana Jones and Han Solo because that’s an interesting dichotomy. One of them has a character arc, the other absolutely does not. Spoiler alert: Indiana Jones does not really have much of a character arc.   R: Um, as we said, his character arc is… he needs a thing, he has a competitor for the thing, the competitor gives him a setback, he overcomes, approaches again, has a bigger setback, and then he gets the thing. It’s not a personal growth, it is his striding toward a goal.   K: Yes, but that is his plot.   R: That is also the movie plot, but I’m just saying—is it a flattening of the character arc with the plot, when the character doesn’t change very much?   K: It is because Indiana Jones does not change over the course of the story. He ends and begins every movie with, It Belongs in A Museum.    [both laugh]   R: Fortune over ___, kid.   K: Yeah, that’s Indiana Jones. It’s It Belongs in A Museum or I Don’t Want the Nazis to Have This. That is everything motivating Indiana Jones throughout all of his movies. Han Solo, on the other hand, does have a character arc. Han Solo starts out as a smuggler and a guy who, according to his prequel, was running drugs.    R: Mhm.   K: And he eventually becomes somebody who, instead of just living this sort of private-smuggler lifestyle—   R: Out for himself.   K: Yeah! Out for himself. Has friends and family that he grows to care about. And maybe he’s not as gung-ho Freedom Fighter as they are, but he certainly takes their values and their goals into account and wants to help them and be successful in that. Then he walks into a lightsaber—but we’ll, you know… that’s… [laughs] But! It is a different, it’s another downswing on the character arc is that we see that Han Solo, at the end of the day, is still Han Solo.   R: Mhm.   K: Because what happens? He goes back to smuggling pirate loner lifestyle with Chewbacca. We pick up with him again and, yeah, he’s different but of course he is, he’s older. So there, again, successful character arc! But what he’s showing us is that, at the end of the day, this is what he does and this is what he knows and this is what he’s good at.   R: Well, but, the question is, is he good at it or is he Chewbacca’s sidekick.   K, laughing: How good he is is a different query.   R: Okay, so—   K: Actually, real quick sidebar, if you think about it, everything we’ve seen of Han Solo, he’s not actually a very good smuggler.   R: No, he’s terrible! So the question is, does your character start from a default? And what we’re saying here is Han Solo, his default is smuggler, loner, trying to make the next paycheck and keep himself out of trouble.   K: Scruffy-faced nerf-herder.   R: Whenever he is thrown into the mix with people who are potential friends, they mess up his default and pull him away from that. But send an obstacle into his path—like a son—and he reverts back to his default when he doesn’t know how to cope.   K: Yeah, exactly. So, Han Solo is actually, and I think, primarily accidentally, a very successful and good example of a character arc.   R: Mhm.   K: Indiana Jones: It Belongs in A Museum or Stop The Nazis.   R: I think he’s intentionally left out of the character arc.   K: Yeah, I mean—but this is the thing, that’s not what those stories are about.   R: Right. That’s to the point of this question is, when you are told to tighten up a character arc or a theme, you do need to know what kind of story you’re telling before you decide how deep into character arcs and themes you need to dive. I mean, you might get this feedback from one person, and they might be off the mark for what you were trying to do with your story.   K: Mhm.   R: Which can also tell you, maybe you need to extract a little of that character arc and not make it feel like it’s so much about developing a character, if you are just telling a whip-cracking, gun-toting archaeologist tale. Don’t do that. Archaeologists don’t appreciate it.   K, laughing: Yeah, that’s uh—   R: Another episode.   K: In case anyone was confused at home, that’s not what archaeology’s actually like, sadly. Anyway, now that we’ve talked about what character arcs and themes are, why are these two things that people are frequently told to tighten up? And frequently told to tighten them together?   We’ve already said that character arcs are closer to plots, themes are closer to morals, but they’re not the same thing. So how do character arcs and themes overlap? Themes motivate and drive characters. This feeds both the plot and the character arc. The plot, obviously, because based on the theme, and therefore the character’s motivation, the character will be making that will affect both the plot and their character arc.   R: Mhm.   K: That’s where things start to get a little tricky. Those two are very closely intertwined. Because obviously the plot, in a lot of cases, is dependent upon what the character is doing. Their choices and decisions dictate what happens next in the story.   So then, drill down for that, what is influencing their decision-making, their motivation? And where is the motivation coming from? And that’s where you start to get to the themes of the story. So, if one of the themes of your story is survival and, let’s think of—   R: Alien.   K: Okay, that’s a more fun example. I was gonna say The Hatchet, remember that book we all had to read in middle school?   R: Yeah, we’re not doing that, we’re doing Alien.   K: Okay, we’re doing Alien.   R: Mostly because there was a point you made earlier about character and we used Harrison Ford’s various characters as the example, but I love the example of, specifically in terms of survival, and specifically in terms of the character of Ripley, Ripley doesn’t really change throughout the movie. What she does is survive because she has the skillset, which is the ability to think things through logically in the first place, to say, “Okay, we need to not be doing this.”   Basically the theme of Alien, correct me if I’m wrong, is We Should Have Listened to Ripley?   K: I mean, yeah. Probably. But beyond just the theme of—Granted, this goes into further expansions in the Alien franchise, but—   R: Well, let’s stick with Alien for one. The other movies in the franchise are different genres, basically. So sticking with the space truckers’ monster-horror survival.   K: Alien is a horror movie in space. That’s all it is. It was groundbreaking, genre-defining, but it is a horror movie in space. So, the themes of the movie, as Rekka said: survival. There’s also, I would say, a theme of frustration.    R: Mhm. The capitalist bureaucracy.   K: Well, and that’s what I was getting into.   R: Okay.   K: So then we’re introducing a conflict element there that is beyond simply: there’s a thing laying eggs in people’s chests.   R: That thing laying eggs in people’s chest wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the company.   K: Yes, exactly. So then, if you want to take all of that and say, “Okay, so how does that affect Ripley’s character arc?” Ripley is changed at the end of the story, not necessarily physically or personality-wise, but emotionally she is very affected. And she is going to then—have you ever heard about how Alien was supposed to end? One of the alternative endings they shot?   The alien gets Ripley, essentially, and then when whoever is calling in over the ship, the alien gets the intercom and answers back in her voice, requesting for orbits to come back to Earth.   R: Gotcha.   K: So, it was a very bleak ending, obviously.   R: But a lot of monster movies do this. They leave off with you not feeling safe.   K: Yes, and so that is another theme. What do you wanna leave your readers with? And, in this case, the movie pivoted a little bit and said, “Well, we wanna give the audience a sense of closure,” and that all of this, this theme of survival, she did survive. So rather than going with the theme of feeling unsafe, which was another theme running through that entire movie, paranoia, uncertainty—   R: Claustrophobia.   K: Claustrophobia. Anybody could become your enemy at any moment.   R: Body horror. Yup.    K: Yeah. So instead of leaving off with that theme, they decided to be a little kinder and pivot a little bit to say, “Hey, determination, intelligence, stick-to-itiveness, and survival will make you victorious.” Which is another set of themes. So then, back to, how does this tie into the character arc is: Ripley is a changed person at the end of this.   Boy, has she seen some shit. And now she knows that this corporation is up to no good. She is no longer just in it for the money. They say this is a long, awful journey, but it’s very good money. It’s totally worth it.   R: Mhm.   K: Maybe it’s not worth it anymore. There’s absolutely some anti-capitalist undertones in there.   R: Mhm.   K: Ripley comes out of this, even though personality-wise she hasn’t changed—the movie takes place over a relatively short period of time. But Ripley’s definitely got some different thoughts and motivations now, at the end of this. So, even though she hasn’t undergone a radical, inner transformation, she certainly thinks different things now than she did before.   R: Yeah, for sure.   K: So, yeah. That’s a great example of some really cool themes and how they affect—and it’s interesting because you could take it a step further and say how they affect the character arc, rather than the plot.   R: Right.    K: Because in this case, a lot of Ripley’s decisions are reactionary. Things are happening and she’s trying to adapt and recalibrate very, I’m only thinking of two instances in the whole—really, one and a half off the top of my head, in which she goes on the offensive, so to speak.   R: Right. Well that’s also sort of a plot thing is that your character is reacting to things up until a certain point, and then it’s at the time when they decide to say, “No, I will take care of this myself,” that’s when you’re entering that last act.   K: Yes! But, then, by the time we get to the, “I’ll take care of this myself,” for the plot and the character arc, we all go back to the themes of Ripley kind of coming to a new understanding of how stuff is actually happening around her, rather than letting it happen to her.   R: Yeah.   K: Yeah. Anyway, I think that’s a good example.   R: Cool. So, now that we’ve talked about what they are, given you some examples, figured out how to un-intertwine the character arc and theme. How do you tighten them up? And since the example given was a short story for publication, let’s assume we’re doing this in under 7,000 words. How do you tighten up character arc and theme and you’ve also, presumably, got a plot in there, in a very efficient way?   K: All of these kind of work together. I think that anything you’re going to do to a short story, you can apply to longer form fiction and vice versa. So me, personally, with—and Rekka has been on the receiving end of this a couple times—when working with authors, let’s start with themes. I mentioned before, one of the first things I ask the author is: What do you want the audience to know, think, or feel that they didn’t at the beginning of the book?   And when I say know, I don’t mean you’re—   R: Teaching them.   K: Yeah, you’re not putting a graph-chart in there and saying, “And then the price of gold went up to—” I’m not talking about facts, I’m talking about what you want them to know about these nebulous concepts in the way you want them to know it? So, identifying those things really will help you figure out where your themes are.    The other thing I always say, and this is where it starts to tie into the character arc, is look at the character arcs and the plot and the motivation. What are the characters doing and why are they doing it? What is driving them to do this? Because that’s where you’re gonna find a lot of your themes. And then, if theme is very important to you, if you really want to hammer a message home, making sure that your characters act and are motivated by that theme, consistently—and this isn’t to say it can’t evolve, it absolutely can. But making sure that they are correctly motivated, based on what the theme is, is a really good way to help tighten that up.   Then, that helps to feed into their character arc. Because you have a character, then, acting, reacting, and making decisions based on what is important to them and how the story is building.   [30:09]   R: And I think, at this point, if you’re feeling like, “I can’t make this character make this decision,” then that tells you that you are not succeeding at either theme or character arc.   K: Yes… and—   R: Or not in a way that supports what you set out to do with the plot.   K: Yes, and listen. I want to be clear about something that every story does not need to be a Magnum Opus of subtle themes and ideas woven through this— it’s going to be studied in college 101 classes for decades to come. But you do need a theme for your story. You need there to be something that is important in all of this. Otherwise it is a bland series of actions happening one after the other.   R: And if you don’t feel that it is a bland series, or your beta readers don’t feel that it is a bland series of actions, one after another, that means there’s a theme in there. So if you’re having trouble identifying it, that doesn’t mean immediately that you don’t have one.   I will use an example of Mike Underwood, when I was working on Annihilation Aria with him. So we had a few calls, I read the manuscript multiple times, and Mike had actually said the themes of the story are very important to him. So I went through the manuscript, and I do this with most books that I edit, and I kind of write out a plot outline based on what I’m reading, what I see happening in the book. Part of this is, one, that it’s just easier for me to keep track of things, but then also because if I show it to the author and say, “Okay, this is how I’m reading this,” and they’re going, “No, no! That’s not it at all,” then it’s like, okay, now we need to have a conversation.   But one of the things that I like to do through that is mark off, in my notes of this outline, where I’m identifying and seeing certain themes. And then we have a conversation about that. And if we’re seeing a real imbalance of them, or I’m only seeing them come through in certain parts of the story, or if I’m having a real hard time nailing them down and saying, “I feel like I’ve got ten themes in this story. Which one’s the most important to you?”    And I think that’s a really good exercise is, you know, most authors out there, I’m guessing if you’re pretty far into your Work-In-Progress at this point, you probably already have an outline. So go through it and try to pick out sections where you think certain themes are coming through. And I actually color-code them and then I can look through and see, “Oh, there’s a lot of red and not so much blue.”   R: Mhm. If you’re a pantser and you write without an outline, this is something you do, probably in your revision process. Write down a summary of each scene and that becomes an outline. Just because you’re doing it after the fact doesn’t make it less of an outline. And then do the same practice with that.   K: Exactly. It’s not easy to do. There’s a reason that anybody who’s taking any sort of an English literature class will say there’s a reason you spend a lot of time working on and learning about themes is because they’re intangible. They’re nebulous. There isn’t a point at which, in the story, the character breaks the fourth wall and says, “Hey, just so you know, we’re introducing a new theme here! It’s compassion!”   R: But at the same time, you study examples in order to identify the universalities and that’s what themes are.   K: Yes.   R: So, if you learn how to work your theme around compassion, you can write twenty novels that are completely different that are all about compassion, and you’d get really good at it. You know?   K: Yeah, absolutely.   R: That’s why romance writers are really good at what they’re doing. By choosing their genre, they know what the theme is and they stick to it and, by the end, capital R, Romance writers are really, really efficient at getting stories written because they’ve already done this work. And every time you do this with a theme, it answers questions about the plot.   K: Yeah.   R: What needs to happen here? I’m lost. Well, okay, what’s your theme? What needs to happen here? Oh, well this!   Yeah, you answered your own question.   K: So, just to talk a little—with character arc, tightening that up and defining it a little better. Again, outlines here help. And it doesn’t need to be anything too detailed. It just needs to be this, then this, then this, then this and then throw some lines in there explaining what led to or motivated the character to get to that point. Character arcs, it’s funny because in some ways they are far more concrete than themes. You can actually sit down and outline a character arc, but I think it is harder sometimes to say, “Is this a character arc?”   The most important thing in the character arc is the character has to be different at the end than when they started. It can be something like RIpley in Alien where she hasn’t undergone a major personality shift, but she has changed the way she thinks and will act differently now because of that.    As opposed to someone like Luke Skywalker, who has the farmboy to legendary hero character arc, but Luke goes on this whole journey and at the end of it, he is a very, very, very different person than when he started because of all of the things that happened to him. All of the experiences, the adversity, the finding out his father’s Darth Vader. I mean, that alone—   R: Oh, I know. Plus he literally can’t go back to the life he had before.   K: Yeah, exactly. And that’s actually a very good marker of a successful character arc. Can they go back to how things were before? And if the answer is yes, your character has probably not had enough of a character arc for it to be considered a character arc.   R: Or it’s Indiana Jones.   K: Or it’s Indiana Jones. Because Indiana Jones always just goes back to how things were before. Indiana Jones has proof that God exists—   R: And goes back to university and just keeps teaching the Neolithic Era.   K: And just kept living his life! [laughs] Indiana Jones has multiple instances of literal proof that not only does the Judeo-Christian God exist, but also Hindu deities and various other things.   R: Mhm.   K: Aliens! All of this stuff and just continues on like it’s nothing. I don’t know what that says about him. If we should be impressed or horrified.   R: I think we’re supposed to be impressed. The idea being that the first time we see it happen is not the first time it happens for him.   K: I wanna be very clear about something: in the timeline of Indiana Jones because we all know—   R: Are we counting the River Phoenix and Young Indiana Jones?   K: Oh, no, but we’re counting the beginning of Last Crusade, to be sure.   R: Okay, alright.   K: Okay, so we’ve got Last Crusade, we’ve got that awesome train scene, whatever. Chronologically, then, Temple of Doom actually happens first.   R: Right, so we have the intro to Last Crusade, we have Temple of Doom—   K: And Temple of Doom, we establish that Hindu deities are clearly a real thing and a serious force to be reckoned with. Even if you wanna say, “Well, maybe it wasn’t the Hindu deities, it was magic,” okay fine, it was still bad, it was still, you know, unhappy.   R: Yeah.   K: Alright, so then we go to Raiders of the Lost Ark, at the end of that we have established that the Judeo-Christian God is a real thing that exists and does not like Nazis and you should not open the box.   R: Yep.   K: Then, we go to The Last Crusade, and in case anybody was a little like, “Meh, I’m not sure, that could’ve been who-knows-what, just because they said it was the Ark of the Covenant doesn’t mean that’s what it really was,” well now we’ve got the Holy Grail. The literal, actual Holy Grail that has kept a Crusades-era knight alive and then, if we’re still gonna take this a step further, heals his dying father’s mortal wounds.   R: Yup.   K: So, we have now established that multiple deities actually, really exist and this guy just freaking goes back to teaching college like this hasn’t rocked his entire world.   R: Teachers have a limited amount of vacation time.   [K laughs]   R: What is he gonna do?   K: Doesn’t he get summers off? I just assumed that was when all of these were happening.   R: I don’t think he has tenure yet? Once he has tenure, maybe.   K: Yeah, yeah. Good point. Anyway, the whole point is: Indiana Jones, not a great character arc. Can he go back to the way things were? Yes. He does.   R: Apparently!   K: Over and over again.   R: He resets to default.   K: Yes. Getting back—I apologize, we got sidetracked there again—   R: It’s fine.   K: It’s fine, we get excited. So how do you actually go about tightening these up? When somebody gives you the incredible, helpful note of tighten up your themes and character arcs. So helpful. What do you do?   Well, so, for themes I think a good technique is sort of what I mentioned. Go back either through your outline or through your manuscript for revisions, and identify motivations and actions and what themes stem from those.   R: And color-code them maybe, like you  said.   [40:14]              K: Maybe color code them. Take a step back, so to speak. Take a thousand foot view and say, “Is the story driven by these or are they happening because the story’s the thing that’s driving here?” If it’s the second one, you do not have tight themes. The themes should be the ones driving the story and motivating the characters and influencing the plot.   R: And by driving the story, we don’t mean stop at the end of every two paragraphs and reiterate what your theme is.   K: Yes, so how do you tighten this up? Identify things that are happening. Be they actions of characters or elements of the plot. Maybe external forces of nature, depending on what your themes are, and go in and emphasize those a little bit. Make it so that—Yes, you can’t have a character turn to the audience, wink, and say, “I’m doing this for love!” But you certainly can have an inner dialogue where they are acknowledging and identifying that what is motivating them is their love for their dog.   R: Mhm.   K: Or, I guess, their significant other. Whatever.   R: Mostly the dog.   K: Yeah, probably the dog. This goes into the Show Me, Don’t Tell Me.   R: Mhm.   K: See the characters react based on things that are important to them, and that brings forward your themes. I don’t like the phrase “tighten up your themes” I like the phrase “strengthen your themes.”   R: Yeah.   K: And emphasize your themes. Showcase your themes. With themes, you’re not contracting them. You’re trying to disperse them a little bit more through the story. You are showing, not telling.   R: The thing is, like, a bouillon cube.   K: Yes.   R: It starts very small, but it goes throughout your entire project.   K: And then there’s no getting it out again. It’s in there.    R, laughing: Yeah.   K: Character arcs, on the other hand, are absolutely something that can be tightened and focused. So, how do you do this?    First, look at your themes. How are they affecting the story? How are they affecting the character’s decisions? Then look at what the characters are doing. Is it primarily reactionary? Are they just letting things happen to them? Or do they have agency? Are they making decisions themselves?    And it’s okay if, especially for the first part of the book, they’re just reacting. A lot of stories start out with a character just trying to get their feet under them, to recover and reorient themselves from something happening.   R: Although, I wanna say that that does not mean they shouldn’t have some sort of agency.   K: Yes, there needs to be decision-making in there.   R: Maybe they want something that they’re going to end up not wanting at the end.   K: Well, it can come down simply to something like they’re running away from the alien monster that grew from what was living in the back of their fridge and, do I run upstairs and lock myself in the bedroom or do I run out the front door?   Yes, they’re running, but they’re making a decision of how they’re best going to try to escape this.   R: And they can make the wrong decisions, too. I mean, that’s kind of part of the character arc.   K: That is part of the character arc. So tightening these up has to do with having the character come up against a conflict or an obstacle or a decision and then learning and growing and changing from it. So, again, identifying the parts at which your character is coming up against conflict in some way. And conflict, here, not meaning physical or argumentative. Sometimes the conflict can simply be, “It’s low tide, I need to catch fish and I can’t catch fish when it’s low tide.”   R: Right.    K: It can be like a force of nature. And then identifying how they’re reacting. Then, the next time it’s low tide, have they instead gone, “Ah, yes, I should catch extra fish because on this planet low tide lasts for three days and, therefore, I’m not going to be able to fish again for three days.” That’s growing and learning and making new mistakes.   R: Like staying on this planet where low tide lasts for three days. Can you imagine the smell?   K: There’s a very weird mood pattern on this planet.   R: It’s pitch black but low tide.   K: Yes, exactly. So somehow. It’s really weird because there is no moon, actually. No one really knows where the tides are coming from.   So identifying the areas of conflict for your character, where they’re coming up against adversity, and then seeing how they’re making decisions. If they’re just not reacting, if they’re just not doing anything over and over again, that’s not character development. That’s not a character arc.   R: Mhm.   K: Having them grow and change and learn, maybe thinking: Okay, I’m safe now. I’ve locked myself in my room from the alien creature from the back of the fridge can’t get me. Oh, hang on a second. It learned how to open doors. That’s... what do I do now? Okay, I’ve got a chair I can put up against the door.   And then finally getting to the point of going: you know what? I should have just run outside. I need to get out of this house.   R: Mhm.   K: So, again, identifying areas where your character is coming up into conflict, figuring out how they’re reacting, and making sure that they’re learning and changing and not reacting the same way.   This is not a real thing, I wish it was, the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Obviously that’s not correct.   R: Right.   K: But it is important with character arcs and character development. Having your character do the same thing over and over again is not character arc.   R: Although there’s that stubbornness to that, or that unwillingness to grow, that can be the character arc and suddenly they realize doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is not getting me where I want to go. And the thing they learn is not to do that anymore.   K: I am now being eaten by the thing that lived in the back of the fridge. I regret my life choices.   R: Yes.    [both laugh]   R: And that’s the morality lesson—the moral of the tale is clean out your fridge.   K: Clean out your fridge, people!    R: And not just in August.   K: Is that a thing that you do in August?   R: No, I’m saying… it’s just about coming up on August as we record this, don’t make it an annual event. Make it a…   K: You know what’s funny is that with all of the quarantining and stuff, I have been so much better about cleaning the fridge out because I’m just here all the time.   R: Mhm.   K: And I’m kinda like, “Huh.”   R: Well, when you go into an office you procrastinate by going to the lounge and making a cup of coffee and getting a drink or going to talk to somebody about something. But, when you’re home, how do you procrastinate? The only thing you can do is clean.   K: It’s kinda like I’m looking at this going, “Huh, that might start talking to me soon. I should probably do something about that.”   R: But if you’d been going into an office, you would’ve said, “That thing is talking, I should probably do something about that.”   K: I’m gonna go back to my office.   R: At least you’d be the only one there.   K: Yeah, yeah. Anyway! That was a very long-winded way of answering your questions and I hope that—   R: We answered it.   K: We hope that was helpful and not just a series of me rambling about uh—   R: At least we talked about interesting movies and people can relate to, at least Ripley. Especially right now.   K: I think we can all relate to Ripley on some level. One of my favorite behind-the-scenes thing with Alien is, have you ever seen the cute scenes from there? There was a part, it was so ridiculous, it would have ruined the movie, the actor that played the alien was like 6’8” or something and they just put him in this giant rubber suit. And I can’t remember what part of the movie it would’ve been in, but it was one of those where the character’s backing slowly with their gun into a room and they hear something behind them and they turn around and the alien’s there.   And there’s footage out there—look this up—of the alien crab-walking up to them. So just imagine this giant, 6’8” man in this heavy, absurd rubber suit crab-walking on all fours up to this actor. It—I understand what they were trying to do, and the sound effects were certainly creepy, but… it just ruined the whole, it was too ridiculous-looking. Thankfully, they saw that and cut it.   R: I think that has a lot to do with the human joints versus where the joints were supposed to be in this alien.   K: Yeah. Well that’s like in The Exorcist with Regan walking backwards down the stairs. Part of how creepy about that is how unnatural it looks. You’ve got joints going in directions that maybe humans can do that, but they probably shouldn’t.   R: Right, yeah. Exactly. So theme. Stay limber.   K, laughing: Yes! Anyway, Ashley, we hope we answered that for you and keep us posted. Let us know how things go with the story. And if you want to keep us posted on anything else—   R: You can find us online. We are on Twitter and Instagram @wmbcast. We are at Patreon.com/wmbcast where we have some awesome patrons who are supporting the show. And if you feel like we have been helpful, you can throw us some bus fare and stuff for when we’re allowed to go see each other again and get back together for our podcast episode recordings.   K: I was gonna say, I don’t think we’re allowed on buses anytime soon, Rekka.   R: No, we’re definitely not. And if you don’t have cash to spare to support the show, you can also help us out a lot by leaving us a rating on review on Apple podcasts. We’re everywhere. Stitcher, Spotify, all that good stuff. But if you wanna leave a review, it’s most helpful to leave it there. You can also shoot us an email, info@wmbcast.com, and we can answer a question if you have one. If you wanna keep it anonymous, that’s the way to do it. Otherwise, post it to Twitter like Ashley did, and we’ll answer it in a future episode.   K: Yeah. We’ll try our best. That’s for sure.   R: Yeah.   K: Alright, well, thanks everyone so much and we’ll see you in a couple weeks.   R: Take care, everyone!   [outro music plays]

gamescom Opening Night Live kicks off a big week of gaming updates while also sun-setting the Summer Game Fest. We run through most of the 40+ games of the show while still reeling from finally seeing the 2 big Batman announcements, coping with Rocksteady’s ongoing allegations, and understanding Nintendo’s sneaky Directs. 00:00:48 - Corrections 00:02:11 - Silver Lining 00:03:28 - gamescom Opening Night Live 00:54:48 - A Word From Our Sponsor 00:59:55 - Suicide Squad and Gotham Knights 01:14:21 - Rocksteady Studios harassment accusations 01:24:37 - Nintendo Direct August Partner Showcase 01:37:06 - Also This Week... 01:45:27 - L&R - Opinions on damage numbers 01:51:26 - L&R - What IPs would you want to buy? 01:53:49 - L&R - What do you watch in the background? 01:56:06 - Time for Bets 02:03:18 - Closing 02:04:50 - Producer Credits Go to logitechg.com and use code EASYA for 10% off today! Go to att.com/galaxynote20ultra5g to learn how you can get the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 5G for free and go to mark.app to download the MARK AR app!

This week we weigh the financial impact of some big plays in the industry. Epic Games goes to war with Apple, Halo Infinite sets a new course for 2021, EA Executives ask for way too much money in raises, and Control shows us how not to announce a next-gen version of a current-gen game. 00:00:43 - Corrections 00:03:25 - Gaming Gladiators 00:08:46 - Epic Games vs Apple 00:30:23 - Halo Infinite Delayed to 2021 00:46:20 - A Word From Our Sponsor 00:48:56 - Control Ultimate Edition 01:02:51 - EA Execs voted out of getting raises 01:11:08 - The Story of The Weddle Grab 01:16:07 - Also This Week... 01:24:23 - L&R - What's up with Monster Hunter? 01:27:53 - L&R - What demos made the wait harder? 01:30:03 - L&R - Game: Eventually Great? Or Just Real Late? 01:33:06 - Time for Bets 01:39:04 - Closing Go to http://luminskin.com/allies to get a one-month free trial of everything you need to start your skincare journey at home!

Sony is investing millions in Epic Games, and Microsoft is hoping the hype surrounding their next Xbox Game Showcase pays off. Also, is it our fate to be purchasing $70, digital-only, games in the near future according to recent decisions made by 2K and Capcom, or are these just signs of further change coming to the industry? 00:00:40 - Corrections 00:02:17 - Gaming Gladiators 00:05:03 - Sony invests $250m in Epic 00:12:47 - Xbox Games Showcase dated 00:28:06 - The prospect of $70 games 00:40:39 - Capcom's Game Sales are 80% digital 00:52:59 - Also This Week... 01:07:54 - L&R - How important are new assets? 01:12:52 - L&R - Game: Real or Fake Wonders 01:15:22 - L&R - What games will make you cry? 01:16:45 - L&R - A 100% dynamic future? 01:22:14 - Time for Bets 01:28:10 - Closing

The news that Xbox is going to let us try out 60 or more upcoming games from the comfort of our own homes, and Sony is re-investing in independent games with a new initiative for the PlayStation, helps brighten our spirits after Evo 2020 is canceled following yet another allegation of sexual misconduct in the games industry. 00:00:50 - Corrections 00:02:34 - Gaming Gladiators 00:05:30 - Xbox Summer Game Fest Announced 00:26:30 - PlayStation Indies initiative 00:50:02 - New Video Game to TV Adaptations 01:11:35 - EVO 2020 Canceled 01:29:31 - Also This Week... 01:37:03 - L&R - Message to Publishers/Developers? 01:39:17 - L&R - Game: Timesplitters 01:44:17 - L&R - What game would make a good musical? 01:46:40 - Time for Bets 01:51:45 - Closing

The Summer Game Fest has begun with reveals for new games and even a new gaming engine, Nintendo announces a franchise sequel coming in two months, and this week’s look at Ghost of Tsushima is as calm as water, but still as sharp as steel. TIMESTAMPS 00:00:48 - Corrections 00:03:20 - Gaming Gladiators 00:10:32 - Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1&2 Remastered Announced 00:21:22 - Paper Mario The Origami King Announced 00:34:26 - Unreal Engine 5 Revealed 00:52:26 - A Word From Our Sponsor 00:56:23 - Ghost of Tsushima's State of Play 01:08:33 - Also This Week... 01:13:34 - L&R - What about the EZA Fantasy League? 01:14:46 - L&R - Are we afraid of next-gen? 01:19:51 - L&R - Game: Subtitle Swap 01:28:11 - L&R - What NPC loot would you drop? 01:30:52 - Time for Bets 01:37:04 - Closing Go to http://luminskin.com/allies to get a one-month free trial of everything you need to start your skincare journey at home.

As Sony seems determined to hit a PlayStation 5 launch 2020, it seems that supply might be heavily constrained. 00:02:19 - Corrections 00:05:10 - Best Last Lines 00:12:46 - PlayStation 5 Limited Supply 00:35:41 - Rockstar’s Changes and Upcoming GTA 00:51:26 - PODCAST HALFTIME 00:53:29 - Riot Games Acquires Hypixel Studios 01:05:21 - Gamescom is Going Digital 01:08:40 - L&R: What’s the deal with mock reviews 01:19:44 - L&R: The power of Folding@Home 01:22:16 - L&R: Game - Signature Phrases in EZA Reviews 01:38:27 - L&R - Where did Break for Me come from? 01:45:08 - L&R: Game - Real Animal or Pokemon? 01:55:35 - Time for Bets 01:58:55 - Or Wars 02:06:40 - Closing If you visit http://expressvpn.com/allies you can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free!

Epic once again seems suspiciously generous as it kicks off its promising publishing initiative and Nintendo’s Mini Direct was indeed mini and that’s okay. 00:00:56 - Corrections 00:08:16 - Best Last Lines 00:12:42 - Epic Publishing Games from 00:24:56 - Nintendo Mini Direct Announcements 00:40:50 - Daytime Talk Show Advice 00:49:30 - Animal Crossing’s Huge Success 00:55:23 - L&R: What game object would you want 3D printed? 01:00:04 - L&R: Game - Weird product placements 01:08:41 - L&R: Why does Untitled Good Game win awards from developers? 01:14:55 - L&R: Game: Got Em or Don’t Got Em 01:25:37 - L&R: Best games for being sick or drugged up 01:29:17 - Time for Bets 01:35:04 - Closing 01:37:56 - Producer Thanks Support us through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EasyAllies Schedule: http://easyallies.com/ Live streams - https://www.twitch.tv/easyallies Stream archives - https://www.youtube.com/easyalliesplays https://twitter.com/easyallies https://www.facebook.com/easyallies #EasyAllies

The Xbox Series X defines the next generation in five bullet points and EA went and secretly canceled another Star Wars game. 00:01:04 - Corrections 00:04:53 - Kyle’s Hot Fresh Hot Take Latte 00:07:11 - Tough Bouncers 00:09:54 - New Xbox Series X Details 00:36:31 - Platinum’s 2nd and 3rd Announcements 00:43:23 - Podcast Halftime 00:49:45 - EA Canceled Another Star Wars Game 01:03:36 - L&R: Liking a licenced game without knowing the license 01:10:53 - L&R: Game: Backlog trimming 01:19:24 - L&R: What’s the name of the club? 01:21:44 - L&R: Thoughts on Epic Games Store after a year of free games 01:30:17 - L&R: Dead or Alive’s PS4 exclusive microtransactions 01:35:44 - Time for Bets 01:42:15 - Closing 01:44:18 - Producer Thanks Get 15% off your order at http://buyraycon.com/allies To try Shudder free for 30 days, go to http://shudder.com and use promo code allies

In this episode of the podcast we sit down with We Few Group founder Andrew Keller. We Few Group manages Rence, Samica, and Kings while also working on brand partnership ventures. This came after an extensive career at a few notable major labels. Beginning with a 13 year run starting all the way from a high school A&R scout internship position with Columbia records. During this time he was a part of a part of signing and managing artists including, Dillion Francis, Krewella, St lucia and more. He then went on to become the Senior VP A&R at Universal’s Capitol Records for a few years. In this episode we discuss….Acquiring a pulse for a range of sub cultures and genres What are his thoughts on what makes a great A&R What were defining moments in the ascension of Krewella and ZHU’s careersTakeaways from having survived a time period of heavy layoffs in the music industryThe strategies around approaching the music industry on an international scale As always never hesitate to leave a review or reach out to @musicbusinesspodcast Instagram with any feedback or ideas. Find Andrew on Twitter @andrewkeller. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this podcast I am sharing tips about how to make informed decisions about your birth. I will introduce an awesome acronym for you and your birthing companion to use when any decisions about the birth of your baby... even if those decisions have to be made when you are already in labour! B- What are the benefits? R-What are the risks? A- What are the alternatives? I- What do your instincts say? S- Take some space to make the decision. 

Respawn dabbles in VR with a Medal of Honor title, and WB Games Montreal resurfaces on Batman Day before vanishing once more. 00:01:28 - Corrections 00:05:55 - Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond Announced 00:20:01 - WB Montreal’s Batman Teases 00:37:59 - Podcast Halftime 00:41:27 - The Last of Us Part II Drops Multiplayer 01:01:59 - L&R: Indie Game or WWE Finisher? 01:04:30 - L&R: Is Link’s Awakening too expensive? 01:20:16 - L&R: What makes Jedi Outcast good? 01:23:17 - Time for Bets 01:25:45 - Update from Naughty Dog 01:29:28 - Closing 01:31:41 - Producer Thanks Thank you to our official sponsors! ViewSonic - https://www.viewsonic.com/elite Car Keys Express - https://carkeysexpress.com/store Hoeg Law - http://www.hoeglaw.com SOS Children's Villages - https://www.sos-usa.org/take-action/donate-for-a-child

Straight from Kyle’s hotel room in Cologne, Germany, hear about all of Gamescom’s biggest stories from just one overwhelmed person! 00:01:31 - Sony Acquires Insomniac 00:20:21 - Podcast Halftime 00:23:21 - Gamescom Show Announcements 00:44:00 - L&R - Does it hurt shows to promote the announcements? 00:51:12 - L&R - Will the Switch ever have a 3D Screen? 00:52:38 - L&R - What did you do for Opening Night Live? 00:55:36 - L&R - Is Gears 5 holding too much back? 01:01:05 - Closing Thank you to our official sponsors! ViewSonic - https://www.viewsonic.com/elite Car Keys Express - https://carkeysexpress.com/store Hoeg Law - http://www.hoeglaw.com SOS Children's Villages - https://www.sos-usa.org/take-action/donate-for-a-child

So, what exactly is A&R? What does someone in A&R do day-to-day? Most people have a lot of misconceptions when they think about this role…Stephanie Wright tells her story about how she landed her first major label job in Nashville (Capitol Records) with zero music industry experience or degree, but it eventually led to her current role as Senior Vice President of A&R at Universal Music Group Nashville.With her start in an administration role, she found ways to use her creativity in any situation she could, which eventually led to her discovering artists Brandy Clark, Erin Enderlin, and then signing Kacey Musgraves.“I’m glad I took this [slower] path— it gave me an appreciation for the whole process of making a [music] project”Stephanie goes into detail on what the A&R role truly means, how to deal with established artists versus newer artists, how A&R uses strategy to accomplish artists’ goals, and what she thinks a “sign-able” artists looks like.“My job is just to keep [artists] authentic…[people] who have something about them that sets them apart…at the core that’s what everyone is trying to find”Great news for artists— the label really isn’t trying to change you!Stephanie dives deep on:UMG’s company structure,What genres mean at UMG (spoiler: they are more difficult to define in this digital age)How those genres relate to how she aims to brand an artistHow A&R is constantly evolvingWhat labels are looking for in an artist“You have to be flexible and fluid in how you are going about launching an artist, there’s not a one size fits all anymore.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

These late gen sales figures bring good tidings and bad omens, and Joy Con drift is officially a new thing to complain about. 00:09:16 - Corrections 00:13:24 - June NPDs 00:42:14 - Name Something Cooler - Fortnite’s Kaiju Battle 00:47:19 - Podcast Halftime 00:50:05 - Joy-Con Drift 01:05:46 - L&R: Do games need to be more than fun? 01:20:29 - L&R: What could go wrong with Death Stranding? 01:28:22 - L&R: Sky: Children of the Light Shoutout 01:31:40 - Time for Bets 01:41:51 - Closing Thank you to our official sponsors! ViewSonic - https://www.viewsonic.com/elite Uniqlo - https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/ut-graphic-tees/eza Car Keys Express - https://carkeysexpress.com/store Hoeg Law - http://www.hoeglaw.com Able Gamers - https://ablegamers.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donate.event&eventID=505

Join Dave, Rob and Neil as they talk about Star Trek. Should it be rated R? What does rated R even mean in the world of Star Trek?

As Sony and Nintendo continue their historic successes, Valve and Oculus get some new VR headsets on the market, and really we just wanna talk about that Sonic movie. 00:09:01 - Corrections 00:11:31 - Updates 00:12:53 - Madden NFL 20 00:13:39 - Persona 5 Scramble 00:23:41 - New VR from Valve and Oculus 00:36:35 - The Gaming Game 00:43:27 - Podcast Halftime 00:47:38 - NPDs and Fiscal Year Reports 01:05:03 - L&R - Just a Funny Story 01:07:31 - L&R - What’s the Difference Between the Pikachu and Sonic Movies? 01:16:22 - L&R - Cahrsurraurher’s Last Name 01:16:31 - Time for Bets 01:23:04 - Closing 01:29:36 - Producer Credits Thank you to our official sponsors! Sweet Justice - http://www.sweetjustice.audio Car Keys Express - https://carkeysexpress.com/store Hoeg Law - http://www.hoeglaw.com River Horse Inc. - https://www.river-horse.com FanGamer - https://www.fangamer.com Able Gamers - https://ablegamers.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donate.event&eventID=505 The Hashtagonist - https://www.youtube.com/c/thehashtagonist

Before the Spring 2019 Preview can begin, we must cheersplode Borderlands 3. 00:05:07 - Corrections 00:07:14 - Updates 00:12:11 - Borderlands 3 Announced 00:26:53 - A Few Other Games Announced 00:31:38 - Damiani’s Juicy Gossip 00:33:13 - The Games of April 00:57:39 - Podcast Halftime 01:02:31 - The Games of May 01:15:35 - The Games of June 01:27:45 - L&R - What makes a masterpiece? 01:41:14 - Time for Bets 01:44:11 - Closing Thank you to our official sponsors! Sweet Justice - http://www.sweetjustice.audio Car Keys Express - https://carkeysexpress.com/store Hoeg Law - http://www.hoeglaw.com River Horse Inc. - https://www.river-horse.com FanGamer - https://www.fangamer.com Able Gamers - https://ablegamers.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donate.event&eventID=505 The Hashtagonist - https://www.youtube.com/c/thehashtagonist

Dan and James discuss what's missing from biobehavioral science course syllabi. Here's the episode lowdown: - A thank you to our new Patron supporters - The (supposed)CRISPR baby - SPSS vs. R: What should be used for instruction? - What would Dan and James include in a new syllabus? - Should students be taught scientific communication? - If we’re going to add new stuff to a syllabus, what gets removed? - Are courses too big these days? - Should students be taught how to set up a side hustle to apply their research skills outside of academia? Links - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hertzpodcast - CRISPR baby story: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/30/18119589/crispr-technology-he-jiankui - Dan on twitter: https://www.twitter.com/dsquintana - James on twitter: https://www.twitter.com/jamesheathers - Everything Hertz on twitter: https://www.twitter.com/hertzpodcast - Everything Hertz on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everythinghertzpodcast/ Music credits: Lee Rosevere freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/ Support us on Patreon and get bonus stuff! - $1 a month or more: Monthly newsletter + Access to behind-the-scenes photos & video via the Patreon app + the the warm feeling you're supporting the show - $5 a month or more: All the stuff you get in the $1 tier PLUS a bonus mini episode every month (extras + the bits we couldn't include in our regular episodes)

Dave Sirus and Maryssa Smith continue the conversation with with comics Dan Wickes and J.P McDade. The gang blamestorm about what was Omarosa's integrity violation? Is there a difference between the "N" word with a "hard R" or "soft R"? What are some words that are now offensive to say? How do you relate to Trump voting family?If you enjoy the show please rate, review and subscribe! Follow us on Twitter!@theblamestorm @DaveSirus @MaryssaSmith

Since Microsoft purchases the R language they have been baking it into their products and SQL Server is on the list.  SQL Server 2016 now has support for R and I know I have had people approach me about this and I thought it might be interesting to get Ginger Grant on the show and talk about the implications and what we poor database administrators need to do to get ready or at least be armed with questions when approached about the subject. Are you using R? What is your experience like?  Let us know on our show notes for today's episode at http://sqldatapartners.com/r